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Among the many good points he makes is that the world, up until that time, had never really known a bi-racial (or multi-racial) society.
Egypt.
Egypt was multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural for 4,000 years before the US existed.
Egypt was all that even before the Arabs began the African slave trade in the 800s.
The Arab slave trade increased the pluralism of Egypt. Arabs were shipping African slaves to India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Java, and bringing back slaves from those places to Egypt.
Then Arabs started importing Circassian Turks as slaves, primarily to be trained to serve in the military, and several centuries later they revolted and took control of Egypt.
Cairo was cosmopolitan centuries, even millennia before New York City even existed.
In Cairo you had Arabs, Jews, christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Pagans, Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid peoples and hundreds of different ethnic groups, who spoke a number of different languages.
The claim that the world had never seen a multi-racial society fails.
I suspect the author is extremely ethnocentric, and the "world" to him really means White Europe, and not the rest of the World.
That would be true. There was no multi-racial anything in Europe.
London was not as cosmopolitan as Cairo. London today is on a par with Cairo, but London four centuries ago was nothing like Cairo. Yes, an occasional Black Moor serving on a merchant vessel might dock in London and walk around town, but that doesn't make London multi-cultural or multi-racial.
I was going to say Middle East has some of the most ethnically diverse society. We are not exposed to them but it was very strange to see Arabs as black as African and as white as European and everything in between. They did have tribes and tribes often intermingled. For current time, I would say the Caribbean island has amazing mix, must better than USA.
But I understand what the OP is trying to say. USA has a different diversity, unlike any other place. It is the only nation made up of immigrants and no one can say "this is rightfully mine" even the KKK can't say they are original American. Even the native Americans migrated here from somewhere. USA has made many mistakes but we do promote diversity and integration more than other nations of current time. Here we have programs for it, we teach it at school, we study it and try to improve it, we promote it and more than anything we take pride in it: in our ability to attract diversity.
As a first generation immigrant who grew up living in immigrant ghetto neighborhood because that is all my family could afford and now has the ability to move to beautiful safe suburbs, I often ask myself the question is my semi-segregated bubble worth it or is fully integration worth it? In the ghetto I have small concentrated area filled with people like me where the number gives us ability to do something unique: turn it into next little Italy or Chinatown..etc, change local policy to meet our needs. But often its not safe and filled with low income people. Moving to safe suburbs means blending in, diluting in the mass, becoming a true minority, just another dot, no need for accommodation. I look to those who came before me, the 2nd & 3rd generation immigrants and notice how they are just American now with no trace of another ethnicity. I don't know what is worth it
Humans, for the most part, are most comfortable around others similar to themselves. The USA is making it hard to follow this imbedded trait................and IMHO, this is one of the things that is making the country worse.
Even the native Americans migrated here from somewhere.
Way to split the finest of hairs. I think if your last major migration was in the Paleolithic you pretty much get to claim the damn place. By your standards no one can claim anywhere except a few people in a real specific pocket of East Africa.
I was going to say Middle East has some of the most ethnically diverse society. We are not exposed to them but it was very strange to see Arabs as black as African and as white as European and everything in between. They did have tribes and tribes often intermingled. For current time, I would say the Caribbean island has amazing mix, must better than USA.
But I understand what the OP is trying to say. USA has a different diversity, unlike any other place. It is the only nation made up of immigrants and no one can say "this is rightfully mine" even the KKK can't say they are original American. Even the native Americans migrated here from somewhere. USA has made many mistakes but we do promote diversity and integration more than other nations of current time. Here we have programs for it, we teach it at school, we study it and try to improve it, we promote it and more than anything we take pride in it: in our ability to attract diversity.
As a first generation immigrant who grew up living in immigrant ghetto neighborhood because that is all my family could afford and now has the ability to move to beautiful safe suburbs, I often ask myself the question is my semi-segregated bubble worth it or is fully integration worth it? In the ghetto I have small concentrated area filled with people like me where the number gives us ability to do something unique: turn it into next little Italy or Chinatown..etc, change local policy to meet our needs. But often its not safe and filled with low income people. Moving to safe suburbs means blending in, diluting in the mass, becoming a true minority, just another dot, no need for accommodation. I look to those who came before me, the 2nd & 3rd generation immigrants and notice how they are just American now with no trace of another ethnicity. I don't know what is worth it
Sorry, but the US is certainly not the only nation made up of immigrants. Australia? As only one example. And yes, we also promote diversity and integration, actually have a very high rate of social mobility and intermarriage between ethnic groups. Half our nation were either born overseas or have a parent born overseas. And if you are thinking most of our incoming immigrants are "white", the biggest number at the moment are Indian and Chinese, I think.
Way to split the finest of hairs. I think if your last major migration was in the Paleolithic you pretty much get to claim the damn place.
Except many indigenous groups in South America have Polynesian DNA markers, so they did not come across a land-bridge from Asia.
There are three indigenous groups in Brasil that have Australasian DNA markers. Those people are Melanesian, which is hardly Siberia.
And then the X-mt-DNA Haplogroup which does not exist in Asia, but which does exist in Europe blows any claims that indigenous peoples are solely from Siberia.
Except many indigenous groups in South America have Polynesian DNA markers, so they did not come across a land-bridge from Asia.
There are three indigenous groups in Brasil that have Australasian DNA markers. Those people are Melanesian, which is hardly Siberia.
And then the X-mt-DNA Haplogroup which does not exist in Asia, but which does exist in Europe blows any claims that indigenous peoples are solely from Siberia.
Does that matter? I know we whites like to pretend we sprang fully formed from the forehead of mother Europa but that is bull**** of the highest order. No one has ancestors who did not migrate, not here and not in the old world either... That doesn't mean you can't claim an ancestral Homeland. (Or if you think it does be consistent about it and give up on the idea of nation states)
Also I said nothing about siberia... The Paleolithic existed in Australia and Polynesia too.
Name one other white, developed nation in which 30%+ of the population is non-white.
Numbers mean nothing in terms of how well we are doing in the category of race relations.
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