Race versus culture

[davidm]

The Palestinian Exodus

Yes, and this is happening where now in the West, because of immigration?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

The American “melting pot” has illusory aspects to it, but it is not ONLY an illusion. You’re quite correct in much of what you say above, including that vast territorial stretches of the U.S. (mostly non-urban) remain mainly if not exclusively white.

But that’s the problem! The people who live there have a provincial view of things.

I live in New York City and before that, I lived in San Francisco, and these places most definitely ARE melting pots (but also multi-culti!). When one actually encounters people of different cultures, ethnicities, and “races,” one is almost forced (barring perverse stubbornness, malignancy or outright stupidity) to abandon racist and provincialist viewpoints. One discovers that all these people who we are propagandized to believe are so “different” from us (white people) really are very much similar to us in all the ways that count: desiring to work, to love others and be loved, to care for their families, to provide for their kids.

Also, when one meets and gets to know these people, their allegedly ominous differences cease to be threatening. They become fascinating.

I have to laugh, for example, when our vile president and the white rubes who voted for him slander Mexicans. I know tons of Mexicans in New York and S.F, some here legally and some not, and many of then work their asses off at menial jobs for substandard wages. Sometimes they live six and seven to a room.They aren’t taking from white America, they’re being exploited by white America. See what the price of lettuce would be in California were it not for undocumented Mexican labor. Of course one should remember (most Americans have no historical knowledge) that the U.S. stole about a third of Mexico’s land in the 1840s, in a war of aggression opposed by then-Rep. Abraham Lincoln (and Jeff Davis, for that matter), opposition that killed Lincoln’s political career until his Nixon-like comeback in the late 1850s. As Gore Vidal noted back in the 1980s, Mexican immigration, legal or otherwise, into the U.S. is a case of Mexicans quite justifiably trying to reclaim land that was stolen from then by force of arms in an unjust war. I wish them well, and I also like the fact that in many parts of the southwest English and Spanish are slowly merging into a language informally called Spanglish.

A melting pot does not contradict a multicultural society. A multicultural society is a good thing. It educates one to the realities of the world beyond one’s own limited experience.

Basically, at the risk of oversimplification, the “melting pot” aspect of it is (roughly) supposed to work this way: People can, and do, honor and celebrate their own cultures, histories, languages, food and art, etc., as they should. A world without a multiplicity of these things would be very boring indeed. It’s the kind of world the Nazis wanted to achieve.

But (the way it is supposed to work) in the public square, everyone agrees (even if sometimes grudgingly) to adhere to a set of basic civic norms that evolve over time: the rule of law, the Constitution, the universal rights of men and women, equality before the law, etc. etc. Obviously I know America does not live up to these ideals, but they are goals that I think are worth pursuing.

IMO, in actual practice it works something like this: Suppose you’re a white racist slimebag. Fine, no one is forcing you to associate with black people in your shitty little private lives. But in the public square, you can’t (tough luck for you!) decide, for instance, not to serve people at the Woolworth lunch counter where you work (even if you manage the place). This was adjudicated in the early 1960s. If you don’t want to associate with black people in this public context, then quit your job. But you don’t get to practice discrimination outside your shitty little private lives. And even in your private lives there are certain law-imposed limits to your behavior. (You can’t refuse to rent an apartment you own to a black person, for example.)

I grew up in suburban Detroit and I recall, in Detroit and also in Chicago, old Polish babushkas chattering away in their native tongues, paying no attention to assimilation. But their children and grandchildren, it turns out empirically, really did get assimilated, for the most part, but if they were lucky, they also held on to their heritage — which is good.

I’m of Polish descent (second generation; though of course I was denigrated as a “Polack” when I was growing up because of my Polish last name) and I certainly assimilated — assimilated too much, as I look back on it. I wish, for example, that I had learned the Polish language when I was growing up, but it was not spoken in my household and everyone where I lived was expected to learn white-bread English only.

As to the Middle East, you are quite correct in what you write about the U.S.’s shitty little wars there, but I will go further and point out this: the entire Mideast mess is a direct consequence of the triumph of the U.S. and its allies over Germany and its allies in World War I. That triumph included defeating the German ally the Ottoman Empire, breaking it up and turning into a bunch of colonies of the West with no regard whatsoever to the desires, cultures or histories of the people living there. This idiocy was exacerbated when the West imposed Israel on the Mideast in the late 40s, displacing the native Palestinians. When good ol’ Harry Truman was asked about the injustice of this, he allegedly shrugged and said, “Here in the U.S., more Jews vote than Arabs.” Today’s Mideast horror show, ladies and gentleman of the West, is variously called “payback,” “blowback,” and “the chickens coming home to roost.”

But again, the average American is blissfully oblivious of history. A few years ago a saw a poll in which about 40 percent of Americans didn’t know whether the American Civil War or World War II happened first. Another poll showed that a substantial portion of Americans believed that Lincoln was president during World War II.

New York? Oh please. The blacks etc. have their own neighbourhoods. I wonder how many of them live in central Manhattan or whatever the expensive neighbourhoods are. It also evolved naturally in an organic way, with infrastructure growing with the population.

You are absolutely an ignoramus. Segregation of races in the big urban centers of the North was a direct consequence of deliberate public policy to refuse to rent to blacks in white neighborhoods, to segregate schools, even to make black people drink at different fountains. It was called "Jim Crow." Looks like you are just as stupid as the idiot who started this thread.

Oh, and here we have you contradicting yourself. It's WRONG and RACIST for people to complain about mass immigration because we have to EMBRACE the 'multicultural meltingpot', ...

I did not say we HAVE TO do anything. As you would understand if you actually read the part of my posts where I talked about the perfectly admissiboe private behavior of ignorant racists like you.

...yet here you are going in to bat for the Palestinians because they had mass immigration of a different culture forced on THEM. No patronising double standard here at all.

LOL, you are an idiot. Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their native lands to make way for an influx of people who became Israel. This is in no way tantamount to regulated immigration to the West. Have the German people, for instance, been driven out of Germany to make way for Muslims to take over the country? Can you possibly be more ill-informed?

Time to trot out the 'r' word. The standard fall-back insult of the PC when they feel cornered and want to silence argument by attempting to 'shame' the opposition with politically-charged buzzwords. Ok then, jew-hating slimeball. They weren't evicted, they ran away because they were RACIST against JEWS. Plus, the land was purchased (not cheaply either) from wealthy Arab landowners who didn't even live there. So really, they are the ones who caused the trouble. Fancy selling off the land from under a peoples' feet. Terrible isn't it?
It's fortunate that I don't give a flying rat's arse what the PC 'think'. Of course, anyone who doesn't 'think' exactly as the PC 'Progressive' lobby dictates they should 'think' must automatically be a 'racist' or 'bigot' (both words having been rendered meaningless through over-use and abuse). I wonder where all the PC arseholes were when their 'heroes' (American military thugs) were murdering muslims and destroying their countries. They were, and still are, awfully silent about it. You know, that's what I call RACIST. The 'Progressives' spent an awful lot of time and energay wailing in grief-stricken agony and protesting over the loss endured by their beloved Hillary, the vile, warmongering, murderous monster of a woman ('we came, we saw, we killed hehehehehehe').
As for 'Jim Crow' (oh, how ignorant of me, as a non-American, not to be familiar with the expression (I thought it was an alcoholic beverage ), especially coming from someone who just admitted that a huge percentage of Americans think that Lincoln was President during WW11), even where there's no 'Jim Crow' the races tend to naturally segregate themselves. I suppose that means they must be all 'racist'.

[Seleucus]

Except it doesn't exist, except as a bogus and contingent cultural construct.

While race is supported by haplogroup genetics, I don't actually disagree with your either. I agree that racial groups are somewhat subjective and politics and power have a role in shaping them.

And there is also this interesting take here where race becomes an aesthetic perception:

What do you all think of racialism? I believe that every person, regardless of idealized characteristics and in spite of lack of idealized characteristics there is indeed race but it is only appearance in artistic terms, at least for me. So, when I see a person who approximates what most people call an 'African-American' I have a certain artistic aptitude to find beauty in their kind, just as all appearances. I only use 'race' to define the particular beauty I am seeing as a sort of filing cabinet that allows me to appreciate beauty more. Fractured but whole, equal but different.

Here is taxonomy

Here is a haplogroup and (per-colonial) migration map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... groups.png

Here is a language family map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... olors_.PNG

Here is a world religions map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... en.svg.png

Here is a map of world cultures (Huntington):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ns_map.png

Race, culture, language and religion are quite closely associated.

If people "like their races," it's only because most people are misinformed, to take the charitable stance, or else they're simpletons.

Ancestor worship was part of world spiritual heritage in animist and pagan times and is still widely practiced today.

[Seleucus]

Interestingly, there is more genetic variation among "whites" and less genetic variation between "whites" and "blacks."

And there is significantly more genetic variation between men than there is between women, therefore...? What?

[Seleucus]

There are practical considerations when it comes to immigration, like housing, infrastructure, economic/jobs, crime, environmental, loss of identity of existing population, etc. etc.

At some point the people who are supporting mass (im)migration are going to need to be held morally and at some level even legally responsible when concerts of little girls are blown to shreds and whole festivals of children are run down by trucks.

And you put on a show of your superior virtue -- hideous.

[Seleucus]

I live in New York City and before that, I lived in San Francisco

That's not surprising.

A melting pot does not contradict a multicultural society.

Of course it doesn't, since what you actually mean by multiculturalism is Western liberal values. Globalism has the same definition too. You're the biggest cultural imperialist of them all. What do you actually imagine the average Javanese thinks of your liberal progressive globablism? They hate and fear you far more than they do any Trump.

Suppose you’re a white racist slimebag. ... not to serve people at the Woolworth lunch counter ... If you don’t want to associate with black people ... the West imposed Israel on the Mideast ... they’re being exploited by white America

Your virtue is astounding. In other words: you have a severe case of rescuer role complex. You're gonna save the world from all us evil persecutors who want to do evil to the poor suffering victims, right?

