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Argh wrote:I guess my take on this is: Muslims here in the U.S.A. aren't having the same experience, and are often well-integrated in the second generation, like most of our giant waves of immigration have been. Conclusion: the problem's in the host societies and their policies, not that Muslims are irredeemably backwards.

what a joke ... usa is the kingdom of communities not integrated at all

usa is the kingdom of communities not integrated at all

Not true. I find it interesting that anybody would think that, frankly. Our culture exerts the same pressures to integrate insofar as language and civil values are concerned, just like European countries, and there are definite expectations, mainly expressed in our laws and a few of our universal American customs- stupid corny stuff, like the way we say "thanks" all the time, tip in restaurants, etc. But, while quite a few first-generation emigrants don't speak English, the pressure on second-generation kids is really huge, and most of them make the transition.

And we have seen plenty of arguments exactly like that guy made, about each wave of immigration. It used to be Hmong and other Asians, Irish and Poles, Germans and Italians, Jews fleeing pogroms, Russians escaping from the Soviets. Nowadays it's Latinos.

Same attitude, same words, same outcomes. Most reasonable people can see there's a pattern, and know it's just a generational thing. But we're used to the pattern, whereas Europe's mainly been an emigration point, not an immigration point, and Isreal's been kept screwed up by a lot of different factors.

I'm not saying that any of this is easy or perfect, but it's definitely something where the outcomes are largely a product of the host society.

Argh wrote:I guess my take on this is: Muslims here in the U.S.A. aren't having the same experience, and are often well-integrated in the second generation, like most of our giant waves of immigration have been. Conclusion: the problem's in the host societies and their policies, not that Muslims are irredeemably backwards.

Just want to point out that there is a difference between the immigrants in europe and those that enter the US.

Argh wrote:

usa is the kingdom of communities not integrated at all

Not true. I find it interesting that anybody would think that, frankly. Our culture exerts the same pressures to integrate insofar as language and civil values are concerned, just like European countries, and there are definite expectations, mainly expressed in our laws and a few of our universal American customs- stupid corny stuff, like the way we say "thanks" all the time, tip in restaurants, etc. But, while quite a few first-generation emigrants don't speak English, the pressure on second-generation kids is really huge, and most of them make the transition.

And we have seen plenty of arguments exactly like that guy made, about each wave of immigration. It used to be Hmong and other Asians, Irish and Poles, Germans and Italians, Jews fleeing pogroms, Russians escaping from the Soviets. Nowadays it's Latinos.

Same attitude, same words, same outcomes. Most reasonable people can see there's a pattern, and know it's just a generational thing. But we're used to the pattern, whereas Europe's mainly been an emigration point, not an immigration point, and Isreal's been kept screwed up by a lot of different factors.

I'm not saying that any of this is easy or perfect, but it's definitely something where the outcomes are largely a product of the host society.

you really don't know what you're talking about

usa is the kingdom of communities not integrated at all

TBH this was hammered home into me over and over again in school... canada is a "melting pot" where everyone is mashed in together, wheras the USA is a "tapestry" meaning that people tend to emigrate and form their own subcommunities.

that seems to be the the accepted view of things, at least from the perspective to the north. not that its inherently bad either if its true, one of the positives of this perspective was that if you wanted to emigrate somewhere and retain your old cultural/national identity, the USA would be an appropriate place to do it, wheras canada seems to frown on it (retain your culture, but you are now a canadian first and foremost)

this is based of course on what i read in textbooks, all of my visits to the USA have been tourism related so i would hardly get to observe anything about how the society actually works.

semi related point of interest...

in a survey i did many years ago of students at my highschool...

out of 100 people...
83% are born in canada but have immigrant parents
10% are born elsewhere and emigrated to canada
5% had one parent born in canada
2% had both parents born in canada

although hardly a good example of the society as a whole, it gives a nice example of a group of first gen / new canadians from different backgrounds living and working together in the same social group.

conversely : where i live, on a street with 107 houses, everyone is white, and mainly of UK descent.

PicassoCT wrote: In Germany for example some people of the Turkish Comunity became really big e.g. Mousse T or the Chief of CryTek. But it aint easy.
Mostly the new immigrants only find work &there own companys in new industryfields developing. And as europe sticks to its old fields, its pretty hard for them to fit in.

Were not hostile we wouldnt say "wtf are you doing here get out" if we had more of them getting an education on a higher school.
Still you wont see many of them studying. (this doesnt really cost much in contrast to the us, for me it costs like 100Ôé¼ per sem. others pay 500)
We dont really need a lot of workers we need well educated people.

