# Am I missing something? (re: supposedly racist comment on Reddit) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272 "2019-12-02T15:31:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/81 "2019-12-04T11:57:29Z")
> [@DirkHardly](#): > > Got any kind of cite for this? Seems ridiculously hyperbolic on its face and while violence or the threat of violence has certainly been used to force assimilation do you have any evidence whatsoever that it has occurred more often than assimilation that is wholly or primarily voluntary, especially in the modern era? Also, criminal laws are a pretty widely accepted form of enforced assimilation. So where do they fit into your “theory”? Well, you’d have to put a gun to my head to make me listen to K-Pop, so there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/82 "2019-12-04T12:17:12Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Your link doesn’t work (it just brings up a data service unavailable error message for me) , but I’m curious how you can make the claim that Sweden has a larger population of minorities (presumably by percentage of the population) than the US does…or whatever claim you are making. Because the [largest ethnic group in Sweden is Finn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden)…and that is fairly small. From the Wiki: The claim was “foreign-born” not _minority_ i.e. a higher percentage of first-generation immigrants. Which is practically a given in low-population countries compared to high-population ones. And I’m sure the relatively recent open borders within the EU have _nothing_ to do with the current stat. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/83 "2019-12-04T13:11:18Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It would be less eye-rolly if instead of framing homogeneity as an advantage, xenophobia and racism were described as impediments to progress. An assertion that US is handicapped by racism and xenophobia is supported by empirical evidence. Moreover, we can actually reduce xenophobia and racism through education and other policies. We can’t make the US more homogenous, not unless we do some very drastic and awful things. Isnt it true though that a population with less racial diversity is less affected by racism? They may be latent racists but if they never really have exposure to those of a different skin color then their racism is never made manifest. Sure, the U.S. can absolutely lessen the racism and xenophobia within its borders. However its a level and scale of work that a more homogenous simply wouldnt need to undertake to achieve similar results. I actually think this applies to racism and its societal destruction but not to xenophobia. I could easily see a more homogenous society being more susceptible to xenophobic than a more diverse society. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Homogeneity of culture tends to be achieved through murder. Absent murder of minority groups, you don’t get cultural homogeneity. This is true from metropolitans down through hunter-gatherer tribes . I ask this out of ignorance, not a desire to challenge but what are some relatively modern examples of a culture murdering it’s way to homogeneity? . i dont doubt that its been _attempted_, this seems like an awfully ineffective method to me. Seems to me it would be more likely to result in a permanent minority or second-class population within a society. That is, unless you murdered these different populations to utter extinction. But i really dont know, which is why i ask. > [@DirkHardly](#): > > Gosh, you would think that in Great Debates on a site dedicated to fighting ignorance and concerning a topic where there is a wealth of social science evidence over multiple decades (a century or so is a fairly reasonable figure) that someone would actually cite such evidence or even maybe consult such evidence prior to forming an opinion instead of a knee-jerk reaction of “racism!” based on “reasons.” The tendency of heterogeneous social groups to tend to increased levels of conflict, both on the micro and macro level, is well documented in those social sciences with strong evidence and replicated repeatedly in various geographic populations, at least at its most basic level (of course past this most basic level it unsurprisingly gets much more complicated). It’s also something that’s pretty obvious, given even the briefest moment of objective thought, to anyone even passingly familiar with history or current events. > > But it’s funny, for instance, how the fact that the commission of street crime unquestionably correlating with young males is rarely labeled as “sexist” or “ageist” but that the similar and even stronger correlation between young African-American males engaging in a disproportionate level of criminal activity in relation to their population is often labeled as “racist.” And before anyone attempts to explain that disparity as caused by racism in the criminal justice system itself, it certainly is a factor but doesn’t even begin to account for that disparity as a whole. And yes, I can back that up with numerous cites. > > Now of course heterogeneity can occur across numerous dimensions of which “race” is just one among many. Others include culture, ethnicity, religion, economic status, social class, and so on. And those can be further broken down into even more complex interactions. For instance, “race” is a somewhat nebulous concept to begin with but what is important is the perception of race, i.e. the social construction of race in the relevant population. As has been mentioned, in the US Irish and Italian immigrants were considered non-white and subject to discrimination until more