Diversity makes the US stronger ????????

[dilloduck]

I keep hearing this repeated over and over ad nauseum but I sure would like an example of how multi-culturalism or diversity is doing anything but making Katrina a WORSE disaster than it already was.I don't see any evidence of diversity showing it's value in the form of strength anywhere. Apparently "diversity" is a double edged sword ??

 

[Nuc]

I keep hearing this repeated over and over ad nauseum but I sure would like an example of how multi-culturalism or diversity is doing anything but making Katrina a WORSE disaster than it already was.I don't see any evidence of diversity showing it's value in the form of strength anywhere. Apparently "diversity" is a double edged sword ??

What kind of diversity are you complaining about? I don't get it. Do you mean that there are both black and white people there? What's your point exactly?

 

[dilloduck]

What kind of diversity are you complaining about? I don't get it. Do you mean that there are both black and white people there? What's your point exactly?

My point is that people are not gathering together as people to solve this problem--they are lining up--black vs white----liberals vs conservatives--poor vs rich. The big defense for having a million cultures "accepted" by America is that it makes us stronger. I guess I'm challenging someone to take the Katrina example and show me exactly where this strength is. I ain't seeing it.

 

[Nuc]

My point is that people are not gathering together as people to solve this problem--they are lining up--black vs white----liberals vs conservatives--poor vs rich. The big defense for having a million cultures "accepted" by America is that it makes us stronger. I guess I'm challenging someone to take the Katrina example and show me exactly where this strength is. I ain't seeing it.

For one thing it's the South. For another thing NO is a particularly nasty place even by southern standards.

New York City is one of the most diverse places in the world and much more multi-cultural than Louisiana. We dealt with both 9/11 and the blackout very well and the multi-cultural makeup of the city didn't get in the way.

 

[dilloduck]

For one thing it's the South. For another thing NO is a particularly nasty place even by southern standards.

New York City is one of the most diverse places in the world and much more multi-cultural than Louisiana. We dealt with both 9/11 and the blackout very well and the multi-cultural makeup of the city didn't get in the way.

In other words----No, there is no evidence here of diversity helping anything one damn bit and a lot of evidence that it's actually making the problem harder.

 

[Nuc]

In other words----No, there is no evidence here of diversity helping anything one damn bit and a lot of evidence that it's actually making the problem harder.

You mentioned blacks and whites. Are you saying they shouldn't live in the same town/region? If they are separated it will be easier to deal with a crisis?

 

[dilloduck]

You mentioned blacks and whites. Are you saying they shouldn't live in the same town/region? If they are separated it will be easier to deal with a crisis?

No, I'm not. Races tend to choose to live with others of their own race which is thier right and just plain makes sense. IF we DID have a single race society, there would be no other race to blame and people wouldn't have that excuse to avoid doing the work and taking resposibilty for fixing it.

 

[Nuc]

No, I'm not. Races tend to choose to live with others of their own race which is thier right and just plain makes sense. IF we DID have a single race society, there would be no other race to blame and people wouldn't have that excuse to avoid doing the work and taking resposibilty for fixing it.

Sorry but I disagree. I used to live in Italy and I've spent considerable amounts of time in Asia. These are societies that look homogenous, nevertheless they have all kinds of strata and they also blame their problems on "the other". In Italy it's a north/south thing and in Asia it's caste or religion. Also relative darkness of skin. It is human nature to form groups and probably human nature to blame other people. It's a lot easier when it's a totally different race, but when it's not there are other signifiers.

I agree that race is not helping things in this disaster, but I don't think that simply having two races involved constitutes "multiculturalism".

 

[OCA]

In other words----No, there is no evidence here of diversity helping anything one damn bit and a lot of evidence that it's actually making the problem harder.

Untrue, absolutely untrue. There are plenty, thousands of documented cases in N.O. of Whites helping Blacks and vice versa, you must be blind not to have seen that.

What you should be talking about and i'm going out on a limb here as my stance against racism in any form is well documented here........my thinking on one race related subject has changed in the last week or so....why do Blacks react the way they do to adversity? I mean if N.O. were reversed and it was 75% White would we have had helicopter shootings, looting for things other than neccessary to sustain life and now today the blatant arson fires?

Anyway please explain how diversity is making it harder in N.O., I mean after 75 years of Democratic rule it was pretty segregated as is, don't ya think?

 

[OCA]

No, I'm not. Races tend to choose to live with others of their own race which is thier right and just plain makes sense. IF we DID have a single race society, there would be no other race to blame and people wouldn't have that excuse to avoid doing the work and taking resposibilty for fixing it.

