Obama in St. Louis & Multiculturalism

I recently read this great Daily Kos post, which included a great video of Obama's recent speech in St. Louis.

If you follow European politics at all, you know that one of the biggest hot button issues all over Western Europe is the issue of "Multiculturalism." Basically, the debate is this: how much should we tolerate the behavior of the new, largely Muslim immigrants?

The cultural practice of genital mutilation, of course, is illegal in Western Europe as well as America. So are honor killings. Other issues, such as the breadth of free speech, or whether or not women should be wearing veils, are still hotly debated.

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with Obama's speech. Well, I've always noticed a false dichotomy between the "Multiculturalists" who plead that all cultures are different and should be respected and treated with tolerance, and the "Anti-Multiculturalists" who seem motivated by fear and racism and xenophobia.

Obama brings the answer together wonderfully. Of course, America as well as Western Europe recognizes that certain immigrant cultural norms must be discouraged, or even outlawed. Most reasonable people, though, don't want to be unneccecarily obtrusive into the lives of others. So by what standard do we draw the line? How far should our tolerance go?

Our tolerance should only go as far as intolerance. It's that simple. What unifies us should be our desire to be unified. As Obama pointed out, the civil rights movement wasn't about African-Americans, it was about Americans. What makes us Americans, or what makes us French, British, or whatever....it should be what makes us love each other more and treat each other with more respect. Nothing more and nothing less should be our standard for what behavior should be tolerated.