From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Sep 02 2001 - 09:10:11 MDT
Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 04:51:16PM -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Bigger isn't better for U.S. immigration policy
> > > :
> > > > I have yet to meet an American who wants 1 billion neighbors. Or 400
> > > > million. This is not an issue of immigrants, but of immigration.
> > >
> > > I wonder who the American Enoch Powell is going to be?
> > >
> > > (And has immigration cropped up before as a code word for racism?)
> >
> > Those that are for it obvious try to paint their opponents as bigots,
> > primarily because the largest immigrant group is mexicans, who vote
> > Democrat overwhelmingly, yet those same 'pro-immigration' Democrats have
> > been fighting for 8 years against allowing more Cubans to come to the
> > US, primarily because Cubans vote Republican. Funny that.
>
> I was referring specifically to the UK experience. There was a lot of
> immigration from the Carribean and India/Pakistan into the UK in
> the 1950's and 1960's; subsequently, as overt racism was politically
> unacceptable except on the barking fringes of the conservative party,
> "immigration" became a kind of code-word for "keeping the darkies out".
>
> Obviously, this doesn't work in the US, which has a large indigenous
> black population. But I noticed some interesting resonances in this
> piece. Given that white anglo-saxon types are due to become a minority
> in the US by 2050 if current trends continue, I'm wondering if this
> grumbling isn't a direct analogy to the British experience?
I don't think that it is a direct cause (racism), but it can certainly
become an effect of importing a bunch of uneducated unacculturated
people who don't speak the language and who have lived for generations
with serf mindsets, rather than citizen mindsets. Those who have grown
up in this culture but live at or near the bottom of the economic ladder
would like to improve their lives and that of their families. Importing
a bunch of people willing to do your work for 1/4th of what you need to
live would certainly breed resentment and hate in many people. The fact
that they may be visually distinctive from one's fellow citizens only
exacerbates the issue.
I might point out that significant portions of our 'indigenous black'
population tends to be the most anti-immigrant, not the whites.
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