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I take exception to this statement. Having a different culture does not equate to the "lowest standards of living" because they do not resemble a Western US culture.
OK, well, maybe our opinions differ.
My threshold for 'standard of living' begins at indoor plumbing and the ability to produce something other than small-scale crops. Yours may differ.
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Furthermore, I believe Nigeria and Kenya outrank South Africa in public health, and solvency on many fronts.
I'd like to see stats on this.
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South Africa, conversely, has exhibited the same natural inclination as the US--enslavement.
Wanna compare rape statistics in South Africa pre apartheid and post apartheid?
It kinda furthers this debate...
Can't say, doc1. Just a plain spoken person with my own beliefs that culture is beauty. It is in other languages: kultuur in my former home-land, and to be cultured is a common phrase.
Multiculturalism is a conjunctive; conjunctives are often misleading, I think, as they take two words and attempt to tie them together.
And plumbing would need an elbow to tie it together, while poetry ties together nicely with even a few soft sounds.
To emphasize my position, here's a poem by Langston Hughes:
Necessity
Work?
I don't have to work.
I don't have to do nothing
but eat, drink, stay black, and die.
This little old furnished room's
so small I can't whip a cat
without getting fur in my mouth
and my landlady's so old
her features is all run together
and God knows she sure can overcharge—
Which is why I reckon I does
have to work after all.
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Originally Posted by doc1
Why does the word "multiculturalism" get ballyhooed and bandied about so much when it never seems to apply to music, art, dance and poetry?
Last edited by ontheroad; 11-27-2007 at 05:00 PM..
Reason: added poem
I know this is going to sound racist but I have looked up a ton of cities and towns on the CD web sites for crime statistics. It seems like all the areas that have at least 80% or better white populations have really low crime indexes while the areas that have significant black and hispanic populations have very high crime indexes. I know there are a lot of honest and decent black and hispanic people but it seems like when a large number of them get together it becomes a crime fest. That's not saying there aren't white criminals because certainly there are a lot of white criminals but I just don't understand why the honest black and hispanics haven't tried to take back thier neighborhoods.
In an unrelated article on crime, there was a thing on the news that police officers being killed in the line of duty has gone up sky high. Not since 9/11 have there been this kind of increase in police officers being shot in the line of duty. They showed a video of a 15 year old kid shooting 2 officers (1 fatally) before taking his own life. Then they were mentioning how gangs are becoming more violent. They said the worst part about it is more people are shooting police officers without even being provoked so police don't even have a chance to defend themselves.
It's getting to the point where I am in favor of allowing police to search any known gang member at any time for any reason and if any guns or drugs are found on the person they get put away for life without parole. I am also in favor of mandatory sentences for anyone who shoots police officers. Mandatory life without parole if the police officer lives and mandatory death penalty if the officer is killed. They also mentioned that in addition to gangs repeat offenders are also responsible for officers being shot in the line of duty.
In areas where gangs are a real problem I am almost at the point of calling in the national guard to take care of the problem. It's to the point where the police are being outgunned by the criminals. Actually, it's been like that for a long time. Either start allowing the cops to be as armed as the thugs or use the military. I think the rights of the honest citizens to be safe far outweigh the rights of the criminals.
Oh, and if the lethal injection is cruel and unusal punishment then lets go back to public hangings, firing squad, or the good ol' electric chair. I really don't care if a criminal scum back suffers for a half hour or hour because the lethal injection drug doesn't work right away. I am sure the criminal didn't care about how long his or her victims had to suffer.
Come down to Miami or Orlando, where we have little Mexico, little Puerto Rico, little Jamaica, little Haiti.... you see people with guns in their hands like they are in Iraq or something. Thanks to Bush and Ted Kennedy for making sure the borders stay wide open and criminals get unlimited guns, grenades, and drugs.
Not only that cops don't even go into these areas for fear of being gunned down to death. Crime rates soar, no one cares, people just stay away so they can stay alive.
Honestly, I see a lot of immigrant communities as being hubs of drugs, violence, prostitution, suicide, and violent crime.
Go ahead, give me some negatives for telling the truth. I have lived it, I know how these communities work in Florida. It is the same way in Lost Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio, Chicago, Detroit, etc.
Good point. Also, look at the conditions that the Irish endured when they came over in the 19th century. This was long before any social safety nets and Great Society programs came into being.
Signs on factories the said "Irish Need Not Apply".
Look at some of the political cartoons of the day and Irish were drawn to resemble apes.
Know where the term "paddy wagon" came from?
They've done pretty good for themselves by busting their a$$e$, working like dogs and fighting their way out of the most squalid ghettos of the time.
Makes this potato eating American proud.
Yeppers: in places like Boston, Ma. etc. it was easier for a 'free person of color' (non slave Black) to get a job than an Irish Catholic-----the latter's reputation 160 years was that bad.
Drunkeness, fighting, laziness, etc.
To paraphrase Thomas Sowell: 'the Irish changed as a people'
When an image of an Irish person enters my mind today; it is of an educated, civilized man or woman in a coffeehouse listening to Clannad------not the nasty stereotype of the 'Fighting Irish'.
