Posted on 07/02/2007 9:04:01 AM PDT by BoneShaker
When an academic discovers what ordinary mortals have known for eons, it's called science. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has found that diversity is not a strength, but a weakness; the greater the diversity in a community, the greater the distrust. Professor Putnam's five-year study was reported last year by the Financial Times and is finally percolating down to others in the media and blogosphere.
In diverse communities, Putnam observed, people "hunker down": They withdraw, have fewer "friends and confidants," distrust their neighbors regardless of the color of their skin, expect the worst from local leaders, volunteer and carpool less, give less to charity, and "agitate for social reform more," with little hope of success. They also huddle in front of the television. Activism alternates with escapism, unhappiness with ennui.
Trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history." Since this is all very perplexing to the "progressive" Putnam, who hangs out at Harvard, allow me to save the good professor from another future shock. People are doing more than hunkering down in these unhappy habitations; they are fleeing. In 1995, the New York Times mocked the findings of William H. Frey and Jonathan Tilove, authors of "Immigrants in, Native Whites Out." These demographers noted that as states stretching from California to Texas were swamped by Third World immigrants, the historic population began leaving. At least those who did not reside in $16.5 million mansions, in the exclusive Pacific Heights. At its most elevated, the Times discounted the findings with the aid of the correlation-is-not-causation claim. At its most debased, the newspaper called those who tracked the trend xenophobes.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
So I pose this question-if diversity is so bad,then should we not return to the segregated ways of earlier times?Let whites be with whites,blacks be around only blacks and keep everyone apart.
I don’t want that.The reality is diversity is here to stay and I am NOT one who thinks it is all sweetness and light.Lots of problems accompany it.Yet the world is getting MORE diverse,not less and thats just the way it is.
Diversity doesn't work
FDR didn't rescue us from the Depression
Progressism causes problems, doesn't solve them
Islam is a violent religion
Democrats have no ideas
Is it too much to hope that the world is waking up? I see the 20th century as a long nightmare -- from WWI on -- in which the forces of civilization fought a holding action against the destroyers. With Ronald Reagan, we began to make up some ground, but the past 20 years have been achingly slow. Is it possible that the Good Guys are getting some momentum now?
how about an additial choice ? being free to associate with whomever I choose ?
Just one man's opinion, but from reading Bowling Alone, he never really struck me as a lib.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
All you have to do is look at the infighting with virtually every big city governing body and school district to see this.
“So I pose this question-if diversity is so bad,then should we not return to the segregated ways of earlier times?Let whites be with whites,blacks be around only blacks and keep everyone apart.”
Some would come to that mentally-constipated conclusion without a study at all. It’s a good thing you don’t want it.
The true issue with diversity, for me, is that it is used as a wedge to create disunity. By all means, peeople should be able to practice their cultural norms, speak their ancestral languages, observe their cultrual customs and such, and have others at least tolerate them....
BUT...
Since we do not live in a relatively racially homogenous society (like say, Japan), it is necesary to sublimate primary allegiance to those customs and culture to allegiance to a more “sharable” (for lack of a better word at the moment) one in order to achieve relative peace.
Which is the genius of the American Experiment (i.e. the Melting Pot). The problem is that the concept of the Melting Pot has been trashed by generations of irrationally-guilty white scholars and academics, and exploited by racial and cultural hustlers in order to suckle on the teat of self-loathing westerners.
How about we change our legal immigration policies to pre 1965. As it is right now it is ONLY whites who follow this a-racial mantra. Every other race/ethnicity has huge amounts of political and social groups. These political groups not only have politcal power and influence but are also funded by our own government. We the American people are funding all this multicultural crap and it should stop now.
Right,and that free association is the only kind of viable long lasting diversity.Yet I have never been forced to be around people I didn’t want to be around.I madea CHOICE to be around them.And I can choose to walk away from them just as readily.
We better wake up or our children and posterity will be paying a heavy price for our short-sightedness and supine nature.
The Melting Pot idea woked great for many groups from Europe and to some degree Asia and Latin America.
