In his 1983 magnum opus, Irish historian Benedict Anderson famously coined the term “imagined communities” — the notion of which involves how people in the early modern period imagined themselves as part of a community that transcended their immediate social relationships. For example, in order for the nation of Italy to exist, an Italian had to imagine something bigger than his local neighborhood in Rome.
The idea of imagined communities also belies the fact that a community, at least on one level, has a fantastic character that exists more in the minds of the inhabitants of a community than in reality. In other words, one person’s idea of what it means to be an American southerner might have little to do with the history of the South or its present reality.
Finally, an “imagined community” also involves the will. One must will to believe France is the quintessentially secular republic, and one must enforce that will through propaganda, art, education, etc. These reasons are why, while there are real social and cultural bounds among people, national identity is something variable.
Within contemporary American discourse on the political left, there is a strong and aggressive imaginative vision of the United States. This view — especially popular among critical race theorists — is that America is fundamentally structurally racist. America was, in this view, founded upon slavery and was created to maintain a master-slave relationship between whites and nonwhites who were merely in the country to work and be oppressed. In his recent work, The Virtue of Color-Blindness, Andre Archie, associate professor of ancient Greek philosophy at Colorado State University, challenges critical race theory (CRT), arguing for a color-blind approach to American identity.
Archie provides a unique perspective on the question of CRT. Archie is a black American from Denver who is proud of both his frontier roots and American identity. Moreover, Archie is steeped in the Western tradition and is a specialist in Greek philosophy. Archie sees the Western tradition as a common heritage for all Americans. He writes in his chapter “Potatoes” of his experience growing up in a working-class family in Colorado in the 1970s and ’80s. He notes that, although his family experienced periods of poverty, he was not taught racial animosity as a boy. Instead, he was taught personal agency and was drawn to black conservative figures like Ken Hamblin and Bill Hervey as he grew up.
Archie was attracted to Hamblin’s emphasis on how a significant portion of the black American community did not agree with either white liberals or black nationalists but were shamed into silence. Archie further studied under Professor Bill Hervey (a Cornell Straussian and student of Allan Bloom) at Colorado State University, learning the treasures of Greek philosophy and the Western tradition as the inheritance of all Americans regardless of race. Archie, however, has seen this shared tradition attacked by critical race theorists.
Archie makes the important comment that those black Americans who despise America are engaging in what Roger Scruton refers to as “oikophobia,” or hatred of one’s home. Black nationalists (like white nationalists) often shape imagined identities of themselves rooted in misreadings of African, European, and Islamic history. Whether changing their names or dressing like Arabs or Egyptians, some black nationalists make every effort to distance themselves from the America in which they were born and in which their ancestors lived for hundreds of years.
Archie notes that, outside of Anglo-Saxon settlers, black Americans have lived in America longer than most European ethnic groups. A historic black American born in Louisiana is a Louisianan and, in Archie’s view, should embrace that Louisianan identity. While it is true that black Americans have experienced alienation from American culture due to genuine instances of racism and exclusion, according to Archie, they sometimes also choose to engage in self-alienation.
The best chapter in The Virtue of Color-Blindness is “Identity, Nationalism, and Race.” In this chapter, Archie notes that he is not arguing for a complete abolition of ethnic identity (Archie himself admits he is very proud of the black American tradition of jazz music). He does, however, argue for Americans to see their American identity as primary. The author argues that Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to this shared American identity in his “Letter from A Birmingham Jail,” in which he appealed to a shared Western tradition rooted in Greek philosophy — one of which both black and white Americans are a part.
According to Archie, the common American culture should be paired with “creedalism,” or a uniting belief in shared American ideas. Creedalism on its own cannot adequately combat aggressive identity politics. Humans crave culture and identity. Archie draws from Francis Fukuyama’s 2018 book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, in which Fukuyama argues for the strength of national community instead of groupings of often conflicting “narrow” identities. Fukuyama further postulates that humans need identity and are not solely driven by material wants and needs. Drawing from Plato’s Republic, Fukuyama states that humans need thymos or a “positive judgment about their worth and dignity.” If citizens are not given a strong national identity, they will embrace radicalized identity politics.
Some conservative readers may not agree with everything Archie says, potentially taking specific issue with his entirely color-blind approach, which places too little emphasis on the rich diversity of human ethnicities and cultures. However, it is interesting to ponder what a 21st-century color-blind society would look like.
Much of the contemporary world is plagued with the disconcerting idea that there is “no future.” Those who have grown up in the 21st century cannot imagine a future, while those who grew up in the later 20th century have had their dreams shattered. A post-racial, post-DEI future would potentially unleash the tremendous creative power that propelled the “American Century.”
If K-12 education focused on training and preparing citizens of the United States for excellence in the workforce while promoting the best, highest achieving students to college, we would potentially experience a sea-change in American industry and technology. Moreover, a renewed national identity would ease the constant frenetic political and ethnic tension that many Americans experience daily.
A color-blind society may or may not be possible, but a renewal of American unity and American excellence is deeply needed.
Jesse Russell is a book reviewer for Regnery Press and a contributor to Catholic World, European Conservative, and Front Porch Republic.
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