site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In my western state, there are NGOs specifically targeting african "refugees", shipping them in, and putting them in city subsidized housing. There are tons of africans that run around my neighborhood, more every year. The women walk to the grocery store in 100+ degree weather in their full traditional garb, walking back with the grocery bags balanced on their heads.

If it were limited to hispanics I'd be marginally fine with it. I am quite fond of latin culture, language, food, etc. They mostly assimilate, are catholic, and care about the same things I do. But it's fucking bizarre when my neighbors walk their dogs and the african muslims run to the other side of the street to avoid the unclean canines. Or how their corner of the neighborhood is consistently littered with trash and old furniture in the streets. Our community does a neighborhood cleanup and we just go straight to the african housing. Meanwhile the men sit on their porches watching us whiteys pick up their filth, probably confused at why we would care about things like clean streets.

Then you hear of the haitians descending upon small communities in ohio or minnesota being full of somalians. This is coming to the US and rapidly. The hordes want to live among the whites because the whites create pleasant communities. Five years ago, there were nearly none of these people around here. Now there are tons, and the neighborhoods are deteriorating before my eyes.