[speeder]

I do not mean specifically the US.

And Sweden is NOT diverse as US, Sweden has as the "biggest minority" the Finnish (that are not that different from Swedes), any other population is very small except on some specific cities.

US has a great population of people from several backgrounds.

Also the same is in my country (Brazil).

Here, I see people being much more lax with their security when everyone near them are of the same ethnic background, be it white, black, native american, whatever.

It is just that everyone is born to not trust strangers, foreigners, etc... And "race" is a very quick way to assess that.

Not that I think we should go hating each other or anything like that, but it is how it works, and it is very visible, the more mixed a place is, the less people trust each other, with some specific exceptions (ie: places that are truly cosmopolitan like Universities or some workplace cities).

[guylhem]

As shocking as it may sound, I noticed the same thing in the caribbean where population is very mixed. It's not about racism - it's more as if a shared group identity encouraged cooperative behaviour.

Even weirder - there seems to be a trigger effect : until the non visible minority reaches 5% the cooperative behaviour keeps working.

Funny thing - it seems to works even if you account your own ethnicity - i.e. when you are in the <5% you will get more cooperation by people with a different ethnicity than you !!

Cross the 5% mark and it won't work as well - apparently even with people of the same ethnicity as you. Weird.

Some may call that parochialism. I find that interesting.

I've been quite puzzled by this (it contradicts all the mainstream thoughts about diversity) and I would love to know more about such issues (scientific research - can anyone with a sociology background give more details about that?)

[vinkelhake]

The Finnish minority is followed closely by immigrants from former Yugoslavia (166k vs 155k). Sweden has accepted a large number of refugees from Iraq & Iran, together they outnumber the Fins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden

[PavlovsCat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

Here. Why shouldn't something like education, and generally doing a great job at not being completely depraved by consumerism, lead to less stupidity, and therefore also less stupidity in the form of racism? Why assume instead they're just as racist, but it's just they're all the same, so they trust each other? You can't just latch on to the first random thing that comes to mind, to me there is zero indication that any of this has to do with racial diversity, and pointing out differences in said diversity, even if I accepted them, would still be a non-sequitur, correlation ain't causation.

Maybe these people have simply realized there isn't any point whatsover in stealing random babies, which is not rocket surgery. Kidnapping? Sure. But stealing babies because you care less about people because they have a different skin colour? WTF. That's such a brainfart if you ask me.

[nacker]

Heck, in Brazil your baby isn't safe even if you are keeping it in your womb !

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mother-reunited-with-ba...