Irish, italians, russians, jews, chinese, japanese... is there a group that america hasnt at some time feared? Did canadians get thier turn? Having a guilty and irrational fear of some group, whatever the group, seems almost part of american identity. I cannot think of any period of american history that wasnt steeped in such fears.
I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…
In another example of America's fluidly morphing standard of whiteness, Finns were sometimes considered Asians:
"Finns faced racial discrimination, with many people using the Finnish language as “proof” that Finns were not European and thus fair game to be subject to unfair treatment. Some argued that Finns were Asian, meaning they should be barred from citizenship under the Asian Exclusion Act of the early 1900s. The word “Finlander” was used as a slur, along with “China Swede” and “roundhead.”"
It really depends where you're coming from and where you've been. If your a former Prime Minister of an allied nation, you'll probably only be detained an hour[0]. Otherwise your mileage may vary[1]. Your local authorities can probably give you some guidance on this. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/0... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/nyregion/airports-travele...
Though of course, said former Prime Minister was actually detained under an Obama-era policy that had nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with a law passed in late 2015 that had overwhelming bipartisan support. One which got very little coverage until it could be tied to Trump's actions somehow.
It appears that Trump's CBP is significantly different from Obama's though. Where CBP had the option to stop travelers and didn't exercise it in the past, they're now doing so more frequently (at least for the subset of travelers in targeted countries).
This is the problem with giving wide latitude to a trusted administration - it doesn't stop there.
Overall numbers are hard to come by, especially for smallish incidents, but of the 23 acts of terrorism in 2016 killing a hundred or more people, 100% of them were done by Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... > they're not being banned from the USA Were there countries with huge numbers of extremely violent mentally ill people, I have no doubt the US would limit or halt immigration…
I notice that reading that link, 22/23 acts of terrorism killing a hundred people or more happened in Iraq and Syria which is literally a war-zone. Just as a thought experiment, if you listed civilian casualties in the Ukraine-Russia war as deaths from terroristic acts you could easily come to the conclusion that it was Eastern-European Christians that were the world's greatest terrorists.
The Bible and Quran share the same DNA. There's no difference between any type of religious extremism, just as there's no difference between any group of humans. The difference is context, and in the case of the Middle East the socioeconomic context is crushingly awful. Much of this (shoutouts to the Hypernomalization mention above, which I can't seem to reply to, excellent documentary) is even a result of more powerful, "Christian" nations.
>Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern America)were once not only considered not "white", but were demonized even as much as other races that Europe has traditionally looked down on. This was parodied in the movie Blazing Saddles, set in the American wild west, with a quote that I'd be [edit: apparently not] banned for repeating verbatim.
There's also a scene in The Sopranos that covers this. Tony is talking with his therapist and they basically come to the conclusion that he thinks Italians aren't white and won't ever be truly accepted by what I think he called "Mayonnaise Americans" (basically WASPs). Growing up in a large Italian family there was definitely some family members that felt this way as well, particularly the older ones.
Even in Europe, we Italians often carry an inferiority complex towards our Northern neighbours, historically reinforced by the wealth gap that started accumulating since the Industrial Revolution.
If one can't successfully appeal to someone's sense of morality (perhaps because they have different morals), one can try to appeal to their sense of self interest.
This one, uh, I point-blank refuse to believe. The moral principles about how you can treat other people are so widespread and uniform (made it into the bloody bible, even; the only bit that everybody knows from that MLK speech is about this), that you're gonna have some serious convincing to do, before I believe that people "have different morals". It seems more believable that people have just the same morals they…
And in getting them to apply morality in a more uniform matter, sometimes it's easier to address morality by way of self-interest than morality directly. Getting someone to acknowledge than a random Iranian being allowed in the country will not cause buildings to falls is a good thing, and whether it's achieved by appealing to their morality or their self-interest it's still a good thing.
I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…
As a Italian , I surely feel demonized by the Guardian style of 'journalism' and American leftists. Too bad no one is calling them out. I guess Fascist tendencies too are acknowledged out of convenience, not rationality.
> Too bad no one is calling them out.
Have you been in suspended animation for the past century or so?
Fun fact: the vast majority of North American terrorism is committed by white men. No other group since 9/11 has contributed more to terror than disgruntled white dudes in North America. Refugees are trying to escspe the same horrors you are describing. The situation is similar to the US turning away Jews under the banner of "America First" during WW2 because they feared Nazis sneaking in with the Jews. The "safe" co…
> No other group since 9/11 So no other group since the largest terrorist act in the history of the United States? If that's not a convenient choice in timing, I don't know what is.
15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. The current ban would have done nothing to prevent them from coming here.
I could see a ban making some sense, but any ban that leaves out Pakistan, UAE and Saudi Arabia has deficiencies so glaring that it would never be worth the suffering caused.
I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…
In another example of America's fluidly morphing standard of whiteness, Finns were sometimes considered Asians: "Finns faced racial discrimination, with many people using the Finnish language as “proof” that Finns were not European and thus fair game to be subject to unfair treatment. Some argued that Finns were Asian, meaning they should be barred from citizenship under the Asian Exclusion Act of the early 1900s. Th…
Whiteness is a theme of The Godfather, particularly the book but also the movie.