"LSU Sociology Professor Edward Shihadeh and Ph.D. candidate Raymond Barranco have published a study titled "Latino Employment and Black Violence: The Unintended Consequence of U.S. Immigration Policy," in the March 2010 issue of Social Forces, the field's preeminent journal.
The study confirms that Latino immigration and dominance of low skill jobs have displaced blacks from low-skill labor markets, which in turn led to more violence in urban black communities. According to their analysis, this is traceable to U.S. immigration policies over the last several decades."
Part of this is simply intuitive, especially if you live in California. There are curveballs in the research conclusions, however, which point to an unexpected linkage mechanism and unintended policy consequences. It doesn't really slot left or right. Which makes it pretty interesting as a starting point for debate.
It's quite South African, isn't it?
White males are being crushed in the "mancession" and to some extent deliberately, as they are deprived of protection that goes to protected segments of the population. Whites are going into minority, to the evident satisfaction of the country's politically and culturally dominant elite (link) (link).
"In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States. No other nation in history has gone through demographic change of this magnitude in so short a time ..."
- Bill Clinton
Congratulations.
We can guess what will happen then, with South Africa one signpost and Zimbabwe further down the road another.
And as in Southern Africa, the future winners show no sign of being able to get their acts together. In time they'll get along as well as the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda.
Judging by the article, an uncoordinated piece of legislation is no longer sufficient to address the crisis. You can't "get lucky" because the problem is now big enough that unintended consequences will run away with you.
It would take a steady, persistent, intelligent effort, carried on by an ethnic population aware of the danger it is in and determined to avert it, to avoid this future. You would need something like "Zionism for Whites" - with Zionism's commendable sense that the future is not guaranteed and its awareness of what going into a minority can mean.
I don't think anything like that is possible. I can't blame people for trying, but it's not going to happen.
It is not possible for people permanently to "transcend" race. It's a genetic given for Homo Sapiens. There's a rare genetic disorder, Williams syndrome, that makes you unable to react to it, or social danger signals in general (link).
Or if your culture is that way inclined you can choose to suppress your genetically given reactions, and likely fall prey to other populations that don't.
There is no "pax gas" that you can spray around to get other people to suppress their genetically given racial reactions as well, so those are all your choices.
White America, very firmly guided by its ruling elite, is going down the "don't fight / lose" path. The phrase "White flight" says it all.
Therefore others more inclined to fight for La Raza or their particular cause will compete for the future. And as the article shows, they are duly competing, and in the process showing what losing will mean for the losers.
In sum, America is headed for a future where race and ethnocentrism will be more salient.
Hmmm. On the other hand, the current (and projected) state of Obama's (unenviable) trajectory may lead to a total (or at least significant) realignment (aka destruction?) of identity politics, at least as it has been known until now, in the US.
Hope and Change!!
OK, suppose that the current administration ends America's pattern of polarized ethnic voting. I don't think that's possible, but suppose it.
The linked article shows that mass population movement and replacement is now a problem that's resistant to simple policy fixes. Unintended consequences reversed the intent of the policy.
How do you see that being addressed? What level of success do you anticipate? What future do you see that pointing to, for America?
Ah, in #3 we finally get back to the article's topic.
Maybe. They were present, but would the scenario have been much different if controls were lax? Instead of a large and non-mobile population, I reckon you'd simply have the same aggregate in place as a cycling flow.
What the study says to me, is that border controls need to be coupled with aggressive internal enforcement, most especially including penalties for employers who hire illegals. Absent the internal controls, you get the results of the study. Absent the border controls, it becomes a constant whack-a-mole game instead of a steady downward pressure on illegal immigration.
This is necessary because the country owes a duty to its citizens, not to put them in the position described in this paper. "No human is illegal"? Really? Tell that to all the black men in communities that have had their key rungs of mobility stripped out by that attitude toward immigration - then ask yourself where a very noticeable and non-trivial minority of those men end up. Prison has a way of making people feel "illegal". Funny how that works.
But then, the bumper sticker "I'd rather put black men in jail than take our borders seriously" didn't do so well in the focus group testing...
#4 from Joe Katzman: "This is necessary because the country owes a duty to its citizens, not to put them in the position described in this paper."
If so, isn't the need for immigration restriction and not just border control?
It may be, it may not. Foreigners who attend American colleges, then start a business? You might want to keep those.
What is utterly certain, however, is that without basic control of the borders, and internal enforcement aimed at corporations who employ illegals, there is no control whatsoever of immigration - and so, talk of restriction, categories, etc. are meaningless.
Which is another way of saying that until there actually is some sort of control over immigration, there can't even be a debate about policy. The debate about anarchy must be addressed first.
Sometimes I'm not sure if folks here are way too smart for me, or speaking in tongues. :)
Anyway . . . the link provided by AL is a short newspaper report about the article. Has someone actually found and read the article? If so, could you post the link?
The news account, of course, reports that the conclusion of the study is that the policy of tight borders has been a harmful policy, and it seems to suggest a conclusion that less secure borders are better than tight borders.
It would be interesting to see what factors the study looks at to reach that conclusion.
#7 from Roland Nikles: "Sometimes I'm not sure if folks here are way too smart for me, or speaking in tongues. :) "
In this thread it's "speaking in tongues". My first comment was badly written. I meant to say what I think will happen, why I think it will happen, and what I think it implies for the future of America. But Joe didn't think that I was on-topic till comment #3. Joe is not an inattentive reader. That means I was clear as mud.
Roland asks, I think, a reasonable question...
This is the LSU C.A.P.E.R. research unit but the paper is not publicly available there. It may be proprietary to the journal, as is not uncommon these days. I have an inquiry in.
And David - yeah, not the clearest I've seen you, especially the jump between this paper's thesis and yours. It happens. Half the battle is recognizing it when it does - for which, thank you.
David, I've gotta disagree here.