obviously non-white populations became the primary focus of discrimination and other conflict and the Italian and Irish became apparently “white enough.” Similarly, there is a long and ongoing history of conflicts between populations ostensibly of the same race but differing in aspects such as culture or religion. And each of those can be further broken down into subsets where conflict arises among subcultures or religious subgroups. > > The overall point is that these are incredibly complex, multidimensional issues dependent on the particular population in question and its relevant characteristics. Which is why these scientific disciplines exist in the first place, why there is such a wealth of sociological literature and study over numerous social science disciplines, and why it is ongoing. But the simple truth, backed up by all this evidence, is that people tend to get along best with people that they perceive as most like them in ways they consider to be important. It has always been this way and will always be this way as long as humans exist, because people are people. And if it’s not race then they’ll find some other way to divide into “us” and “them” because it seems to be an inherent part of our nature with an evolutionary backing. > > The fact that racists co-opt and oversimplify these complex issues to ascribe negative characteristics to others based solely on race doesn’t change this underlying truth. It’s not race that is by any means the determinative factor but how race can interrelate with other factors such as economics, ethnicity, psychology, and, perhaps most generally and especially in racially diverse modern societies, with culture/subculture. This is evidenced by such conflicts occuring even when race is removed from consideration entirely. It’s not that any race possesses any inherent tendency towards criminality or violence but how race can combine with these other factors within a population to create a tendency for such behavior. And people of any race can display those tendencies given a similar social context and whether they exist as a majority or minority group. > > And since I brought up all this evidence here’s a few cites among the incredible amount of existing studies on the topic which no one else has bothered to reference. Not that anyone has any obligation to provide such cites but once again, on a site dedicated to fighting ignorance it seems like a good idea to do so. And at least some in the thread seem to grasp this rather obvious truth either through simple logic and observation or via some other means. Which is good, because at least their conclusions are in accordance with the actual science. Some of the other opinions here, not so much. > > Social Capital and Community Heterogeneity > > [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-008-9275-y&ved=2ahUKEwj7hfaq4JjmAhUEposKHTsQAJIQFjALegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw1PP0pzMicwLW10W6R03edo&cshid=1575417808206](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-008-9275-y&ved=2ahUKEwj7hfaq4JjmAhUEposKHTsQAJIQFjALegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw1PP0pzMicwLW10W6R03edo&cshid=1575417808206) > > The impact of population heterogeneity and income inequality on homicide rates: A cross-national assessment > > PDF link > > [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Don\_Chon/publication/51467994\_The\_Impact\_of\_Population\_Heterogeneity\_and\_Income\_Inequality\_on\_Homicide\_Rates\_A\_Cross-National\_Assessment/links/53eb7d1a0cf202d087cceb37/The-Impact-of-Population-Heterogeneity-and-Income-Inequality-on-Homicide-Rates-A-Cross-National-Assessment.pdf](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Don_Chon/publication/51467994_The_Impact_of_Population_Heterogeneity_and_Income_Inequality_on_Homicide_Rates_A_Cross-National_Assessment/links/53eb7d1a0cf202d087cceb37/The-Impact-of-Population-Heterogeneity-and-Income-Inequality-on-Homicide-Rates-A-Cross-National-Assessment.pdf) > > Population heterogeneity and the sociogenesis of homicide > > PDF link > > [https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6048&context=fss\_papers](https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6048&context=fss_papers) > > Racial Heterogeneity and Crime: Measuring Static and Dynamic Effects > > PDF link > > [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charis\_Kubrin/publication/255699204\_Racial\_Heterogeneity\_and\_Crime\_Measuring\_Static\_and\_Dynamic\_Effects/links/0c96052bd0d2d8bb67000000/Racial-Heterogeneity-and-Crime-Measuring-Static-and-Dynamic-Effects.pdf](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charis_Kubrin/publication/255699204_Racial_Heterogeneity_and_Crime_Measuring_Static_and_Dynamic_Effects/links/0c96052bd0d2d8bb67000000/Racial-Heterogeneity-and-Crime-Measuring-Static-and-Dynamic-Effects.pdf) > > There’s much more out there but only so much accessible online for free or without academic credentials or otherwise registering with online repositories. Its a shame that this post came from the poster that it did. Because certain posters have poisoned themselves (fairly or not) on this messageboard and any posts they subsequently make are prejudicially cast aside without being judged on their merits. I think this is an excellent post and one of the first ive seen backed up with cites. Unfortunately it will be marginalized and mischaracterized as “racist”. I for one appreciate this contribution even if I have never agreed with a prior word this poster has posted. