Why Islam is a problem for the integration of immigrants

[Traitorfish]

So what's you're point? I still think skin color is an important factor in European hostility to immigrants, just not the overriding factor as it is in the US. And when I say something is racist I'm not only talking about discrimination on the basis of skin color.

Somebody's "colour" is very often determined after we've decided upon their race, though, both in Europe and in North America. The difference between "tanned" and "brown", in the United Streets, is often the difference between an Italian surname and a Spanish surname; in Europe, it's the difference between Greek surname and a Turkish surname.

Take NovaKart's reference to Chechens: in Russian, Caucasians are often referred to as "black", and their darker complexion is emphasised in anti-migrant rhetoric, not because there is actually a striking visual difference between Chechens and ethnic Russians, but because the logic of European racism requires that the Other must be defined as darker-skinned than the Self.

 

[Lexicus]

Somebody's "colour" is very often determined after we've decided upon their race, though, both in Europe and in North America

I don't really know about Europe, not so I can speak on it, but I also really don't know where you're getting that idea as it pertains to North America. Far more likely in the US is that someone who looks "dark" will be assumed to not be European until it comes up in conversation somehow, if it ever does.

not because there is actually a striking visual difference between Chechens and ethnic Russians, but because the logic of European racism requires that the Other must be defined as darker-skinned than the Self.

Well, yes, and this kind of gets at my point all along which has been that getting into this nonsense about the technicalities of "race" is utterly pointless considering that race is totally invented, fictional, and that the understanding of it is contested and changes over time.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't really know about Europe, not so I can speak on it, but I also really don't know where you're getting that idea as it pertains to North America. Far more likely in the US is that someone who looks "dark" will be assumed to not be European until it comes up in conversation somehow, if it ever does.

There's a fairly substantial gulf between "clearly white" and "clearly not white", though, one round about the distance from Bucharest to Kabul. Neither Hispanics nor Middle Easterners are clearly physiologically distinct from Europeans, as a group, and whether and in what way a person is identified as belonging to these groups depends on cultural cues. Physiological characteristics are then lent a new significant based on this prior racial categorisation; a dark hair and a tan ceases to be simple complexion and becomes "brown-ness". As much as a person who seems "dark" is assumed to be non-European, a person who seems to be non-European, or the wrong kind of European, is assumed to be "dark".

Well, yes, and this kind of gets at my point all along which has been that getting into this nonsense about the technicalities of "race" is utterly pointless considering that race is totally invented, fictional, and that the understanding of it is contested and changes over time.

My contention is that we need to follow through with this criticism: that racists don't merely attribute imagined significance to physiological difference, but that those differences are themselves imagined, to some extent or another. It's not merely a question of how we categorise human physiological differences, it's what differences we choose to highlight and when. To state simply that anti-immigrant sentiment is directed towards "brown" or "dark" people is to be almost too generous, because it attributes to xenophobes a degree of empirical rigour and intellectual coherence that simply isn't there.

 

[Lexicus]

My contention is that we need to follow through with this criticism: that racists don't merely attribute imagined significance to physiological difference, but that those differences are themselves imagined, to some extent or another.

I agree with this entirely. Trying to draw sharp distinctions in something inherently fuzzy.

As much as a person who seems "dark" is assumed to be non-European, a person who seems to be non-European, or the wrong kind of European, is assumed to be "dark".

I don't know if it's "as much." It is true insofar as skin color is not literally the only thing at play, but I think in the US (again, don't know about Europe well enough to talk about it) it's much more often the former than the latter, if only because Americans tend not to know enough about culture and geography to categorize people the way you're talking about.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There's a fairly substantial gulf between "clearly white" and "clearly not white", though, one round about the distance from Bucharest to Kabul. Neither Hispanics nor Middle Easterners are clearly physiologically distinct from Europeans, as a group, and whether and in what way a person is identified as belonging to these groups depends on cultural cues. Physiological characteristics are then lent a new significant based on this prior racial categorisation; a dark hair and a tan ceases to be simple complexion and becomes "brown-ness". As much as a person who seems "dark" is assumed to be non-European, a person who seems to be non-European, or the wrong kind of European, is assumed to be "dark".


My contention is that we need to follow through with this criticism: that racists don't merely attribute imagined significance to physiological difference, but that those differences are themselves imagined, to some extent or another. It's not merely a question of how we categorise human physiological differences, it's what differences we choose to highlight and when. To state simply that anti-immigrant sentiment is directed towards "brown" or "dark" people is to be almost too generous, because it attributes to xenophobes a degree of empirical rigour and intellectual coherence that simply isn't there.

This is accurate. The current US nationalists actively attribute every crime committed to "an illegal," sight unseen.

 

[Traitorfish]

I agree with this entirely. Trying to draw sharp distinctions in something inherently fuzzy.