You suggest that immigration is taking us down a path that leads to Zimbabwe or Joberg.
I live in a community of immigrants - 33% Asian, 14% Hispanic; the character of the immigrants is raising the level of our schools, not sinking them.
I've argued for a while that the entrepreneurial energy of the immigrants are the future of the US - and that they are what stands between us and demographic stultification a la Europe.
I get your point about making the US more 3rd world - and there's an issue as we try and bring their energy into our society, rather than their societies into ours.
Marc
#10 from Armed Liberal: "David, I've gotta disagree here."
Yup. You wouldn't be Armed Liberal if you didn't.
#10 from Armed Liberal: "You suggest that immigration is taking us down a path that leads to Zimbabwe or Joberg."
I do.
My first reaction to the article was: this shows the problem is sufficiently prone to unintended consequences that you would need a coordinated, sustained effort to get off that path. You don't need to do one good thing, once, you need to do a lot of good things, and keep it up.
#10 from Armed Liberal: "I live in a community of immigrants - 33% Asian, 14% Hispanic; the character of the immigrants is raising the level of our schools, not sinking them."
33% Asian and the standard goes up? Amazing ... or not really.
Asians are significantly smarter than Whites. And if you were replacing your White population with Japanese kids, I would predict a more Japan-like future for America, with American Whites winding up like the Ainu, but much more numerous.
#10 from Armed Liberal: "I've argued for a while that the entrepreneurial energy of the immigrants are the future of the US - and that they are what stands between us and demographic stultification a la Europe."
I disagree as strongly as possible. What you are doing is getting rid of the people who created your nation and your best ideals, and in the long run the only ones who will sustain them.
Even a Japanese North American state - a good future, much better than the one you are headed for - would not and could not produce anything like the American Renaissance in the visual arts and literature, or the character of freedom reflected in your Constitution, or more good things than I can begin to describe.
#10 from Armed Liberal: "I get your point about making the US more 3rd world - and there's an issue as we try and bring their energy into our society, rather than their societies into ours."
Isn't it shocking that an American should talk about needing to import energy from other people? America prior to mass non-White immigration was already the wonder of the world and the hope of the West, and above all for the magnificent energy of its people.
How can you imagine that it could be right to let the people of Henry Ford, Tom Edison, Howard Hughes etc. shrivel up, and replace them with a bunch of Mexicans and third world all-sorts, and think that your creative energy will go up?
For high average intelligence and skilled bureaucracy, go with Asians. You could do a lot worse. (And will.) But if you want a Leonardo da Vinci, and the greatness of the Italian visual artists, and Western classical music, and on and on and on - well it should be obvious what kind of population you need.
The only way you could make that better is to liberate the people's native genius with a "can do" ethos and sound democratic institutions. And you did that! And wow! No people anywhere, ever, have been the equals of the Americans of the first half of the 20th century.
You were still like that when I lived there as a child in the early 1960, and fell head over heels in love with that America. I still do love it. I always will.
#10 from Armed Liberal: "I get your point about making the US more 3rd world - and there's an issue as we try and bring their energy into our society, rather than their societies into ours."
That doesn't work, because:
* It's assimilationism, where you demand that others become like you. The modern models are salad-plate multiculturalism, where putting a tomato on the plate beside the lettuce that's already there implies no change in the tomato, and unfair, unfree competition, with White males permanently in the role of the bad guys. Once your elites have made multicultural politics your norm, your capacity to absorb immigrants safely is much less, regardless of race.
* It's a demand that you define what America is and what the key elements of its narrative are, whereas from the point of view of other ethnicities, the problem is to stop people like you imposing that view and start getting everyone to recognize - that is accept - their narrative, in which slavery and the struggle of the innocent Afro-American to be truly free is the central theme, or in which the struggle of the dispossessed Aztalan people to regain their inheritance is the vital thing, etc,.
* What takes the edge off that conflict, for now, is simply White majority power. Go into minority, and softened versions of alternative stories, articulated with an eye to what White America is ready to hear, will go away.
The examples of South Africa and Zimbabwe ought to show is that giving up power cannot disarm people with historic grudges. They will become fiercer as they become more confident. And nobody is hated more that than the former bully, which White Americans will always be in an Afro-American narrative. Most of all, as your society becomes more Third World, anger increases endlessly, as the demographically expanding segment of the population cannot meet its needs, except in the short term by ever harsher resource competition against the oppressor race.
How then will you successfully say, from a weakened minority position: you must add your energy into our society, but not bring your society into ours?
David, I just wonder - would you have said the same thing about the Irish in the 19th Century?
I mean honestly what you've written here is a litany of the classic nativist arguments we've had since...pretty much since forever.
And note that it's a radically different vision of America than, say, Lincoln's - it's the kind of 'blut und volk' argument we left Europe to escape.
Marc
#13 from Armed Liberal: "David, I just wonder - would you have said the same thing about the Irish in the 19th Century?"
I think not, but how can I prove it? Then, I would not have had what I have now, the awful example of how my bright, youthful left-wing hopes turned out. How F.W. de Klerk did not in fact usher in a golden age of peace and justice in South Africa. How Stevie Wonder's "peace has come to Zimbabwe" worked out after the music ended. And so on.
#13 from Armed Liberal: "I mean honestly what you've written here is a litany of the classic nativist arguments we've had since...pretty much since forever."
Not really. The data is quite different. Not only the historic data, but the genetic data. We know more now.
We know for example that human beings without a specific genetic defect must and will have implicit ethnocentricity. It's not a matter of prejudice, antique guesswork or "just so" stories. Healthy, genetically normal populations will not be able to reciprocate a radical suspension of ethnocentricity, based on will and culture. They can no more do so than water can flow upwards. On the contrary, they will see the great difference between what we say and what we do, and the hypocrisy will not be to our credit.
#13 from Armed Liberal: "And note that it's a radically different vision of America than, say, Lincoln's - it's the kind of 'blut und volk' argument we left Europe to escape."
