AWKWARD ZOMBIE

As a citizen from a western country that was pretty much 100% homogenous until the 70's (simply because we weren't a country anyone would immigrate into) and never practiced any sort of institutionalized discrimination based on race, I can easily say that racism and therefore white privilege are pretty much a thing here. Sure, we might not have any laws that actively and explicitly oppress immigrants or black people, but you'd have to be blind and deaf not to notice that Italians who discriminate against those groups are both common and sometimes in position to seriously hurt them: just look at the sort of stuff Mario Balotelli, born in Italy and raised by an italian family from the age of three, has to suffer, or some of our racist politicians, or the way our first black minister gets treated, or what the fascist right is still capable of doing; I think it's safe to say that in such a social situation being white has perks.

>Austria

While we're playing the "guilt by comparison" card, wasn't Hitler originally from Austria?

And on the issue of immigrants, are we (from the United States) considered natives? How long must one live in an area before it's no longer considered they immigrated there? I distinctly remember stories of my Grandfather immigrating from Ireland, and much more generalized, every other white person from whichever European country they came from. I have no issue being called an "immigrant" since that's where my heritage is from, but I do know there's the whole "Native Americans were here first" controvercy.

I feel that the whole immigration thing is different to 'white privilege'. Any country regardless of the predominant race will view new migrants and asylum seekers with distrust. And if they don't I'm sure their politicians will blame immigrants for crime/unemployment etc because let's face it, that's what politicians do.

I'm from Australia. We have plenty of racists. Not all of them are white. Every generation has had a set of immigrants to blame. In time the immigrants get assimilated and gone on to blame the next set of immigrants.
It's not a phenomena that only happens in countries with Caucasians. It's a distrust of something new, not something different.

@Reyo: I'd go with whatever's on the birth certificate.

On Romani culture: it's a daisies twisted mess and it's hard to understand without being personally confronted with it, which can be quite a shock. That said, I haven't studied the subject but I'm familiar with some of the persecution they faced throughout history, and it seems likely that that originated or at least exacerbated the problem.



I think the problem is the spread of fundamentalism through islam and it's undeniable growing influence. That's not to say you should judge someone solely on their religion though.




Immigration is quite a complex economical and socio-cultural issue, and there are legitimate reasons to want to limit immigration and put restrictions on it that have nothing to do with racism. I personally agree in spirit with the language and culture tests imposed on immigrants in my country, precisely to promote multiculturalism and avoid segregation.
But wanting to completely cut off immigration or limit it to only immigrants that benefit your country (eg. skilled labourers) is pretty selfish, considering some of the hellholes and persecution people are unfortunately born into.

Hell, in the states, skepticism happened by Caucasians for Caucasians.

The Italians and Irish hated each other.
The South hated it when "Yankees" from the North kept moving into their area.
I can only assume there was issue when Eastern types moved into the West.

People are distrustful. Everyone. The trusting ones had all of their land raped and women pillaged by the first people to come by and take advantage of them.

Woops, thought you were from Iceland for some reason, my bad. Though geographically isolated "islands" suit my argument the same.


It is unsustainable only if you're unwilling to scale back social security. And I can see where you're coming from, you have no moral obligation to share your hard-earned wealth other than generosity. It's easy for me to say the West should share it's wealth, but not only is the specifics of that redistribution a huge can of worms, I too feel reluctant to give up the luxuries I've grown accustomed to. The Western man still has to work hard to earn his keep and will not leisurely part with the fruits of his labour. I'm not sure what my point is, but perhaps it is that though I maintain it's selfish, that selfishness is somewhat understandable.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it basically negates any kind of moral ideal. Is selfishness understandable? Yes it is, but you cant embrace it, and still pay lip service to lofty ideals like equality. And if you're not even going to fucking try, then whats the point in the first place? I see this rethoric here as well, and no one seems to be interested in offering any actual solutions. Either everyone is so afraid of coming off as racist that they wont even discuss the issue of immigration, or they use nationalism as a weapon to harm groups that already have it pretty bad just so they can have a scapegoat to whip their voters into a frenzy over. Is unrestricted immigration damaging to the economy? Of course it is. But what are the immigrants supposed to do? Just stay back home and starve to death? Its easy to speak about keeping all your "hard earned wealth" when you only have the opportunity to have that wealth because of geographical luck.

