I suspect the new America is an isolationist America
Also, how is the desire to maintain a common identity in your small town racist?
Many of our country's rural trends are a pushback against multiculturalism, which pushes the idea that there is no right or wrong way to live as long as you don't hurt other people. Common languages, religions, norms, customs, and beliefs simply don't matter. But how can a sense of community form when you can't even talk to your neighbors? Why is this pushback being met with cries of racism?
When the desire to maintain a common identity is based on racial or ethnic identity, and that desire excludes the possibility that races or ethnicities other than your own can, or should, be a part your community, then that desire can be accurately described as racist or at best xenophobic.
>Many of our country's rural trends are a pushback against multiculturalism, which pushes the idea that there is no right or wrong way to live as long as you don't hurt other people. Common languages, religions, norms, customs, and beliefs simply don't matter.
I don't see what's supposed to be wrong with that premise.
>But how can a sense of community form when you can't even talk to your neighbors? Why is this pushback being met with cries of racism?
It already has, and does - and that sense of community as it includes people of different races, ethnicities and religions, is precisely what is being pushed against. Talking about language is a red herring - this "push against multiculturalism" is also a push against immigrants who speak English perfectly well, and who integrate perfectly well into their communities, and are law abiding citizens, but are not considered white and may not be Christian.
Until the demographics of the country began to shift to the point that the majority status and political power of wh - sorry - people of European descent - began to be threatened, this didn't seem to be an issue. It is clearly a movement based on an attempt to normalize the redefinition of culture and community around race and ethnicity.
This would be true and understandable if immigration wasn't so incredibly skewed towards Mexicans, but it is skewed. There are over 11 million illegal immigrants in a country of 300 million, the majority of which are Mexican/Latino. That is an incredibly large amount.
> Until the demographics of the country began to shift to the point that the majority status and political power of wh - sorry - people of European descent - began to be threatened, this didn't seem to be an issue. It is clearly a movement based on an attempt to normalize the redefinition of culture and community around race and ethnicity.
I find it funny how you blame white people for the hate, then blame them for the redefinition of culture and community around race and ethnicity... right after blaming white people for some perceived degradation of our country...
That's the crux of the matter.
Factually, in the UK virtually none of our social and economic problems have been caused by immigration. When you look into the facts, unaffordable housing, a creaking health service, street violence, and job losses are all effects of policy, not specific groups of foreign people.
Coincidentally, the people pushing the policies that created our problems are also the most enthusiastic using immigrants as a scapegoat and misdirection.
I wonder if the US is the same.
Of course, a magical policy may have stopped those issues. But taking in a lot of immigrants and not changing policies accordingly is what causes havoc.
According to this article the US has 18.9 million vacant homes. Even if every homeless person and illegal immigrant in the United States received a home there would still be a surplus
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-skip-bronson/post_733...
Talking your link, the problem is most of the vacant homes are where people don't want to live. You'd have 3.5mio people without incomes to maintain their housing.
Why Silicon Valley has housing crisis if there're 18.9mio vacant houses? :)
Largely a myth, according to fairly recent research.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/jobs/2012/05/04/what-immigrat...
I agree with your article if there was a massive need for people in X industry and they just filled the gap. But that’s not what usually happens, at least in Europe.
Yup, Trump's wall is a fantastic example
And people's views on race don't map neatly to a purely genetic definition, nor do their views of ethnicity map to geographic boundaries. It's not at all unbelievable that Americans would see Mexicans as a different race.
>I find it funny how you blame white people for the hate, then blame them for the redefinition of culture and community around race and ethnicity... right after blaming white people for some perceived degradation of our country...
I'm assuming this is supposed to discredit my comment somehow, but I don't know how it would, nor do I really care.
I don't blame white people for that redefinition. I blame the alt-right and white supremacist movements for seeing an opportunity to spin widespread anger (among lower class people of various races and ethnic groups) with the effects of globalization and automation into a revolution to maintain and protect white culture.
And I've simply seen too many arguments around this issue since the last election cycle began (funny how it seems to have sprung fully formed and fully clothed from the breast of the Trump campaign, huh) and too many articles framing the modern populist movement as an issue of white racial identity and fear of the loss of white cultural and political majority, and seen that view defended many times, to believe for a second that the confusion in your prior comment was genuine, unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years.
Because it's often couched in explicitly racist terms.
Shared values should matter more than the color of your skin, and values can (and often are) shared across cultures.