I don't think so. I love Lincoln, and have spent plenty of time reading his speeches for edification. He didn't have in mind an America where "propositions" on bits of paper with nothing to do with the character of the people would take care of everything. He understood perfectly well that populations with different temperaments may have chronic tensions.
I think if you read fairly, you will find that the great men who built America thought far more like me than you.
Also, if I was enamored of a vision corresponding to what you call a 'blut und volk' argument - you're calling NAZI on my arguments, right? - wouldn't I be obliged to say that Justice Clarence Thomas was interpreting the Constitution in the wrong spirit, and couldn't do it in the right spirit on account of his non-White blood?
Instead of what I actually think: that his method of interpreting the Constitution is the right one, that his pithy and sometimes terse opinions are a pleasure to read, and that he is probably the best living American in any branch of government, specifically because he upholds the Constitution most nearly in its original understanding, that is to say, in the right spirit.
Also, we have a new, sociobiological framework for understanding the new historical, psychological, genetic, demographic and general "human biological diversity" data.
I do not have a dress-up obersturmbannfuhrer uniform. Nor am I Tom Buchanan. This is not the same old same old.
But if you want the same old same old, I found some for you. I don't agree with the thesis that till a short time ago Whites had as strong a racial consciousness as any other race. But the quotes are there, in abundance. (link) This is what prominent Americans thought, and by "prominent" I mean Jefferson, Lincoln etc.
Also, what is your historical support for "...it's the kind of 'blut und volk' argument we left Europe to escape." Do you have the quotes, the documents, to support that Europeans originally came to North America and settled it in order to escape racial sentiments and assumptions that have become taboo since the social revolution of the 1960s? And not, for example, for reasons of religious non-conformism within Christianity? I'd find that pretty surprising.
David, I don't think I can overstate - enough - the risk of trying to model what happened in South Africa and Rhodesia to what's going on in the US and even Europe.
Among other things, it points to the danger of colonial regimes that don't truly integrate local elites (as India) and so don't build a large enough cadre of locals to truly move the dial on local culture.
If you wanted to make an argument for recolonializing Zimbabwe, you'd have an interested ear. I think there are arguments to make for that, as depressing as that idea may be.
But given the overall acculturation of other ethnic/social groups into US culture - and the concrete examples of the Irish and Italians - about whom the EXACT same arguments were made in the 19th century...I think you're not only off base, but out of the stadium.
Marc
I think this discussion is suffering from fallacies of aggregation. Rather than considering immigration, generally, let's think about population, immigration, and demographics.
Today we have about as many African Americans as a proportion of the population as we did a century and a half ago, roughly an eighth. We're not seeing an enormous flood of East Asian or South Asian immigrants, either cf here.
Most of our immigration legal and illegal is from Mexico and Mexico's demographics and, particularly, its dependency ration strongly suggest that we're not going to see the level of immigration from Mexico we've seen over the last 30 years indefinitely.
Do I think we need immigration reform? Yes. I think we should increase the number of work visas available to Mexicans by an order of magnitude or more, perform robust workplace and border enforcement, and revise our interpretation of birthright citizenship to the older interpretations.
There are other reforms we need but those are the biggies.
I'm not concerned about the things that David is warning about largely because the predictions rely too heavily on the persistence theory. Additionally, we're not the United Kingdom, France, Germany, or South Africa. We've been coping with a high level of immigration and high proportion of immigrants for centuries and we don't define ourselves ethnically.
Even with the hobbles that have been placed on our regular institutions for assimilating immigrants in recent decades I think we'll muddle through, especially if we address the specific challenges posed by our long land border with a country with a per capita income a quarter what it is here. We're the only country in the world that has such a challenge and we need to take distinctive measures to address it.
David, I've got to pin you down on this one. Are you making a claim that only societies predominantly made up of Northern Europeans are capable of being dynamic and free? Really?
And I have to lay down a 'put up or shut up' on your claims for a robust scientific base for your racial claims.
And finally, I'll match my reverence for the Founders with anyone's. But they did believe a lot of stupid things...scientifically and culturally stupid things...because no one at the time knew any better.
The hard part is separating the stupid from the brilliant...
Marc
David,
Your racial stuff here is (pardon the term) nonsense. I don't get it, because you do understand that the real issue is assimilation (see #12), so why conflate that with the race?
I'm not claiming that there aren't racialists (and plenty of them!) among those who would bring America down; I'm claiming that being heir to the things about America that you "fell in love with" isn't about race, ethnicity, or ancestry per se. First, because there are plenty of folks with perfect pedigrees in that regard who are, nevertheless, working for our destruction (Bill Ayers, John Frickin' Kerry), and second because there are lots of recent immigrants of all ethnicities who are buying into the American ideal. I personally know quite a few.
Perhaps you just need to come back for a while and check out the current lay of the land here; in the early 60's de facto racial discrimination was the law of the land in most of the south. Things are different now...
#17 from Armed Liberal: "If you wanted to make an argument for recolonializing Zimbabwe, you'd have an interested ear. I think there are arguments to make for that, as depressing as that idea may be."
I would consider this mooted recolonializing project mass racist aggression and pure madness. No I would not make an argument for anything like that, it's of interest to you not me.
#17 from Armed Liberal: "But given the overall acculturation of other ethnic/social groups into US culture - and the concrete examples of the Irish and Italians - about whom the EXACT same arguments were made in the 19th century...I think you're not only off base, but out of the stadium."
You have made an argument that writes off the potential of America's European-descended population by saying that America needs the new population inflows it's getting because the alternative would be European-style stagnation. And you argued that there is no problem with the kind of immigrants America is getting now, because at this school where the kids were 33% Asian, the standard went up. I said, but that's exactly what you would expect; with Asians the standard will go up, that's common knowledge.
