Is racism somewhat inevitable from multiculturalism?

[V]

Brave subject this & I am voicing long held suspicions, not deeply held convictions, so do please rebuff/support my observations as you see fit. We often proudly live in multicultural societies with excellent & correct levels of mutual tolerance within them.

So, we see women “dressed as letter boxes” as it was so subtlety put the other day. We can all be tolerant of that & should be, but in my culture it would be a bizarre style of dress, leading to somewhat distrust due to the total coverage & even more so when the “letter box” won’t, for further cultural reasons, accept a handshake. But it’s not my problem, so let’s happily tolerate & embrace our differences.

I grew up in a rough neighbourhood of London where street fights were commonplace amongst headstrong youths, but no one “pulled a knife”. It was an act of cowardice that was often brutally punished soon thereafter by a large number of like minded headstrong youths. One could end up hospitalised by such behaviour. But now in London largely amongst the immigrant population of foreign culture (& others I’m sure) knife carrying has become commonplace amongst headstrong youths. It’s not my problem, so let’s tolerate. We don’t want to search and brutalise all those knife carriers.

All communities have paedophiles, but to have a group of adult men collaborating to groom & then pass around underage girls is certainly not something I ever experienced in my culture (past by heresay, or present from current knowledge) neither is forced marriage, or child brides. Yet these have all become pretty commonplace in UK brought to us by foreign cultures, although illegal. Not being responsible for young girls upbringing this one is just about tolerable, although completely revolting.

My home upbringing was deeply Christian (& I have faith of sorts although many would comment on my lack of Sunday attendance) & people never said it was OK to wage war, or behead, or kill anyone based on their religious beliefs. However religions brought to us by foreign cultures include such doctrines & although thankfully not observed very often, it is way to often to really be tolerated. Culprits are criticised, but not the foreign faith &/or culture itself. That gets tolerated.

We have an unbelievably tolerant society, given a quick look at the above, none of which were cultural norms when I was young & here’s the crunch. With sufficient patience, self control & tolerance all of this can be accepted as the new normal, but deep down it will be hated with total disapproval.

Then comes, distrust, disrespect, unspoken malice, whereby folks of a certain cultural background need to demonstrate they’re “good guys” that don’t participate in all these barbaric practices, before gaining acceptance (racial profiling I believe, as it’s now referred). Barriers form between communities because of perceived injustice & often real injustice coming from this situation.

Multiculturalism is now an everyday fact of life, but it would seem many cultures have practises that are deeply offensive to other cultures. The above is a tiny sample of the reality. If we are to deeply offend each other on a daily basis, with only a veneer of tolerance (hiding true feelings) racial/cultural prejudice (hopefully only moderate) seems to be an inevitable outcome.

If this is true, why are we even attempting it? The benefits of multiculturalism don’t seem to match the price being demanded of everyone involved, of all races.

Given twenty rewrites I could probably have expressed this better, but let’s leave it as is for the purpose of starting discussion. The essential premise is that unless cultures are forced to moderate towards a common accepted mode of operating in a given society, then deep offense is almost inevitable, leading to prejudice based on culture/race.
As soon as a culture is forced to conform to a norm other than it’s own, that itself becomes labelled prejudicial. There is no win in this for anyone.

I look forward to hearing thoughts & observations. I hope I haven’t come across as a screaming racist because I truly believe I’m not, but I definitely have problems with some foreign cultures. That I could never deny.

[OldBaldGuy]

You can move to France but never be French. You can eat fish & chips in London, but never be English. You can drink pints of Guinness but never be Irish.

I am second generation American. Grandparents from Ireland and Poland. But I am an American. America welcome all. (Bun not everyone!) T be an American is to embrace the one country on earth that constitutionally defines all of our rights come from God. Our constitution LIMITS the power of government.

Yes, multiculturalism spawns all sorts of evil. No need to belong to a central vision of country. The motto of the United States is One from many. All those many cultures are embraced and valued. But the concept of America is center. Read de Tocqueville's "Coming to America"

[Strategus]

You can move to France but never be French. You can eat fish & chips in London, but never be English. You can drink pints of Guinness but never be Irish.

I am second generation American. Grandparents from Ireland and Poland. But I am an American. America welcome all. (Bun not everyone!) T be an American is to embrace the one country on earth that constitutionally defines all of our rights come from God. Our constitution LIMITS the power of government.

Yes, multiculturalism spawns all sorts of evil. No need to belong to a central vision of country. The motto of the United States is One from many. All those many cultures are embraced and valued. But the concept of America is center. Read de Tocqueville's "Coming to America"

There is no god

[Strategus]

Laws are made to deal with these things. Obey the laws of the land you are in. If you don't, you will suffer the consequences of the laws of that land. If you do, you will be fine.

[StarkAdder]

PlayDiplomacy is about gaming and there are plenty of online fora where you can debate these things with like-minded and totally opposed individuals.

I would just note for the record that much of what we ascribe to one culture actually comes from past times of social mixing. The habit (pardon the pun) of dressing women up "like letter boxes" was not invented in the Middle East and North Africa. Look at artwork from prior millenia. It was the Christians of the time whose women first dressed that way (and Nuns and members of certain traditional sects, like the Amish, still do). We exported with the Crusades the idea that hiding women's bodies was one way to prevent adultery, and some cultures adopted it and other Western habits (drinking, guns, etc.).