Here's a nice entry level article on the concept,

https://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wor ... te-knight/

By the way, I appreciate all your hard work. Thank-you.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

There are practical considerations when it comes to immigration, like housing, infrastructure, economic/jobs, crime, environmental, loss of identity of existing population, etc. etc.

At some point the people who are supporting mass (im)migration are going to need to be held morally and at some level even legally responsible when concerts of little girls are blown to shreds and whole festivals of children are run down by trucks.

And you put on a show of your superior virtue -- hideous.

Does ANYONE have any reading comprehension skills any more? You must be a yank. Illiterate moron!
Well at least you aren't agreeing with me. That would give orgasmic delight to the PC twits on here. All I care about is what is TRUE, so you can all stick your rotten political agendas up your collective arse!

[Seleucus]

Rightists take Czech election,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... drej-babis

[Seleucus]

There are practical considerations when it comes to immigration, like housing, infrastructure, economic/jobs, crime, environmental, loss of identity of existing population, etc. etc.

At some point the people who are supporting mass (im)migration are going to need to be held morally and at some level even legally responsible when concerts of little girls are blown to shreds and whole festivals of children are run down by trucks.

And you put on a show of your superior virtue -- hideous.

Does ANYONE have any reading comprehension skills any more? You must be a yank. Illiterate moron!
Well at least you aren't agreeing with me. That would give orgasmic delight to the PC twits on here. All I care about is what is TRUE, so you can all stick your rotten political agendas up your collective arse!

Oh man, you're the righteous victim of evil persecution. That sucks! Why does this keep happening to you?

Here's a good place to start reading on a topic that would be so worth your while to better understand,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

[vegetariantaxidermy]

This is hilarious. Couldn't be better. To seleufleces I'm a 'leftie PC do-gooder', and to davidm I'm a 'rabid racist right-wing nazi'. Doesn't that SAY something??? Could they both be as thick as each other??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpv5kFMcq8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyeXpmDFCHQ

[Londoner]

Race, culture, language and religion are quite closely associated.

No they aren't.

In order to claim they are associated you have to vary the mix. Sometimes you lump people together because of one of those things, sometimes because of another. You will will change the recipe in order to come out with the results you wanted before you started.

It is similar to a religious belief. You cannot be persuaded out of it because it has become too fundamental to your own conception of yourself. You seize on anything that confirms your view, but you will preform any mental gymnastics necessary in order to avoid addressing anything that refutes it.

[Belinda]

Davidm wrote:

Basically, at the risk of oversimplification, the “melting pot” aspect of it is (roughly) supposed to work this way: People can, and do, honor and celebrate their own cultures, histories, languages, food and art, etc., as they should. A world without a multiplicity of these things would be very boring indeed. It’s the kind of world the Nazis wanted to achieve.

Some cultures of belief are bedevilled by aspects of religious faiths which are geared to the punitive and authoritarian God, who can so easily be a political figurehead. Some cultures of belief actually are better than others. Therefore we must not be sentimental about interesting cultures , regardless whether our own beliefs or foreign beliefs. NB I am not saying that you are so sentimental, but the melting pot idea needs careful attention to details of cultural beliefs. Unlike blending of beliefs, exchange and blending of cultural practices is all beneficial for everybody who cares to participate.

I acknowledge that Middle East beliefs support the punitive and authoritarian God, more so than Godless western Europe where the scientific enlightenment and people like Nietzsche have killed off the old tyrant.
Despite authoritarian religions the individuals who profess those beliefs are viscerally nice and loving people, and my guess is that Davidm's good experiences with diverse people is with people who are decent despite, not because of, their Gods.

[Seleucus]

Race, culture, language and religion are quite closely associated.

No they aren't.

Yes, they very powerfully are. Mainland haplogroup 02s are Sinic speaking Theravada Buddhists; the whole R family speaks Indo-European languages and their spiritual outlooks are heavily influenced by what we today call Hinudism, i.e. Christians, Sheiks and Shia; Es and Js are Semitic speaking Sunni Muslims almost entirely. The divide between Romance speaking Catholics and Slavic speaking Orthodox runs along the R1b - R1a line. The Germanic speaking family are protestant and carry haplogroup I1; all the Austronesian speakers from Hawaii to New Zealand to Madagascar are O, they all speak a related language, the people who we call Han Chinese are O3e. Black People are almost all Niger-Congo language speakers, they are E haplogroup and in the main are Christians.

[Seleucus]

This is hilarious. Couldn't be better. To seleufleces I'm a 'leftie PC do-gooder', and to davidm I'm a 'rabid racist right-wing nazi'. Doesn't that SAY something??? Could they both be as thick as each other??

Oh man, you're the victim of persecutors again! Why does this keep happening to you?

[Arising_uk]

At some point the people who are supporting mass (im)migration are going to need to be held morally and at some level even legally responsible when concerts of little girls are blown to shreds and whole festivals of children are run down by trucks.

Does that mean that the people who killed a half a million odd kids in the ME are also going to be held responsible too?