IMMIGRATION AND RACISM
Global poll provides food for thought
Racism. Immigration.
Few topics can combine to ignite such anger, contempt and division.
It was not always this way. The belief that it is racist to want to reduce immigration has only been a significant viewpoint since the 1960s for some in the West. It’s still not a common belief among people in Asia.
A Vancouver-raised demographer has discovered that people of good will, across nations, use the word racism differently. Their disagreement over the meaning has led to often-bitter, possibly unnecessary, polarization.
Fascinating research by Prof. Eric Kaufmann of the University of London, Birkbeck, breaks new ground showing the contrasting ways people in 18 countries understand the hyper-charged term, racist.
In the face of high migration rates, Kaufmann writes in the academic journal, Foreign Affairs, there is sharp disagreement among people in the West, but not so much the East, over whether it’s racist to want to protect one’s own ethno-cultural group.
His research grew out of an article by the Brookings Institution’s Shadi Hamid, in which Hamid contends white “racial self-interest” should be distinguished from white racism.
Hamid believes protecting one’s ethno-cultural group, one’s “people,” is an age-old phenomenon, which is different from actively discriminating against others out of a feeling of group superiority.
Kaufmann’s research sheds light on immigration-values conflicts that are riveting the West. Those events include Britons’ vote to leave the European Union, the rise of Donald Trump, outbursts of extreme white nationalism, the strengthening of nativist parties in France, Germany, Italy and Austria, and frequent campus showdowns over free speech and identity politics.
Kaufmann’s findings also might illuminate how Canadians could approach immigration trends, such as those revealed last week by Census Canada, which showed whites have become a minority in the metropolises of Toronto and Vancouver. In the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, for instance, the ethnic Chinese population has expanded in a few decades by more than 80,000, while the white population has declined by more than 30,000.
In a nutshell, the Kaufmann-led Ipsos-Mori survey of 14,000 people in 18 countries found that a majority “do not think it’s racist to want less immigration for ethno-cultural reasons.”
Even among Americans and Canadians, who were the most inclined of all to say it’s “racist to want to reduce immigration to maintain group share,” that belief was held by only about 37 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.
In predominantly black South Africa, far fewer, 13 per cent, thought it racist to trim immigration in the name of ethno-cultural self-protection. The belief was also held by fewer than one out of four Japanese, Mexicans, Britons, Germans and South Koreans.
It could be argued residents of these countries are like white conservatives in North America: They tend to think preserving one’s group is not racist; it’s what Hamid calls “racial self-interest.”
The Ipsos-Mori survey, however, found dramatic variations on the question of racism and immigration within English-speaking populations.
Canada is a prime example. Even though 37 per cent of English-speaking Canadians thought it racist to reduce immigration to protect an ethno-cultural group, the portion dropped to just 15 per cent among Quebecers, who have for decades fought to preserve their French language and distinct values.
Differences over the meaning of racism have been even sharper in the polarized United States, where Trump was, in large part, voted in as president by Americans who named immigration the country’s most important issue.
Kaufmann — who was born in Hong Kong and raised by mixed-race parents in Japan and Vancouver — found only 11 per cent of whites who voted for Trump believe it’s racist to want to reduce immigration for ethno-cultural reasons.
But, among white Americans with university degrees who voted for Hillary Clinton, the portion thinking it’s racist to want to cut immigration for tribal reasons shot up to 91 per cent. The average among white Clinton voters was 73 per cent.
The international survey suggests white U.S. liberals are by far the most likely on the planet to believe it’s racist — for whites, at least — to oppose immigration for ethno-cultural motives.
They may also hold to a double standard. As Kaufmann says, 73 per cent of white Clinton voters believe “a white American who wants to reduce immigration to maintain her group’s share of the population is being racist, but just 18 per cent say a Latino or Asian American who wants to increase immigration from Latin America or Asia to boost her group’s share of the population is being racist.”
Furthermore, members of non-white ethnic groups in the U.S. were less likely than white Clinton voters to criticize whites for wanting to protect their ethno-cultural group. Just 45 per cent of U.S. blacks, Hispanics and Asians judged it racist when whites wanted to slow immigration.
Kaufmann did not survey Canadians in a detailed way, but it’s likely he would have found similar paradoxical results in this country. Many white liberal Canadians celebrate the “pride” that Sikhs, Jews, Chinese or Iranians display in strengthening their ethno-cultural groups.
How can the West get out of this values split over immigration? The way forward will demand give-and-take among both liberals and conservatives.
“The right needs to stop amplifying irrational fears and stereotypes of outgroups, such as Mexicans and Muslims, which is clearly racist,” Kaufmann writes in Foreign Affairs.
“Yet it is also time to shelve the conceit that Western whites who prefer the ethnic status quo over more diversity do so primarily out of racism,” he says, echoing Duke University’s Ashley Jardina, who found that whites who identify with their group are no more hostile to minorities than whites who do not.
Kaufmann also urges people of European ancestry to open wider to multi-ethnic unions, as do many black and Hispanic groups, “which accept the offspring of mixed marriages as full group members, although Asian groups by and large do not.”
It’s inevitable some form of white identity will seek political expression in years to come, Kaufmann says. And that’s not necessarily bad, as long as the movement is moderate and committed to the common good.
The challenge will be to keep a lid on extremism, from either side.
“Avoiding this requires recognizing that it is wrongheaded for liberals to ask conservative whites to celebrate their group’s demise, just as it is misguided for right-wingers to insist that minority ethnicity be erased in favour of one-size-fits-all nationhood.”
While there are dedicated and very effective special educators in our school system, overall, we are falling short in providing high levels of instruction and support to this very vulnerable group of students. Bill Cowell, letter writer The Brookings Institution’s Shadi Hamid contends white ‘racial self-interest’ should be distinguished from white racism.