How is immigration and segregation effecting our culture?

     Immigration and segregation are two very important issues in the United States.  Immigration always seems to be the center of many political campaigns because the citizens of the United States feel that immigrants from other countries who come into the US are seriously effecting the country.  Segregation is very potent in the United States as well, making some people wonder; are we really all equal?

     

      Darrel West, author of "The Costs and Benefits of Immigration" discusses a few reasons as to why citizens of the United States have concerns with immigrants entering the country.  West (2010) claims the reasons are; taking jobs away from citizens, utlizing government benefits when they should not be, and not adapting to the US culture by
learning English or becoming a citizen, which in turn greatly effects our culture.  In regard to segregation, the article "Cracks in American Apartheid: the Political Impact of Prejudice Among Desegregated Whites" written by Donald Kinder and tali Mendelberg, discusses the white's perspectives of blacks.  According to the article, 44.6% of whites believe that blacks are lazy, while 56.3$ of whites believe that blacks would rather live off of welfare than make their own living (Kinder, Mendleberg 1995).  No wonder segregation still exists.  Why would whites and blacks want to co-mingle if they secretly feel resentment toward each other?

     

     We had the opportunity to watch "District 9" this week.  "District 9" is an area in Johannesburg, which is essentially an alien ghetto.  An alien aircraft broke down over the city and the officials of the town took hostage all the aliens and placed them in the ghetto.  In essence, it was basically and alien holocaust.  The aliens were treated like criminals and not given very good resources to survive on.  The movie coincides with the articles from this week very well.  People tend to judge those who are not similar to them.  White people judge black people, US citizens judge immigrants, and human beings judge aliens.