Sensible Erection | What will come after white fright?

Wednesday, 1 September 2010

quote [ One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realisation that a white United States is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority. ]

Indications are that the world may be about to lose Christopher Hitchens. Read him while you can. Here is his most recent piece from Slate.

[by erich wiess@1:51pmGMT] [+10 Interesting]

Comments

xgp007 said @ 2:03pm GMT on 1st Sep
You get Arizona, that's what happens. But on a much larger scale.

Yogurthu said @ 2:08pm GMT on 1st Sep
"...But it is increasingly common to hear allegations that Obama is either foreign-born or a Muslim. And these insinuations are perfectly emblematic of the two main fears of the old majority: that it will be submerged by an influx from beyond the borders and that it will be challenged in its traditional ways and faiths by an alien and largely Third World religion..."

mmmh... let´s see. US population was constructed mainly on an influx from beyond its borders... also, christianism is a version of a largely third world religion... with the same basis as islam, actually (hebrew monoteism and mythology)

Nihil said @ 2:27pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:-1]
This was missing the point on a galactic level.

swiggy said @ 3:16pm GMT on 1st Sep
Christianism?

...seriously?

symmetrian said @ 4:31pm GMT on 1st Sep
Christianism. You know, like Budhianity.

theolypse said @ 7:58pm GMT on 1st Sep
Buddhaity.

bruceski said @ 9:49pm GMT on 1st Sep
Oh, the Buddhanity!

ralfmaximus said @ 8:06pm GMT on 1st Sep
No, you're thinking of Christianite.

The glowing green element that causes Jewishman to lose his powers.

valen85 said @ 9:44pm GMT on 1st Sep
Jewlybdenum.

Hugh_Janus said @ 10:22pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:2 Funny]
I did some research on this, and Obama was born on foreign soil BUT if you read our Constitution, Amendments and Titles*, you will see that even though he was born on foreign soil he is still considered a natural born citizen. Same as McCain who was born in Panama. I am not a Obama supporter, but will acknowledge that he is qualified or atleast qualified based on that specific requiremen.

* Ammendment 14, Title 8 (Doing this from memory)

Krutz said @ 3:05am GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:2 Informative]
Hawaii is foreign soil?

theolypse said @ 12:27pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
I don't think "research" actually means what you're using it for, here.

ComposerNate said @ 2:09pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Insightful]

MLK vs. GBeck

foobar said @ 2:51pm GMT on 1st Sep
It's not his fault you have to get the DeLorean up to 88 MPH.

DungeonKeeper said @ 3:48am GMT on 2nd Sep
wouldn't the door being open cause a lot of drag?

balzac said @ 4:58am GMT on 2nd Sep
They're gull wing doors so no. They cause LIFT!

swiggy said @ 3:12pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:2 Funny]
Yeah, sure, they mention the gerbil stunt that he pulled in 1990, but what about the other things he may or may have not done that year?

SiryumYum said @ 4:23pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:-1 Overrated]
There is absolutely no proof that Glen Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Why does everyone keep saying that Glen Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?

benjamander said @ 4:58pm GMT on 1st Sep
Nobody's saying that, they're just asking why he hasn't denied it.

ralfmaximus said @ 8:04pm GMT on 1st Sep
Exactly. His silence about whether or not he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 is worrisome.

snowfox said @ 11:48pm GMT on 1st Sep
There is no way Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. I mean I hear a lot of rumors Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, but if you consider his totally stable personality, you'd find it hard to believe Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.

the9thcircle said @ 2:13pm GMT on 1st Sep
absolutely refreshing to read.

Krutz said @ 2:25pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:4 Insightful]
I have no sympathy at all for the "OMG! White people will lose their majorty" woes, and I'm as white as you can get without being a member of Depeche Mode. Whites have fucked up a ton of shit over the years, and if you actually felt that scales needed to be balanced, whites would be in for a world of hurt.

For all the complaints of "them thar Mexican/Muslim/whatever people is gonna keep us white folk from gettin' jobs an stuff," I find this is the same camp that claims if you can't get a job on your own merits, you're scum. They're also the same ones that oppose any kind of laws that prevent discrimination, which would seem to run counter to their goals, if they presume other races/creeds will be just as intolerant as they've been.

Trying to hold onto white privilege is a lost cause. You can't stop demographic change, especially if you've encouraged it unwittingly. Cultures will change. The U.S. might become predominantly Muslim, or Athiest, or a flavor of Central American Catholic someday. So long as you don't have some kind of stupid civil war over it and lose your shit, said religions (or lack thereof) will have about as much bearing on your life as the churches you already ignore every day.