Sorry this is America Mr. Duke, we are a melting pot and always have been and its what makes this country great but no doubt you'll argue that with some trumped up excuses, you need to go somewhere else where this mythical white race exists solely. I mean lets remember, caucasian is not a race its a skin color, now Italian for example is a race. You see simple, isn't it?

 

[GotZoom]

Untrue, absolutely untrue. There are plenty, thousands of documented cases in N.O. of Whites helping Blacks and vice versa, you must be blind not to have seen that.

What you should be talking about and i'm going out on a limb here as my stance against racism in any form is well documented here........my thinking on one race related subject has changed in the last week or so....why do Blacks react the way they do to adversity? I mean if N.O. were reversed and it was 75% White would we have had helicopter shootings, looting for things other than neccessary to sustain life and now today the blatant arson fires?

Anyway please explain how diversity is making it harder in N.O., I mean after 75 years of Democratic rule it was pretty segregated as is, don't ya think?

And we wouldn't have had the turf wars, murders and rapes inside the Superdome.

And there wouldn't have been a 14 year old girl who was raped for hours until she was dead.

And there wouldn't have been a 3 year old who was raped and had her throat cut.

 

[OCA]

And we wouldn't have had the turf wars, murders and rapes inside the Superdome.

And there wouldn't have been a 14 year old girl who was raped for hours until she was dead.

And there wouldn't have been a 3 year old who was raped and had her throat cut.

Aha a person who's been watching the mass media coverage who are using rumour and conjecture in their Bush vendetta, any of this verified and documented? No didn't think so.

Anyway explain because your post is sort of vague, are you saying because Blacks were allowed to live in N.O. these "supposed" actions took place?

If i'm wrong and took your post wrong accept my apology, I really don't know.

 

[GotZoom]

Aha a person who's been watching the mass media coverage who are using rumour and conjecture in their Bush vendetta, any of this verified and documented? No didn't think so.

Anyway explain because your post is sort of vague, are you saying because Blacks were allowed to live in N.O. these "supposed" actions took place?

If i'm wrong and took your post wrong accept my apology, I really don't know.

I am agreeing with you. I am sure these things wouldn't have happened had that 75% been white.

 

[GotZoom]

NEW ORLEANS, Sept 3 (Reuters) - People left homeless by Hurricane Katrina told horrific stories of rape, murder and trigger-happy guards in two New Orleans centers that were set up as shelters but became places of violence and terror.

Police and National Guard troops on Saturday closed down the two centers -- the Superdome arena and the city's convention center -- but then penned in the storm victims outside in sweltering heat to keep them from trying to walk out of the city.

Military helicopters and buses staged a massive evacuation to take away thousands of people who waited in orderly lines in stifling heat outside the flooded convention center.

The refugees, who were waiting to be taken to sports stadiums and other huge shelters across Texas and northern Louisiana, described how the convention center and the Superdome became lawless hellholes beset by rape and murder.

Several residents of the impromptu shantytown recounted two horrific incidents where those charged with keeping people safe had killed them instead.

In one, a young man was run down and then shot by a New Orleans police officer, in another a man seeking help was gunned down by a National Guard soldier, witnesses said.

Police here refused to discuss or confirm either incident. National Guard spokesman Lt. Col Pete Schneider said "I have not heard any information of a weapon being discharged."

"They killed a man here last night," Steve Banka, 28, told Reuters. "A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them, and he jumped up on the truck's windscreen and they shot him dead."

Wade Batiste, 48, recounted another tale of horror.

"Last night at 8 p.m. they shot a kid of just 16. He was just crossing the street. They ran him over, the New Orleans police did, and then they got out of the car and shot him in the head," Batiste said.

The young man's body lay in the street by the Convention Center's entrance on Saturday morning, covered in a black blanket, a stream of congealed blood staining the street around him. Nearby his family sat in shock.

A member of that family, Africa Brumfield, 32, confirmed the incident but declined to be quoted about it, saying her family did not wish to discuss it. But she spoke of general conditions here.

"There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats. They keep telling us the buses are coming but they never leave," she said through tears.

People here said there were now 22 bodies of adults and children stored inside the building, but troops guarding the building refused to confirm that and threatened to beat reporters seeking access to the makeshift morgue.

People trying to walk out are forced back at gunpoint - something troops said was for their own safety. "It's sad, but how far do you think they would get," one soldier said.

"They have us living here like animals," said Wvonnette Grace-Jordan, here with five children, the youngest only six weeks old. "We have only had two meals, we have no medicine and now there are thousands of people defecating in the streets. This is wrong. This is the United States of America."

