Manners and Multiculturalism

In the latest Economist, there’s an article talking about Asian students at American universities, some from Asia and some homegrown. They mention a young woman named Alexandra Wallace who put up something on YouTube – I somehow missed this when it first came out about a year ago – making a couple complaints about them, one of which was that they talked on their cell phones in the library. Unfortunately, the gangs of the politically correct pounced on her for saying things in a racist way, her university (UCLA) forced her to apologize, and she ultimately dropped out after apparently receiving death threats.

As is typical in these cases, nearly everyone focused on the racist way that she said what she said and not the actual complaint she made. The one person I found who did comment on it said that all one needed to do when people were making noise in the library was to go up to them and tell them to be quiet. Maybe this is true, and maybe it isn’t. I’ve spent lots of time in university libraries, and people talking in them was always very annoying when one was trying to study. I often did go up to them and tell them to keep quiet, and they always did, but then they were always white like me. If your campus had lots of minorities, and they were the ones doing the talking, I’m not so sure that simply asking them to keep quiet would have worked. They could very well have accused her of racism.

By the way, does anyone remember the “water buffalo” remark? (See here.) That was also made as a result of students being too noisy, but the supposedly racist nature of the remark dominated the discussion, while the initial rudeness was ignored.

Let me also point out that my wife noticed a problem with students from Asia and libraries, namely their tendency to write in the library books. When confronted with this, they would reply that they had paid their tuition, so therefore they had the right to do this. It was impossible to get them to stop.

These are minor problems, but the solution always seems to be that mainstream America, or the West, has to accommodate another culture, while they never have to make accommodations for us. It doesn’t matter if they have come here or if we go there, we must always be the ones who have to accommodate others.

And in this connection, take a look at this link on dogs and Muslims in Europe. Once again, we Westerners must accommodate to the outsiders, while they get to keep their culture, even though they are immigrants here. (Hat tip: Mark Spahn) I sent this around to a couple dog lovers I know, who were suitably outraged.

Let me point out that I generally like having foreigners around. However, I don’t see why we always have to make accommodations for them while they never have to do so for us. What moral principle is this based on?

Comments

[Mark Spahn]

This is off your main topic, but I am a little annoyed at the casual use of "Asians". Asia is a big place, and there are many easily distinguishable types of Asians: northern Asians (Chukchi), central Asians (Uzbek, Pashtun, Hazara), western Asians (Anatolian, Arab, Persian), southern Asians (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan), east Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), southeast Asians (Vietnamese, Filipino, Cambodian). Almost never does one find these varieties of Asians together, and it would be nice to know the kind of Asians a writer means by "Asian".