Comment by mjburgess
3 months ago
What's the relationship between race and immigration status?
It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white.
SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different than that of the host country. What does the minor coincidence of their common lack of european ancestry show, other than to prove the point, they lack such ancestry?
White skin evolved in europe, with the peoples of europe, as with european culture -- that whiteness tracks this culture is a conincidence. (There's less-and-less european diaspora in america -- which, if imported en mass, might also enrange europeans).
The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon, to try and insult opponents of this position with a slander of racism -- this tactic doesnt work any more.
All you are doing is driving those people to say, "OK, so its racism. We'll vote for that then." And the result is real racists are elected.
Do you have any analysis of the issues people opposed to large scale immigartion, from non-western cultures, and who would reverse at least some of it -- do you have any arguments that engage the issues they actually raise?
It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.
Not that strange, Malcolm Kyeyune is a member of the Örebro Party, and he’s had a podcast together with the party leader, Markus Allard, since 2015.
https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/985799618/markus-och-malcom
Kyeyune was one of the members - along with Allard - who were kicked out of the Left Party’s youth organization in 2014 for supporting the Revolutionary Front.
One thing to remember in Swedish politics is that the old idea of the Folkhemmet ("the Home of the People") is always lurking in the background: a political mix of conservatism and socialism - Sweden as a home for Swedes, but also an egalitarian home. Some view, both on the left and the right, Folkhemmet as peak Sweden.
Somehow I didn’t know that, but it makes perfect sense. Thanks for the information.
Based on his writing, at least, I would assume that the party must complain more about immigrants who refuse to “become Swedish” than taking a racial angle. Although a racial interpretation is probably inevitable when viewed from the outside, considering the demographics of immigrants.
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So suppose there's a large group of people arriving into your country en mass, you poll them about eg., women's rights and you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views that were rare and fringe in even in the last 100+ years of your own country. Indeed, women would be warned about them even in the antebellum south. Now suppose they're a different colour than the present inhabitants.
Which fact is most salient in your analysis of whether to retain their presence, or admit more?
If its the latter, then I think there's racism in play here, but not of the kind you imagine. Namely, it seems you'd think feminism is only for white people. Or perhaps that human rights are a white things. Others, of course, disagree.
Assuming you have an accurate individual level test, and the policy action you suggest is to not administer the test to each applicant and instead treat them all as homogeneous group and reject them based on older test results?
Yeah that's a racist idea.
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I think judging any group of individuals as if they are all a single entity (be it through the lens of a particular majority view or a particular race) is discriminatory to the individual (hence discriminatory overall).
In your example (with made up numbers), if 20% are being denied citizenship and opportunity simply because they once resided in the same geographic region as another 80% (with different views), then that is discriminatory because they are not being viewed as individuals but are guilty by simply existing as part of a larger group that they have no choice over.
This is why we screen individual applicants, view each person as a single human with their own thoughts and needs, and judge everyone as an individual and not as a group; to avoid the wrong of discriminating against entire classes of people.
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"you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views"
Question is, does this info come from reputable pollsters? Or is it just a factoid propagated by right-wing media?
Also, impossible to square with a conservative white base *also* holding similarly regressive views. (Speaking from a US perspective, not a Euro one, but the same people yelling about regressive immigrants are also genuinely trying to disenfranchise women in favor of male-headed family units, and other things in this vein.)
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I'd point out that pointing at those largely powerless people is a tactic used by domestic power centres that have their own regressive views and policies which they want to draw discourse away from.
I'd ask for a comparison of how these arrivals have led to worse policy outcomes in terms of women's rights, and how that compares to the policy behaviour and outcomes of domestic groups.
I'd close out with a pointed question about which group it is that should be treated as a greater threat.
> The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon
> and insult opponents of this position as racist
On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
This way, you can look at integration as if it has to happen in a single generation and also, allows you to ignore the more important part of diminishing social mobility, which effects the natives as much.
Look at germany, where after WW2, alot of turkish "guest workers" were invited and stayed. After several generations the descendant of those immigrants are as german as you can be. They are still soft muslims, drink alcohol, engage with german bureaucracy, have a heavy turkish accent -- some of them are even candidates for the far right AfD. Please note, they migrated into an economic boom.
Isnt that utterly ridiculous? When time proves you wrong, it reveals your narrow mindedness.
And when you reduce immigrants to percieved negative innert properties, isnt that racist? When you broaden your scope, youll see the bigger problems are elsewhere, dont get distracted by bigotted populists, that are as clueless about problems or their solutions.
> hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal amd innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
I don't think they did say any of this. I don't understand why people who debate against limiting immigration (and it often is only this way round) continually mis-represent the person's clear, stated concern and try and replace it. It is a completely transparent attempt, and no one is fooled. This isn't 2015 when an accusation of racism was taken seriously, because who would mis-accuse someone of such an awful thing? Well, it turned out millions of people would do that. The US President would do it[0].
As for the genetics comment, this is ridiculous on its face as well. Race and culture are in no way tied. But culture survives for many generations, particularly when the immigrating group is large enough. This is obvious. Germans in the 1900s could move almost anywhere in the world and become the best brewers in the region, not because they have the genotype of a brewer, but because they had (and still have) an incredible brewing tradition handed down from parent to child. Culture doesn't change because you move into another country. It moves because you assimilate, make lots of native friends, and learn the language. Lots and lots of people are not doing that.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kyle-rittenhouses-mothe...
I think racism comes from a cognitive bias, that eg, lets you read a text without ever engaging with the broader explanation offered (social mobility, time scale of integration) but instead engange with a side remark about genes.
GP ties negative properties to entire groups without differenciation, this is by definition racist.
To end on a constructive upside, if GP was really concerned about eg womens rights, any kind of stateful intervention should only target that. By being racist and eg trying to associate this issue with brown skins, stateful intervention becomes sweeping. By being more precise, migration politics that targets them all becomes social politics wich only effects some.
Can you see it now?
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>On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry
A bad faith misrepresentation of the issue. The issue is why should existing citizens have to suffer the backwards views of the immigrant population while immigrants "assimilate over multiple generations"? Why should the host country have to absorb increased crime, feeling less safe, having their culture changed, etc for the sake of the immigrant population? Where does this supposed moral impetus come from?
Congrats, you touched my time scale argument, the other commenter didnt engage with anything important. Unfortunately you didnt touch the systemic problem of social mobility, which is much more striking.
To return the facor, the "moral impetus" comes from not elevating your culture as the only origing of truth, goodness, etc., but instead codify common basic needs, human dignity, etc. into law and sanction/integrate nased on this.
Im not saying that immigrarion is frictionless, the same way you non-racist arent saying, some undesirable negative traits (like crime) cannot emerge in the native population without immigration. The solution to native or migrant crime is identical.
Why you should take the hassle and hopefully adress social mobility and organize integration? Because of demographics and economic contribution -- the bigger picture yet again.
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> cultural and economic phenomenon