quote:Originally Posted by: Mucus Edit to add: Also, for others, I wouldn't rest too easy on the belief that "it could not happen here." If Muslims came to the US in the same numbers as France, especially in the current political climate I have little confidence that we would not have similar problems integrating them and creating laws to deal with it. Just take the current immigration debate, multiply with religion issue, and stir with the religious right)
While I don't think it's impossible for some sort of anti-Muslim law to be enacted in the US, I also don't think the situations are nearly the same. First off, I'm willing to bet that if you actually checked the number, there are almost as many Muslims in America as in France, probably equal if you just say people of Arab decent, and I'd bet we have nearly as many immigrating here too. You might be closer if you said coming here in the same numbers as a percentage of the total population, where in France Muslims probably now number around 8% (it's up for dispute) of the population, in America it's probably something like 1%. America is also vastly larger than France. In other words, even if they were the same numbers, they blend in amongst more people, far more spread out in America.
But even if we were dealing on somewhat even terms of numbers, which I don't ever see happening. There'd need to be an influx of almost 30 million Muslims to America to equal it, and that number I think WOULD spook a lot of people, but it's purely academic in discussion, as it would take more than 10 years to get that many Muslims here via immigration, and by that time, the population will have grown all by itself another few million Christians. I think every Muslim immigrant is offset probably two to one by Catholics from South America.
But like I said, even if they did come in those huge numbers, France and America are fundamentally different. We have 230 years of practice with integrating and assimilating different cultures, personalities and religions into our national fabric. The kinds of laws that France is starting to make now out of xenophobia and fear of losing their cultural and national identity are the same (or nearly the same) fears that led to all sorts of anti-immigrant laws in America. We had anti-Catholic laws for almost two centuries, anti-Asian laws unless we're letting them build our railroads, anti-black laws, anti-Irish laws, anti-fill in the blank laws.
And I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think we're better now. We've gone through so many cycles of detesting whatever the next wave of immigrants is, but we don't bat an eyelash at Irish immigrants, anti-Catholic hysteria has died down, even from where it was as recently as the 60's, we've gotten better. And it's probable that there's no nation on Earth today that has the history with immigration that we've had in such a short span of time. France is much, much older than we are. They have buildings in Paris older than all of America, and their cultural and national identity goes way, way back. They see the world outside them as hostile, they're feeling still today a backlash from their old colonialist holdings come home to roost, and seeing a tenth (possible) of their country as unFrench as possible is a scary, scary thing to a country that has been Frencher than the Frenchiest French you could possibly be for a thousand years.
I don't think we have that as much here because America has always been more an idea than a reality. But do I discount the theoretical possibility? No. I just think for all our faults, we're better for it, and maybe our tolerance is a little bit higher. I'll start to worry when it moves beyond rhetoric.
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I guess the REAL question is, then ¨people are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully.¨
No, seriously, I doubt the Frenchies are any more xenophobic than we are, at least not that much more. People really are people, in large groups. Individual differences disappear.
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I doubt the Frenchies are any mroe xenophobic, on average. People are people. If my county suddenly gained 5 thousand Muslims in a few years, I would be sitting up and taking notice. Not because of any inherent problem with Islam, but because of CURRENT problems with Islam.
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Lyrhawn: Hmmm, bit of a miscommunication. I did actually mean numbers as in percentage-wise, obviously not absolute values.
And I wasn't saying anything about the realism of Muslims coming to America in the same percentages (partially because I don't think immigration law would stay the same), just that as steven says, people are people.
(and at this juncture, I see that we're agreed that that number WOULD spook people)
As for the rest, I *want* to believe you but I seriously doubt it, in either Canada or the US. Sometimes I feel like we're only one major war with China (or I guess the parallel for Muslims would be two or more 9/11 incidents) from some major xenophobia, codified into laws or otherwise. But I guess time will tell.
Minor quibble:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... And it's probable that there's no nation on Earth today that has the history with immigration that we've had in such a short span of time. ...
I doubt it. According to the CIA world factbook, Canada is at 5.79 migrant(s)/1,000 population while the US is substantially lower at 3.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.) Granted these are current numbers, but I don't see much reason to think that the difference would have changed that much.
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quote:According to the CIA world factbook, Canada is at 5.79 migrant(s)/1,000 population while the US is substantially lower at 3.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.) Granted these are current numbers, but I don't see much reason to think that the difference would have changed that much.
I said history, not current numbers. What I was referring to and what you're refuting it with are worlds apart.
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Edit to add: I would add that normally, given an unbacked assertion like "it's probable that there's no nation on Earth today that has the history with immigration that we've had in such a short span of time", the burden of proof is to back it up with evidence before we accept it, rather than that of the doubter to disprove it.
