Tolerating Intolerance? La Raza's Move to Chicago and the Minuteman Response

This week, La Raza, America’s largest Latino civil rights group, announced that it was moving its 2009 convention from Kansas City to Chicago. The move is in protest of the appointment of a Minuteman member to the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board. While much discussion of the move has centered on the economic effect of the move (La Raza attracts some 20,000 participants to its convention), we thought there was a need for some discussion about the discourse surrounding the controversy and, in particular, how that relates to the nebulous concept of tolerance.

We get a glimpse into the complexity of the notion of tolerance from an interview with a member of the Chicago Minuteman group, who said of La Raza: “They refuse to go to Kansas City because of someone on some board whose viewpoints they don’t approve of. This organization is probably one of the least tolerant organizations you’ll ever find. And if they come here I think it’s quite likely that we would set up some kind of a protest.”

Embedded into the American collective idealism is the notion of freedom of expression. It’s long been understood that being tolerant of expression is an important, if sometimes difficult, part of American culture. It’s quite easy to be tolerant of expressions of ideas with which we agree, but it might be argued that it is most important to be tolerant of that with which we disagree – even vehemently.

Scholars much smarter than us have weighed in on this topic recently (see the post-9/11 musings by philosophers Jaques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas). In simplistic terms, though, we might boil it down to this fundamental question: Must we be tolerant of intolerance? Writing about the concept of forgiveness, Derrida wrote, “. . .there is the unforgivable. Is this not, in truth, the only thing to forgive? The only thing that calls for forgiveness? If one is only prepared to forgive what appears forgivable. . .then the very idea of forgiveness would disappear.” To extend this line of thought, we might ask whether anything needs to be tolerated other than that which is intolerable.

The debate over immigration is stuffed with important language issues. Do we refer to “undocumented workers,” “illegal immigrants,” or “illegal aliens,” for example? A glance through the message boards (e.g., Minuteman, Americans for Legal Immigration) or websites of any of these groups (e.g., La Raza, League of United Latino American Citizens) demonstrates numerous examples.

“Tolerance” is overwhelmingly considered to be a benevolent characteristic in the current political climate. Groups opposed to “illegal aliens” do not see themselves as being intolerant or bigoted in any way. They see themselves as following the “law.” The possibility of laws written from the perspective of those who did not consider the “other” is beyond their imagination. Similarly, progressives tout “tolerance” as if it is their domain, but they also should wrestle with the notion of whether or not they are obliged to tolerate ideas that they view to be intolerant (and, thus, intolerable?). So if “tolerance,” like beauty, is only in the eye of the beholder – relative – then we must consider who, if anyone, has a rightful claim to this overwhelmingly positive, powerful and popular concept.

If the notion of tolerance ultimately falls in on itself, it is not useful. In that case, it is a political football, used to persuade but not to enlighten. And if tolerance cannot enlighten, what is its purpose? Where Habermas sees some universality in tolerance, Derrida sees it as patriarchal (which is why he prefers “hospitality”). So, if the idea of tolerance relies on one’s presupposed position of (relative) power, it might be argued that to “tolerate” is really to indicate (reinforce, perpetuate?) one’s position of privilege (or one’s idea’s position of privilege) over that which is being tolerated.

That power difference will continue to be at work in the debate about immigration narrowly and diversity broadly. It will continue to creep into elected politics, as it did in 2006. La Raza’s very public moving of its 2009 conference to Chicago will likely draw more attention and protest (as promised by the Minuteman cited above). The war of words will involve “tolerance.” Whether you decide to tolerate the banter is, well, up to you.