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/84 "2019-12-04T13:15:13Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Isnt it true though that a population with less racial diversity is less affected by racism? Not sure why this would be the case – in my experience, the more exposure one has to racial and ethnic diversity, the less one is likely to be racist. Folks who’ve never met a black person are a lot more likely to have racist (and baseless, obviously) ideas about black people than someone who has been around tons and tons in professional, social, casual, academic, etc., settings. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/85 "2019-12-04T13:19:29Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > One thing being potentially positive about homogeneity doesn’t mean everything is. Picking an example where it’s advantageous therefore isn’t a ‘narrowing down’ of a position that it’s advantageous in all respects. > > For one obvious example of advantage to heterogeneity in US history there wasn’t a way to as quickly fill the US with an overwhelming number of Europeans, for ‘taming’ the continent, unless they came from a lot of places in Europe. Places which didn’t view themselves as monolithic by any remote stretch. That was ‘strength in diversity’ quite literally, assuming we’re willing to view US history as not itself too much ‘tainted with racism’ to take any pride in. Anyway the European settlers were more able to accomplish the share goal of many of them, to establish a large European population country in a large land mass, than if they’d insisted newcomers had to be British, or Protestant or other limitations some of them believed were appropriate. > > But if you look at the political history of the home town of multiple generations of my family, NY, I don’t see how anyone can contend that ethnic politics haven’t and don’t introduce an element of friction, again even looking to the mainly ‘white’ past, rotating alliances/rivalries of Irish, Italians and Jews (Poles, etc. Bay Ridge in Brooklyn used to be heavily Norwegian). NY is a great city, but consensus among people with strong and diverse group identities is harder. That seems like basic reality to me, and I’m not dissuaded from feeling so by the your tactic of calling it ‘the argument of racists’. > > Your thinking may suffer from the imagined slippery slope of starting with an imagined _prescription_ (‘let’s get rid of all the X’s’) and sliding that back to trying to shout down _descriptions_ of reality as ‘the argument of racists’. Typically harder to get consensus among people with multiple group affiliations than within one of those groups. I think that is pretty close to ‘self evident’. > > How much that factor describes the totality of differences in social conditions in one very large country (US) v one quite small and highly natural resource rich for its population country (Norway) is a lot more complicated. My position on that comparison is mainly that it’s not very useful because it’s so complicated, and especially considering Norway’s outlier status in basic economic stats due to oil and gas as compared to countries much more similar to it (the other Nordic’s) than the US is. This is a nuanced and thoughtful take, while what was described in the OP struck me as much more simplistic and lacking in nuance and thus falling into the trap of the kind of basic ignorance made by racists in their dumbass arguments. I think such nuance and context is especially necessary in issues relating to these kind of fraught topics, since ignorance and bigotry have been such powerful and ubiquitous drivers of the discourse through history. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/86 "2019-12-04T13:50:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Not sure why this would be the case – in my experience, the more exposure one has to racial and ethnic diversity, the less one is likely to be racist. Folks who’ve never met a black person are a lot more likely to have racist (and baseless, obviously) ideas about black people than someone who has been around tons and tons in professional, social, casual, academic, etc., settings. Right. That’s what i was getting at with my use of the term “latent racism”. A person who has never been exposed to or interacted with a black person might harbor racist beliefs about black people but if that racist person lives in a homogenous society in which no black people live, to what degree will that racism adversely affect that society? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/87 "2019-12-04T13:55:27Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Right. That’s what i was getting at with my use of the term “latent racism”. A person who has never been exposed to or interacted with a black person might harbor racist beliefs about black people but if that racist person lives in a homogenous society in which no black people live, to what degree will that racism adversely affect that society? I see what you mean, at least hypothetically – but there are very, very few societies with zero diversity. Rather, we’re comparing societies with significant levels of diversity which might vary from the single digits to close to 40-50%. Which is worse, for the society in question – X% of the majority being racist against the minority when the majority is 90%, or X% of the majority being racist against the minority when the majority is 55%? I don’t think it’s clear that one or the other is better or worse. I don’t think we can sum up this kind of thing with anything close to a sweeping conclusion that one or the other is better or worse. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/88 "2019-12-04T14:09:37Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I see what you mean, at least hypothetically – but there are very, very few societies with zero diversity. Rather, we’re comparing societies with significant levels of diversity which might vary from the single digits to close to 40-50%. Which is worse, for the society in question – X% of the majority being racist against the minority when the majority is 90%, or X% of the majority being racist against the minority when the majority is 55%? I don’t think it’s clear that one or the other is better or worse. I don’t think we can sum up this kind of thing with anything close to a sweeping conclusion that one or the other is better or worse. I dont think you (general you) can categorically say one is “better” for a society than the other. However, specific areas such as social policies that take care of those without current means to care for themselves (safety nets) are more easily sold to the taxpaying populace if that populace can more easily relate on a tribal level to those that would be receiving the benefits of that social safety net. That wouldnt mean that members of say that 10% minority wouldn’t reap those benefits as well, they would. They would be beneficiaries of the fact that far and away the most visible and largest segment of those receiving social welfare were relatable to those paying for it. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/89 "2019-12-04T14:25:07Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is a nuanced and thoughtful take, while what was described in the OP struck me as much more simplistic and lacking in nuance and thus falling into the trap of the kind of basic ignorance made by racists in their dumbass arguments. > > I think such nuance and context is especially necessary in issues relating to these kind of fraught topics, since ignorance and bigotry have been such powerful and ubiquitous drivers of the discourse through history. FWIW, what he said is what I was trying to get at, but I may not have stated it so well, in an effort to boil it down to the essentials that Corry El gets at in his third paragraph. But that was taken as me saying “if not for all those minorities, the US would be like Norway”, which wasn’t at all what I was getting at. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/90 "2019-12-04T14:26:57Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Not sure why this would be the case – in my experience, the more exposure one has to racial and ethnic diversity, the less one is likely to be racist. Folks who’ve never met a black person are a lot more likely to have racist (and baseless, obviously) ideas about black people than someone who has been around tons and tons in professional, social, casual, academic, etc., settings. That notion is clearly wrong as proven by the Rwandan Genocide, the Bosnian War or any of the myriad conflicts that have arisen between different ethnic groups forced to live together as a result of colonial powers arbitrarily drawing lines across maps, to say nothing of the long, sordid history of antisemitic pogroms targeting local Jewish populations with roots going back centuries into their community’s past. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/91 "2019-12-04T14:27:46Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > I ask this out of ignorance, not a desire to challenge but what are some relatively modern examples of a culture murdering it’s way to homogeneity? . i dont doubt that its been _attempted_, this seems like an awfully ineffective method to me. Seems to me it would be more likely to result in a permanent minority or second-class population within a society. That is, unless you murdered these different populations to utter extinction. But i really dont know, which is why i ask. Nazi Germany; the killing fields of Cambodia; the Cultural Revolution of China. These are the first three I think of, but you can also look at the genocide in Rwanda, the massacre of Muslims in Serbia, and the killing of the Yazidi by ISIS. Hope that helps! ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/92 "2019-12-04T14:46:27Z")
The Inquisition nearly wiped out Judaism in Spain ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/93 "2019-12-04T15:18:27Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Nazi Germany; the killing fields of Cambodia; the Cultural Revolution of China. These are the first three I think of, but you can also look at the genocide in Rwanda, the massacre of Muslims in Serbia, and the killing of the Yazidi by ISIS. > > Hope that helps! But did these genocides _succeed_ in creating truly homogenous, working societies? Serbia seems like the only contender in that regard (that may be simply because i am least informed of their history). China’s cultural revolution was _absolutely_ not an example of a society murdering its way to homogeneity. It was more like a mixture of murder, persecution, propaganda and societal destruction that resulted in the most chaotic and least-functioning state the country had ever found itself in. And how successful was the Nazi state after the holocaust? Yeah they committed genocide in an attempt to purify their state of jews but did it work? Did they ever exist as a Nazi State? All your examples are what i would refer to as _attempted_ societal homogenization. But they uniformly seem like disastrous failures. