New Hampshire Apparently Has Too Many White People. Here’s Why That’s Ridiculous.
Isa
|
China is 91.51% Han Chinese. The rest of China is comprised of members of other ethnic minorities…from China. There are approximately 1,500 foreigners in the nation of 1.3 billion people.
The nation of Kenya, one of the most diverse nations in Africa, has a population in which 97% of the inhabitants come from either the Bantu or Nilotic tribes.
Does any of this offend you?
Probably not.
How about this: the United States is 62.0% white, 17.3% Hispanic and Latino, 12.6% African American, 0.8% Native American, 5.2% Asian, and 5% other.
Offensive? Probably not.
But the state of New Hampshire, located within the United States, is 97% white. And apparently, this is a huge problem.
The state of New York, one of New Hampshire’s closest neighbors, is 44% white. Both of these states are part of a larger region, which is still much, much smaller than the nations of China or Kenya.
And yet, for some reason, New Hampshire feels strongly it must diversify.
Can you imagine if someone said this about an area in which the population was largely made up of any other ethnicity than white?
Matt Walsh encourages us to imagine, juxtaposing a recent New York Times article on New Hampshire’s’ effort to diversify with a hypothetical argument to diversify a largely black area.
Here’s the original passage from the New York Times:
New Hampshire, like its neighbors Vermont and Maine, is nearly all white. This has posed an array of problems for new arrivals, who often find themselves isolated and alone, without the comfort and support of a built-in community.
It has also posed problems for employers in these states, who find that their homogeneity can be a barrier to recruiting and retaining workers of different ethnicities and cultural background.
The issue prompted about 100 business leaders, government officials and members of nonprofit organizations to meet Thursday to search for ways that New Hampshire — which is 94 percent white — might lure other racial and ethnic groups, as well as younger people.
Now, here’s Walsh’s hypothetical alternative:
Detroit, like Atlanta and Birmingham, is nearly all black. This has posed an array of problems for new arrivals, who often find themselves isolated and alone, without the comfort and support of a built-in community.
It has also posed problems for employers in these states, who find that their homogeneity can be a barrier to recruiting and retaining workers of different ethnicities and cultural background.
The issue prompted about 100 business leaders, government officials and members of nonprofit organizations to meet Thursday to search for ways that Detroit — which is 83 percent black — might lure other racial and ethnic groups, as well as younger people.
Suddenly, this idea of diversity seems very, very different, doesn’t it? Walsh explains:
Change just a few words and suddenly it becomes extremely racist. Or rather, its racism suddenly becomes apparent to even the most obtuse observer. It is racist to treat the preponderance of a certain race as an objective problem. It is racist to try and lower the percentages of a certain race just for the sake of lowering it. It is racist to move to an area and accuse it of being an “ethnic vacuum” just because most of the residents have a different ethnicity from your own. It would be racist if I went to South Korea and scolded it for being Korean, and it is racist if Hispanics follow a similar procedure when they come to America.
There is nothing at all wrong with homogony. It’s OK to live in a community made up largely of people who come from similar backgrounds, speak the same language, cook the same food, listen to the same music, and have the same customs.
No one is disadvantaged by any one group dominating any one area. There is such a huge difference between a majority-white state and Jim Crow laws in states with high black populations.
The thing about segregation was it was the law. There’s nothing wrong with the natural population demographics that result when people have the freedom to, I don’t know, live wherever they want to.
Is that really so crazy?
Share: