6 ms·

LOL, you just described UK. Multiculturalism doesn't work - it has been tested here.

by _random_ 13y ago

alextingle 13y ago
I wish we could deport racists.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  I'm confused, are you accusing the idea that multiculturalism doesn't work as being racist? There is ample evidence that it in fact doesn't work: that an underclass is inevitable and that status applied to an entire culture is immensely damaging.
  - alextingle 13y ago
    The idea that there is a "poor, uneducated, unacculturate" immigrant underclass in the UK is a racist lie. Recently arrived immigrants often find themselves at a disadvantage, but 2nd & 3rd generation communities are often wealthier, and better educated than "natives". Five or ten years ago, I would have told you that this kind of politicised bigotry was entirely outside the British mainstream... only practised by a tiny, shabby fringe. These days, I'm dismayed to admit that the BNP and their UKIP mini-me's have managed to spread their filthy ideas much more widely.
    - Camillo 13y ago
      I'm not really familiar with the situation in the UK. My very vague understanding is that the native Britons are so bad, with their chavs and yobs and twelve-year-old moms, that no group of immigrants, no matter how poor or uneducated, could make things worse. [1] However, it seems to me that you feel so strongly about the issue that, even if immigration did create big social problems that wouldn't otherwise exist, you still would be accusing anyone who pointed that out of being racist. Basically, "that's racist" is not the conclusion of your argument, but rather the premise, and you're using it as a thought-terminating cliché. Or at least that's my impression as an uninvolved observer, even though I'm more sympathetic to your position. [1: I hope the British hackers don't get too offended, that was largely tongue-in-cheek.]
      - alextingle 13y ago
        Obviously you are right, the situation is more nuanced. However, it's futile to debate those nuances with someone who is simply looking for sound-bites to push a hateful agenda. Example: "LOL... Multiculturalism doesn't work"
        _random_ 13y ago
        1. I did not expect my comment to get that much attention. 2. My LOL is sarcastic - I am sad that tolerance approached such a level that it hurts the country. 3. That phrase is what the current country leader said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994 When issues are not addressed on time they produce nazi states.
    - brit155 13y ago
      When did 1/3 of Italian or Asian immigrant students support killing in the name of Catholicism or Buddhism?
      - alextingle 13y ago
        ...when they were asked misleading questions by partisan think tanks?
        rayiner 13y ago
        That dog isn't gonna hunt. You have no evidence that Italian and Asian immigrants espoused violence the way many Muslim immigrants do.
    - theorique 13y ago
      On the flip side, loudmouth, self-appointed, "spokesmen" of the Asian Muslim community such as Mehdi Hasan or Anjem Choudhry really don't help matters very much. Politicised Islam in Britain - and the associated terrorist actions that result - has done a great deal to generate support for parties and groups such as BNP, UKIP, or EDL.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      That's just not true. http://poverty.org.uk/06/index.shtml http://poverty.org.uk/06/index.shtml Look at the low income rates for Pakistanis and Bengalis. Immigration of those people to the UK is not recent.
- rayiner 13y ago
  I wish we could deport people who throw around the "racist" label casually. There is nothing racist about believing that big, complex, interdependent societies function best when people share basic values, beliefs, and culture. It's the difference between multiculturalism as practiced in the U.S., where e.g. asian immigrants to the west coast have assimilated the basic values of american society while remaining distinctive, and multiculturalism as expressed in the U.K., where e.g. many muslim immigrants refuse to assimilate to the point of wanting to be governed by separate sets of laws. I would never say people of a minority culture/ethnicity can't be racist against that culture, but I think we often have a more nuanced view of "racism" than people of the majority culture/ethnicity. My family immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh, and integration is an important issue to us. We see a lot of immigrants who refuse to assimilate, and we believe that it's detrimental both for them, because it makes it harder for them to take advantage of all of the opportunities of American society, and detrimental to the people who live around them, because there presence creates cultural schisms within communities that cannot be reconciled. I don't think there is anything "racist" about pointing these basic facts out.
  - alextingle 13y ago
    I can assure you, I didn't use the term casually. > many muslim immigrants refuse to assimilate to the point of wanting to be governed by separate sets of laws That's a tiny minority of the UK's immigrant community. Drawing general conclusions from such an unrepresentative sample is intellectually dishonest. It's the kind of argument seized upon by hate-mongers.
    - brit155 13y ago
      It seems like you're the ignorant one here. Center for Social Cohesion: One Third of British Muslim students support killing for Islam http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-3-British-Muslim-students-killing-Islam-40-want-Sharia-law.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-... http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/pdf/IslamonCampus.pdf http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/pdf/IslamonCampus.pdf
epo 13y ago
There are those who reject persons of other races(1) among both the native-born and non-native-born but ignoring them, multiculturalism works very well. (1) Racist is a good shorthand term for these people, idiot is another.
- grinnbearit 13y ago
  How are race and culture the same thing? Multiracial groups where everyone has near similar beliefs probably work "better" than groups where everyone belongs to the same race and have radically different beliefs.
dlitz 13y ago
Hasn't it been tested in Canada, too?