So the party may be coming to an end. Be glad it's happening in a nation where we at least have some laws that give minorities some protection; white people should appreciate that.

swiggy said @ 3:10pm GMT on 1st Sep
+1 beat me to it

Nihil said @ 3:27pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:2]
An important excerpt from a larger piece:

This is one point where people’s anxiety over these slow, demographic conquests splits according to their real fears: do you just not want to see that kind of face when you go outside, or do you not want to import the culture of the immigrants’ home country? The whole debate right now is so censored, so totally dishonest on both sides, that nobody will come clean about which it is. I suspect for some people it’s the faces: they want the faces on their street to be the same shape and color they were when they were growing up. If that’s what you want, then no matter where you are, I can guarantee that if you’re rich enough to worry about things like this (as opposed to where your next meal’s coming from), then yup, you definitely have grounds for worry. People move around to where the food is, the money, the good grazing, the jobs. The Germanic tribes who moved in on Europe a couple millennia back took a more reasonable view; they called wars “the movements of the peoples.” The Huns push the Goths off the steppe, and boom! Next thing you know, the Goths are wiping out a Roman army at Adrianople.

The faces are going to change. We are in a new military-historical era, in which the only states with the sheer will to resist slow “conquest” by immigration were the Stalinist states. Of course they didn’t have much of a problem there anyway -- not too many immigrants trying to sneak into North Korea or the old USSR -- but even if they had faced real demographic challenge, they had the will to open fire. The Berlin Wall is a nasty case in point, where the will was used to stop people leaving.

But those Stalinist states are not exactly a growth industry these days, and no liberal democratic state has the will to shoot down unarmed people trying to get in (or out, for that matter). Even the Israelis, who are maybe the fiercest first-worlders on demographic issues, don’t shoot the poor Africans who cross to Beersheba for jobs in the cafes. They just send them back to Sudan to be shot there.

So the movement of the peoples, the slow demographic wars, are going to go on. We just don’t have a counter-move, except maybe bombarding poor people with money to stay home. Basically, no matter where you are, the complexions and the features you see on the streets are going to change. If it’s any consolation to face-fascists, Europeans got their licks in first, so to speak. Not many African-Americans around with pure African blood; not many Mexican Indians without some Spanish in them. So now the faces blend the other way.

For most people the real worry, if they were allowed to even say it out loud, is culture: if you’re French, you really don’t want Paris turning into Kinshasa, because let’s be honest, Kinshasa is a Hellhole. If you’re English, you don’t want London turning into Karachi, because Karachi is a nightmare. If you’re American, you don’t want Houston -- oh Hell, ever been to Houston? If you have half a brain, you don’t want Houston at all, the lousy sweatbox.

The thing is, most of the people who invaded from those places tend to agree with you. That’s why they moved in the first place. Nobody knows what a Hellhole the Congo is like a Congolese. I read somewhere that on the Congo riverboats, they have these slang terms for the different decks. The first-class deck they call “Europe.” The second-class deck is “China,” meaning not that great, but livable. The third-class deck is “Congo,” and nobody wants to be there, least of all the Congolese.

So to assess your situation in terms of the new conquests, you have to decide whether you’re in a Kosovo -- two tribes hating each other forever, turning out babies as weapons -- or that Congolese riverboat, where nobody wants it too “authentic” if they can help it. There’s a lot of blurring and overlap between those two models, sure. Take Northern Ireland: a lot of yelling, a lot of noisy tribal hate, but I just don’t think they have it in them to be another Kosovo. Too interested in TV and cars.

That’s what’s funny about the debate right now: the diehards in the U.S. and Europe wish we had the old ruthless will to seal the borders, but the “weakness” of the advanced countries generally works pretty well to turn the immigrants into immigrant-hating locals in a generation or two. The old model, bayonets on the border, isn’t even in the running. Time to face that fact. So the faces will change.

If you can handle these new faces, you’re likely to be surprised to see your “weak” American or European culture win out, slowly, un-gloriously but surely, and you may live long enough to see a whole new crop of pols who look like they just came from Karachi or Kinshasa until you turn the sound on and hear them ranting about how we need to get rid of all these damn immigrants.

v21 said @ 6:22pm GMT on 1st Sep
I knew it was the War Nerd when he mentioned Houston.

symmetrian said @ 4:29pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:2]
I find even the discussion of it unsettling.

I understand why the dialogue has to occur, and I understand that race is an issue in our society and probably always will be, but it upsets me that we still focus on things like the idea of one race/color being a minority and another a majority, because ideally it shouldn't be an issue at all. Everyone is people.

