Wandering the streets of Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the past two weeks, the Phantom was struck by the streams of nearly undiluted white faces, blue eyes, blonde hair. These countries all have immigrants who look different wandering among the locals, but the reason crowds of tourists arrive on boats and airplanes is to experience the difference, the uniqueness of Scandinavia.
There are occasional women in head scarves, and the Phantom saw one of the most beautiful human beings he has ever seen walking down the street in Copenhagen, in a scarf, clearly Muslim.
The Phantom understands the power of the United States is its ability to mix different peoples and make them all Americans.
But he also remembers what his colleague, Vikko Koivisto, told him at a department picnic--Vikko said he was leaving, taking his family back to Finland.
"But Vikko, you have done so well here! You're a star."
It was true, Vikko had published more papers than the rest of us combined. His academic star was ascendant in our department.
"You see those kids?" Vikko asked me, pointing to the herd of children frolicking around the playground near the picnic tables. "Can you tell which are mine?"
I looked at the kids--they all wore the same sorts of T shirts, jeans, sneakers. No, I could not pick out Vikko's kids.
"That's the problem," Vikko said. "I want my kids to know they are Finnish."
Bill Clinton announced, with surprising equanimity, sometime in the midst of his Presidency that the country by the middle of the 21st century would no longer be white, but brown.
And looking at the offspring of intermarriage between races, people like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Vanessa Williams, Beyonce, one can say mixed race folks can be among the most striking and beautiful of people.
But is something not potentially lost, when our differences meld into a melting pot? Is soup always better than salad?
The fact is, because of the power of "taste" the Phantom believes blue eyes, blonde hair, recessive genetic traits, will continue to be bred. Fact is, a significant number of blue eyed blondes prefer other blue eyed blondes as sexual partners and have blue eye blonde children. Is this racism? Maybe, but more likely it's something else, something murkier, more complicated.
So, the Phantom thinks there will still be people who look like the Danes we expect to see when we go to Denmark, by the end of the 21st century, no matter how many folks immigrate from Africa and the Middle East.
His tour guide in Estonia remarked that Estonia is a small cup and Africa a huge bucket. That's how she saw the problem of immigration.
In some way, she is right--although, I suspect she would prefer to see no Africans at all live in Estonia--but immigration is, at root, a numbers problem--how many, how fast? The United States, should it throw its borders wide open would likely see enough immigrants from India and China and Central American alone, not to mention Africa, that English would become a minority language and whites surely would be a minority. If that happened, would that be a bad thing?
Whatever the answer to that question, it's pretty clear the United States would be a very different country, almost unrecognizable.
For a country of 5 million, how much immigration would it take to erase any distinguishable characteristics?
There are occasional women in head scarves, and the Phantom saw one of the most beautiful human beings he has ever seen walking down the street in Copenhagen, in a scarf, clearly Muslim.
The Phantom understands the power of the United States is its ability to mix different peoples and make them all Americans.
But he also remembers what his colleague, Vikko Koivisto, told him at a department picnic--Vikko said he was leaving, taking his family back to Finland.
"But Vikko, you have done so well here! You're a star."
It was true, Vikko had published more papers than the rest of us combined. His academic star was ascendant in our department.
"You see those kids?" Vikko asked me, pointing to the herd of children frolicking around the playground near the picnic tables. "Can you tell which are mine?"
I looked at the kids--they all wore the same sorts of T shirts, jeans, sneakers. No, I could not pick out Vikko's kids.
"That's the problem," Vikko said. "I want my kids to know they are Finnish."
Bill Clinton announced, with surprising equanimity, sometime in the midst of his Presidency that the country by the middle of the 21st century would no longer be white, but brown.
And looking at the offspring of intermarriage between races, people like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Vanessa Williams, Beyonce, one can say mixed race folks can be among the most striking and beautiful of people.
But is something not potentially lost, when our differences meld into a melting pot? Is soup always better than salad?
The fact is, because of the power of "taste" the Phantom believes blue eyes, blonde hair, recessive genetic traits, will continue to be bred. Fact is, a significant number of blue eyed blondes prefer other blue eyed blondes as sexual partners and have blue eye blonde children. Is this racism? Maybe, but more likely it's something else, something murkier, more complicated.
So, the Phantom thinks there will still be people who look like the Danes we expect to see when we go to Denmark, by the end of the 21st century, no matter how many folks immigrate from Africa and the Middle East.
His tour guide in Estonia remarked that Estonia is a small cup and Africa a huge bucket. That's how she saw the problem of immigration.
In some way, she is right--although, I suspect she would prefer to see no Africans at all live in Estonia--but immigration is, at root, a numbers problem--how many, how fast? The United States, should it throw its borders wide open would likely see enough immigrants from India and China and Central American alone, not to mention Africa, that English would become a minority language and whites surely would be a minority. If that happened, would that be a bad thing?
Whatever the answer to that question, it's pretty clear the United States would be a very different country, almost unrecognizable.
For a country of 5 million, how much immigration would it take to erase any distinguishable characteristics?
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