[ExI] are we not just one race, the human race?

[Damien Broderick]

At 08:20 PM 3/22/2008 -0400, MB wrote:

>Since America is such a terrible terrible place,

M, it seems to me that it's partly a matter of unusually high 
expectations versus some of the grimier and more horrible aspects of 
human, all too human experience. If the USA weren't seen in many 
parts of the world as a beacon of hope and freedom and opportunity 
and prosperity, the dire parts of its history wouldn't be so bitterly 
disappointing.

>it puzzles me why so many people,
>of so many colors and countries and backgrounds, have wanted to come 
>here and were
>delighted when they were finally able to. Over many years, people 
>have tried to come
>here, died to come here.

It depends when and whom you have in mind. The USA wasn't an imperial 
global power until after WWII, and the great "melting pot" 
immigrations were half a century before that, I think.

It would interesting to learn how many black would-be immigrants 
there were from Africa prior to, say, 40 years ago. I'm not sure many 
would have been that eager in 1850 or 1950 to undertake the journey 
to the land of freedom and opportunity. (Although clearly there were 
plenty of Chinese and other Asians who made sacrifices to come here 
even when they must have known they'd face  a degree of rejection and 
even persecution from those already arrived--but then look at what 
they were fleeing. And at least the US allowed them in, unlike 
Australia with its repulsive White Australia Policy--law until, 
incredibly, 1975).

Damien Broderick
[a non-USian in the USA]