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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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Im not saying that declaring the replacement of much of America’s cognitive elite with Indians significant is wrong (I recall writing a long top-level post that made the argument that it would be significant several years ago). I’m saying that the catfight between IB and BAP is childish, which it absolutely is, along with the babyspeak and many other things.

Italians and Irish are European, and they completely assimilated.

So you really think the US doesn’t look any different if large scale immigration from Ireland and Italy never happened? That seems ridiculously unlikely. And there is still evidence that different white gentile demographics vote differently, and Irish and Italians are still overrepresented by some margin at the top of the Democratic Party compared to other gentile white groups.

As for Jews, non-Orthodox (and the orthodox have less political influence and are more Republican) Jewish American intermarriage rates today substantially exceed those of Irish and Italian Americans in the middle of the last century. You just don’t agree that it’s assimilation because Jewish intermarriage is predominantly with progressive white gentile elites (many indeed of Irish or Italian descent), who obviously don’t share your politics.

Are Indians and the Chinese going to actually assimilate like the Italians, or are they going to behave more like Jews?

Asian Americans have intermarriage rates of about 30%. So maybe? The question is more about the kind of society they’ll assimilate into, since as with the Irish and Italians you can’t replace the people and not replace the country.

Blacks did not assimilate.

As you know, intermarriage is the only true means by which assimilation occurs, and that was banned with great social and legal penalties for the vast majority of American history.

As you know, intermarriage is the only true means by which assimilation occurs, and that was banned with great social and legal penalties for the vast majority of American history.

I largely agree with you here, but at the same time I feel like the degree that Blacks have, or have not, assimilated varies greatly by region.

Edit to Elaborate:

I grew up in the Rustbelt not far from the Mason Dixon Line, and have since lived on the Gulf Coast, in the Deep South, and California, with some short stints (1 - 2 years a piece) in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Horn of Africa sprinkled in between.

Anecdotally, for all the stereotypes of the racist redneck, "Pennsyltucky" and "the Deep South" strike me as far more integrated, and their black populations far more "assimilated", than they are elsewhere. This isn't to say that there isn't casual racism, IME people in plsces like Harrisburg, Biloxi, Gulfport, and New Orleans will drop a "Hard R" into a casual conversation like it's nothing. But at the same time, I don't remember seeing or experiencing proper racial animosity, that is we're going to hurt/screw this person over specifically because of their skin color, until I moved to the ostensibly "progressive" and "anti-racist" California.

I have no data to support this theory, and frankly I would be deeply skeptical of any data provided one way or the other because I assume that any study even remotely adjacent to academia is going to be fruit of the poison tree, but my suspicion is that segregation actually helped in way. Specifically, in that for all the shit-talk and status jockeying, most of the black kids I grew up/worked with had moms, dads, aunties, uncles, grandparents, pastors, etc... who were all present and active in the community. There was an existing tradition/community memory of black-run businesses, black-run schools, black doctors, black lawyers, and so on.

This is in stark contrast to my experience is in California where there seemed to be this default assumption that black = underclass/criminal that no amount of "Hey, he/she is with me" could overcome. The only card to play was seemingly the military one.

So you really think the US doesn’t look any different if large scale immigration from Ireland and Italy never happened? That seems ridiculously unlikely. And there is still evidence that different white gentile demographics vote differently, and Irish and Italians are still overrepresented by some margin at the top of the Democratic Party compared to other gentile white groups.

I do think the US looks different without large scale immigration from Europe but that's not the question... I would mark "assimilation" not as there are no longer any demographic correlations but as their identity not being salient in culture or politics. Some families identify on a surface-level as Italian or Irish as family lore or aesthetic, but it's not a salient part of the American political struggles. This is in sharp contrast with Jewish identity which continues to be an extremely salient component of political and cultural life.

You just don’t agree that it’s assimilation because Jewish intermarriage is predominantly with progressive white gentile elites (many indeed of Irish or Italian descent), who obviously don’t share your politics.

I think my definition of assimilation as the identity no longer has saliency in political or cultural struggles works here. Look at the CW thread, issues of Jewish identity and advocacy come up all the time (and it's not entirely my fault for that either). They are politically, culturally, geopolitically extremely significant. Do we get to look forward to Asians and Indians behaving the same as Jews, retaining an intense identification with their actual (and not even fake) homelands and ethnicities?

Asian Americans have intermarriage rates of about 30%. So maybe?

I won't pretend to be able to predict the outcomes of the impending Hapa ethnogenesis, but early results do not at all look promising. What I will say is that this is monumentally more significant than the integration of European groups which are all much more similar to each other than any of them is to Asian populations.

It's almost comical because all of this shows how correct the DR's model of the world is.

European groups come to America. They retain demographic differences but assimilate into the White identity of the nation.

How can any reasonable person possibly compare that to the impending Hapa ethnogenesis? We aren't even talking about assimilation, we're talking about ethnogenesis. It's also fair to relate the assimilation of European groups as a white ethnogenesis.

That's why this is all more significant than childish loyalties to a non-existent "meritocracy." The real question is the question of ethnogenesis and its civilizational implications, and it's only the DR that actually appreciates that.