Hence the current effort to preemptively rupture those lines by rewriting the constitution?
Perhaps you’d care to explain how whites benefit from giving up their status as the dominant majority. I’ve often asked this question here and elsewhere, and all I get is either a lot of happy talk about how beautiful diversity is supposed to be or a lot of snarling about what a racist monster I am.
Perhaps you’d care to explain how whites get the right to claim dominance over non-whites because there are currently more of us. What is this, some existential king-of-the-hill game to you?
Did you not get the memo? All men are created equal. This isn’t the United States of White America, you know.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
Freak Out, 1966
I think it’s fair to say (I hope, anyway) that I do not have a reputation here or anywhere as a player of the race card nor an apologist for illegal immigration.
So with that as a backdrop, let me say: yeah, being in the minority hasn’t been a good thing for us Hispanics, pal. So why do you assume that because whites are the majority now, they have some special entitlement to continue in that role?
elucidator, this seems like a good time to mention that I find your indomitable optimism inspiring.
There was a distinct change in the tone of the public discourse on race and nationality starting around the time that George Bush became President. All of a sudden political comments that pushed what used to be the polite boundaries of bigotry or class superiority or xenophobia became commonplace among mainstream Republican politicians and speakers; it was no longer confined to the fringe. And they never got called on it, by the so-called left-wing media or anyone else. It gradually got more and more blatant.
Take the Allen guy who lost for Senator in Virginia a few years back, and his use of the word “macaca” (monkey) to refer to a journalist of Indian ethnicity who was following him around with a video camera. In 1990 someone like him might have thought that, but he’d never have said it, not even in front of a friendly crowd. By 2006 he was comfortable saying it. (If it happened today, I bet he wouldn’t bother with the various dodges he indulged in; he’d just go off on a tangent about immigrants stealing “your” country or something, and it’s OK to use a slur if you have a real issue you’re talking about. Anyway.) Allen lost, but only barely.
All along the right wing talkers have been getting more and more aggressive with the race-baiting, the ginning up of fears of illegal immigrants, and the stoking of resentment and fear against anyone who is not just like them. The politicians have been following happily along in their wake. And then Barack Obama won the Presidency, and every racist, closet racist and “I’m not racist, but I think Limbaugh really has a point” sort of person in the country lost his or her every-loving mind.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to opt-out of his White People For the Win! moment. The man I’m in love with and may at some point marry isn’t white, so not having him around would be awkward. And we’d need two sets of china!
In what sense are whites the dominant majority? Who is white? Are Latinos white? People with less than 50% African ancestry? Indians? Chinese?
Let’s start off with a simple example: Bill Richardson. He looks white, and he’s got a “white” name, but he says he’s Hispanic. Is he white?
It’s not a zero sum game. “We” don’t lose just because someone else wins.
I recommend that you all watch this video. Even though it features talking cartoon cats, it’s a brilliant and insightful analysis of the immigration issue. 
At last, a conservative (if I may be so presumptuous) admits what he believes is at the heart of the issue. It’s refreshing to see someone decide not to pollute a topic with obfuscation, prevarication, and moving the goalposts for a change.
This may be a concern for them, but I don’t believe it to be a major issue for them. At least it’s not expressed widely that I’ve seen.
They know no such thing. They believe it, but they don’t know it.
In the current state of affairs, it’s both actually. You all but state it in the first line of your post.
No, it’s an indication of how racist and xenophobic people, even whites, believe this attitude to be.
Well, I think that as people basically lose hope that they are mainstream, they can become comfortable being seen as radical in ways they couldn’t before and, of course, people who feel like they are on the losing side of a groundswell can get more and more vocal. I think we can see that in the gay marriage fights, for example. The rhetoric gets ratcheted up in an attempt to stall acceptance, but I think the James Dobsons of the world really do see the writing on the wall.
That’s my feeling on it.
Wait – just why, exactly, would it be a bad thing? Sure, a lot of the white middle class and working class have slid down the socioeconomic ladder in the past few decades; but not because of any racial outnumbering. The reasons are entirely different.
No, not Balkanized – Brazilianized. From The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind:
Note that, even then, most white Americans will be at the middle or bottom of the hierarchy; there ain’t much room at the top. You should be thinking in terms of class, not race, LonesomePolecat.
Yes, it is; but not because of an inundation of Third Worlders.
Similar arguments were made against every wave of immigrants in America’s post-independence history, from the Irish to the Jews. Eventually they all assimilated and became productive members of our society and enrichers of our culture. Sometimes full assimilation took longer than you might expect – Lawrence Welk spoke with a foreign accent because he grew up in a small town in North Dakota where nobody spoke anything but German – but, so what? I’m sure nobody wishes his family had stayed in Germany. How does the current wave of immigration differ from any of the previous waves?
:rolleyes: Oh. I see.
And its in Spanish.
I’m sure I can find a cite, but I don’t care enough to do that. I’ve got a respected, credible primary source sitting right next to me. I’m not going to go hunt around on the internet for an inferior source just to win an internet argument. So I’m going to drop a line that I don’t think I’ve ever said before: “My post is my cite”.
If America is becoming a third world country (and in my more pessimistic moments I do believe it’s trending that way), it’s not because of the people who live here. It’s because of cynical right-wing politicians (aided and abetted by plenty of the self-proclaimed centrists and even some of the so-called left wing) who give their all to favor policies that bring about extreme income disparity, the destruction of our economic base, and the ransacking of our environment.
Then those same politicians point at illegal immigrants, lazy welfare cheats, and over-entitled minorities as the source of all your problems. At worst they’re a drop in the bucket. None of those groups, even if they were everything the right wing claims they are, amount a hill of beans in terms of power to the rich bastards who are really running the show. They show up on your front porch directing your attention to the woodchuck who’s digging up your potato patch, and when you run off to chase it, they rob you blind and rape your wife. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is, when you come back inside, you blame it all on the woodchuck.
With all due gratitude, I point out that that is not the he that is me.
And, 'struth, I am a radical progressive pessimist. Ghandi said something about working for progress and justice may, in fact, be utterly futile and pointless. But that doesn’t get you off the hook. Preach it, brother.
Don’t you understand that someone concerned with preserving the “dominant majority” status of his racial/ethnic group is a racist by definition?
For the rest, I think what you’re facing – and, again, seem not to understand – is rejection of the legitimacy of your question. “Perhaps you’d care to explain how whites benefit from giving up their status as the dominant majority.” WTF has that to do with anything?! Arguably it was good for white people in the pre-Civil-Rights South to keep their status as the dominant majority – to maintain Jim Crow, and maintain their own superior racial caste position over the blacks, and keep the blacks around as a pool of dirt-cheap menial labor, and enjoy the psychological benefits of a sense of superiority concomitant with white skin privilege. Arguably it was not good even for most whites, since racial division prevented the emergence of any trans-racial labor movement and kept poor whites and blacks economically dependent on the Bourbon aristocracy, who could always play the one group off against the other, divide and rule. But in either case, Jim Crow simply was not morally defensible, no more than slavery was.
Just to see what happens, and taking a wild guess at the sort of position most flag waving pseudopatriots usually take on other things, AND taking comfort in the fact that those who know my past posts will “get it”, try this then:
The 2nd amendment, dealing with militias and right to bear arms,
Is also stupid and badly worded and definitely needs to be changed or repealed. Many people including myself wants this abolished because it promotes shooting and robbing and murder.
Do you agree? Or is one amendment more “sacred” than another, based on what you want (freedom for you and to hell with anyone else).