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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It's spelled out in the article. Foreign food, foreign languages, and foreign customs are becoming dominant in place of the native white population.
The quoted article points out that many of them are adopting American names "to fit in better", like the pastor. Doesn't sound like people who don't want to assimilate.
Assimilation is largely a myth but even if it weren't, changing a name is hardly evidence of it. Do they speak foreign languages, eat foreign food, practice foreign customs?
Most importantly, do they politically agitate in favor of their racial group and dilute the political power of the native white population? Even if there economic benefits to the native population, and that's hardly a given, that doesn't excuse transforming the local community into a non-white area in a generation. The white Americans in this community did not ask to be abused and erased.
Doesn't match my experience. I've seen a ton of assimilated second-generation Asians, for example - most of them don't even speak the language of their parents (somewhat inconvenient when you need to translate something in Chinese and you know this guy whose parents are definitely from China but turns out he at best knows Chinese at kindergarten level, or less), don't associate exclusively with their ethnic community, don't keep any old customs (maybe except occasional family holidays or such). And of course I know many, many assimilated Jews. And, Trump himself is an assimilated second-generation German - we don't see him speaking German or donning lederhosen on Oktoberfest, do we? (I'm not sure that's what real un-assimilated Germans actually do, but whatever they do, Trump doesn't do that).
Asians form their own ethnic interests groups and overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. These ethnic interest groups agitate to the disadvantage of the native population. When the native population protests they are called racist.
Some do, sure. But there's no such thing as "Asian ethnic interests" - why Vietnamese, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Sikh and Indonesians would have the same interests? I've met many people of different Asian descent, and they had very varied interests - I can't imagine how a single group would be able to represent them.
Do they? Any substantiation of that? I am sure some particular group of, say, Indians may agitate to the disadvantage some particular group of, say, Norwegians (of course, when I say Indian, I mean American person of Indian descent, and so on). But (leaving aside the definition of "native population", which I am sure you will provide me with in the other branch) claiming every Asian group always would advocate a policy that is contrary to the interest of every single "native" group seems to need a very extraordinary proof. At least it is not at all obvious why it would happen, so if you want somebody to believe it it makes sense to try and prove it.
I am pretty sure if you think that every Asian by their mere genetic buildup has interests that are all the same and are always opposed to the interests of all people who are not Asian, that is the textbook definition of racism. In fact, if I needed to define the set of ideas that are based on this assumption, I would think "racism" is the best term that would describe it. I mean, if the race is the sole criteria you are looking at, how else would one call it?
I mean, there's an Issue with immigration from mainland China, which is that the CPC uses various means to weaponise the Chinese diaspora and the CPC is not our friend. There are legit reasons to want relatively few literal enemy agents in one's country.
This has nothing to do with racism; this issue doesn't apply to Taiwanese (many of whom are Han), (South) Koreans or Japanese, because Taiwan, South Korea and Japan don't have governments hostile to us and ruthless enough to pull this shit. It also mostly doesn't apply to ethnic Chinese whose ancestors immigrated way back, as they're culturally assimilated and don't typically have close family members in mainland China to be taken hostage.
The concern about CPC influence is not racist and is reasonable, but that wasn't @NYTReader's claim. His claim was about "Asians" - which covers the whole continent (in UK, Pakistanis are called "Asians", and why not - Pakistan is in Asia), or, more charitably, everybody who looks certain way - whether they are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, Kazakh, Uzbek or none of the above, and ignoring when and under which circumstances they came into the country. I can't see it but as pure racism. And it never made any sense.
I just felt it was worth pointing out (and noting the boundaries of) the big exception where those interest groups are straight-up "the enemy".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link