One National Guard soldier who asked not to be named for fear of punishment from his commanding officer said of the lack of medical attention at the center, "They (the Bush administration) care more about Iraq and Afghanistan than here."

The Louisiana National Guard soldier said, "We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq."

Across town at the Superdome, where as many as 38,000 refugees camped out until Wednesday night when evacuation buses first came, the 4,000 still there were corralled outside, hoping to get on four waiting buses with seats for only 200.

The scene at the sports stadium was one of abject filth. Crammed into a small area after the building was shut to them last night, those remaining sat amid heaps of garbage, piled in places waist high. The stench of human waste pervaded the interior of the now vacant stadium.

One police officer told Reuters there were 100 people in a makeshift morgue at the Superdome, mostly people who died of heat exhaustion, and that six babies had been born there since last Saturday, when people arrived to take shelter.

At the arena, too, there was much talk of bedlam after dark.

"We found a young girl raped and killed in the bathroom," one National Guard soldier told Reuters. "Then the crowd got the man and they beat him to death."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03464940.htm

 

[OCA]

I am agreeing with you. I am sure these things wouldn't have happened had that 75% been white.

Oh ok, yep i'm sure that would have been the case too. Thing is I know plenty of Blacks who put me to shame in the smarts department and are eloquent as hell and that have never so much as stepped on my toes, ever, but why in a time of crisis do they go apeshit?

 

[Nuc]

The Louisiana National Guard soldier said, "We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq."

Nice!

 

[GotZoom]

Oh ok, yep i'm sure that would have been the case too. Thing is I know plenty of Blacks who put me to shame in the smarts department and are eloquent as hell and that have never so much as stepped on my toes, ever, but why in a time of crisis do they go apeshit?

I would bet money it isn't them.

Just as with whites, asians, etc....every race...there are some in each who paint the bad picture for the whole group.

They interviewed a black woman here about having survivors stay at her house. She said, "After what they did to that dome thing, no way."

We just need to do the best we can to not let some ruin it for all.

Very difficult at times.

 

[OCA]

The Louisiana National Guard soldier said, "We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq."

Nice!

78% of Louisiana's national guard was in America and available for duty at the time of the hurricane, nice try.

 

[William Joyce]

Diversity isn't a strength, it's a weakness. That's because in multicultural or multiracial societies, members of racial and ethnic groups are loyal first to their own group, and only second to society overall. When the interests of the group clash with the interests of society overall, it creates debilitating conflict. This is what becomes apparent when a natural disaster blows the fig leaf off.

On an individual level, members of different racial groups tend to eye each other suspicion --- and it's NOT always unfounded. Blacks are right to suspect whites (whites once enslaved them) and whites are right to suspect blacks (who do commit much higher rates of crime). So there.

A stronger society is, in fact, more ethnically homogenous. Yes, you'll always have "strata," but there's a limit to how much strata a society can bear. In America, it's become unbearable. We speak different languages and have different loyalties.

Someone said NYC after 9/11 did fine despite being diverse. First, I'd point out that 9/11 only happened in the first place because of racial and ethnic division: Jews v. Arabs and white Americans v. Arabs. Second, not all was so great. After the planes hit, I heard black people scream, "but OUR PEOPLE are in those buildings! The Arabs shouldn't hurt people of color! Their bitch is with the WHITE MAN!" And, in a sense, this is true. It clearly isn't in the interest of blacks what happens in the Middle East. They know damn well they won't do better or worse regardless --- it's a political game they have no stake in. So why should they suffer?

The whole "diversity is strength" canard really starts to fall apart when you ask the simple question, as dillo has, WHAT ABOUT DIVERSITY MAKES US STRONG? Because aren't all races supposed to be the same? So, if there are any "differences," they must be superficial, in which case, they wouldn't make us "strong," now, would they?

I've reviewed this thread, and nobody has answered that question. Please provide an example of diversity making us stronger.

 

[Hobbit]

I think integration, rather than diversity, makes us stronger. It's like the Borg or the Zerg. For a long time, when a new ethnic group hit America, they tried to fit in, and America tried to welcome them. Parts of their culture that proved benificial and enjoyable were integrated into society, making that society stronger, much like the Borg and Zerg would integrate the more benificial parts of a conquored species into the collective, thus making it stronger. Doing this formed sort of an alloy, a mixture of cultures that resulted in a much stronger unified culture. It's evident even in our language, where many of our words are unaltered versions of foreign words, like garage (which is French). This is what made us strong. What we are now is what happens when you try to make steel without heating the iron enough to mix properly with the carbon. It's a brittle patchwork of cultures determined to stay seperate. Assimilation is the only way a diverse background can make us strong.