Marty Peretz said the following about Mexicans last week on The New Republic website:
Well, I am extremely pessimistic about Mexican-American relations, not because the U.S. had done anything specifically wrong to our southern neighbor but because a (now not quite so) wealthy country has as its abutter a Latin society with all of its characteristic deficiencies: congenital corruption, authoritarian government, anarchic politics, near-tropical work habits, stifling social mores, Catholic dogma with the usual unacknowledged compromises, an anarchic counter-culture and increasingly violent modes of conflict. Then, there is the Mexican diaspora in America, hard-working and patriotic but mired in its untold numbers of illegals, about whom no one can talk with candor.
To which Ta-Nehisi Coates replied on his blog at The Atlantic:
I think a racist would claim that Mexican society is “congenitally corrupt.” I think a racist would disparage “sub-tropical work habits.” (There would be no slaves in the past, and no construction workers in the present without those habits.) But it takes a fucking racist to say all of that,and then assert that “no one can talk with candor” about illegal immigrants. Understand the difference–the racist simply argues that you are less than. The fucking racist argues he isn’t allowed to say you are less than, right after he’s said as much. The former deserves a dis track. The latter, only half a bar. Which means, I’ve already said too much.
So, I guess you and Ta-Nehisi aren’t capable of understanding that the original quote distinguished between Mexicans in Mexico and illegal Mexicans here in the USA.
It’s just “What, did he generalize about a race/nationality? RACIST!” and “Hey, some black person called someone else a racist, let’s spread the word!”
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No, it is about how racists complain about political correctness when it hardly stops them from expressing themselves. It fits right in with their whole lying style.
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Well, it looks like the usual suspects have it right, for once: “Islamophobia” really is a gateway drug. Once you’ve acknowledged that there are significant differences between groups — even as you keep insisting they’re “purely cultural”, with no basis whatsoever in our sinful flesh — you are lost.
I, for one, am happy to welcome another liberal Jew to the dark side.
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Nonserviam is blind to the fact that he fits the description of the latter type of racist (that Mr. Coates eloquently describes) to a tee.
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“No, it is about how racists complain about political correctness when it hardly stops them from expressing themselves.”
I think you’re kind of missing the point, while proving it.
Sure, your average person can say that Mexico is becoming a failed state, or that illegals in the US bring in poverty and crime. But to do so endangers your credibility, your livelihood, and sometimes even your safety.
While the “abagond” blog doesn’t have any political clout or influence, it mirrors the sentiments of organizations like the SPLC, NAACP, and La Raza. Those organizations DO have power, and will defame and file lawsuits against anyone who does not toe the politically-correct line.
If you’re a politician, these organizations can create or destroy you, and so even though you technically can say whatever you want about their protected minorities, you face severe repercussions if you do.
That’s what he means about discussing group differences “with candor”. Sure, we can do so in our own homes and on the anonymous blogosphere (so long as nobody finds out), but for any public figure to do so amounts to career suicide.
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Ditto, what I said about Noserviam, about Racerealist. They embody what Coates was describing. And the sad thing is that I honestly believe that they are oblivious to that fact.
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So you deny that people like Al Sharpton and Ben Jealous have enough influence to discourage public figures from saying what they really think and observe about various protected groups?
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If people are afraid of losing their careers or their positions in life then they are the cowardly ones making that choice.
You have these strong opinions, yet you are afraid of Al Sharpton, or La Raza? Get some balls if you believe in what you claim to believe in and stop blaming others for your lack of courage in what you claim to believe.
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Maybe some people are cowed, but Peretz does not appear to be one of them. Peretz did not say “public figures”, he said “no one” can speak “with candor” about Mexicans. But he just did! That is what Coates is pointing out.
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The argument is not about whether people who are afraid of losing their job over expressing a politically incorrect viewpoint are “cowards”. It’s about whether these people are, in fact, at risk of losing their jobs over making these statements. If speaking candidly about these issues will cost you your job, and therefore your platform, then it’s true that “no one can talk with candor” about them.
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Peretz did not say “public figures”
True, but I don’t think that he meant “no one” in the absolute literal sense. “No one who matters” seems like a reasonable interpretation.
