Andrew Smeathers
GE 310
What is the ethno-racial pentagon and what are its problems?
In the book Postethnic America, by David Hollinger uses the term "ethnoracial
pentagon," which refers to the five-part demographic structure within which each
American is now routinely classified: African American, Asian American, European
American, Latino and Native American. This "pentagon," Hollinger believes, is built
on a foundation of color categories (black, yellow, white, brown and red) that are
highly relevant to an understanding of racism but are of limited utility as a map of
culture. In Postethnic America Hollinger uses the ethnoracial pentagon for purposes
of cultural reform and calls for a sharper separation of multiculturalism from antidiscrimination remedies. “The pentagon, in its capacity as guide to the cultural life of
the United States, has symbolically erased much of the cultural diversity within the
Euro-American bloc.” (page 25). The use of the pentagon is to group together
everyone as a whole. Unlike in the early days of America, nowadays it is very hard to
discriminate or see the differences between an Irishman, Jewish man or someone
from England.
This idea of a pentagon gives everyone living in America their own section
they belong to. “One of these inherited ambiguities was at the heart of the very idea
of a pluralistic society. Just what human properties served to distinguish people
from one another, and thereby to define the many (pluribus) to be incorporated into
one (unum)? (page 89). The problem with this pentagon was even though people
have different skin colors or heritages they may have the same political or religious
views as people of another skin color. How do you deal with that? Not everyone
wants to be classified as a certain “color” especially if the people they relate
themselves with are not in the same category. “Our communities are various in their
structure and function. Not all entail the same mix of voluntary and involuntary
affiliation, nor do all require the same measure of internal agreement, the same
sorts of demands on the individual member, or the same degree of clarity in external
boundaries.” (page 106).