Well, why aren't you going off to Africa to build schools (for example)? It's the exact same kind of selfishness that stops you. This isn't a bad (or good) thing, it's human nature. You can only be so generous before preservation of the ego kicks in. Now I'm sailing a little too close to philosophical waters here, since this indeed starts to point towards the futility of all moral arguments, but my point is more that you can't really demand someone else to give away their wealth.

You kind of missed the point of my argument. I was saying precisely that it DOESNT have to be one extreme or the other, but thats the only discourse we get on the subject because everyone is rustled off and thinks everyone else wants to steal from them, but instead of placing blame where it should be, spineless politicians who either just skirt the issue or use it as a weapon to drum up jingoism, people turn on the ones who need help. I get WHY people dont like immigration, I dont even like it myself, but there has to be some middle ground where everyone can get along and not just fight over scraps like animals.

[Re: Islam is outdated.] It's actually a younger Religion than Christianity by like 600 years? It's the same god, just a different book.
"Muslims consider him to have restored the unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets in Islam." - From the wiki on Muhammad.

Also to note: "Historians generally agree that Islamic social reforms in areas such as social security, family structure, slavery and the rights of women and children improved on the status quo of Arab society." - from wiki

I would disagree about religion being on the way out. There will always be people who want spiritual guidance.

Though to suggest that Islamic countries are backwards because their law is tied to their predominant religion doesn't seem right to me. The second paragraph I quoted is about how Islam actually modernised and benefited Arab nations. Sure that was back in the 7th century but my point is that religion doesn't just exist to enslave simple minds but possibly as a reaction to social problems.

To suggest that western laws have no grounding in religious/spiritual morals is pretty simple minded.

However, from what you're saying, I think what bothers you more is when an immigrant comes to your country and ignores/rejects your laws because of their own up bringing/culture. And that's fine. It's perfectly acceptable to ask new comers to respect the existing laws of the country they enter as a guest.

The attitude though that they are inferior because their culture is not the same as yours, I find pretty reprehensible.

Remember when Voltaire predicted that Christianity would be extinct within 100 years of his death
Oops he was kinda completely incorrect wasn't he

Religion will never die

There will always be Christians, Muslims, Jews, Shintoists, Buddhists, Taoists, bizarre cultists, and there will probably always be that one asshole that worships Satan and kicks puppies, that one lunatic who believes in Xenu and that one meme-loving nerd who unironically prays to a squid made of pasta

Hassidim Jews do. They keep their children from watching TV or accessing the Internet or hang out with non-Hassidim people and do everything to make them unable to leave the community.
There are currently at least two lawsuits by former Hassidim people against the government of Quebec and (I think) the state of New York. Their parents made them attend a private school where they didn't learn anything other than their religion, and that is illegal, and the government and child protective services knew about it but decided not to do anything. I don't know about the lawsuit in NY, but the one in Quebec is by a man who left the Hassidic community but found he can't be a functioning member of society because he can't do basic math or anything.
I see a parallel with Romani people in Finland and I understand your point better now. Equality should have had priority over cultural differences and all children should be treated the same.
FYI, the Quebec government recently passed a bill to allow Hassidim parents to homeschool their children since they absolutely refuse to let them attend secular school after religious schools were made illegal, and it completely misses the point.

Also Zink calm down. You may disagree with Mete but he's been extraordinarily polite and doesn't deserve to be pelted with shit. Calling people Nazis does not further the debate.

Just some statistics:

Finland has 10 000 Romani people. For example 199 of them were in prison in the year 2009. There are approximately 3 500 persons in prisons in Finland every year. Finland would need 30 times more prisons than now and over 100 000 persons would be in prison every year if all of Finland were as criminals as Romani.

10 percent of homicides by young people are commited by Romani.

But maybe that is just racism.

This is only anecdotal, but i haven't heard a single good thing about the romani from people who have interacted with them. You can't really say the same about other ethnic minorities. I believe racism is unfair and unjust, but just maybe they earned their negative reputation?