The Quote Below: More Misinformation from the Media
“A nation—with people who are in some way different from you. And who could have a problem with that in America, a country that holds the melting pot among its foundational myths? . . . On Friday [Tucker Carlson] gave a monologue that traded dog whistle racism for bullhorn racism.
“The end of Carlson’s rant struck at the root of so much racism and bigotry. Carlson assumes that people who speak different languages, come from disparate nations, or have diverging practices ‘share no common values.’ But the immigrants and refugees so hated by the likes of Carlson fight to come to this country because they share our common values.
“Not only was Carlson’s speech bigoted, it was actually inaccurate. As HuffPost points out, research has shown that diverse groups are indeed more accurate than homogenous ones. Carlson follows on the heels of fellow Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who last month complained of ‘massive demographic changes’ destroying America in a segment . . . [that] earned it the praise of Klansman David Duke. . . . [Carlson is popular] among white nationalists.” – Tucker Carlson Attacked the Idea of Diversity in His Latest Hate-Filled Rant, Esquire, Gabrielle Bruney, 9/8/18 [Link]
Fact Check of Quote: And just what did Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson say to elicit this torrent of heated abuse and name calling? All he did was ask, in a very calm and pleasant way, a few simple questions about diversity. One was the following:
“[H]ow precisely is diversity our strength? Since you have made this our new national motto, please be specific about it. Can you think, for example, of other institutions such as, I don’t know, marriage or military units in which the less people have in common, the more cohesive they are?”
And this is supposed to be “hate” and “bullhorn racism?” The accusations say more about the author than they do about Carlson. Is she overreacting because she has no effective response to his questions?
She says that we should not have a problem with diversity when the melting pot is one of our foundational myths. In resorting to this appeal to sentiment about national myths, she misses Carlson’s point, namely that with too much diversity we are risking a meltdown of the melting pot. The author’s logic also fails when she defends diversity by claiming that immigrants “share our common values.” If they do, then they are not really so diverse. Is she trying to say that commonality is really our strength?
It may be that ivory tower research, in some cases, has shown that diversity is a strength, but the real world offers plenty if examples to the contrary. Carlson points to some with questions he raised pertaining to California, the state with highest number and percentage of immigrants.
“First, how has our current immigration system made America more stable and more prosperous? In your answer please explain what happened to the state of California” Used to be called the Golden State. Had a thriving middle class. Had the country’s best schools.
“Now the schools in California are a complete disaster. The Middle class is vanishing, and the nation’s largest mass of impoverished people remains behind to serve a tiny pool of tech oligarchs. How exactly did that happen?”
These are very reasonable questions that deserve reasonable answers. Yelling bigotry and racism at them will not make them go away. Nor will guilt by association with “white nationalists.” If the author thinks that white nationalists endorsing immigration restriction discredits that position, she might reflect that the American Communist Party endorses immigration and diversity. Does that mean that she is a Communist?
Once again, it would be most helpful if this writer and other supporters of mass immigration would lay of the personal attacks and name calling. But that’s not likely to happen, due to their lack of facts and reason to support their position.