Ands now you say people made the EXACT same arguments I'm making about Italians (and the Irish too) in the 19th century. Really? They were having the EXACT same arguments about the Italians in the 19th century? With the open borders side then as now writing off Euro stock as not having the needed "energy" for America, and those favoring immigration restriction saying things like "but of course Asians are smarter," and asking that Williams syndrome and the latest news from Zimbabwe and South Africa be taken into account?
I don't think so. I think you got that the same place you got the claim that "it's the kind of 'blut und volk' argument we left Europe to escape."
I don’t think he’s making that argument but I am curious, did you have some counter-example(s) in mind?
#19 from Armed Liberal: "David, I've got to pin you down on this one. Are you making a claim that only societies predominantly made up of Northern Europeans are capable of being dynamic and free? Really?"
Of course not.
If anything, the Japanese etc. are showing themselves more capable of defending their turf, and thus of retaining their freedom to determine their own destiny in the long run.
#19 from Armed Liberal: "And I have to lay down a 'put up or shut up' on your claims for a robust scientific base for your racial claims."
Did I make up Williams syndrome or is it real? Is Vdare in trouble right now because the numbers are not there to support what Steve Sailer says or because people need him shut up because they can't effectively argue with him? Go to Kevin MacDonald's site, read up, and ignore the fact that he can't think of a thing about Jews he likes. (My own attitude is quite the contrary and in line with John Derbyshire in his back-and-forth with KM.) Simply, is this stuff on sociobiology, group evolutionary strategies and mainly implicit vs. explicit ethnocentrism science, and new, or is it just a rehash of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Read Frank Salter's pdf on Misunderstanding of Kin Selection and the Delay in Quantifying Ethnic Kinship (I can email it to you if you like) and decide for yourself if that's about science, and new, or if it's race-hate and lynch-mob oratory, unchanged from the bad old days and nothing you need to take account of.
You keep saying, this is only what people came to the New World to get away from, this is only what Lincoln and the Founders rejected, this is only what people used to say about Italans etc., and you're wrong.
#19 from Armed Liberal: "And finally, I'll match my reverence for the Founders with anyone's. But they did believe a lot of stupid things...scientifically and culturally stupid things...because no one at the time knew any better.
The hard part is separating the stupid from the brilliant..."
Then you're running a variation on the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. X is no good because it's contrary to what the Founders would say, and if it turns out that the Founders did say things like that you shift ground so that a precedent has to be from the brilliant part of what the Founders said with X being from the "poor wretches they didn't know any better" part and not counting.
Off the top of my head, India, Brazil, Costa Rica, South Korea...
Off the top of my head, India, Brazil, Costa Rica, South Korea...
#20 from kparker: "Your racial stuff here is (pardon the term) nonsense. I don't get it, because you do understand that the real issue is assimilation (see #12), so why conflate that with the race?"
My interest in race went way up from looking at No Child Left Behind reporting. From the outset it gave me a chill, because the government made race-consciousness mandatory.
Every child must be numbered and classified according to race, and it's not that no child must be left behind, but that by law (highly simplified version) the races are in competition and Whites must not win that competition to well. In effect, if White kids could benefit by higher standards, nevertheless they must not have them, so that every numbered race group can pass. This is a society that does not really think White kids have the right to be the best they can be; instead, if they excel too well, it's assumed something evil and illegitimate is going on, and there will be punishment.
When you have a society that does stuff like that, and that channels people like that, it's an issue when you're thinking about mass immigration and the digestibility of populations.
Also, Detroit. I haven't been there lately, but it's no longer famed as one of the world's great cities. People aren't so good any more at making the wheels go round in Motor City. It seems they're more focused on things like numbering every child by race, and making sure the presumptively evil and oppressive ones, the ones with the soft pressure demographics and the "White flight" conflict avoidance temperaments ... lose, and keep losing. Which they have, do, and will.
For me, this again puts mass immigration and population replacement in a new light. You have to look not only at those who are moving in but those who are displaced - such as the African-Americans, in the thread-heading article - and what's happening to them.
I'd like the assimilation of new arrivals to be the only issue. But when Blacks are going to jail and Whites are going to /dev/null and race-counting and managed competition from infancy on are the law of the land, how can it be?
David, I've got to pin you down on this one. Are you making a claim that only societies predominantly made up of Northern Europeans are capable of being dynamic and free? Really?
I don’t think he’s making that argument but I am curious, did you have some counter-example(s) in mind?
I'd reject race as the explanation, but I've always noted the correlation between nations with warrior-feudal backgrounds (weak central governments, powerful and diverse noble houses/clans with high turnover) and democracy. Europe of course, but also Japan and South Korea. Those are all of the first wave democracies (with Taiwan being the sole exception and contraindicator).
The second wave democracies are all colonies of the first waves (India and Brazil), and so far lack the stability of the first waves and are especially struggling with rampant corruption and caste-systems.
Nations with tribal or imperial (bureaucratic) backgrounds are either non-democratic or failed/failing democracies (see Turkey or Russia for what's becoming a depressingly familiar arc).
The warrior ethos seems to provide various key ingredients important for stable democracies.
Back on topic, I think all attempts to compare Mexican immigration to earlier immigration waves fail to account for the physical proximity of Mexico. The Italians and Irish immigrants were making what were effectively one way trips. This provides a huge incentive to acclimate and tied their destiny to that of their new nation, through good times and bad.
Mexican immigrants, unlike their predecessors can easily just walk back across the border and go home if things turn bad. This is going to completely skew the assimilation and identity trends compared to previous immigration waves.
For this reason alone I think we need much tougher immigration enforcement. We can't have an actual ocean between us and Mexico, but we can and should create a psychological one. There needs to be a clear delineation between here and there. By all means respect and wax nostalgic about the old country, nothing wrong with that (lot's of good things, the US has always been good at copying good traits from others). But it needs to be the OLD country.
Previous immigrant waves left their old lives and countries far behind and committed to become Americans. I think that psychological commitment is the key to immigration success.
David,
I certainly agree that NCLB, and the remainder of the race-based and race-aware contraptions that have been forced on us at the Federal level, are abominations.
But you know what? We don't have that junk because blacks took over the polity here, we have them because whites forced them on us. That kind of undercuts your theory a bit, from the other side, doesn't it?
One other thing to clarify: I'm not in favor of mass immigration, I'm in favor of controlled immigration, where those who are already here are the ones doing the controlling, and are the ones deciding what interests to favor. And yes, I'd let in a larger number of legal immigrants than we do now, but be much choosier about who that would be.
The article suggests that the policy was counterproductive because people weren't going back to Mexico for fear of not being able to return.
I thing that might be wrong, in two ways:
1. If people are staying in America for long periods rather than going back and forth, they might be Americanizing, and regardless of any other factors, I think Americanizing is a Good Thing.
2. I am always concerned with the rights of labor, and I abhor rightless labor, that is "guestworkers" and other systems set up so that employers can exploit people who don't have the legal rights of citizenship. It's a bit like slavery, in my eyes, and I think it should be stepped on, hard. One of the advantages of rightless labor for employers is disposability: never mind if you break Manuel's back with toil, because Pedro who's just as sturdy (till you break him down too) will be along tomorrow. From that point of view, I think less churn is better. Employers will be forced to consider the welfare of their workers to some minimal extent. Not much but more than they would have.
David, you're conflating so many things here, I don't know where to start unwinding the ball of yarn.
First re Williams syndrome. You're joking...there are a zillion medical conditions that are genetic, some of which (sickle-cell, Tay-Sachs) are linked to race.
But to take the complex behavioral structure that's human culture and suggest that there are robust theories that link behavior and culture to genetic, rather than socio-historic causes is stepping out over the cliff, as far as I know - and I have looked hard.
I'm the guy who thinks that formal models of economies ("Black Swan") and climate are kind of jokes - and you want to suggest a reductive model of human culture?
There are bunches of reasons why different clans of humans developed different social norms and cultures - some of which are better suited to modernity than others.
And you're totally confusing race (genetics) with culture. People from one race can be acculturated into another culture - as little white suburban kids who act like they believe 50 cent acts show us.
And as we see from the host of successful Hispanic and black entrepreneurs who somehow - in spite of being hobbed in your worldview with an amazing genetic deficit - seem to successfully opening and running businesses all over the place.
Some of them even go to Tea Parties and become Republicans.
Does this make me an 'open borders' advocate - of course not.
But what you're taking about is coming from a place that's so disconnected from any reality I've ever seen in my life that I can't let it just float by.
And while I'm willing to follow ideas down hard roads, history has shown us over and over again what road that kind of belief takes us down - and it's a horrible, disastrous one.
Yes, the early Colonial immigrants did come here in large part because it was a place where old social distinctions would be erased.
You're trying hard to erect new ones.
And yes, EXACTLY the same things were said about the drunken brutish Irish and the crafty Papist Italian immigrants in the 19th century - it's not hard to find, just look up 'nativism' or 'know-nothings'.
Marc
kparker, Amen to what you said.
With one exception. I don't have a theory that would be disturbed by the fact that Afro-Americans didn't dream up No Child Left Behind etc. and impose it on everyone else.
My theory is about top-down social change imposed by narrow elites, on unsound theories and often for staggeringly trivial and short term reasons.
Politicians want insular, ghetto-ized minorities to give them safe seats, so they import them. Employers want to exploit rightless labor, so they undermine any attempt to manage the immigration of the country for the benefit of the people already in it. And so on.
In the thread-starting article it couldn't be more obvious that employers might have a say in keeping their rightless labor handy to exploit, but the Afro-Americans who were having their prospects for upward social mobility blighted had no say.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "David, you're conflating so many things here, I don't know where to start unwinding the ball of yarn."
Starting with honesty about your opponent's position would be good. You keep setting up straw men and calling NAZI.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "First re Williams syndrome. You're joking...there are a zillion medical conditions that are genetic, some of which (sickle-cell, Tay-Sachs) are linked to race."
Williams syndrome isn't limited to any race. Its existence demonstrates that some universal human propensities are genetically founded, that's all. But of course that's a very large "that's all".
#30 from Armed Liberal: "But to take the complex behavioral structure that's human culture and suggest that there are robust theories that link behavior and culture to genetic, rather than socio-historic causes is stepping out over the cliff, as far as I know - and I have looked hard."
There's nothing illogical about linking behavior and culture to genes with consequences for universal human propensities like developing race and gender stereotypes. Of course the genetics don't determine the content of the stereotypes. But they are going to exist, and that has big implications. Genes can influence a lot, without them filling in the blanks in the "stereotype forms" they hand us.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "I'm the guy who thinks that formal models of economies ("Black Swan") and climate are kind of jokes - and you want to suggest a reductive model of human culture?"
I want to suggest that there are Darwinian models of continuing human evolution. I'm not inventing one, only pointing out that they exist.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "There are bunches of reasons why different clans of humans developed different social norms and cultures - some of which are better suited to modernity than others."
Yes.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "And you're totally confusing race (genetics) with culture. People from one race can be acculturated into another culture - as little white suburban kids who act like they believe 50 cent acts show us."
What you seem to be doing is trying to fit me up with some "racist" stereotype that you have, and in that fantasy you think racists imagine that Italians have a gene for bottom-pinching and Irishmen have a gene for Irish accents.
Of course White kids can imitate Afro-American heroes. That's got nothing to do with anything. There's no reason why it would worry me.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "And as we see from the host of successful Hispanic and black entrepreneurs who somehow - in spite of being hobbed in your worldview with an amazing genetic deficit - seem to successfully opening and running businesses all over the place."
More of the same straw-man slaying.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "Some of them even go to Tea Parties and become Republicans."
And more. By the way, I don't think there's a Whites-only gene for NASCAR either.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "Does this make me an 'open borders' advocate - of course not."
Good! What do you advocate, and why? I'm genuinely interested.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "But what you're taking about is coming from a place that's so disconnected from any reality I've ever seen in my life that I can't let it just float by."
Nup. The stereotypes you're trying to impose are disconnected from anything in reality.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "And while I'm willing to follow ideas down hard roads, history has shown us over and over again what road that kind of belief takes us down - and it's a horrible, disastrous one."
Ah - AUSCHWITZ!! Subtle one, AR.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "Yes, the early Colonial immigrants did come here in large part because it was a place where old social distinctions would be erased."
Evading which social distinctions they hoped to erase and which they didn't is a cop-out.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "You're trying hard to erect new ones."
That's an empty charge. Everybody believes in some social distinctions, unless they are impaired in their psychological functioning.
#30 from Armed Liberal: "And yes, EXACTLY the same things were said about the drunken brutish Irish and the crafty Papist Italian immigrants in the 19th century - it's not hard to find, just look up 'nativism' or 'know-nothings'."
No, Armed Liberal. They did not say EXACTLY the same things. You just keep saying that.
David Blue,
I think you're looking at a general hostility to excellence + hatred of western civilization, and assuming it's a racial problem. Instead of what AL calls "bad philosophy." Which is, I think, the conflation we're talking about. The ethos you're talking about is about not letting anybody succeed, except through a system of granted aristocratic privilege in the old sense of that word (but which is called something else, and mixed with a dash of totalitarian politicism).
This produces more or less the same results in advanced societies as it does in Zimbabwe, based on history's record. It just takes longer to remove the cushion civilization has built.
This is about right:
...and gets us back on point. I see the cures as rooted in obligations of and to citizenship (which must imply borders taken seriously), and the classic American melting pot. To come back with a reaction based on race is, I think, just playing into the very policies and mentalities that are ruining us.
If you walk the other way down a road, you're still on that road. To escape, you have to get off of it.
I agree, and with reference to the earlier thread, I'll add that this is what you get for paying too much attention to guys like Paul Gottfried.
I'm with Barry Meislin [#2] in hoping to see the total shipwreck of identity politics, and nativism can go down with the sinking hulk.
There's a limit to the usefulness of pretending that mass immigration issues in the year 1900 should inform the debate about the same issues in 2010. It just ain't the same country. Most importantly, the demand for unskilled labor is quite unlike it was a century ago, and the commercial environment has changed too (with domestic manufacturing challenged by large-scale industrialization of countries both poor, and much larger than the US).
Another factor to keep in mind is that employers run into costs if they employ immigrants who don't have good English skills... but that once they've taken the hit on those costs, they don't scale. There are a lot of outfits (especially in the border states here) which simply aren't open to English-speaking employees. This isn't a huge impediment to university graduates, but if you've got a strong back and want to get into something like construction, you can bet that there will be places that simply will not consider hiring you. "Can't speak to your co-workers in their language? Then we can't use you..." So even jobs that aren't actually filled by an illegal immigrant might not, consequently, be open to any American to take.
That said, this isn't a black issue in particular. It affects poor whites (and, for that matter, poor Asians and poor Hispanics who are not themselves immigrants) in much the same way. At the same time, it's not unfair to say that there is something within popular black culture that contributes to the difficulty of pulling one's self out of poverty through traditional values...
#33 from Joe Katzman: "I think you're looking at a general hostility to excellence + hatred of western civilization, and assuming it's a racial problem. Instead of what AL calls "bad philosophy."
And one more thing: let's you and him fight.
The killer is if you set up a fight well enough people can't avoid it. And then you can kiss working class solidarity among many other goods goodbye.
I think race cannot be transcended.
Genetically normal human being must and will produce racial stereotypes, in-groups and out-groups: us good/safe, them bad/dangerous. It is possible to suppress these reactions by effortful control, but they are still there and still influence your behavior. Everybody has genetic interests, by Darwin's rules everybody who left descendants also passed on a tendency to guard their genetic interests. Chinese, Eskimo, Kurd or Basque, this is always true.
(You might think people without family would lack genetic interests. It's not so. Ethnic nepotism works too, and a straightforward Darwinian process means that a tendency to practice it will be passed on, universally. That's why Frank Salter's article on the belated calculation on the numbers for this is key.)
Who's taller, shorter, smarter, dumber, fast, slow etcetera can be trasnscended. If some differences between the races were the problem rather than what they have in common, the problem would be less - much less. It's what we have in common that kills us.
The side that lets its guard down generally gets demolished, as Whites are now being demolished. This is a Prisoner's Dilemma game that's very harshly rigged in favor of "betray".
Of course you can have more or less of this mutually destructive game. If you want more, then systematic state-supported race-favoritism and grievance-validation through all areas and aspects of society, plus mass immigration, preferably under conditions that minimized the chance of assimilation, would be a great way to go about it.
To perfect this arena of racial hate, both genetically and socially, allow and covertly support the shriveling up of the ethnic population most inclined to let its guard down in the false hope that this will mean peace.
After one side only "transcends" race, as in South Africa where the Whites gave up their wicked ways but nobody else did, and after the consequences are played out, racial conflict will increase.
Multiculturalism, that demands that people drop their objection to measures such as mass immigration, necessarily delivers the opposite of the rewards it promises.
This is not hard to figure out instinctively, which is why all over the world sensible people are having none of it. Only Whites, betrayed by a terribly corrupted culture and ruling class, are falling for it.
Well, well, well Classic Victorian Social Darwinism gussied up with Sociobiology, with a dash of racial intelligence theory thrown in, and how easily it gets mashed in to a fear of the U.S. becoming a post apartheid South Africa/Zimbabwe.
Well, I lived in the south in the late '50s and early '60s during the period of American Apartheid and it seems to me that the Non-violent Civil War that we went through to end that system was one of the highlights of our American Civilization, and though difficult, we as a people have benefited from the experience.