The people you mentioned are exceptions, the crytek boss probably has a good education I guess he studied informatics.

Many turkish youths just say "i dont care i dont get a job anyways for racist reasons etc", what they dont realise is that a german also struggles to get a job with their level of education.

The real problem starts with the question: why do they not aim for a higher education like everybody else.

The answer: there parents, and comunity doesent support them. Assume little ahmed comes home - wanting to do his homework. First thing is that his father ranks domestic chores higher, and not listening to his comands i seen as a lack of respect, in a honorsociety that ranks respect the highest good. So the homework is not done. Second thing is that education is frowned upon, basically because every other book beside the holy quoran is seen as less worth.

e.g.
There actually was till not long ago the tradition for a dieing muslim to write into his testimony to burn every book he possessed besides the holy one, after his death. Another example for this cultural antpathy against foreign knowledge is the first import of the printing press into the osman empire. 14 books were printed, there was low demand for it, so the technology was given up again, for another half century.

Back to little Ahmed, who may not know about the origin of the prejudices he grows up with, but he knows that his parents, who were anatolien farmers before leaving for europe/america will respect him if he wins respect from other muslims, for example by winning a soccer-match. No respect for doin your homework.

His father is either sending little ahmed out on the streets, giving him a minor job to work or beats him up, because little ahmed shows a lack of respect for his unemployed parents living from socialsecurity. Normal Relationships with muslim-woman inside the ghetto are strictly forbidden, and nearly impossible due to the saudistrict seperation of the sexes, and contacts to "unbelievers" are frowned upon. It would be a wonder to not end up as a "troublechild" on the policelist for hopeless cases.

why is nobody mentioning orthodox jews? or hell, jews in general? i notice some parallels.

You're not allowed to mention the jews, it makes you Hitler.

tombom wrote:why is nobody mentioning orthodox jews? or hell, jews in general? i notice some parallels.

Are you talking about jews in europe prior ww2?
When were they involved in rioting or destroying European cities and when were they calling for the transformation or destruction of the countries they were living in?
Were jewish communities in euorpe producing a very high % of criminals?

Das Bruce wrote:You're not allowed to mention the jews, it makes you Hitler.

The discussion is ova.

you really don't know what you're talking about

Well, I beg to differ.

I live in a place where more than half the people here have non-white skin, and where the guy who works in the gas station I like to go is from Senegal and is coal-black (and, for the record, the best damn gas-station guy I've ever seen- clean, efficient, polite and nice- I doubt if he'll be there long). I hear Spanish daily, and the occasional smattering of Vietnamese. And I don't live in New York or some fancy "international" city, either.

I think that the perception of the U.S. as a "tapestry" is interesting as an analogy. I agree that it's a tapestry, but there's a common thread of cultural practices and civil things that makes it into a whole piece, and it works largely because of that thread. It's probably the hardest thing for outsiders to grok, though, because it's hard to see, if you don't live here.

For example, for you foreigners out there, here are a few things about our culture that are non-apparent, and you won't see them if you're a tourist:

1. It's considered to be very rude to discuss religion with your co-workers if you don't know them very well. Why? Because we have so many religions, and even within Christian sects, it's very easy to cause serious offense. Conservative Baptists may not get along with liberal Methodists, who in turn think that middle-road Catholics are backwards, who in turn think that Jehovah's Witnesses are endangering their immortal souls. It's a very big issue here, and most people are pretty careful about it.

2. Commenting on the place of one's origin is usually seen as a source of pride, and you will see lots of people suddenly remember they're part-Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, celebrate Kwanzaa, etc., but it's even more fun if you can do both. We're all quite proud of being "mutts", for the most part. I think that's one of the reasons why so many people here liked Barack Obama- a lot of people related to his mixed ancestry and heritage. This is a relatively new thing here, mainly in my parent's generation and younger folks, but it's been a good change.

3. When people take their religion seriously enough that they wear special clothing, it's generally respected, not seen as a problem. If there's anything most Americans appreciate, it's a whole-hearted idealist. Even if we disagree about everything they feel idealistic about.

There are exceptions and caveats, of course, like in any functional society. If a Muslim refused to sell people pork, and that was a requirement of their job, few would feel a lot of sympathy if they were fired. But that's because the Muslim is trying to enforce cultural rules on others, outside our civil code and common rules, not because we hate Muslims or think they're crazy for not thinking pork is an acceptable food.

