 Sun Dec 24, 2006 17:42 pm Right wing nationalists unite? |
|
|
| stew.t. wrote: | | All countries including the USA, the UK and Germany have problems with immigrants. To say any different, even about a country not established on ethnicity, is to be a bit blinkered. Otherwise there would be no race hate crimes or the government placing restrictions on numbers, linguistic capabilites or occupations of said immigrants. |
Race hate crimes are not caused by immigration, but by race hatred. Those have nothing to do with immigration, and they occur even between native-born citizens of races that have been liviing together for hundreds of years. Many race hate crimes are minority against majority, don't forget.
| stew.t. wrote: | | The establishment of a points system for securing a work permit and passing a citizenship test has been for some time common in the USA, but only recently introduced in the UK and the former not even present in Germany. |
I don't know anything about this "points system" for becoming a US citizen. You will have to explain it to me from your distant perch, because none of my friends who are naturalized US citizens were subjected to a point system. They simply had to prove the length of their residency, answer some civics questions, survive an interview in basic English and have no criminal record, which, by the way, is almost the same process people have to go through in Germany.
These websites explain that those countries RECEIVE the immigrants, but they don't indicate whether they ABSORB them. Those numbers don't tell the story, for example, of the Austrian husband and Indonesian wife who are in a conflict over where to live. The husband wants to stay in his homeland, but the wife wants to move to North America. The wife knows that as long as she lives in Austria, she'll never be considered Austrian even if she gets citizenship, and very likely their children will not be fully accepted as Austrian. However, anybody can be an American or a Canadian. Scenes like this play out in Germany and France also, because those countries receive immigrants but do not fully absorb them. This is one reason you meet foreigners living perfectly nice lives in Germany, superficially speaking, but who still want to get to Australia, Canada or the States. It was baffling to me the first time I saw this, but I realized it was all about acceptance at street level and not about economics.
| stew.t. wrote: | | It is a little strange and sad that Germans remind you of the picture you so artfully depicted. |
It's sad, but it's not strange. You just have to be exposed to a lot of Germans (both in the US and in Germany) and watch them constantly point the finger at your own country and say, "That's how fascism started in Germany!" Everything that happens here, in their minds, is a prelude to fascism, and the fact that those things never seem to turn into fascism never occurs to them, because their minds go right to the next thing -- whatever it is -- that's supposed to be a harbinger of fascism. Their attitude is, "We were genocidal fascists, so we know genocidal fascism, and it's our job to tell you you're genocidal fascists."
| stew.t. wrote: | | Try not to judge on what you hear from immigrants in you own country. They may have their own issues that distort how they see their "homeland". After all they are going to have a different perspective from the nationals back home. |
I think that scores of trainees and interns who spend only a few months, or even a few weeks, in the US on company orders give a good characterization of how various Germans think, especially when they are people sent by the company specifically because they need to get out of their German culture box. Add that to spending time in Germany on numerous occasions and reading the German press, and I think that makes for a good basis to judge from, whether you agree with my conclusions or not.
| stew.t. wrote: | | Also do not judge on what you hear in the media, it sells on controversy and the interviewee selected is often chosen for that very reason. |
That's true, but you also have to realize that people's opinions are formed in large part by their media, so while the media may be sensationalistic, or be skewed toward controversy, or be tainted by elite opinion, or even outright lie (as the BBC now frequently does about matters within the US), but they're nonetheless the people's only source of information, and they do have some partial predictive value. Especially revealing are "on the road" sorts of articles by local people abroad. Often it's clear they don't understand the language of the foreign country well, or understand its culture, and their distorted interpretations of situations they get into are VERY revealing in putting together a picture of a national mentality.
Also revealing is to snoop through bookstores, on the street and online, and look at what kinds of things get translated and which do not. Very often in Europe some inflammatory book about the US gets translated, but the more reasonable, factual rebuttals never do. This is another thing that has to be considered when looking at the opinions of people from other countries.
| stew.t. wrote: | | Try living among the ones you choose to judge, just for a short while. |
Would three years be long enough to suit you, if I added about another half year of travel to that? Would it be good enough if during the travel I actually stayed for extended times in the homes of people in those countries, rather than in hotels or hostels? What about if I can also converse with them in their own languages (several of them), read their media and get the people's direct reactions to the stories? Don't assume that people you disagree with haven't spent a long time abroad.
| stew.t. wrote: | | Overkill due to PC often means certain issues are avoided, this is true and unfortunate. But the more people feed on the fear, generalisations and bigotry present in society, in whatever form that may take, the harder the problem becomes. |
Where I live the problem is the opposite. The PC is far more visible and oppressive than the bigotry, which is almost completely invisible and doesn't come into the debate that much. Besides that, the PC crowd can be some of the biggest bigots you'll ever meet, but they often think their bigotry is "compassion". |
|
Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4454
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
|
| Thu Dec 28, 2006 18:01 pm Right wing nationalists unite? |
|
|
Why not simply ignore race?
IE, let's judge each other on merit... I respect you until you give me a reason not to, and that reason is NOT EVER the color of your skin.
Yes, yes, utopian and (hence) not terribly realistic, but... if we could begin by teaching our kids NOTHING about the differences between us that we cannot control -- I mean not one thing -- and concentrating instead on strength of character, kindness, honesty, etc... well that might be a good start, at any rate.
This is not to say that we should not honor great people (MLK Jr., Abe Lincoln, etc.)... but please let's stop using color/race as an adjective. I'll show you what I mean:
Old way: James is a nice white man.
New way: James is a nice man (or "person" for the PC freaks. hehe)
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee. |
|
Prezbucky
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 2252
Location: Nashville, TN (USA)
|
| Thu Dec 28, 2006 18:22 pm Right wing nationalists unite? |
|
|
Prezbucky, I agree with almost every particle of what you say. The only thing is that "the progressive forces of the world" don't want us to stop thinking about race. Some of them even make their living -- often a very rich living -- off racial fear and resentment.
In my state the people have recently voted in a law that forbids using race, gender or ethnicity as a criterion for admission to universities, for public supplier contracts, etc. It's just common sense to most people that candidates for such things should be chosen based on ability and performance. However, the issue has become a very strident fight between older people whose heads are in the 1960s, and younger people who are thinking in terms of present-day realities. It's extremely ironic, because those people from the 1960s taught their children that people should be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", as Dr. King so eloquently put it. Now those children have grown up, they believe it, and they want people judged by their ability and character, not by their race. The older people who taught the younger people not to be racist are now calling them racist because the younger ones don't want to implement the values they were taught! The older ones want to "fight racism" by giving preference to minorities in just about everything, while the younger ones want to fight racism by making sure race is not an issue. |
|
Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4454
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
|
| Thu Dec 28, 2006 19:44 pm Right wing nationalists unite? |
|
|
yeah, Affirmative Action mostly sucks, imo... at least in the form in which it's generally written on the books.
Race should not be a variable when judging one person against another.
Test scores, test scores relative to those of one's classmates, class standing, GPA, performance on the essay portion of the application (if applicable), extracurricular involvement... variables like these should be responsible for admissions decisions.
I find it hilarious, sometimes:
Many of those who claim to want an end to racism are the people who voice their approval for its legislation most earnestly.
Let's end racism -- race shouldn't matter.
At the same time, let's make some admissions decisions race-based.
...just does not add up.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee. |
|
Prezbucky
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 2252
Location: Nashville, TN (USA)
|