But again, I understand that there are people who actively try to perpetuate these things and that the discussion is an important one, it just makes me very sad.

maryyugo said @ 4:58pm GMT on 1st Sep
Right. It should be about merits and practices, not about skin color, ethnic origin, or external appearance.

bruceski said @ 9:56pm GMT on 1st Sep
I think that the only way people can move past it is to accept their own inherent bias. I'll use myself as an example. I grew up in New Mexico, and currently live in Portland. Hispanic/Latino looks "normal" to me, I don't even notice it without consciously trying. Asian people are noticed as Asian but otherwise normal.

Black people give me pause. Not a lot of black folks in NM or in inner Portland, so it registers as "odd" when I see one. Because I recognize I have that reaction, I can move past it when it occurs. If I were in denial, trying to pretend even to myself that it wasn't because of race, I'd start seeking out other reasons to feel that way about black people, and I can easily see that spiraling into actual racism.

symmetrian said @ 10:32pm GMT on 1st Sep
I wish I knew how to address this better.

Without a fundamental change in our social subconscious, the way we are taught and the media we ingest, society will be unable to move beyond skin color - or for that matter, body shape and mannerisms. Even with equal rights, equal pay, equal education, equal housing, equal power, there will always be discussion about appearances and there will still be debates about "superiority" based on those appearances.

I can't even speculate on whether this is a good or a bad thing as I am in no way qualified to do so and would merely say a bunch of stupid shit that a better educated person would eye-roll at.

I think my main problem with the article and what I was getting at before is that there is an assumption being made that really bothers me: that "America" was, is, or should be, a "white" country. It's just a place that has people in it. America, to me, is a set of ideals that are meant to provide a forum for the expression of its inhabitants potential while keeping them as safe as is possible, both from loss of life and loss of liberty. This has absolutely nothing to do with what color, sex, or religion its people are, practice, or believe.

snowfox said @ 11:41pm GMT on 1st Sep
You can't ever completely change it. We are hard-wired to prefer faces more similar to ours. This has to do with identifying members of our families and tribes, and identifying good genetic matches. We'll never see racial bias dissolve so completely that people won't still often marry someone who looks similar to them.

snowfox said @ 11:45pm GMT on 1st Sep
On a personal note, I am actually fixated on bone structure and the favored type of nose when looking at a face. I actually find that I often prefer darker skin (especially in women), but the "wrong" facial structure is a deal-breaker no matter what color or sex the potential mate is.

p.s. I totally have a thing for women with golden to cocoa skin and dark hair. Wonder if they like white girls...

symmetrian said @ 11:56pm GMT on 1st Sep
I realize that a lot of the appearance-centric perspective we have is part of the biological imperative, so there's definitely that. I really meant eliminating that bias to a reasonably logical extent.

symmetrian said @ 11:57pm GMT on 1st Sep
Or should that be logically reasonable? Pffft!

snowfox said @ 3:06am GMT on 3rd Sep
Fuck if I know. I demand you bring me cocoa-skinned women RIGHT NOW!

rndmnmbr said @ 1:17am GMT on 2nd Sep
If America "should" be anything, it should be a nice brown color. I bet there were a lot of native Americans bitching about all these new white people taking their jobs.

theolypse said @ 12:21pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Jobs, fish, whatever.

randomaction said @ 3:22am GMT on 2nd Sep
Whites have fucked up a ton of shit over the years, and if you actually felt that scales needed to be balanced, whites would be in for a world of hurt.

I can taste the ignorance, almost biblical: I am a jealous god visiting inequity on the fathers sons unto the third and forth generation.

Trying to hold onto white privilege is a lost cause

Not lost by several life times. If you have kids and they have kids the same privilege relationships will continue despite demographics. It will take a revolution, or a long time, or an Unlikely Event to change it. Without one of those three the west will continue to be dominated by whites. As if there were such a thing as white. These White people don't need numerical superiority, just financial. That's all they need. Be a socialist or at least get over your self and your self ascribed whitehood.

rash1 said @ 3:37pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
Can't we still read what he wrote when he's gone?

sacrelicious said @ 6:31pm GMT on 1st Sep
nope. to quote William Shakespeare... oh wait, I can't quote William Shakespeare, he's dead.

ckfahrenheit said @ 3:55pm GMT on 1st Sep
I shouldn't have read about his illness. Same thing I've been paranoid about for the last month. *facepalm*

maryyugo said @ 5:03pm GMT on 1st Sep
"Hitchens is known for his love of cigarettes and alcohol ..."

