16/So liberals use multiculturalist and anti-assimilation rhetoric to tell the newcomers: Don't worry. We accept you for who you are. You don't have to change to be part of our gang.
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17/This tactic is, generally, successful. Free of the fear of being held to an impossible standard of conformity, members of newcomer groups feel more at ease around natives. They intermarry, form interracial friendships, etc.
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18/The newcomer groups don't submerge their identities or engage in self-repressive conformity. But for this reason, over time their culture blends with that of the liberal natives who welcome them into the fold.
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19/The liberal natives' culture and the newcomers' cultures become more like each other. They merge over 2 or 3 generations into a new thing. An amalgam.
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20/And THAT, my friends, is ACTUAL assimilation. Not the nativists' fantasy of submissive conformity. Rather, a process of INTEGRATION. Of cultural (and eventually, physical) blending into a new and unified whole.
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21/Integration doesn't happen because anyone consciously pushes for it (except maybe the military). It happens naturally. Without barriers to actively keep them apart, neighbors tend to become one people.
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22/Meanwhile, the nativists who shout over and over that they want "assimilation" don't actually want the real thing. They want a fantasy version (or, better yet, to simply kick newcomers out).
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23/So all the nativists' worry over multiculturalist rhetoric causing cultural balkanization is WAY overblown. But what WILL really happen is that for better or worse, native culture will change as it blends with that of the newcomers.
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24/Integration - a better word than assimilation - is a two-way street. And it happens quite naturally. And multiculturalist rhetoric doesn't prevent it - if anything, it speeds it up. This is the future. It's happening very rapidly. (end)
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Replying to @Noahpinion
Still need an explanation of why this has never worked for black people. And I suppose I'd prefer to believe the dividing line is race rather than simply black or not-black, but...
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But this is a good response to restrictionists. And I agree that the rhetoric and practices of multiculturalism serve as a positive counterweight to the real forces that DO encourage assimilating or integrating minority groups to shed their cultures.
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