I don't think the fuzziness should simply be seen as error, though. Some things are left deliberately undefined. There's no sharp distinction between "white" and "non-white", because the lack of such a distinction better serves the sense of cultural identity that whiteness is actually attempting to articulate, whether that's Protestant Northern Europe at its narrowest or "Christendom" at its broadest; it allows the borders to be shifted to suit varying ends. The impossibility of explaining what makes an Armenian "white" and an Azerbaijani "brown" is not a bug in racist cosmology, it's a feature.

I don't know if it's "as much." It is true insofar as skin color is not literally the only thing at play, but I think in the US (again, don't know about Europe well enough to talk about it) it's much more often the former than the latter, if only because Americans tend not to know enough about culture and geography to categorize people the way you're talking about.

Well, "as much" was probably me getting carried away with my rhetorical flourishing. Obviously, the non-Europeaness of somebody of visibly African or East Asian ancestry is probably going to be assumed before any cultural cues are filtered into the mix- that is, to the extent that "visible" heritage is independent of cultural cues, which, well, we're going to find ourselves looping back round to the start with that one.

But the point is, "colour" is not an objective characteristic of human beings, it's a significance we attribute to a cluster of physiological traits, and what I'm arguing is that how we make these attributions is structured by ethnic and cultural categories, that the same physical features can be taken to indicate "whiteness" and "darkness" depending on how they are contextualised.

 

[Lexicus]

The impossibility of explaining what makes an Armenian "white" and an Azerbaijani "brown" is not a bug in racist cosmology, it's a feature.

Yeah, see, this is true to a degree (ie in terms of assimilation of Irish, Italians, etc. into whiteness) but again in the US where whether you were white or black could quite literally be a matter of life and death it is different. The one-drop rule is a sharp line.

But the point is, "colour" is not an objective characteristic of human beings, it's a significance we attribute to a cluster of physiological traits, and what I'm arguing is that how we make these attributions is structured by ethnic and cultural categories, that the same physical features can be taken to indicate "whiteness" and "darkness" depending on how they are contextualised.

Yes, and I'm not disagreeing with this. Indeed, I would say this is actually a better articulation of where I was going with "race is socially constructed and not real anyway."
IIRC it was NovaKart who first brought specifically "skin color" into the discussion whereas I was sticking with plain old "racism" precisely because there is no objective basis for racial categorizations.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

when it comes to deal with ethnic minorities, indigenous or immigrant, France is the worst.

Pretty plz elaboration. Me curious. Even more so since France has been praised for its civil (like America) rather than ethnic (like the rest of Europe) identity,

 

[Traitorfish]

Pretty plz elaboration. Me curious. Even more so since France has been praised for its civil (like America) rather than ethnic (like the rest of Europe) identity,

France's much-vaunted civic identity is not in practice markedly distinct from ethnic identities, it's just more accessible. A Breton, an Alsatian or a Basque could be French, as long as they surrender that makes them Breton, Alsatian or Basque, or at least keep it in private, between consenting adults; the same generous offer is now extended to the Algerian, the Vietnamese and the Malian. What they call a civil identity is very often the ethnonationalism of Ile-deFrance in republican dress.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

France's much-vaunted civic identity is not in practice markedly distinct from ethnic identities, it's just more accessible. A Breton, an Alsatian or a Basque could be French, as long as they surrender that makes them Breton, Alsatian or Basque, or at least keep it in private, between consenting adults; the same generous offer is now extended to the Algerian, the Vietnamese and the Malian. What they call a civil identity is very often the ethnonationalism of Ile-deFrance in republican dress.

As clearly exemplified by language. France is a place where accent marks the alien much more stringently than skin color. No matter what you look like, speaking "bad French" will get you tossed into the first available ghetto.

 

[Honor]

Man I am extremely curious for you try anyhow
I agree that there may be no perfect or only lackluster articulation. But some sort of approximation is always possible, IMO. And at least from my side you need not to fear any offense.
If you don't want to I respect that (albeit not the reason you have given).
But would be very happy if you tried for one more time

Here is some of it.

 

[NovaKart]

I actually used Chicago as an example of where the "not immigrant" would be from. I was thinking of this waitress at my local Denny's who I would be surprised to find had ever been out of California as the person who wouldn't know a Chicagoan from a Russian. The eastside Palmdale Denny's has not given her a lot of opportunity to become 'cosmopolitan.'

I'm taking it this is a rural area. In that case you probably don't see a lot of immigrants who are white, and I'd add black as well perhaps. If someone doesn't pick up an immigrant who has been there for several years is in fact an immigrant I would think this has to do with life experience and an inability to pick up on things that go against the expected and actually makes sense.

So what's you're point? I still think skin color is an important factor in European hostility to immigrants, just not the overriding factor as it is in the US. And when I say something is racist I'm not only talking about discrimination on the basis of skin color.

My main point is this frustration with people playing the race card and using the "You don't like them because they're brown folks" line which I feel shuts down any real discussion with a dogmatic look at social issues.

Yeah, see, this is true to a degree (ie in terms of assimilation of Irish, Italians, etc. into whiteness) but again in the US where whether you were white or black could quite literally be a matter of life and death it is different. The one-drop rule is a sharp line.