While esophageal cancer can happen without any known cause, it's most common by far, as are "throat" and mouth cancers, in people who both smoke and drink. It seems the combination does really bad things to cells.

maryyugo said @ 7:41pm GMT on 1st Sep
And while anecdotes are pretty worthless, another celebrity with "throat cancer" (a non-descript generic term) is Michael Douglas, well known for drinking a lot of alcohol early in life (not sure if he quit) and for "heavy" smoking most or all of his life.

maryyugo said @ 7:51pm GMT on 1st Sep
Forgot to mention some throat tumors are HPV related. Get your shots before you eat pussy or suck cock, kids.

ckfahrenheit said @ 6:18am GMT on 2nd Sep
the fact that I neither smoke nor drink gives me some relief. But I have GERD which is a risk factor - however my case is quite mild.

They say the weird sensations in my throat are likely due to an existing anxiety issue. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to request an endoscopy within a few weeks just to settle things once and for all. In the meantime moar prilosec.

maryyugo said @ 4:50pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Funny]
American elections don't rely on race so it's a non-issue. A more pressing one is the creep of religion over separation of church and state. Another issue is outsourcing so many production jobs to third world countries. Yet another is the invasion of undocumented workers through the porous borders to willing employers in the US. Yet another is a checkered if not dismal educational system. And then there are the wars. It's going to be a difficult next decade and century but not because people of color, whatever the hell THAT is, are going to vote more.

maryyugo said @ 4:54pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Underrated]
As to this:

"Do you not want to import the culture of the
immigrants’ home country?"

Depends on the culture, don't you think? If the culture promotes honesty, human rights, fairness, and hard work, I don't care if it has strange dances or songs. On the other hand, I'd rather do without Roma (Gypsies) ethics and methods if you don't mind. Or those of any culture that encourages hypocrisy, restricts rights, and (*especially*) that mixes church and state.

KingPellinore said @ 6:19pm GMT on 1st Sep
Then you'd probably want to stay out of the USA.

maryyugo said @ 7:39pm GMT on 1st Sep
Which shows how little you know and understand about the USA.

theolypse said @ 7:57pm GMT on 1st Sep
NO U!

maryyugo said @ 8:38pm GMT on 1st Sep
NO! Ewe!

randomaction said @ 3:39am GMT on 2nd Sep
Could you tell me more about Romani ethics and methods?

f00m@nB@r said @ 8:44pm GMT on 1st Sep
http://www.nerve.com/scanner/2010/09/01/family-values-senate-candidate-arrested-for-sex-crime

tronsgit said @ 8:45pm GMT on 1st Sep
I understand the angst teabaggers and others feel about this, but I think it'd be wiser to start accepting the changes before they happen rather than go absolutely nuts when they do. Stress is really unhealthy.

Hugh_Janus said @ 10:17pm GMT on 1st Sep
I think if you look at any civilized country, you will find they are a white majority. Yes white people fuck shit up, Romans, Brits, now America. But look at countires lead by browns or blacks. Most of those countries are worse off then America. Looking at random shite on the internet will show that over all whites in America are more educated. That being said, eventually the majority will be non white, i.e. lower educated people. America will eventually turn in Idiocracy. The worse part is as this transition goes through, the current minorities will continue to get special treatment while the 'whites' will not benefit. I am glad I live now to enjoy being white before the downfall of America occurs. As I ponder my American biased history lessons, I can not recall any time when non-white countries were power houses in the world, minus Egypt. Now you can counter that and say when white peopel rule there is war and stuff like that. I will not arugue, but look at non-white countries, they have been having small scaled wars for ever. And now for my sarcastic response: when the white people no longer have the power and money who is going to adopt black kids from africa? Sure as shit black people aint doing it now.

danshyu said @ 10:45pm GMT on 1st Sep
China was a power house for technological and philosophical inventions before they decided to lock up their boarders and got left out of the progress during their last few dynasties.

On another note... Does Asian American get any special treatments at all?

snowfox said @ 11:51pm GMT on 1st Sep
White people kept a lot of those other groups from advancing by exploiting them. If you want to make any scientific basis for whites being somehow superior, go back 10K+ years and make the claim that Europe was a frozen shithole and the minimum intelligence level necessary to survive was higher than elsewhere. You could also try pointing to Neanderthal hybridization. Otherwise you've got no conceivable case unless you want to argue the Just World Fallacy, which is pretty much what you seem to be doing.

snowfox said @ 11:55pm GMT on 1st Sep
It should be noted I find it possible that humans from close to when we absorbed neanderthals were smarter than other human populations as a result. If true, it wouldn't matter now because that advantage would be long gone from years of protecting people who would otherwise have not lived to reproduce. I sometimes suspect that white people on average may somehow be functionally dumber than everyone else because of this effect.