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Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences. The choice is up to each individual. If they care more about their job then what they believe, then that is their choice. They can speak candidly and suffer the consequences, but they choose not to.
Unless if we want to “force” our message on others, then others are allowed the freedom to respond, even if they disagree.
Other people have chosen to speak up and risk their positions/safety. We usually admire those people for their courage. History is full of examples of people sticking to their convictions in the face of penalty, which is how much of our civil and human rights were obtained.
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“Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences.”
So Tiananmen Square and the Alien and Sedition acts were totally fine, by your estimation?
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You are misunderstanding me. I am not saying that consequences should be meted or what the consequences should be. I am saying that one cannot speak or act and expect that there be no consequences.
Nor can one really do anything but be a powerless victim and hope for someone else to stand up for them if they are unwilling to speak/act for themselves.
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“Increasingly violent modes of conflict”?
Because normally conflict is really non-violent.
And there’s absolutely no violence in America.[/sarcasm]
Racerealist and nonserviam, I believe it’s ok to criticise a particular culture. It is NOT ok to do that without :
1. Backing it up with facts
2. If you are criticising a culture which is not your own, you must acknowledge that your own culture has flaws, too, and so do all cultures, and that maybe your own culture has some of the same flaws of the culture you’re criticising.
3. Acknowledging that the culture you are criticising has some good points (as do all cultures).
However:
1.Peretz didn’t back up any of his assertions about Mexico with facts. He just listed a lot of flaws he believes Mexico has, and gave no examples.
2. He talks like America has never done anything wrong to Mexico or Mexicans. That’s nonesense. There is documented evidence of rapes happening at the Mexican border, for one thing.
3. He talks like there is absolutely nothing good about Mexico.
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having lived in Mexico and the US, and now living in Canada, I for one find the remarks by that writer to be not only racist, but just ignorant. I’ll give a couple of examples of that ignorance. New Orleans had a hurricane and inundation and about four thousand people, mostly poor and black, died. Villahermosa, capital of Tobasco Province, and a larger population, had a similar inundation-and only four people died. So, which is the failed state? Once, when I was in the city of Oaxaca, I’d gone into this industrial building on the side of the zocalo where the tourists never go. I had an appointment with a woman advertising a house to rent. I spied a key shop with a certificate in English. I stopped to talk to the owner, who turned out to not talk English, he’d picked up the certificate in LA, he told me, when he’d gone for a while to work. I asked him why he came back to Oaxaca, what with the unemployment and poverty. He said, “aca, senor, la vida se vale nada”…” “Life in Los Angeles is worth nothing. They’ll kill you for a pair of sneakers.I’d rather be poor in Oaxaca than stepping over dead bodies to be rich in America.”
If I didn’t have a child that needs me around, I’d move back to Mexico in a minute. The rest of the world got to watch the Katrina catastrophe, and knows, as I mentioned, where the biggest failed State in the world is located.
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If you are criticising a culture which is not your own, you must acknowledge that your own culture has flaws, too, and so do all cultures, and that maybe your own culture has some of the same flaws of the culture you’re criticising.
But of course. There are no flaws or virtues that are unique to any particular group. It is the statistical distribution of those traits that differs between the groups.
However, I find the tu quoque argument irrelevant to the issue of illegal Mexican settlement. The real question is whether it changes our country in unwelcome ways. And the answer is: yes, it does. Case closed.
And finally: if you don’t wish some group to trasnform your country into a version of theirs, that doesn’t mean that you “hate” that group or their country, or wish them ill. Not at all. But good fences make good neighbors.
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“good fences make good neighbors.”
A fence where people are shot and raped is not “good” in any meaningful sense of the term IMO.
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By the border patrol agents? I highly doubt it.
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And how does this pertain to the fact that Mexican culture is largely incompatible with ours, and therefore massive and illegal Mexican settlement is bad for our country?
Should we let the Mexicans in just because they really, really want to be here (like Sarah Palin said during the campaign)?
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“And how does this pertain to the fact that Mexican culture is largely incompatible with ours, and therefore massive and illegal Mexican settlement is bad for our country?”
