Sandy Murphy

America’s Dominant Culture: Hand of God or Work of the Devil?

Is the dominant culture of America good or evil? America is undeniably the greatest country of modern times, and people from all nations clamor at her borders. Millions of immigrants have realized their version of the American Dream and have built successful lives as new American citizens. However, serious problems exist in our country, and these problems are largely due to the inflexible and exclusionary policies of the dominant culture. Minorities experience discrimination and prejudice. Millions of Americans and immigrants lack the basic resources for survival, and many are living what can only be described as an American Nightmare. How can this be?

There is no denying that the first immigrants to America felt the Hand of God on their efforts to create a New World. The similarity of their journey to America with the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land was not lost upon the Pilgrims. Accepting of difficulties, confident in God’s leadership, the Pilgrims, like God’s Chosen People of the Old Testament, considered themselves “knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord.” (Bradford 34-35) And like the Hebrews before them, they determined to “dispossess the inhabitants of the land” and remain forever separate from them, eschewing intermarriage and co-mingling (Number 33:53).

As is common with many beginnings, the early days of America were filled with heady optimism. Few doubted the Hand of God had blessed this new country and the white families who settled here. In his Letters from an American Farmer, Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur is full of praise for the New World. He writes, “The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.” He applauds the “decency of manners” and the “early love of letters.” He champions the ideal of “industry” and declares that in America “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”

Sadly, even de Crevecoeur cannot sustain his enthusiasm and delight with America. Sometime later, he comes face to face with the greatest evil ever borne of capitalism—the evil of slavery. While the white “chosen race eat, drink, and live happy”, the brutalized, marginalized black race ‘grubs up the ground, raises indigo, or husks the rice; exposed to a sun full as scorching as their native one; without the support of good food” or the comfort of family. The “color code’ of the dominant culture, begun with the harsh treatment of the Native Americans, is firmly in place and it continues to present day.

Gone forever is the communal village of the Native American.  The brief attempt by the Pilgrims to adopt a collective economy has failed. Capitalism and rugged individualism have established a death grip on the nation. America has become a marketplace, a “platinum card country; a twinkling gallery” where haves and have nots live parallel lives, forever separate, never touching (Raban 345). Surely, in a country so blessed by God with natural resources, vegetation, and beauty, we can find a better way. A way that will create an accepting culture, a diverse culture, a culture that will replace and improve upon the dominant culture that for centuries has excluded so many and caused so much pain.