Quote:
Originally Posted by Words
And what's with people THANKING those using the word Paki in their posts?
REALLY?
|
Honestly i was one of them. i saw where he/she was jostled. Felt sorry for them. i withdrew it when i reread. i still read more fear than hatred there.
Words, you have lived places where there were daily conflicts and hostilities between immigrants and others. This is less the case in the U.S. A friend of mine immigrated from Egypt and attends Mosque in Oakland. He did not come here because he always wanted to live in the U.S. or for economic reasons. He lost ground economically. He came here for a girl.
True he is living in the Bay Area, but he and his fellow immigrants are stunned by the lack of personal hostility they experience compared to being in Europe, for example.
i have lived somewhere where darker skinned immigrants habitually get picked up by the police for no reason and are exposed to other forms of racism. But day in and day out, we do not have communities detesting each other and taking frequent opportunities to express it.
i think of Hamtramck in Michigan. There is some hostility between the Arabs and the white Detroiters. There have been battles over noise made by the Muezzin calls from Mosques. And i have no doubt many residents have racism and hatred in their hearts. But walking down the street, is anyone going to get jostled by anyone? Are there frequent racial slurs hurled? Is there vandalism of other people's property? No. On a daily basis, an Arab neighbor helps an aging Polish woman to take out her garbage. The Polish woman watches the Arab neighbor's kids as they get off the bus to make sure they get home OK, etc.
The U.S. is a violent country. We are racist. We are backward in some ways compared to Europeans. We do have a long way to go re immigrants and immigration. Witness the town where the police tried to get rid of all Latinos. Witness the recent legislation in Arizona. There
are hositilites in some communities. But the cultural racism so common is Europe is not the norm here. Not in a million years would we ban wearing the veil. And in communities where people see it alot, most people don't give it a second thought. (Thinking again of Detroit). And i don't doubt the vast majority of people would fight for people's rights to wear whatever garb their culture and religion required of them. i do not see Americans through rose colored glasses. We elected Bush twice. We are intensely racist in our way. But our way is different from Europe's. And in some ways it is less hostile toward people for being who they are.
Maybe it's our ignorance and happy wappy nature. But when we encounter an Egyptian, we don't necessarily assume we know who he is and what he is about. We are not closed off to meeting him where he is and getting to know what he has to say. We care if he's happy here. We want him to feel at home. Most of us do. And that IS different than the experience of an Egyptian immigrant to Germany or France.