Unfortunately actual racism is picking up steam with these folks.
We ate. Good food, reasonable price. Near the end, the waitress asked if we'd NOT pay in credit card, so she wouldn't have to report the tips. I'm not terribly concerned about being a conspirator to tax fraud with someone making $2.35/hr
Then she goes into talking about her daughter who moved back in. Disabled. And when they went to the Social Security office and Welfare office, "those brown and black people always seem to get it". She went off on a soliloquy about 'us poor whites'.
Yeah, racism exists. And we've seen it in rural communities much more than urban. The worst part, is that I would bet that she didn't think she was being racist.
edit: added "not pay in credit card"
>prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
Of course superior is an objective word, but I don't see any evidence in that quoted statement where she felt superior. Honestly sounded more like self pity, jealousy and stereotyping. "Those union people get paid way more than they deserve," "Those college kids get all the breaks." The only difference is her target were "brown and and black people."
She satisfied the first half of the definition, "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race" but I didn't see the second half, "based on the belief that one's own race is superior."
I could be wrong.
Then she goes into talking about her daughter who moved back in. Disabled. And when they went to the Social Security office and Welfare office, "those white people always seem to get it". She went off on a soliloquy about 'us poor black and brown people'.
Nobody would consider that statement racist.
I don't think they are confusing racism with bigotry. Maybe (unhelpful) stereotypes based on race, or a racialised view of society.
Racism is the application of social traits, be they positive or negative, across an ethnicity of people, with little to no concern for the individual.
Stating something about African Americans along with fried chicken or watermelon is racist. Assuming, that because someone is black that they must like this is racist.
In my case, it was the said assumption that "brown and black all suck the test of welfare". The unstated assumption was that they were all lazy, and "us poor working whites" should have had access to it.
Racism also goes into "positive traits" too. Stating,"Well you're Asian, so you must be good at math." Is also racist.
In the same light, but if we talk of Men or Women, its roughly the same but called Sexist. Instead of making a decision based upon racial generalizations, its sexual generalizations.
I don't blame them. Nobody who grew up in CO before it was California Lite will tell you that immigration from CA made the place better.
Large amounts of inter-state immigration has in my estimation hurt culture in the destination communities far more than immigrants from a different country, or at least that's the track record so far.
Lewiston Maine vs Portland Maine would be a good example. Lewiston had a bunch of Africans move in and the place has been perfectly fine. Portland had a bunch of MA transplants and it's changed for the worse. It may as well be MA now.
I mean sure, Portland has more money but would you rather have money or your culture?
edit: and I'm wrong because why?
I do understand them, and they largely are racist, and the culture to which you refer is itself steeped in racism. So, yes, they also hate anyone that refuses to share there racist culture, but that doesn't negate their actual racism.
On the face of it, no, of course, wanting to maintain a sense of community in your town is not inherently racist. But there needs to be a recognition and acceptance of the fact that the identity of a community needs to change and evolve, and people arriving from somewhere else can be part of that.
I would also argue that:
> Many of our country's rural trends are a pushback against multiculturalism, which pushes the idea that there is no right or wrong way to live as long as you don't hurt other people
Is an oversimplification of both rural trends AND multiculturalism. Rural america has historically been deeply shaped by immigration and migration, and rural america was fine with it, as long as economic and social opportunity was growing. When that ceased to be the case, immigration/multiculturalism was one of many factors blamed.
No, there doesn't 'need'
Even the Amish have adopted cell phones and automobiles, and the Satmars in NYC are huge WhatsApp users.
Any community that thinks they can remain totally insular is both fooling itself and doomed to failure.
No
Attitudes and shared behaviors do.
My point is that even highly insular cultures with strict restrictions about modernity and technology recognize that their beliefs and attitudes need to adapt with the times in certain ways.
A sense of community can transcend religion and race, and this is what we should strive for.
>A sense of community can transcend religion and race
It can, but you're swimming against nature. Do you think the Japanese people would be happier if Japan was minority Japanese?
The more interesting question is why are the Japanese so miserable, 53 other countries rank over Japan despite features that some say should promote happiness. You might even say that the hypothesis that social cohesion must be upheld by deterring ethnic influences in the pursuit of happier communities can't find a worse example in Japan.
White countries with low diversity.
Anyway, the point is not that diversity cultivates happiness (no simple answer to that), the point is that some people believe in keeping communities homogeneous and argue that this promotes happiness. That happiness boost is nowhere to be seen when looking at real world examples.