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/94 "2019-12-04T15:18:40Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > That notion is clearly wrong as proven by the Rwandan Genocide, the Bosnian War or any of the myriad conflicts that have arisen between different ethnic groups forced to live together as a result of colonial powers arbitrarily drawing lines across maps, to say nothing of the long, sordid history of antisemitic pogroms targeting local Jewish populations with roots going back centuries into their community’s past. “Two” is not a very diverse number of ethnicities. Your examples are of _two_ ethnicities, actually very similar except for a religion or a subsistence method, not the _multicultural_ diversity **iiandyiiii** seemed to be talking about (although he can correct me if I’m wrong) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/95 "2019-12-04T15:18:59Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Not sure why this would be the case – in my experience, the more exposure one has to racial and ethnic diversity, the less one is likely to be racist. Folks who’ve never met a black person are a lot more likely to have racist (and baseless, obviously) ideas about black people than someone who has been around tons and tons in professional, social, casual, academic, etc., settings. To wit, the most intense “build the wall!” sentiments are in communities nowhere near the border. Back in the day, Oregon made it illegal for black people to reside there. Despite having a tiny black population. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/96 "2019-12-04T15:23:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > “Two” is not a very diverse number of ethnicities. Your examples are of _two_ ethnicities, actually very similar except for a religion or a subsistence method, not the _multicultural_ diversity **iiandyiiii** seemed to be talking about (although he can correct me if I’m wrong) You’re correct about my posts. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/97 "2019-12-04T15:30:58Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > To wit, the most intense “build the wall!” sentiments are in communities nowhere near the border. > > Back in the day, Oregon made it illegal for black people to reside there. Despite having a tiny black population. But that is because in both of these instances, the racism and xenophobia happens in a smaller subsection of a larger state (the U.S.) that _is_ much more diverse and these smaller more homogenous states dont want this diversity to encroach on their lives. In the case of the “build the wall” people, a large degree of their xenophobia is stoked and incited by propaganda created and disseminated by powerful people and organizations who have a political agenda in keeping those people angry and afraid. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/98 "2019-12-04T16:02:52Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > To wit, the most intense “build the wall!” sentiments are in communities nowhere near the border. I think that’s something different than mere racism vs. Hispanics, as most of the border areas are heavily Hispanic anyway. I think what we see with border communities being for walls and heavier enforcement has to do with the direct effects of illegal immigration on their communities, but the support for the same walls in say… Kentucky is more because of racism, or a perception that immigrants steal jobs or something. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/99 "2019-12-04T16:29:25Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I don’t like arguments that small countries have it easier because they’re small. If that were valid, the U.S. could approach solutions by implementing them at the state level (a single state being the scale of a small country.) > > A more serious issue is the matter of _ethnic homogeneity_. My impression is that Europe is becoming more diverse and this leads to animosities similar to those of the U.S.A. Brexit, for example, was perpetrated by right-wing kleptocrats preying on racist sentiments. “Socialist paradises” like Sweden do suffer from Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and so on. IIUC the influx of refugees, especially from Syria, is challenging Europe. > > Face the truth: _ **Many people are bigoted against people with different customs, different religions, or different skin color than themselves.** _ Some people are bigots; some aren’t. What are the causes? The solutions? I dunno, but a simplistic “Europeans good, white Americans are bad” is overly simple. > > Connecting this all back to questions like “Why can’t the U.S. have universal healthcare?”\* it really does seem to be the case that many Americans hate the idea of their tax dollars helping those with different skin color.\* Sad; that’s a key challenge America faces. It’s a key subtext for the 2020 election(s). Addressing the implementation of things by State, I agree whole heartedly (as do most conservatives). Where we likely disagree is if you wanted to the Fed to be controlling the State’s willingness or direction it chose to go. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272/100 "2019-12-04T16:39:41Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think that’s something different than mere racism vs. Hispanics, as most of the border areas are heavily Hispanic anyway. I think what we see with border communities being for walls and heavier enforcement has to do with the direct effects of illegal immigration on their communities, but the support for the same walls in say… Kentucky is more because of racism, or a perception that immigrants steal jobs or something. Cite for border communities that are _for_ the wall? My understanding is that the people actually near the border are against it because they know how stupid and pointless it would be. I was under the impression that most of the “build the wall” sentiment is from places nowhere near the actual border. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-missing-something-re-supposedly-racist-comment-on-reddit/844272.md?page=6)