What ever is happening in South Africa or Zimbabwe has to do with their specific path to the situation that the find themselves in now.
Our American path to the present has been radically different to the point that it is only marginally similar.
The theory that DB is concocting here is what I call mitigated nonsense. Bits and pieces here and there make some sense, but overall the "theory" is simplistic in the extreme.
By the way David, could you explain who these Whites are?
Does it only mean Europeans?
Just Northern Europeans?
Just Protestant Europeans?
Do Jews count?
How about Mediterranean types?
Do Slavs get a pass?
How about those from the Eastern Mediterannean?
Latins?
Can we exclude the French? Please?
toc3 has an interesting point. If you think back even just 60 years, it is pretty amazing that it's even possible to talk about "whites," rather than all the different subsets thereof. Whose ethnic differences defined so much of the world, and America, in previous eras.
David Blue and I agree re:
We disagree on the fulcrum, and the solution.
As toc's point, and Africa's history, both show in abundance, this destructive game can and will be played within races - and usually is. Which is why my focus is on the game, not the playas.
Joe,
In #9, you wrote: I have an inquiry in
Any word yet on this paper that is said to attribute an increase in violence in "urban black communities" to Latino immigration?
I am especially curious since everything I've read suggests that there has been a marked decrease in urban violence over the last 20 years. Now, I suppose it is possible that overall violence has decreased but that in black communities it has increased, but that seems unlikely.
David,
When you invoke Darwin, you seem to confuse "race" with "species." There are isolated geographic population groups among humans that share (minor) genetic characteristics (although they are disappearing fast), and you can refer to those as "races," if you want, but there are dozens, if not hundreds of them. However, there is no such thing as a White race, or a Black race. Obviously, these have cultural meanings, but not genetic ones. And remember, culture is not passed on genetically.
Or are you confusing ethnicity with "race?" Perhaps they are synonyms to you?
& aren't Mexicans white? I'm Mexican. I think of myself as "white." That's what I put on the census, anyway. Was that bad? I don't speak anything beyond high school Spanish, so I wouldn't call myself Hispanic, but my genetic heritage is Mexican. My grandparents were Mexican. Their ancestors came from Spain, which is in Europe. Aren't Spaniards white? Or are the Pyrenees some sort of racial barrier?
One last question about multiculturalism and mass migration, both of which you seem to be opposed to, if I understand you correctly. You seem to be concerned about the fate of the whites in South Africa and North America. How did they (we, if I may be so bold) get there (here), if not by mass migration? Was that such a deplorable thing? or was it okay then? If so, when did the rules get changed? Or do they not apply to everyone? Just curious.
Even though I may not be white in Blue's eyes, let me just say to everyone that I like totally like living in America and I totally hope I'm not contributing to black violence by being here.
There are Sumerian texts bemoaning the imminent end of their civilization because of the immigration of Semitic tribes into their cities.
Eventually many of these people migrated along the Fertile Crescent into what is now Israel, At least one of these guys was named Abraham.
toc3,
Apparently those texts were right on target. Although it depends on your definition of "imminent." Haven't seen a lot of Sumerians in a while.
The pernicious philosophical conceit of race came about when Linnaeus had to come up with a system of Classification to cover humans.
Mankind
Linnaeus presented a concept of 'race' as applied to humans, also including mythological creatures. Within Homo sapiens he proposed five taxa of a lower (unnamed) rank. These categories were Africanus, Americanus, Asiaticus, Europeanus, and Monstrosus. They were based on place of origin at first, and later on skin colour. Each race had certain characteristics that he considered endemic to individuals belonging to it. Native Americans were choleric, red, straightforward, eager and combative. Africans were phlegmatic, black, slow, relaxed and negligent. Asians were melancholic, yellow, inflexible, severe and avaricious. Europeans were sanguine and pale, muscular, swift, clever and inventive.
It seems pretty apparent that Old Carolus was European
The idea that their could be any worthwhile culture outside of Europe and the European conquest did not begin to appear until a little more than 100 years ago with the development of Cultural anthropology, during the last 2 decades if the 19th Century.
Our total ignorance of what was out there was similar to that we had in the living world before the rise of evolutionary theory in France with work of men like Lamarck and Cuvier and the revolutionary work of Darwin and Mendel which simply leveled the beliefs that had come before them.
As far as the founding fathers are concerned, they were products of their time, and they knew it. that is why they set up the mechanism to amend what they had written.
Have you ever taken a look at a copy of the original Constitution and what has been removed from the original because of amendments.
What one sees is their failings as much as their incredible wisdom and their knowledge that they were fallible.
I like Shakespeare's take on the opening of what was truly a new world:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
To sum up, I think one is on very thin ice when placing too much faith in 17th and 18th Century opinions.
#37 from toc3: "Well, well, well Classic Victorian Social Darwinism gussied up with Sociobiology, with a dash of racial intelligence theory thrown in, and how easily it gets mashed in to a fear of the U.S. becoming a post apartheid South Africa/Zimbabwe."
No, my line is much more like Marxism - workers should refuse the invitation of the ruling class to fight each other - but with a more pessimistic reading of their ability to refuse the bait, in view of history and modern science.
Couldn't agree more, but as I remember, it was the Akkadians that got them.
So, it is a lack of faith in the Proletariat that brings out the Classic Victorian Social Darwinism gussied up with Sociobiology, with a dash of racial intelligence theory thrown in.
I would never have guessed.
I've also heard Carl "The Last American in Rwanda" Wilkens speak. One of his vignettes is about the students he knew who, when the teachers started asking the kids, "Are you Hutu or Tutsi?", replied, "I don't know, what am I?" I.e. they were so indistinguishable they didn't know, or care, themselves--and yet somehow their larger society still managed to make a genocide out of their difference.
mark,
Yes, I did get a reply re: a full copy of the study. I need to request a reprint from these guys.
