Grave Error

Yesterday, I started a nice debate with my post on the Increase in Immigration and the Decrease in Crime. An unknown gentleman, named Mustapha (not to be confused with my friend from the post on changing names), entered the debate and gave a very interesting explanation on why he feels that immigrants (like himself — he is Nigerian American) eventually succeed in assimilating and overcoming racism by accepting “whiteness” while African Americans continue to struggle to find their place in white America.

Note that immigrants, be them from Europe (white) or from other parts of the world (Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere), have always suffered some form of racism/xenophobia in the first generations (including my father’s family as Italian Americans). Actually, I once had an Immigration Law professor who argued that America was essentially anti-Catholic, and that was why discrimination against immigrants has always been mainly directed towards Catholic immigrants (Irish, Italians, and Latin Americans).

Back to the debate: agree or not with his analysis, I think that Mustapha’s comments are well worth reading for anyone interested in the great complexities of race relations and their historic legacy, American cultural diversity, and the US as an immigrant-built nation. Here is his commentary: Continue reading →

Most people wrongly associate an increase in immigration with an increase in crime, regardless of the obvious fact that immigration is an economic phenomena. People leave their families and countries behind because of an economic opporunity abroad. If there weren’t any job opporunities in the recipient country, then there wouldn’t be immigrants. Thus, immigrants simply fill a specific demand in the recipient country for work.

So why do nationals always blame immigrants? Because people like to blame others for their own shortcomings. But the fact of the matter is that the great majority of crime is and has alway been committed by the home grown.

In an article that I was just reading in The Economist today about how crime continues to fall in America’s biggest cities, The Economist highlights the fact that one of the reasons is that immigrants are entering the cities while the lower income class Americans are moving out. According to The Economist Continue reading →