Yet blacks were never a part of the Melting Pot ideal.No matter how acceptable they tried to be,they will still considered”colored”and their options limited.Thogh less true today,just try bringing a black friend,particularly one of the opposite sex,to an all white function and see the looks you get.
I can tell you the last thing you notice is a melting pot!
“So I pose this question-if diversity is so bad,then should we not return to the segregated ways of earlier times?”
Left to their own devices, that’s what people do and have always done. The segregation you refer to was government mandated. Not good. People should be free to make their own choices, and they do. Quite often, these choices are not “politically correct”.
The government did not mandate separate TV networks, magazines, clothing lines, language, and colleges exclusively for certain groups but they exist. They exist because of self-segregation. The basis in thought for that is, “Our group is different from others and should have it’s own unique stuff”. Essentially the same argument as the hated segregationists from the ‘60’s.
When people of color segregate themselves, it’s applauded as cultural enlightenment. When whites do it, it’s racist segregation.
Simply put, a Republic cannot survive as a whole with a huge disparity of cultures. These huge disparities always conflict with each other. They will eventually be at each others throats over representation, perceived “rights”, power, land and riches. One culture will always be dominant, it’s just a question of which one. The culture war is real and happening right now.
Its not a question of diversity OR segregation.
Forced “diversity” and forced segregation are equally wrong, as Chief Justice Roberts stated. Both amount to discrimination by the government and social engineering by bureaucrats.
“Thogh less true today,just try bringing a black friend,particularly one of the opposite sex,to an all white function and see the looks you get.”
Wow, “looks”. Reverse that scenario and “looks” will likely be the least of your worries.
Perhaps my view is somewhat colored (no pun intended) by having been raised, and spending most of my life in New York City, which is far more cosmopolitan than most places on Earth. Your example of an interracial couple at a function drawing comment would not be as common here as it might be in say, rural Alabama or Mississippi.
It’s still there, for sure, but it wouldn’t be seen as something noteworthy in quite the same sense. Typically, when something like that is noted, it’s “progressive” types making patronizing remarks and going into paraxysms of touchy-feely-Coca-Cola-commercial-feel-gooded-ness, which is even more patronizing and disgusting than outright racism, if you ask me, because it’s FORCED and PRETENTIOUS.
Very true - here is Fred Reed’s take on Diversity madness -”The greatest desire of humanity . . . is avoiding diversity. Mostly, people can’t stand each other. I respect their opinion”.
The Trouble With Forced Diversity
by Fred Reed
Explain it to me, diversity. I don’t get it. Everyone in the feddle gummint and all the news weasels and the academia nuts and assorted distasteful do-gooders with goiterous self-admiration are always honking and blowing about how we need diversity. Why? What is it good for?
I think we need homogeneity. Probably the greatest desire of humanity other than getting sex is avoiding diversity. Mostly, people can’t stand each other. I respect their judgement.
Diversity causes nothing but trouble. Think about it. Do old people want to hang around young people? No. Do young people want to hang around old people? Generally they would rather take poison. Do liberals and conservatives want to get within rifle range of each other? No. Except conservatives, because they have rifles. Southerners and damyanks cordially detest each other, except after a few beers, when they stop being cordial. Urban folk and country folk loathe each other. Management and labor, Marine boneheads and army pukes, dogs and cats, on and on, don’t nobody much like nobody.
So why do we spend so much sweat and money trying to force people to do what they don’t want to do? It’s all bass-ackwards. What if we tried…well…freedom? What if the gummint just left people the hell alone?
Naahhhh . . .
Google Fred Reed and Diversity for the rest of the article.
No,not really.The only time I ever ran into any drama with a black female companion was coming out of the White Horse Lounge on North Claiborne in New Orleans back in 1976 and some of the brothers wanted to “talk shit”.
The funny thing that her HUSBAND was still inside the club so it wasn’t like we were a “couple”.
But the homeys didn’t know that.
I do agree,however,that whites aren’t the only bigots around.I think I have been rather fortunate that not to many people have tried to revoke my”ghetto pass”
Amen. This one way racism crap is just that - crap. The idea that whites as a whole are somehow more “racist” or evil then other groups is pure BS and in fact an argument could be made that just the opposite is true.
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