The one-drop rule refers to mixed-race black/white people in America. The issue of classifying people as white or non-white depending on geography occurs a lot in America too but it's not the one drop rule. I think it's also more recent because I believe in the past people from the Middle East, North Africa and India were often classified as white. This later changed and the issue of whether someone with the same features is classified as "brown" as people are calling it now or "white" can depend on whether someone is from Italy or Lebanon. And this isn't just imposed from others but people often categorize themselves that way.

Yes, and I'm not disagreeing with this. Indeed, I would say this is actually a better articulation of where I was going with "race is socially constructed and not real anyway."
IIRC it was NovaKart who first brought specifically "skin color" into the discussion whereas I was sticking with plain old "racism" precisely because there is no objective basis for racial categorizations.

I brought up skin color because you used the term "brown folks." While white and black can be a largely accurate description when talking about most white and black people the word term "brown" just really irks me and I think it's more often the left that uses it. You also used the term yourself as the "primary reason" for prejudice in the USA and a "major reason" in Europe.

 

[Lexicus]

I brought up skin color because you used the term "brown folks." While white and black can be a largely accurate description when talking about most white and black people the word term "brown" just really irks me and I think it's more often the left that uses it. You also used the term yourself as the "primary reason" for prejudice in the USA and a "major reason" in Europe.

Yeah, and I stick by that because I think skin color is an important ingredient of the mix that goes into racism. More important in the US than Europe.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm taking it this is a rural area. In that case you probably don't see a lot of immigrants who are white, and I'd add black as well perhaps. If someone doesn't pick up an immigrant who has been there for several years is in fact an immigrant I would think this has to do with life experience and an inability to pick up on things that go against the expected and actually makes sense.

Well, actually Palmdale is a city of 150,000+ and buts directly against another city of 150,000+ with another couple hundred thousand in the directly adjacent unincorporated county areas...but here in Los Angeles county we are basically considered the boondocks.

 

[KmDubya]

This is accurate. The current US nationalists actively attribute every crime committed to "an illegal," sight unseen.

This is wrong. We blame black people first.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This is wrong. We blame black people first.

I have to correct for locality...in the southwest the racism is a different flavor.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Inflammatory side note: I still don't know how I feel about race as a social construct.

Spoiler :

Certainly it's... mostly a social construct. But I think there's an underlying reality to it, if only on the margins ( Tay-Sachs, Sickle cell, etc. ) I think people take the extreme social construct position as a sort of aggressive countermeasure to undeniably odious, biased **** peddled as "race realism."

Further, and more damning, is defining the boundaries. The usual racist idea is that if someone is just a LITTLE black then they're "basically black." But this is bullfeathers. A half black and half white person is precisely half black and half white. On top of that, "white" itself is a particularly broad and silly "race." Why, for instance, do most white racists ( at least the ones I know ) embrace someone who is 1/4 Apache 1/2 German and 1/4 English as more or less white, but someone who is 1/4 Aztec 1/2 Spanish and 1/4 Italian will somehow be considered basically non-white? If it's PURELY the tone of their skin then this is obviously moronic.

Even I'm infected with these stupid constructs. What we're really talking about, at the end of the day, are just big currents of genes that sort of rhyme, right?

Yet, they are actual genes. And it's likely that all kinds of personal characteristics like height, weight, tendency to X or Y disease, etc. are influenced by your general genetic makeup. Just not in the simplistic "Whites R Guuuud" way that's always a hit in the trailer park.

 

[Lexicus]

But I think there's an underlying reality to it, if only on the margins ( Tay-Sachs, Sickle cell, etc. ) I think people take the extreme social construct position as a sort of aggressive countermeasure to undeniably odious, biased **** peddled as "race realism."

Yet, they are actual genes. And it's likely that all kinds of personal characteristics like height, weight, tendency to X or Y disease, etc. are influenced by your general genetic makeup. Just not in the simplistic "Whites R Guuuud" way that's always a hit in the trailer park.

The genetic stuff doesn't match up with "black" and "white" which are not scientifically-useful constructs.

 

[AlpsStranger]

The genetic stuff doesn't match up with "black" and "white" which are not scientifically-useful constructs.

I wasn't disputing that at all.

 

[Ryika]

An interesting way to think about "race" as it exists away from societal influences is actually to think about "species" in an evolutionary sense. The two are very similar, in that different species that started off from the same ancestor are just versions of the same thing that have adapted to the environment that they live in, and there's no clear line to be drawn of where one species begins and the other one ends. The main differences are that the differences between races are much more marginal, and that species are free from cultural influences, they show the raw evolutionary process.

I'm not sure that's an universal truth, but it seems that anything you can say about race that you can't say about species is generally socially constructed, or partly based on evolutionary processes, but heavily influenced by society. (Or just racist nonsense of course)

Of course, "black" and "white" aren't actually useful for anything, they're vague, mostly used for "us vs them"-classifications, and their meaning changes depending on the situation.
Interestingly enough, the concepts of "whiteness" and "blackness" on the other hand have been picked up in critical race theory, and are used unironically. Social science at its best.