Excellent piece as usual. Buti have to disagree that if all the immigrants were white Christians would suddenly be following the teachings of Jesus in regards to immigrants. Irish and Italian immigrants were demonized just as badly when they started coming here in large numbers too. Partially because they were predominantly Catholic, as are most Hispanics. A large group of Americans just hate anyone who's different from them and when they have a cult leader telling them it's okay it just makes it worse.
Yes, and Jews from Northern Europe, my grandparents, with very pale skin, were not considered white because they were not Christian and the same old tropes used today. Fear and hate of “those not like ‘us’ whoever ‘us’ might be” seems so baked into US culture. Are so many peoples’ lives so insular they know no one like them? If so, I forever give thanks to my parents (z”l) who ensured, despite no money to travel abroad, we lived around and met so many different people. When we know others as individuals and can stop saying “you’re the exception” or “they’re not like you”, we can do better.
Yes John and you bring up a great point about religious denominations. Even today, the religious right attacks other Christian denominations who don’t think exactly like them.
The northern white Europeans who came to the New World nearly wiped out the native inhabitants who were already here. They imported black Africans as slave labor and set out to keep them in bondage by creating a caste system based on color. In Mexico, a similar type of caste system was based on how much European ancestry a person had. Tribalism based on skin color has been rampant in this country since its beginnings.
Nor would we have people to pick our crops, tend our landscapes, clean our pools, or tend to the needs of our elderly parents for home or hospice care. We’re a nation of immigrants by choice, not by fear. We should be thankful and honor diversity, not scapegoating it with rhetoric from impotent ideologues.
As I read some of the comments, I see people still saying the but part. I don’t want to hear how it’s because of their religion, or that white people were treated differently also….STOP! He is talking about NOW! Right now in America today. If they were white no one would say anything! Look at the northern border. Look at how many white people overstay their visas. We have the Russian mob that have taken over our northern cities and even some out West. John is absolutely right. How you think the first people feel when white Americans scream about their country! Seriously, I know that many of the people that come here are well educated. Something that white Americans lack. Instead of embracing the people that that still believe in an American that used to accept immigrants willingly.
🤔 Good points here. This is the explanation often cited of why the Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark function so well under a Democratic Socialist government. They predominantly have a homogeneous population.
I respectfully disagree with you. I think that there is a perverse disregard for anyone who is "other," regardless of color. Look at the outcry in the late 1800s regarding the Irish immigrants. More, it may be a matter of MONEY (or lack thereof), rather than color.
I respectfully disagree - when someone says white immigrants they usually mean well educated clean white people from Western Europe who already are fluent in American English - we don't mean those white people who came here in hope, and still do, from poorer countries or with little education. America's history is fraught with disenfranchisement of the other.
I think you and your readers should take a gander at the essay about the Roma in Romania:
[my comment follows]
That's interesting about the beggar technique [in Romania]. In India they target westerners/foreigners (videshi) the same way by damaging the kid's head. In contrast to Romania, the local Indian police took their cut directly from the beggar women. I don't think there was any hierarchy in the begging culture there, but I may be wrong.
India driving rules: The bigger your vehicle the more right-of-way you have. Buses and trucks are on top and bicycles and pedestrians on the bottom. Although one time a German killed a cow. Stupidly, he stopped and the mob killed him. So, if a real Indian happened to hit a poor kid or force someone else off the road in India, or Africa or wherever, he would just keep going, assuming his car (or power) was bigger.
It sounds like the Roma have adopted a more complex but similar strategy using the Indian concept of bak shish, a bribe really, to deal with all this through an insurance shakedown in cooperation with the police. You expedite the power hierarchy resource extraction formula, as you say.
Here in the States we are approaching this type of thinking in a roundabout way through what I call the sacred-victim, entitled parasite culture (S-VEP). The mechanism, rather than child mutilation (or come to think of it we're there already), is something called "human rights", an idea that the Roma might consider exploitable. All you have to do is BE BORN to a particular race or sex in order to acquire bak shish (rights) in either cash or special treatment. The Government/Philanthropy Complex would love to support the Roma as marginalized victims. They wouldn't need to fake an accident or openly mutilate kids. But then they'd lose agency so maybe the Roma wouldn't like that. I don't know.
When I think about it the Roma/Indian way is more honest and "erect." Yes, they do bad things but at least they're doing it with a certain kind of agency. They know what they are doing is bad but they do it anyway, like Lucifer, I will not serve. The S-VEP just turns humans into cattle, animals without agency, or even the ability to view bribery and corruption as a bad thing.
Excellent piece as usual. Buti have to disagree that if all the immigrants were white Christians would suddenly be following the teachings of Jesus in regards to immigrants. Irish and Italian immigrants were demonized just as badly when they started coming here in large numbers too. Partially because they were predominantly Catholic, as are most Hispanics. A large group of Americans just hate anyone who's different from them and when they have a cult leader telling them it's okay it just makes it worse.