Misanthrope said @ 5:44am GMT on 2nd Sep
Your knowledge of history is depressingly bad.

azazel said @ 7:40am GMT on 2nd Sep
And now for my sarcastic response

wait... what?

CompletelyIrrelevant said @ 8:38am GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
How the hell do I make sense of this shit?
I'll try it anyway.

How are you judging a 'civilized' country? How you answer that will say a lot about how you think. Is Japan civilized? China? (yes I know China's got HUGE problems, but still) Brazil? Argentina? I know they've got problems and corruption, but if you look at the conditions of some American communities, it may be difficult to pinpoint a distinction between the two.

Most countries are worse off than America in certain regards, because America and other countries are able to benefit from their misfortune.
The entirety of Africa has been fucked by colonial imperialism. Carved up into chunks for European nations to control and exploit, with no regard to indigenous cultures and 'nations'. Likewise America (North, Central and South) has been fornicated with enthusiasm by England, France, Spain and Portugal. The reason U.S.A. and Western Europe have it so good, is because Africa and the Americas have had it so bad. The reason these 'brown' countries are worse off than the 'white' nations is because they were ruled, exploited, then cut loose.
This isn't White Liberal Guilt, it's history. It's what happened, and why things are the way they are. It's not because "Black folk can't run shit", your skin colour doesn't determine shit. Race is a bullshit, constructed concept.

The idea of what is and what isn't 'white' isn't stable, nor has racial solidarity amongst 'whites' been a perpetual, unchanged thing from the dawn of time. A hundred years ago, Russians weren't considered white, Irish were considered a different 'race' and a danger to America, Ben Franklin had a raging hate-on for the 'German race' muddying up America's racial demographics, and believed they'd vote in a bloc to give a disproportionately German voice to American politics.
In colonial Virginia race was nothing until white indentured servants and poor freemen became prosperous enough to no longer have much in common with African-American slaves or newly imported African slaves, prior to this point it was purely social class that occupied the fears of the planters.

Whites are more educated, not because they're any better than 'blacks', but because they are the majority, cross all classes of society, whereas black people are predominantly underprivileged, stuck living in ghettos or poor communities, with underfunded schools, as a result of having to slowly claw their way up in American society. Whites are more educated because THEY have ACCESS to better schools.
Want to beat the Idiocracy? FIX THE SCHOOL SYSTEM and remove 'hidden' racial barriers to social and economic advancement, so underprivileged kids have access to better education, and participate in a culture that shows that social advancement through education is possible.

Non-white powerhouses:
Egypt
Persia
Carthage
Parthia (sp? The empire the Romans failed against forever)
China
The various Islamic regimes that retained the knowledge of the declining Greco-Roman cultures during the tumultuous period of the early Middle Ages
Imperial Japan in the later 1800s and early 1900s
Depending on how you define 'white', there's the Macedonian empire, short-lived though it was
The Russians
The cultural authority of the Greeks
The Byzantines

Race is a fiction, and not a determining factor in real geopolitics. Cultural ethnic groups, feuding tribes, is a factor. Sectarian violence is a factor. Empire is a massive factor.

Race is made up. Ignore it. The only useful purpose it serves is categorizing your porn collection.

azazel said @ 10:39am GMT on 2nd Sep
Parthian/Arsacid Empire, but the Romans didn't "fail" insofar as they invaded Mesopotamia on several occasions, they also captured cities on multiple occasions too. However, it is true that they did okay against Rome, but it's a stretch to claim the Romans failed "forever."

arctan said @ 11:37pm GMT on 2nd Sep
For all the thousands of years of recorded history, northern Europe has pretty much been a backwater shithole until about 500 years ago or so.

lilmookieesquire said @ 3:25am GMT on 3rd Sep
Incas? Aztecs? Arabia?

lilmookieesquire said @ 3:26am GMT on 3rd Sep
Fuck dude.

Spain?

arrowhen said @ 10:27pm GMT on 1st Sep

JOECAM said @ 11:11pm GMT on 1st Sep [Score:1 Funny]

pleaides said @ 4:18am GMT on 2nd Sep
Hitchens is looking very ill lately, which I find very upsetting. I hope he bounces back because whether you like him or not he is a valuable contributor to public debates of all sorts. He will be sorely missed when he goes.