Feel free to join me in that endeavor.
OK, the analysis I proposed obviously has no attraction.
Then, the best way for people to stop dividing by race is to simply stop divinding by race. The African-Americans in this story have to be responsible and stop thinking of themselves as being displaced when in fact they're being culturally enriched. Above all they have to stop acting out.
We have a winner! Yes, indeed, stop dividing by race. Let's talk about culture and values instead.
#50 from kparker: "We have a winner! Yes, indeed, stop dividing by race. Let's talk about culture and values instead."
Works for me. :)
toc3,
Why talking about the Akkadians, the Summerians, etc. and not the Romans?
Beyond the funny thing of the very pale Germanic tribes entering into Latin territory, the situation may provide some hints comparable to the US sourthern border problem.
Rome was unable either to stop infiltration along its northern border or assimilate the invading tribes.
However, integrating the newcomers wasn't an easy task then, since the Roman poli-tical system was based on the polis, the city. Only Julius Caesar noticed the problem. He knew the solution was integrating the western peoples into a bigger container. But the concept of Nation wasn't born yet and Julius Caesar was murdered by his colleagues at the gates of the senate.
Strikingly, this later did not happen with Christianism, a well lubricated machine since a romanized Jew called Saulo of Tharsus designed and built it, from the teachings of a rabbi known as Jesus, in the crossroads of the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
Then, the best way for people to stop dividing by race is to simply stop divinding by race.
Then you immediately divide by race:
The African-Americans in this story have to be responsible and stop thinking of themselves as being displaced when in fact they're being culturally enriched. Above all they have to stop acting out.
The answer is to stop telling people what they ought to think, which, of course, is to stop the free flow of ideas, which is to stop what the Republic and our economic system is based upon.
Good luck with telling people that their perceived experience is is bogus.
As far as your approach to enlightening the African-Americans on how lucky they are for being enslaved and discriminated against for hundreds of years, it reminds me of a rather crude joke:
What do 10,000 battered women have in common?
THEY DON'T LISTEN!!!!!!!
Joe,
As toc's point, and Africa's history, both show in abundance, this destructive game can and will be played within races...
No kidding! I watched this happen, up close and personal, in southern Sudan during the first half of the '80s
Sudan
Let's go even further. During the Cold War, Europe, experienced 50 years of peace. Fear of another war and invasion from the east set up what might be called a Pax Sovetica.
How far do we have to go back in European History to find another half Century of peace? Start with the Hundred Years War and work back.
If you accept the ignorant, useless and unscientific idea of race, then that is a pretty continuous Intra-Race War that lasted for at least 700 years.
Not only that, the minute the Soviet Union collapsed, the intra Racial war started up almost immediately in the Balkans, Genocide Mass Murder, ethnic Cleansing, need I go on.
But it is easy to overlook this history and say that this sort of stuff happens in Africa, without facing up to the horrid history of Europe in this regard
More simply then: the story makes out that some criminals were made to commit crimes, because of other people. Nonsense. just give them all stiff prison terms, problem solved.
Unless it would result in a disparate impact and the people it would disparately impact would be of the category that matters when people in that category are disparately impacted on.
That would be dividing by what you shouldn't be dividing by, and that would be racists and very severely punished.
So you have to never divide by what you should never divide by, but the result must always be the same as if you had divided with exquisite care by what you must, but law, count and divide by - as in No Child Left Behind - OR ELSE.
You have to give a performance, in every act, inner thought and above all public argument, of always getting the correct result, which cannot be discovered without doing certain calculations, without doing those calculations, as a happy accident of your being non-racist.
This is the functioning of a system of crimethink and doublethink.
What you need is not policies that are correct in either an ethical or a practical sense, but to give a performance. The payoff of skilled performance is status, and the penalty of naivety is lack of status. That's all this is.
toc (#54)
It is funny to read an interpretation of European history based on race.
Rather than intra-race, those were wars between branches of the same family. And in fact all the kings around Europe were related in some degree... just a bit lower than their subdits'.
The 19th century was calm, maybe too much. Just small wars were fought between the Napoleonic and the two parts of the Big War.
After that, some European countries fought colonial wars with little, if not none, success. But that was business, not race.
And what happened in Yugoslavia was already on in 1941, but simply frozen by the cold war. Tito was a simple response for a big problem at that moment, but in the long term, the differences between the ones wanting a greater integration in Europe and the ones opposed to that would prevail.
Since it's immoral to separate people, they must come together and understand each other, sharing their cultures.
Specifically, busing, to move so many of the community of brothers and sisters into anywhere the community of Aztalan peoples settle that there is no question of their avoiding harmony.
My comment was not to prove race war in Europe, since I do not know what race is, and those that have been throwing it around have not given an explanation or definition
I asked here:
#38 from toc3 | April 16, 2010 5:36 PM | Reply
By the way David, could you explain who these Whites are?
Does it only mean Europeans?
Just Northern Europeans?
Just Protestant Europeans?
Do Jews count?
How about Mediterranean types?
Do Slavs get a pass?
How about those from the Eastern Mediterannean?
Latins?
Can we exclude the French? Please?
__________
Rather than answer the Race people moved the discussion to Africa where Intra Racial Wars go on.
My "European History" showed, based on the faulty logic of Race that was being thrown about The Europe has been having Intra/Racial wars for the better part of a Millennium.
I agree that the wars fought in Europe came from a number of complex situations. The English and the French had at it for hundreds of years as did the Germans with the French the Spanish with the English, French, Lowlanders and so on.
What makes this any different than the Biafran war between the Ibo and the Hausa, the Hutu and the Tutsi, the Shona and the Ndebele. Nothing. So why are their wars intra Racial and those in Europe not.
Probably that we don't look beyond race in Africa and we look more to physical differences than to historical, economic and social difference in explaining Africa.
In summary, my point was to show how simplistic and idiotic race based thinking is