That said, here's an interesting talk transcript:
quote: But the census of 1910 which falls right in the middle, actually toward the tail end of this great migration, is the census that shows the highest percentage, or proportion of immigrants that are foreign-born persons ever in the American population. Sometimes I ask people to guess what that percentage is, and they know enough about the period that millions, a million immigrants per year arriving, and some of the people guess, well, its 40, 30, 40, 50 percent. No. It’s 14.7 percent, is the proportion of foreign born people in the United States in the census of 1910, which census records the highest percentage of immigrants ever in American society. Now that figure, 14.7 percent, has a property, it seems to me, is undeniable. It’s a reasonably large number, but it is unarguably a minority number, or percentage, okay, 14.7 percent. So among the things that it seems to me enabled this society to absorb so many, and such a large absolute number of migrants relatively peacefully, has to -- the explanation has to do simply with the pre-existing scale of the society. The immigrants, all of them lumped together, never amounted to more than 14.7 percent of the total population. So that factor alone helps us understand why immigrants, had they been able to band together into a single political cultural block, would have had a pretty tough time really challenging the existing cultural arrangements that they found. Okay. So that’s, one. ... Moreover here’s another perspective on this. If we look at the way in which other countries in our own day have taken in immigrants, we also see that for all the high-profile immigration issue has here there are several other societies that have actually taken in immigrants at a much higher rate than we have in the present day. Canada for the last 30 years or so has taken in migrants at the rate of 17 [persons] per 1,000 resident population per year. Australia has taken in people at the rate of about 15 per 1,000 population per year. United States has taken in people at the rate of about 3 persons per 1,000 population per year.
The talk is actually fairly long and interesting actually link
But anyways, we're up from the current day to at least thirty years back.
Maybe someday when I have the time I'll go into it further, but surface numbers like that don't begin to scratch what I'm talking about. Where are those immigrants from? What are their religions? Histories? Ethnicities? What languages do they speak? Where did they settle? Where are they now? Over what span of time? How big is the nation in question?
You seem to be referring to raw numbers, regardless of whether or not they are current or past. But I said it's probable that no nation has our history, which places no value on it, one way or the other. You'd have to examine every nation that currently exists and prove that one of them shares a vast majority of characteristics to prove that indeed another nation DOES share it. That's one debate. And it goes way, WAY beyond just numbers and percentages of populations.
The other debate would be on what sort of value you'd place on America's history in relation to every other nation's history. We haven't even gotten into that one, nor do I really plan to.
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Ok, I suppose its possible that if you consider enough variables the US might be tops in the unique historical experience immigrating the Korean, Jewish, Esperanto-speaking, community between the 50s and 60s and that comparatively "no nation on Earth today that has the history with immigration". Fair enough.
I'm just saying in terms of broader numbers, like the ones pointed out in the talk, immigration as a percentage of the population, or rates of immigration to certain areas, the talk I linked makes a pretty compelling case* that immigration to America wasn't nearly as fast OR unique as commonly perceived. Thus I don't really buy the assertion that there is something uniquely extensive about the American immigration experience (lending some special protection from xenophobia) without proof.
Maybe there are other reasons, but for now, I doubt it.
* The talk actually gives a quick summary of all immigration to the US and on the historical context of Hispanic immigration
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I'm not sure it's liberal, but whatever it is, it's ridiculous. We're starting to fence our kids (and ourselves) in with so many rules that it's almost no wonder so many of them rebell in such earth shattering ways. After all, if we treat SELLING (or buying) candy the way we used to treat things like bringing a beer to school, or having a fist fight where someone actually got HURT is it really any wonder that kids have a hard time figuring out right and wrong? Now, I'm all for following rules and stuff. I actually was sorta a horrid kid to be friends with because I was almost obsessive about not breaking rules. Still, when grown-ups can't put things in perspective, how can we help to pass along any perspective to our kids.
As Theresa Wiggin said, most of parenting is indoctrinating kids into the rules and beliefs you want them to live by. If we're indoctrinating them to see that skittles are the equivilant of a punch then is it any surprise that kids can get mixed up about what the apprpriate reaction is if a girl breaks up with them for another guy or trips them in the hall?
You have to wonder, what can be done to turn this around?
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quote:We're starting to fence our kids (and ourselves) in with so many rules that it's almost no wonder so many of them rebell in such earth shattering ways.
Starting to? This isn't new, just different. Consider the old rules on courting, for example. Or the etiquette of which fork to use. Or when to remove your hat when greeting a woman. Or the "Blue Laws" against selling alcohol before 2 PM on Sunday, etc.
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Principals are hired via contracts so favorably tight that it costs more to fire them than it does to pay them for their entire contract, often several times more. Worse, an absurdly incompetent one can't be reassigned off to a desk job where they can't do any harm even at full pay without their express permission; at least not without facing similarly stiff penalties from a breach-of-contract lawsuit.
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Try the LosAngelesTimes. I am very surprised that you ask, considering that the highly negative effects of incompetent principals upon schools to which they were assigned was HUGE news in LA County.
posted
So do I. You exaggerate greatly -- and are you talking about LAUSD or another district? L.A. County is big.
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LAUSD in particular, with examples of similar experiences in other school districts (some in other states, I think). The point being that so few folks are qualified through the required advanced degrees compared to demand that school districts sign contracts which are highly-weighted in favor of those they hire as principals.
As for links and exaggeration, call or email the LATimes about their series* based on L.A.Unified's internal report cuz their website searchengine is close to worthless.
* Published before Oct2005
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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If it's from that long ago, it'll be a pay-only thing from the Times. Then again, if it's such a big deal you'd think there'd be other sites . . .
(I believe I remember the series you are talking about, and it did not say what you are claiming.)
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