Totally agree. It’s the otherness which can be skin tone or religion or whatever can be used by unscrupulous politicians to divide people.
Yes, and Jews from Northern Europe, my grandparents, with very pale skin, were not considered white because they were not Christian and the same old tropes used today. Fear and hate of “those not like ‘us’ whoever ‘us’ might be” seems so baked into US culture. Are so many peoples’ lives so insular they know no one like them? If so, I forever give thanks to my parents (z”l) who ensured, despite no money to travel abroad, we lived around and met so many different people. When we know others as individuals and can stop saying “you’re the exception” or “they’re not like you”, we can do better.
Yes John and you bring up a great point about religious denominations. Even today, the religious right attacks other Christian denominations who don’t think exactly like them.
I think the word is BIGOT
The northern white Europeans who came to the New World nearly wiped out the native inhabitants who were already here. They imported black Africans as slave labor and set out to keep them in bondage by creating a caste system based on color. In Mexico, a similar type of caste system was based on how much European ancestry a person had. Tribalism based on skin color has been rampant in this country since its beginnings.
1. Guessing Jesus wasn’t a blond, blue-eyed ‘white Guy’;
2. Too bad the orange one’s kin migrated to America.
Nor would we have people to pick our crops, tend our landscapes, clean our pools, or tend to the needs of our elderly parents for home or hospice care. We’re a nation of immigrants by choice, not by fear. We should be thankful and honor diversity, not scapegoating it with rhetoric from impotent ideologues.
As I read some of the comments, I see people still saying the but part. I don’t want to hear how it’s because of their religion, or that white people were treated differently also….STOP! He is talking about NOW! Right now in America today. If they were white no one would say anything! Look at the northern border. Look at how many white people overstay their visas. We have the Russian mob that have taken over our northern cities and even some out West. John is absolutely right. How you think the first people feel when white Americans scream about their country! Seriously, I know that many of the people that come here are well educated. Something that white Americans lack. Instead of embracing the people that that still believe in an American that used to accept immigrants willingly.
Yes! So well said!
Yes! 👏
🤔 Good points here. This is the explanation often cited of why the Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark function so well under a Democratic Socialist government. They predominantly have a homogeneous population.
I respectfully disagree with you. I think that there is a perverse disregard for anyone who is "other," regardless of color. Look at the outcry in the late 1800s regarding the Irish immigrants. More, it may be a matter of MONEY (or lack thereof), rather than color.
Sadly, I believe you're correct 😔
I respectfully disagree - when someone says white immigrants they usually mean well educated clean white people from Western Europe who already are fluent in American English - we don't mean those white people who came here in hope, and still do, from poorer countries or with little education. America's history is fraught with disenfranchisement of the other.
Don't hold back, John, don't be shy about your love for white people. LOL.
It just so happens I wrote a comment pertaining to this at https://shadeofachilles.substack.com/p/social-trust-in-romania-iii-roma
I think you and your readers should take a gander at the essay about the Roma in Romania:
[my comment follows]
That's interesting about the beggar technique [in Romania]. In India they target westerners/foreigners (videshi) the same way by damaging the kid's head. In contrast to Romania, the local Indian police took their cut directly from the beggar women. I don't think there was any hierarchy in the begging culture there, but I may be wrong.
India driving rules: The bigger your vehicle the more right-of-way you have. Buses and trucks are on top and bicycles and pedestrians on the bottom. Although one time a German killed a cow. Stupidly, he stopped and the mob killed him. So, if a real Indian happened to hit a poor kid or force someone else off the road in India, or Africa or wherever, he would just keep going, assuming his car (or power) was bigger.
It sounds like the Roma have adopted a more complex but similar strategy using the Indian concept of bak shish, a bribe really, to deal with all this through an insurance shakedown in cooperation with the police. You expedite the power hierarchy resource extraction formula, as you say.
Here in the States we are approaching this type of thinking in a roundabout way through what I call the sacred-victim, entitled parasite culture (S-VEP). The mechanism, rather than child mutilation (or come to think of it we're there already), is something called "human rights", an idea that the Roma might consider exploitable. All you have to do is BE BORN to a particular race or sex in order to acquire bak shish (rights) in either cash or special treatment. The Government/Philanthropy Complex would love to support the Roma as marginalized victims. They wouldn't need to fake an accident or openly mutilate kids. But then they'd lose agency so maybe the Roma wouldn't like that. I don't know.
When I think about it the Roma/Indian way is more honest and "erect." Yes, they do bad things but at least they're doing it with a certain kind of agency. They know what they are doing is bad but they do it anyway, like Lucifer, I will not serve. The S-VEP just turns humans into cattle, animals without agency, or even the ability to view bribery and corruption as a bad thing.