Immigration Inanity, Cont.

06/08/2007

Here’s another excerpt from my new American Conservative article (not online yet) on why elite thinking about immigration is so vapid:

It is unfashionable to admit publicly the existence of group statistical differences. The endless campaign in American society against stereotypes has reached the point that simple acts of pattern recognition are in disrepute and demand reflexive debunking by citation of whatever contrary example is available. "Any exception disproves the tendency" appears to be the rule.
The media’s dislike of reporting on averages is exacerbated by its love for man-bites-dog stories. The illegal immigrant who graduates from Cal Tech is news because it’s new: it doesn’t happen very often. In contrast, the consistently dismal performance of Latino students on average — by twelfth grade, immigrants are five to six grade levels behind Anglo whites, while even American-born Hispanics trail by three to four grade levels — isn’t news because it’s boring and depressing.
Among the privileged, if a tree falls in the forest but it’s not reported in the New York Times, it never happened. For example, the best estimate is that the Latino crime rate is roughly triple the Anglo white rate, which would not come as much of a surprise to anybody who doesn’t live in a cave. Yet, because the major media won’t note differences in mean crime rates by ethnicity, this fact is considered outside the limits of acceptable discussion of immigration. …
That the chief supporters of "comprehensive immigration reformer" — the White House, corporate America, Democratic Party chieftains, the Catholic Church, race racketeers (such as the National Council of La Raza), the educartel, and big media — represent more or less what a Sixties radical would have decried as The Establishment does not raise doubts in the minds of contemporary wordsmiths. God may not always be on the side of the big battalions, but public intellectuals are these days. …
Open borders enthusiasm often reflects covert hostility toward African-Americans. Hispanic illegal immigrants are slowly pushing African Americans out of the most expensive cities, such as New York, which has been losing American-born blacks since 1979. And, let’s be frank, many affluent whites are happy to see African-Americans go. The Latino influx can create a temporary dip in the crime rate. Illegal immigrants generally arrive at too mature an age to get involved in youth street gangs — but their sons, who grow up feeling territorial about their means streets, flock to gangs. …

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