We clearly have different standards: culture is music, art, dance, poetry not plumbing.
I'm not saying that culture is plumbing.
I am saying that standard of living is plumbing.
You're the one who said that their having a different culture is what causes their different standard of living, yet in the next breath, you say that culture and standard of living are exclusive of each other.
We clearly have different standards: culture is music, art, dance, poetry not plumbing.
.
I'll jump in on this one. My pet peeve is the very dangerous myth of "multiculturalism"....It's not a matter of race-I'm married interracially---it's culture, which can, with some difficulty, be learned,
Your words almost exactly refute mine. I say culture is NOT music, art, poetry, etc.,(that's only part of it)- but is in a person's deepest-held values. THAT's why its often non-negotiable, and why we can't really co-exist with widely-differing cultures in close proximity.
Cuisine, music, etc.. are "multicultural"? Fine---as a matter of fact we already HAVE this type of multiculturalism right now. From my home, I could right now go to about 20 differering "ethnic" restaurants (and I could find another 20 with minimal effort--all different. I could attend any number of musical events, cultural affairs, etc etc.
But I live in the US, under its basic underlying culture. Thus when I dine at a Peruvian or an Ethiopian, or any OTHER "kind" of restaurant, I know its subject to our local California standards--of health, sanitation, wash-up facilities for the help, etc etc. There are no "live poultry" hanging over the food-prep areas, etc etc. because our local laws FORBID this.
When I get stopped by the police, I don't want "multiculturalism" in how I'm treated, thank you...I like the protections I get under American law. I don't want to be prosecuted under another, more "interesting" culture. (Torture, anyone?)I'm comfortable with OUR laws, criminal and civil....that's part of OUR culture.
The US is an eclectic culture, based on many concepts from English protestantism. But it is NOT English, NOT protestant, NOT European, not anything, but uniquely American. It happens to be very adaptable, and has had many contributions from elsewhere. But up until very recently, no one seriously proposed really "going multicultural".
Now, alarmingly, there are rumblings of becoming "multicultural"--most of them from young people who have NO IDEA of what this really means. We'd better HOPE that doesn't happen, because most of us would be VERY upset living among some of the "cultural features" common in many parts of the world. I think we'd quickly come to regret it....(anyone for a little wife-beating, revenge-killing, religious violence, or unbridled police brutality?...--didn't think so....)
And yes, to the extent that we demand it, expect it, and insist on it, "Plumbing" is indeed part of culture...
My remarks were in response to descriptors of Africans, not Americans, perhaps you missed that distinction.
And, if I was talking about Americans, perhaps, I might make different remarks.
Fundamentally, I found the inference about Africans unattractive.
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Originally Posted by macmeal
I'll jump in on this one. My pet peeve is the very dangerous myth of "multiculturalism"....It's not a matter of race-I'm married interracially---it's culture, which can, with some difficulty, be learned,
Your words almost exactly refute mine. I say culture is NOT music, art, poetry, etc.,(that's only part of it)- but is in a person's deepest-held values. THAT's why its often non-negotiable, and why we can't really co-exist with widely-differing cultures in close proximity.
Cuisine, music, etc.. are "multicultural"? Fine---as a matter of fact we already HAVE this type of multiculturalism right now. From my home, I could right now go to about 20 differering "ethnic" restaurants (and I could find another 20 with minimal effort--all different. I could attend any number of musical events, cultural affairs, etc etc.
But I live in the US, under its basic underlying culture. Thus when I dine at a Peruvian or an Ethiopian, or any OTHER "kind" of restaurant, I know its subject to our local California standards--of health, sanitation, wash-up facilities for the help, etc etc. There are no "live poultry" hanging over the food-prep areas, etc etc. because our local laws FORBID this.
When I get stopped by the police, I don't want "multiculturalism" in how I'm treated, thank you...I like the protections I get under American law. I don't want to be prosecuted under another, more "interesting" culture. (Torture, anyone?)I'm comfortable with OUR laws, criminal and civil....that's part of OUR culture.
The US is an eclectic culture, based on many concepts from English protestantism. But it is NOT English, NOT protestant, NOT European, not anything, but uniquely American. It happens to be very adaptable, and has had many contributions from elsewhere. But up until very recently, no one seriously proposed really "going multicultural".
Now, alarmingly, there are rumblings of becoming "multicultural"--most of them from young people who have NO IDEA of what this really means. We'd better HOPE that doesn't happen, because most of us would be VERY upset living among some of the "cultural features" common in many parts of the world. I think we'd quickly come to regret it....(anyone for a little wife-beating, revenge-killing, religious violence, or unbridled police brutality?...--didn't think so....)
And yes, to the extent that we demand it, expect it, and insist on it, "Plumbing" is indeed part of culture...
If you examine countries in Africa, those that exhibit the highest standards of living and thresholds of stability are also those that had the most substantial European presence (South Africa, etc). Those that had the least European presence (ie- those countries where blacks exist in their most natural, 'uninterfered' state- namely Ethiopia and Somalia- neither of which had ever been colonized) exhibit the lowest standards of living on the planet, the least degree of social progress, etc.
Am I to assume that your post implies that having European influence and control equates to "civility"
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