As our DNA shows, almost every one of us today is the product of multiple ethnicities. As more of us come together more often, thanks to air travel and the Internet, the pace of change causes spiritual and physical friction, and some evolve more easily than others. You are free to complain about it, but you are powerless to do anything about it. And Brexit won't make it go away. Nothing -- expect a few hundred years of the Dark Ages and the Plague -- has stopped it yet; it's been happening since the dawn of humankind in Africa (or, if you prefer, since the Garden of Eden).

[V]

PlayDiplomacy is about gaming and there are plenty of online fora where you can debate these things with like-minded and totally opposed individuals.

I would just note for the record that much of what we ascribe to one culture actually comes from past times of social mixing. The habit (pardon the pun) of dressing women up "like letter boxes" was not invented in the Middle East and North Africa. Look at artwork from prior millenia. It was the Christians of the time whose women first dressed that way (and Nuns and members of certain traditional sects, like the Amish, still do). We exported with the Crusades the idea that hiding women's bodies was one way to prevent adultery, and some cultures adopted it and other Western habits (drinking, guns, etc.).

As our DNA shows, almost every one of us today is the product of multiple ethnicities. As more of us come together more often, thanks to air travel and the Internet, the pace of change causes spiritual and physical friction, and some evolve more easily than others. You are free to complain about it, but you are powerless to do anything about it. And Brexit won't make it go away. Nothing -- expect a few hundred years of the Dark Ages and the Plague -- has stopped it yet; it's been happening since the dawn of humankind in Africa (or, if you prefer, since the Garden of Eden).

I was not planning to specifically answer any particular posts, but seeing as this one has a personal note maybe a I should.
This is the “Debates” forum. Nothing to do with gaming. I am not looking to hear the usually contentious views of the “like minded” or “totally opposed”. I was hoping to hear intelligent response from the kind of smart folks that PlayDip.
I was not looking for a history lesson on the origins of various cultural problems. I was hoping for a debate on solutions or mitigations for current difficulties, not a “who is/was to blame” session. I definitely phrased my post as a series of questions & observations. It was not a “complaint” as you suggest I had in mind. I’ve already solved the issue on a personal level, it was at a societal level I was hoping to discuss.
I emphasise I do not consider this subject to be something where adversarial point scoring has ever served a positive purpose. Maybe objective reasoning that the kind of folks on this site are capable of conducting, might serve better.

[willie23]

I think I agree to what V is trying to say here: that is, racism is sort of inevitable and I think a big part of that is cultures mixing. I also think there are other causes of racism as well. I’ve always thought that every single person has a bit of racism inside him or her even if they don’t want to admit it to themselves or others.

We should probably be open to other cultures, however there is a place for separations of cultures and there is a reason that there are many of them around. I don’t think we should try to assimilate them all into each other. I don’t think there is a human solution to this sort of problem. There is a place for laws and if I were to visit a foreign nation where they did not accept part of my culture I sure wouldn’t start showing it off there.

Honestly, I think answers to this can be found in the Bible, but obviously that isn’t going to be an acceptable answer for some(most?) of you. So I suppose I don’t have a solution nor have I really thought much into it past what I’ve just wrote.

Thanks V for bringing up a topic to get my brain moving on something new.

[Oh Cheese]

The root cause of racism is not multiculturalism. For sure, that exacerbates the problem. The reason racism exists in the first place though, is because of human's competitive nature, as well as our inclination to be suspicious of what we do not know or understand.

Additionally, in my very honest opinion, the biggest propellor of racism is the victims themselves. They lash out that someone made them feel bad by calling them a "nigger", etc. They choose to be offended by it. Why? Why not choose to be not offended. Why don't you choose to be proud of your skin colour, and understand that this neither makes you a greater or lesser person? Or is the driving factor here that you yourself believe you're inferior, because of your skin colour. If you believe you're inferior, you become inferior. By screaming "he called me a nigger and that offends me" you're only inviting more people to offend you in the future. If you just think, "you're trying to put me down, but I don't care because I know my worth" and do nothing, that triggers nothing. Nobody gets a kick out of mocking you, and so they don't do it again.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

[Agnimandur]

I would agree completely with Oh Cheese on this question. There is nothing inherently wrong with being white, black, green, or whatever (beside slight biological differences), except that humans have invented connotations for each skin color (i.e. racism). Since blacks and whites have been around for so long, entrenched viewpoints have emerged. If someone emerged that was green or pink in skin color, no inherent racism would be present (and most people would simply express awe, wonder, confusion, etc.). However, if those unorthodox skin colors became common generations later, stereotypes and generalizations and slurs would undoubtedly emerge: racism.

Another point is, have you ever wondered why it is entirely socially acceptable to call a Caucasian person "white", but it is incredibly offensive to call an Asian person "yellow"? Fundamentally, both colors are simple, somewhat accurate descriptions.

[Oh Cheese]

have you ever wondered why it is entirely socially acceptable to call a Caucasian person "white", but it is incredibly offensive to call an Asian person "yellow"? Fundamentally, both colors are simple, somewhat accurate descriptions.

No, because I know the reason is white people generally don't mind being called white... Because the minority's inferiority complex becomes the driving force - i.e. the 'blacks' and 'yellows' keep squealing as soon as someone refers to the fact that they look different from other races, and they CHOOSE to take this as an insult. THEY perceive that their skin colour makes them a lesser person, and that is why society accepts people being called white, but not any other colour. It is racist only because the victim cries out, and needs to be reassured that the world doesn't hate them just because of the colour of their skin... But do they listen? No. If they did, racism wouldn't exist. However it perpetuates, and only because of the victims, not the name-callers.