4. We're all really insincere about certain things. This usually annoys certain types of foreigner, and it's led to a lot of really stupid stereotypes about those dumb Americans with their booming voices and their fake smiles. What people don't understand is that, like the Japanese with their elaborate ways of being non-confrontational, it has a definite purpose. Every culture has these things, of course- we're just pretty deliberate about it, and train people endlessly when they're hired to meet the behavioral requirements.

Saying "thank you" and looking people in the eye when you buy a candy bar is just normal expected behavior, even though it wasn't an important transaction, and the guy behind the counter hasn't done you any favors or cut you a deal. Since for the most part we don't do a lot of haggling, the insincerity of daily commercial transactions reminds us that we're all serving each other, and that while the other person's being paid for providing that service, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be grateful. As another example, in restaurants, we leave money as a "tip", and that's an important part of giving feedback to the people who took our orders and served our food, even if we'll never see them again. Our "tapesty" has a very strong commercial thread, basically, and even if I visit some restaurant where most people aren't speaking English, tipping is still required.

So there are a billion "little things" like that that bind people together here. It's hard to explain, as an insider, because so much of it's literally invisible to me, because it's just expected, regardless of what culture or skin color I'm dealing with, but anybody who's spent a year or more here can probably say a lot more about it, both the good and the bad.

But the idea that we're all just drifting icebergs of culture that happen to be in the same place is really mistaken. We all have to work together, shop together, live in neighborhoods together, deal with traffic together, etc., and that requires a lot of interaction and tolerance and certain rules.

I'm not saying that that's perfect. Racism is still a problem, and some immigrants never feel comfortable around people who've been here a few generations. But it works most of the time.

Are there any other first world nations where tipping is common place?

I really don't know. I know that it's one of those things about America that a lot of people find strange when they visit, so I thought I'd explain why we do it, and what it means (besides letting a really good server make a living), and how it's part of how we communicate clearly across cultural lines in different situations. If a server can't grasp what peoples' needs are, he or she won't last long, and tipping is no respecter of your race or creed.

That's just one of many little things, of course, but it's something that any foreign visitor would have to deal with, and I'm sure it's a bit strange if you aren't used to it.

Just so that foreigners understand a bit better, in terms of the economics of it all, tipping's not a gift. Most restaurants pay their servers a very minimal hourly wage- in fact, they're allowed to pay under the regular minimum wage, by law, IIRC- so tips are a server's main source of income, at any place where you sit down and are served.

Argh wrote:Most restaurants pay their servers a very minimal hourly wage- in fact, they're allowed to pay under the regular minimum wage, by law, IIRC- so tips are a server's main source of income, at any place where you sit down and are served.

I've heard this before and it's just ridiculous, how can you pay below minimum wage? It's supposed to be the minimum.

Is there any other country besides US where people say "thank you" to the cashier?

heh argh i don't think those characterstics are inherently american, they are things you will find in any western country IMO.

the tapestry analogy is a generalization, and wasn't so much about how people interact with eachother, it was about people being more likely to settle near people of a similar cultural group, and of retaining that cultural identity while living in a new country. anyways its just something i've read in a book, not something that i've personally had any experience with... was just interesting to note because it came up so many times in my studies.

I hear Spanish daily, and the occasional smattering of Vietnamese.

thats a good example i guess of my point; i very rarely hear anything other than english spoken, even by people of many different colors and backgrounds. generally when i do, it's someone who is new to the country.

and for the restaurant thing... i've heard of that, canada has that too i believe, and it's just one of the reasons i will never work in a restaurant (or a strip club)

Argh most of those stuff are common everywhere though i dont tip a bad waiter no matter how mixed race he is.
Even things you mentioned about talking about religion is same.
Nobody asks another about their religion unless they know them for a while i mean..duh?

Waiters getting below minimum wage sounds like exploitation to me.

Meh, we're getting sidetracked here. My point is and remains that Europeans have had a very different experience than Americans, when it comes to Muslim immigrants.

Perhaps reading the perspective of Muslims about their situation might be helpful.

And if this is roughly indicative of how Muslims are being treated, no wonder Europe has problems.

Meh. A brief review of the many, many official forms of discrimination in Europe vs. Muslims makes me think that if Europeans want things to change, they need to start by taking a long look at themselves.

The more I'm reading about this, the more the whole situation looks a lot like the position of African Americans in the U.S.A. back in the 1950's, with the only exception being that Jim Crow isn't official, it's just petty laws and harassment, no doubt backed up with a lot of the usual wink-and-nod discrimination. And the less sympathy I have for Europeans like that Danish writer, frankly.

Nobody from a country that would ban people from merely erecting a church with a funny tower on it can convince me that Muslims aren't being discriminated against in terms of hiring, promotions, higher education, getting loans, etc.