What methods have been used to solve racial problems in American history? What's the effect?

In the United States, members of all ethnic groups are regarded as equal citizens. The government guarantees the rights of ethnic minority members as national citizens from the perspective of "citizens", treats every member equally and tries not to regard them as a political group with some independence. For the disadvantages faced by some ethnic minority members in social development (such as new immigrants with poor English level or blacks with low education level), the United States mainly protects their group's "political rights and interests" through government policies, but provides help and support to needy individuals or small groups (non-"ethnic groups") through various social welfare projects for the people and the people. This makes all kinds of problems related to ethnic groups mainly appear in the form of social problems of individual members and cases, rather than political problems of the whole ethnic group.

The American government and mainstream society have always "culturalized" racial issues and do not advocate administrative coercion to promote cultural assimilation. Forced assimilation is essentially another manifestation of racial politicization. At the same time of political integration, the American government and mainstream society strongly guide people to regard racial differences and religious differences as "cultural differences" in a multicultural society.

Considering that racial differences in society will exist for a long time, American academic circles put forward the goal of "cultural pluralism" in the mid-20th century, and made efforts to guide racial issues in the direction of "subculture groups". There are three specific methods:

First of all, adhere to the unity of politics and law and the universality of mainstream culture (English and Christian culture);

The second is to allow ethnic minorities to retain some traditional cultures;

Third, in order to prevent possible racial and ethnic discrimination in employment and other activities, Americans' identity documents do not contain "racial and ethnic components", and the "racial and ethnic identity" column in the census form is up to the respondents to decide whether to declare and how to fill it out. In various political, economic and cultural activities, the government deliberately downplays and blurs the boundaries between races and ethnic groups, encourages inter-ethnic marriage and promotes inter-ethnic integration in various ways.

For nearly half a century, the United States has placed great emphasis on "cultural pluralism" when discussing and dealing with racial and ethnic relations. At the same time, "cultural diversity" does not mean that all ethnic groups practice any form of "separatism" politically and geographically, endangering national unity. In the United States, in addition to "cultural diversity", there is also a very strong "political integration", and the States and the Federation are very powerful political entities. Although the United States allows the establishment of non-exclusive cultural groups based on a certain ethnic group, it will never allow the establishment of political and economic organizations that are exclusive in race and ethnic group and tend to be "autonomous". For example, the most important minority organization in the United States is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which was founded in May 19 10. Its main activities are to promote black employment opportunities, oppose lynching, protect persecuted blacks and strive for black voting rights. Organizations established mainly by ethnic minorities, such as the Association for the Promotion of Ethnic Minorities, mainly aim to strive for equal political rights and social welfare for ethnic minority members under the banner of the US Constitution, human rights and US national interests, rather than to strive for political independence or regional autonomy for ethnic minorities. At the same time, the United States attaches great importance to the "political integration" of all races and nationalities, but it does not openly mention it when discussing ethnic issues. Individual members of ethnic minorities (blacks and indigenous Indians) at the bottom of society naturally tend to "national autonomy" and establish independent countries. This tendency will of course be closely monitored and suppressed by the US government.

The United States not only adheres to the unity of politics and economy, but also has strong "integration" measures at the cultural level. For example, the common public language is English. As the core content of "culture", it must follow the mainstream American society in terms of values and behavior norms. In fact, if these members of ethnic minorities can't speak English, they can't live in the United States, and they don't accept American Christian values and codes of conduct. In American society, it is difficult to deal with others and various government agencies, not to mention employment and development. Therefore, "cultural pluralism" does not retain truly independent "cultural groups", but only allows the existence of "sub-cultural groups" that retain some characteristics of the original traditional culture on the premise of accepting "the same American culture". If "cultural groups" with ethnic background and true autonomy tendency are allowed to develop, it may eventually endanger the politics and political unity of the United States, which is unacceptable to the American government, politicians and mainstream society.

In short, since the "civil rights movement" in the 1960s, the basic policy and guiding ideology of the US government in dealing with domestic racial and ethnic issues is to guide ethnic minorities and ethnic groups to become "sub-cultural groups" in a pluralistic society, dilute their independent political consciousness and depoliticize their national identity.

America is a new country composed of immigrants from all over the world. Under the framework of "political integration and cultural diversity", these citizens with different races, ethnic backgrounds, languages, religions and cultural traditions have gradually established a new "national identity". Today, although racial prejudice and discrimination left over from history still exist, and sometimes racial contradictions and ethnic conflicts occur, since the civil war, national unity has never been really threatened. Due to the long history of black slavery and racial discrimination against native Indians and Chinese, the innate foundation of racial relations in the United States is very poor. It should be acknowledged that since the "African-American People's Rights Movement", the United States has achieved some success in coordinating ethnic relations.