The paradoxes of assimilation

One of the frustrations of the immigration "debate" is listening to neocons and libertarians assert that "assimilation" will cure any and all ills. It's some kind of magic Vitamin A for whatever ails you. So little thought is given to the topic of immigration, that they never notice that immigrants often assimilate toward dysfunctional aspects of the host culture. French Muslim teens, for example, have assimilated toward the old French custom of fighting in the streets, as they showed last year by burning tens of thousands of cars.

American Hispanics are assimilating toward some African American norms, such as illegitimacy, ethnic resentment. Further, corporate America, such as Viacom, is prodding Latinos toward racial touchiness and anti-white racism as a way to turn disparate Hispanics into a bloc loyal to their ethnic brands. A reader writes:

Ever since the quirky, video-heavy MTV en Español was reborn this month as MTV Tré3 (not available yet in LA), it’s gotten a huge infusion of ethnic self-consciousness. The old MTV-en-Español had liners where artists talked in polite Spanish about what music meant to them. The new MTV Tré3, targeting the English-dominant, “urban Latino,” instead urges artists to navel-gaze in English, or barrio Ebonics, about…yep, their ethnicity... MTV Tré3 thinks that sticking it to whitey will convince their target audience that this channel is for real.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer