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by chmod600 1913 days ago
"They moved into a community and it’s their job to integrate with the community."

Is that a broadly-accepted opinion? Does it apply consistently to all cultures -- e.g. does it apply when nonwhites move into a white area?

And, does it reflect reality? Do new populations really preserve the prexisting culture in practice?

9 comments

Relax. By "integrate", the OP clearly means things like "be a good neighbor" and "don't stomp around like you own the place" and "learn about the place you've just moved to" and not "submit" or "conform".
You don't get to complain about the smell of manure if you move in right next to a farm. Know what you're getting into when you move, don't expect the surrounding community to change to suit you, regardless of race.
Haha, I remember this coming up 45 years ago. One of my teachers mentioned that as the nearby suburbs encroached on farm country, it only took a short while until those moving in complained about the smell of their farm neighbors. They tried to get them zoned out of existence.

So, yes, people move into farmland and immediately complain that "Somebody's got to do something about the smell."

Amazingly, I am aware of this scenario, hence my analogy.
The difference is, it's legal for a farm to smell like manure. They do say in the article that the car club is breaking several laws. So it's more a case of, for a long time the cops haven't enforced the laws here, but now the new residents want the laws to be enforced.
I don't know what this is about human nature but it's infuriating.

As someone involved in private aviation and small airports I can't tell you how many times people move in right next to an airport that has been there for decades and then complain, protest, and threaten legal action against those very airports because the planes are too loud.

But people do exactly that all the time. And often they win, at least over time and with great enough numbers.
This is way more nuanced than a HN comment could ever express, but my opinion is that this situation is a two-way street. The people moving in need to adapt to the neighborhood while the long-term residents need to adapt to the changes happening around them. The key though is that it needs to be a smooth, fluid transition that involves gives and takes on both sides.

I don't think calling the cops and asking them to "shut it down" is a productive way for driving change in the community at all.

Also, completely selfishly, those kinds of actions give the gentrifiers who respect the Tejano community and traditions a bad rap. I really don't want to get to a point where all the long-term residents paint all the newcomers with a broad brush because of the Weaver people. At the beginning of Covid, newcomers were helping elderly long-term residents and vice-versa, but if crap like this keeps happening, those bonds are going to be strained.

I agree that it's a "two-way street"; but that seems to contradict your initial language was that it was "[the newcomers'] job to integrate".
"And, does it reflect reality? Do new populations really preserve the prexisting culture in practice?"

I'm not totally sure what you're presuming integrating with a community should involve, but there's a large gap between preserving and - as in here - actively interfering with the preexisting culture of a community.

> Is that a broadly-accepted opinion? Does it apply consistently to all cultures -- e.g. does it apply when nonwhites move into a white area?

If you move to an area and expect everyone to adopt your norms, that's close to colonization or conquering.

Alternatively, how do you react to the new person on your team who insists you're doing everything wrong and should change to match their view of the world. "When in Rome, do like the Romans" is good for a variety of reasons.

Exactly, it smells of imperialistic tendencies that occur all over with gentrification. Hopefully the local cops and city council ignore the gentrifiers in this case.
>> "They moved into a community and it’s their job to integrate with the community."

> Is that a broadly-accepted opinion? Does it apply consistently to all cultures -- e.g. does it apply when nonwhites move into a white area?

If you move to a place and don't respect the local traditions or culture, you're making life harder both on yourself and to the existing community. I see no reason why it wouldn't apply every direction.

> And, does it reflect reality? Do new populations really preserve the prexisting culture in practice?

It largely depends on the societal and cultural homogeneity of the newcomers. If newcomers are largely from the same place or share the same culture, then I'd expect it would be more likely that they'd shift things in their direction.

Clearly it didn't happen during colonialism. It might be time to realize that the ways of the white men aren't necessarily best for all though. I'd think we should have come full circle on that by now.
Requiring cultural integration is a slippery slope.
Yeah, you might end up with class solidarity and move past racial divisions.
Along those lines --

The best thing about this article is that it's

a.) Black and Latino car enthusiasts, and

b.) Texans who hate "libtards"

finding common cause against white ladies who say "toxic masculinity" with a straight face.

There's a political future hidden in that.

Isn't that what the new tenants are trying to do? Integrate the natives into _their_ culture?
Generally whites moving into a nonwhite area has been exemplified by colonialism, which is the community being coerced into integrating with the colonists.
Exactly "our ways and opinions are more refined and much better than your culture, adjust or we will crush you with our superior weaponry (read cops and lawyers)"