It doesn’t, but a “fence” which hurts people is a bad fence.
And yes, women are assaulted by border officials. (Warning: link cntains very disturbing accounts of sexual assault and could cause panic attacks)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n9_v60/ai_18610915/
There are less despicable places of stopping someone getting from one place to another.
Also, I really don’t think it’s plausible that Mexicans are “turning America into Mexico”. According to the US census bureau, America is 14% Hispanic (that’s ALL Hispanics, not just Mexicans). I haven’t heard of any examples of Mexicans forcing Americans to speak their language or adopt their culture.
The trouble is, when people who are considered “less worthy” ask for equal treatment, people used to seeing them as “less worthy” will accuse them of asking for special treatment.
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Also, what’s so “incompatible” about Mexican culture?
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Because it’s not like it’s possible for a contry to cope with a huge influx of people from elsewhere. Especially not America.
http://www.leftycartoons.com/history-marches-on-nativism-marches-in-place/
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Great cartoon!
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Except the jews, catholics, and chinese had to come here by boat, which not only discouraged the dregs of society but also made it difficult to immigrate illegally without any documentation. Mexicans, on the other hand, only have to gather enough potable water for a 2-day desert crossing.
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There are less despicable places [sic] of stopping someone getting from one place to another.
A physical barrier, while obviously necessary, is only a part of the solution. The other crucial elements are removal of the incentives and attrition through enforcement (yes, it does work).
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Also, I really don’t think it’s plausible that Mexicans are “turning America into Mexico”.
California is two to three decades ahead of the rest of the country. How is betting-your-future-on-“diversity” working out for them?
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Also, what’s so “incompatible” about Mexican culture?
Mexico is a Latin society with all of its characteristic deficiencies: congenital corruption, authoritarian government, anarchic politics, near-tropical work habits, stifling social mores, Catholic dogma with the usual unacknowledged compromises, an anarchic counter-culture and increasingly violent modes of conflict.
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As an aside, it always puzzles me when black Americans take the Mexicans’ side. Well, not really puzzles — I understand where it’s coming from — but I find it highly irrational.
Upper-class (as opposed to middle and working class) whites do benefit from massive Mexican immigration in the form of cheap labor and political fodder (Democrats), while being able to insulate themselves from the social pathologies that this immigration brings. Blacks, however, largely occupy the same socioeconomic niche as Hispanics, and thus are forced into competition in which they aren’t doing very well.
And the modes of conflict are, indeed, increasingly violent. On the streets of LA, there is a race war going on, with Mexicans systematically “racially cleansing” black neighborhoods and taking them over. For once, I do blame the whitey for importing yet another intractable racial problem, as if one wasn’t enough.
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As a further aside, how has a natural and perfectly legitimate desire to preserve one’s culture and nationhood come to be treated as the gravest moral crime imaginable?
This is a rhetorical question. I know how.
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Nonserviam: So Peretz is not a racist?
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No. There’s nothing morally (much less factually) wrong about his statement.
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To blogstarman:
I’ll give a couple of examples of that ignorance. New Orleans had a hurricane and inundation and about four thousand people, mostly poor and black, died. Villahermosa, capital of Tobasco Province, and a larger population, had a similar inundation-and only four people died.
Do you mean Hurricane Dean passed over Villahermosa with a wind force substantially less than that of Hurricane Katrina when it passed over New Orleans..? Oh and there was no storm surge from Hurricane Dean. The geography didn’t lend itself to a storm surge in Tabasco unlike the storm surge that struck lower Louisiana and Mississippi when Katrina hit. It’s not even a close comparison. I might as well compare the 1985 earthquake in Mexico DF (which resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths..) to the Loma Pieta earthquake that hit the SF Bay Area which caused 63 deaths. However of course, not all quakes are the same.. depends on geology, the strength of the earthquake, etc. It doesn’t mean that the San Francisco area is more competent in handling earthquakes than Mexico DF.
As for one guy’s opinion in Oaxaca.. we might as well compare some of the poorer areas of Mexico DF to rural Kansas. Seriously.. not a relevant comparison.
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