They aren't the only modern economies. Demographics plays a role.
>most of which operate immigration-friendly regimes
Recent policy and current demographics are two different things. These are still homogenous countries for the most part, especially Iceland which is exceedingly safe. Where demographics have shifted drastically away from the native population, the quality of life has reduced. (Look at Malmo, for example.)
>That happiness boost is nowhere to be seen when looking at real world examples.
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...
Here's a list of countries ranked by diversity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...
Doesn't look like a happy list.
Read Robert Putnam. People love a sense of belonging and it's embedded in our genes.
http://time.com/5095903/genetic-similarities-friends-study/
http://www.bu.edu/sph/2017/04/07/married-couples-with-common...
>It's been my observation that the people who push back against the idea of diversity the most tend to be quite miserable even when living in homogeneous communities.
There can definitely be miserable people who are looking for a scapegoat. It also takes a certain level of desperation to be vocal about it today because it's so taboo.
On the other hand there are people like me: anonymous, have traveled the world, lived in rural areas and cities, have a masters from a top 10, have a good job, etc. who look at the data and go: "Oh, the data is indicating that this recent configuration of humans isn't as good as it could be." You only have to go back 2-3 generations for homogeneity to be the overwhelming norm--were they all miserable?
Portraying people who are against diversity as ignorant or miserable doesn't disprove the fact that if you take a homogenous, high-performing population and flood it with diverse, lower-IQ, culturally-incomptable, more violent, less-productive people the nation will become worse.
Simple question: would Europe be better or worse today if there were only Europeans in it?
It's not taboo though is it. People go on and on about immigration and there are entire media outfits that are devoted to casting foreigners as threats while promoting the idea that 'these people are not as good natives, have lower IQ, are more violent and less productive', which is typically based on outright lies and prejudice. Beliefs about immigrants are entirely warped to cater to a smaller subset of the population which has a hard time dealing with change while they grip with tremendous entitlement to mythical constructions of the past.
> You only have to go back 2-3 generations for homogeneity to be the overwhelming norm
A very curious statement. Europe's history is one characterised by migration and constant changes in demographics. There have always been groups of people at odds with one another because they were different enough to be seen as a threat. Every generation has struggled accepting new groups of people with both good and bad results.
Very much so. Anyone could be fired for writing what I've written. Diversity is the new state religion.
Trump voters knew what they were voting for, even if it was dressed up as "economic anxiety" (although low-skilled immigrant workers devaluing labor right before automation is the last thing we need).
>which is typically based on outright lies
Absolutely not. Pick any metric for latinos in the US and compare them to whites. Fun fact, when you read "immigrants commit less crime than natives" it's due to existing blacks and latinos. They commit more crimes than whites and asians.
>which has a hard time dealing with change
Does it even register with you that change and immigration can be bad? It's not some force of nature. Again, we literally never voted for our immigration policy to change and it was promised that the ethnic makeup would not be upset in 1965.
>Every generation has struggled accepting new groups of people with both good and bad results.
So why are you advocating against nature and causing avoidable strife? Diversity is a failed experiment that leads to problems. http://freakonomics.com/2011/12/01/the-violent-legacy-of-afr...
I noticed that you didn't answer my question. Europe would be better in every meaningful way if there were only Europeans in it. How many thousands of British girls are you fine with being raped in the UK from grooming gangs? How much is enough? Why should a tiny minority in the world (whites) subsidize their own displacement?
Japan - and many (most?) other countries - don't share the contingencies of America's founding. If I emigrate to Finland do I become, and am I seen by Fins as, Finnish? Not really. But a Fin moving to the U.S. can become an American and perceived by the rest of us as American.
Civilization is rife with examples of us overcoming our natural tendencies. Why should this be any different?
Doesn't this fly in the face of the contemporary liberal/progressive critiques of society? It seems to me that race has had a central role in both the founding (genocide of native americans), expansion (slavery), and liberalization (civil rights era) of the United States.
>This is that certain notions of freedom and responsibility, not blood and soil, were the real ties that bind...A sense of community can transcend religion and race, and this is what we should strive for.
I hope to God that you are right, I really, really do - but when I look at history in terms civilizations, eras, etc., not in years or a couple of decades, I have little hope that ideas about "freedom" or "responsibility" are capable of sustaining a nation. It seems to me that religion can, or something transcendental, and I say this as an ardent atheist.