LOL, you just described UK. Multiculturalism doesn't work - it has been tested here.

alextingle 13y ago

I wish we could deport racists.

hackinthebochs 13y ago
I'm confused, are you accusing the idea that multiculturalism doesn't work as being racist? There is ample evidence that it in fact doesn't work: that an underclass is inevitable and that status applied to an entire culture is immensely damaging.
- alextingle 13y ago
  The idea that there is a "poor, uneducated, unacculturate" immigrant underclass in the UK is a racist lie. Recently arrived immigrants often find themselves at a disadvantage, but 2nd & 3rd generation communities are often wealthier, and better educated than "natives". Five or ten years ago, I would have told you that this kind of politicised bigotry was entirely outside the British mainstream... only practised by a tiny, shabby fringe. These days, I'm dismayed to admit that the BNP and their UKIP mini-me's have managed to spread their filthy ideas much more widely.
  - Camillo 13y ago
    I'm not really familiar with the situation in the UK. My very vague understanding is that the native Britons are so bad, with their chavs and yobs and twelve-year-old moms, that no group of immigrants, no matter how poor or uneducated, could make things worse. [1] However, it seems to me that you feel so strongly about the issue that, even if immigration did create big social problems that wouldn't otherwise exist, you still would be accusing anyone who pointed that out of being racist. Basically, "that's racist" is not the conclusion of your argument, but rather the premise, and you're using it as a thought-terminating cliché. Or at least that's my impression as an uninvolved observer, even though I'm more sympathetic to your position. [1: I hope the British hackers don't get too offended, that was largely tongue-in-cheek.]
    - alextingle 13y ago
      Obviously you are right, the situation is more nuanced. However, it's futile to debate those nuances with someone who is simply looking for sound-bites to push a hateful agenda. Example: "LOL... Multiculturalism doesn't work"
      - _random_ 13y ago
        1. I did not expect my comment to get that much attention. 2. My LOL is sarcastic - I am sad that tolerance approached such a level that it hurts the country. 3. That phrase is what the current country leader said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994 When issues are not addressed on time they produce nazi states.
  - brit155 13y ago
    When did 1/3 of Italian or Asian immigrant students support killing in the name of Catholicism or Buddhism?
    - alextingle 13y ago
      ...when they were asked misleading questions by partisan think tanks?
      - rayiner 13y ago
        That dog isn't gonna hunt. You have no evidence that Italian and Asian immigrants espoused violence the way many Muslim immigrants do.
  - theorique 13y ago
    On the flip side, loudmouth, self-appointed, "spokesmen" of the Asian Muslim community such as Mehdi Hasan or Anjem Choudhry really don't help matters very much. Politicised Islam in Britain - and the associated terrorist actions that result - has done a great deal to generate support for parties and groups such as BNP, UKIP, or EDL.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    That's just not true. http://poverty.org.uk/06/index.shtml http://poverty.org.uk/06/index.shtml Look at the low income rates for Pakistanis and Bengalis. Immigration of those people to the UK is not recent.
rayiner 13y ago
I wish we could deport people who throw around the "racist" label casually. There is nothing racist about believing that big, complex, interdependent societies function best when people share basic values, beliefs, and culture. It's the difference between multiculturalism as practiced in the U.S., where e.g. asian immigrants to the west coast have assimilated the basic values of american society while remaining distinctive, and multiculturalism as expressed in the U.K., where e.g. many muslim immigrants refuse to assimilate to the point of wanting to be governed by separate sets of laws. I would never say people of a minority culture/ethnicity can't be racist against that culture, but I think we often have a more nuanced view of "racism" than people of the majority culture/ethnicity. My family immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh, and integration is an important issue to us. We see a lot of immigrants who refuse to assimilate, and we believe that it's detrimental both for them, because it makes it harder for them to take advantage of all of the opportunities of American society, and detrimental to the people who live around them, because there presence creates cultural schisms within communities that cannot be reconciled. I don't think there is anything "racist" about pointing these basic facts out.
- alextingle 13y ago
  I can assure you, I didn't use the term casually. > many muslim immigrants refuse to assimilate to the point of wanting to be governed by separate sets of laws That's a tiny minority of the UK's immigrant community. Drawing general conclusions from such an unrepresentative sample is intellectually dishonest. It's the kind of argument seized upon by hate-mongers.
  - brit155 13y ago
    It seems like you're the ignorant one here. Center for Social Cohesion: One Third of British Muslim students support killing for Islam http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-3-British-Muslim-students-killing-Islam-40-want-Sharia-law.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340599/WikiLeaks-1-... http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/pdf/IslamonCampus.pdf http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/pdf/IslamonCampus.pdf

epo 13y ago

There are those who reject persons of other races(1) among both the native-born and non-native-born but ignoring them, multiculturalism works very well. (1) Racist is a good shorthand term for these people, idiot is another.

grinnbearit 13y ago
How are race and culture the same thing? Multiracial groups where everyone has near similar beliefs probably work "better" than groups where everyone belongs to the same race and have radically different beliefs.

dlitz 13y ago

Hasn't it been tested in Canada, too?