Comment by tastyface

3 months ago

I live in a "white" country and I like my nonwhite neighbors, some immigrant, some nth-generation, even ones who mostly socialize within their ethnic/cultural enclaves. I believe they belong here as much as I do. I don't want to give any money to racists who want to expunge them for some perceived ethnic transgressions. These parties are one step removed from extolling the virtues of the glorious Aryan race, and we all know where that leads.

>I believe they belong here as much as I do.

This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way. I mean, I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others. And Americans only have like 1% of the cultural and ethnic identity that most European nations have. Why are you blind to the importance of the deep historical roots that bind a nation together? Why do you think the very force (namely kinship ties) that has driven humanity forward for the last hundred thousand years has, in the blink of an eye, become irrelevant?

  • I come from a family of recent immigrants. We're considered white so we get a pass for behaviors that our nonwhite peers get side-eye for. My ethnicity has its own enclaves. Those enclaves get treated as a cute cultural artifact rather than a threat -- even worth visiting on a tourist trip. My ancestral culture lives under the protective umbrella of "Western culture," but in practice, the overlap with prevailing Protestant/Anglo culture is minimal along almost any axis.

    And yet, we are all American by almost any reasonable definition. If anything, the people beating their chests for having some random ancestors on the mayflower or whatever are the impostors here. What have they actually done for this country?

    Also, I'm kind of surprised that you believe these things as a black man. You do realize that a large percentage of the country doesn't consider you "true" American either, right? They can't kick you out, but they will do everything in their power to disenfranchise you and turn you into second-class citizens. The signaling could not be any more clear.

    • Yes, it is hard to pinpoint exactly what makes one an American. It is not hard at all to pinpoint what makes one an X for any given European nation. It is strange how much Americans project our weak identity to the rest of the western world.

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  • > This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way

    For someone who is so befuddled by the idea of being unbothered by a heterogeneous culture, you don't make any convincing argument against it. Why are you complaining about leftists who see immigration as inherently "good" if you can't even explain why it's bad? If it's so obviously bad, surely you can outline what will tangibly happen?

    > I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others

    If it's so easy to recognize, then what is it? What makes you American, and what makes you not American enough to be worthy of deportation? You aren't "easily recognizing" anything, you are having a feeling about people different from you and trying to rationalize it afterwards.

    There is an obvious argument for immigration as an inherent good. It brings business, it brings talented specialists, it brings new ideas, it brings a bigger market. We are one of the most powerful countries on earth. If immigration was so obviously bad, do you think a nation of immigrants would be able to get to this point? Culture is our main export. We are a cultural powerhouse. We are envied by other countries for our soft power. That's what the Riyadh comedy festival was about. We are strong arguably because we are such a melting pot, and we have a rich cultural tapestry. Black culture exists specifically because people didn't assimilate to white culture, and it's fascinating to enough people that Koreans halfway across the world are emulating it.

    The idea that we suddenly have a homogeneous "way to act" that is easily identifiable, and we need to deport people that don't act that way, is farcical and stupidly self-defeating. It's also laughably overconfident for a country that can't make cars or keep employed, tax paying citizens from drowning in medical debt. We should probably play to our strengths, not self-sabotage.

    • If the nation of immigrants is so great, why are so many people protecting themselves with guns and why are there so many lawyers to compensate for the absence of social trust?

      And why are so many people still talking and being unhappy about race and ethnicity if that's a total success?

      Having a good cultural distribution channel doesn't mean that it's inherently good. Japan has a great cultural soft power too, however I don't know if many people would tolerate life in Japan (for real). On the other side most people can't locate Denmark on a map but would love the life there.

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    • >Why are you complaining about leftists who see immigration as inherently "good" if you can't even explain why it's bad? If it's so obviously bad, surely you can outline what will tangibly happen?

      This is just a bad faith misrepresentation of the context. Note the context of the OP is Swedish nationalism.

      > You aren't "easily recognizing" anything, you are having a feeling about people different from you and trying to rationalize it afterwards.

      It's not really that hard. Some traits off the top of my head: speaks English, values meritocracy and the rule of law, individualist over collectivist, ecumenical/egalitarian over sectarian, culturally Christian or downstream of it.

      > If immigration was so obviously bad, do you think a nation of immigrants would be able to get to this point?

      This point only makes sense if you assume immigrants are an undifferentiated lump. But of course this isn't true.

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  • As a blacker man whose ancestors found their way to the Americas before the year of our Lord Jesus, what are you even talking about? America has never had "deep historical roots" to bind us together.

    • You'll notice my mention of European countries in my comment. You might have guessed that my point about deep historical roots was in reference to that.

What happens when they start to see their ethnicity or culture as political and fight to impose it, including using violence? Because at some point it will happen - democracy incentivizes clientelism and tribalism.

The USA, which is often touted as a "successful" melting pot model, is rife with similar problems.

  • Civil strife? If it comes to violence, I (a white person) certainly won't be on the side of the white nationalists. Same for most of my peers.

    Many of us love living in multicultural societies and will fight to protect our neighbors and our way of life.

    • Why is "civil war" the default situation here? How about domestic terrorism for instance?

      Will you be on the side of the muslim terrorists who beheaded teachers and priests (among others), and killed 132 concert-goers (and injured 413 others) at the Bataclan in 2015? Will you tell the french people who were slaughtered that it was the price to live in a multicultural society?Damn.

      Even if you don't go as far as terrorism, it's simple: multi-ethnic societies favor either identity politics (aka clientelism) or authoritarianism (only way to avoid it). The USA is a great example for this: the previous administration played identity politics to the maximum, and the new one used it to impose authoritarianism. It's very hard, if not impossible to escape this loop once you are in a minority-only society.

      And of course you have to deal with collapsing social trust. The USA isn't the ultimate lawyer society, and the most armed one by pure chance. It's a logical consequence.

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