We often hear that society needs multiculturalismbecause it helps bring in cultural awareness, different viewpoints, and an array of other great things.

But on the flip side, racially and ethnically diverse countries seem to have an issue with the above. According to Robert Putnam a political scientist:

Source

In fact, lets take a look at the current situation of immigration and assimilation. Some countries want these groups to keep their culture and not force assimilate them. Eventually these groups feel disenfranchised and refuse to bind with the culture of the country they're in. Eventually this creates social isolationism and anti-social behavior.

Often times, these same people are the target of hateful rhetoric, and political propaganda. So is the West's long-standing tradition of plurality failing? Especially in Europe and the US? Or should multiculturalism end and people assimilate into the country?

You didn't even read the post, nor do you know what I'm talking about.

Yes, it does. You can't live life in a bubble, or your worldview will be incredibly skewed.

That haven't a clue what they're talking about, or what you're talking about.

Actually, I think the reverse happens. When people in the in-group are faced with changing demographics they tend to shut themselves from those considered different, or the out-group. Which is a reason why there's a lot of animosity to these groups, and a tendency to cultural ignorance. And they often get expressed through acts of racism, injustice under the law, and so forth.

it doesn't take a lot to see this. The event in the past few months have shown the issues.

Yes, but the problem is extremes on both sides

people need to get over themselves

It would work if we didn't have the far right and the far left, but we do so it doesn't.

I'm the official curator and embodiment of Multiculturalism. It is immaculate from my benched view.

But how can you expect to expand your worldview if you're not exposed to other viewpoints?

Yes (see Europe)

The far left isn't the problem, it's the far right with their racism and xenophobia.

I find multiculturalism extremely dangerous. It obscures the processes of inclusion and exclusion that found every normative nation-state.

The nation-state, according to Michel Foucault, wants people to survive at the expense of others. He calls this biopolitic, where some people are folded into life as others are marginalised. Those who are absorbed in the normative imaginary and way of being tend to conform to whiteness, able-bodiedness, masculinism, and other categories like these. Likewise, those who are exploited and dispossessed are usually those who cannot follow this standard: gay black, Indigenous trans, disabled old black, etc. The nation-state, for Foucault, is about hegemony. Hegemony wants a dominant group to survive and thrive at the expense of others, more lowly folk. Lowly folk are actually implicated in this dominance, as they (we?) reproduce statist hegemony through mainstream ideologies and politics. I think Foucault
would say that we are in a catch-22.

His point and I agree we him: there can be no "true" equality and diversity when the State systematically targets those who fall outside the liberal, monolithic of the Eurocentre. The result: black people are marginalised, Indigenous are displaced, disabled, fat trans women are abjected from nearly every normative social proceeding. There will not be "multiculturalism" in an empowering way until this radical inclusion/exclusion politic is fully addressed. Right now, popular multiculturalism looks like colours, a buffet of food and normativies -- surely this doesn't change the status quo about inclusion/exclusion. It reproduces a false consciousness of diversity and equality, obscuring the radically oppressive structure of modern, Western nation-state. Westernity wants people dead while keeping more normative, gold-standard people alive.

Because the views of the "others" are always cast aside, belittled, or simply ignored. The voice of the "other" tries to shout but they aren't heard. Instead they are told "if you don't like it why did you come here". In some cases these people are simply killed in a form of ethnic cleansing. Society doesn't care about the lives of those they deem different or lesser. But they bring these people in because of a sense of entitlement or being the savior, the "liberal knight".

Perfectly said!

Well, I think its an interestingly worded question; it's not that multiculturalism should "work", like its part of some plan or agenda, I think the argument is that it should simply be a reality. I'm not saying all cultures need to mix and blend and people of all ethnicities and cultures should be living everywhere by mandate or anything It's quite demonstrable however that tribalism, nativism, and the general 'othering' of cultures that are different from your own can lead to discrimination, oppression, dehumanization, etc via racism bigory and general intolerance. The evidence is all of human history.

I didnt read the entire study itself, but I think you'd need to actually understand the methodology to accurately criticize it... still from what I could make out, I think that just looking at America as a whole is useful on some levels, but not for what he is arguing, especially in a country that is divided into 50 states and more and where the racial and cultural make up can literally vary from state to state or even county to county and sometimes those trends get swept up in the bigger picture of America. This is not to mention the fact that the cultural and racial makeup of America is radically changing in certain directions; for example, white people will not be the statistical majority in the future (probably). I think there are a lot more complex factors that go into explaining this sort of "Turtle" mindset that hes saying is happening where diversity occurs.

It sounds like what the author and the study are really alluding to is what some people would call "forced" multiculturism; diversity for the sake of diversity. I don't think those are actually really significant problems at all, but I mean, America is a white supremacist nation both at its core and in execution; there are way more reasonable answers to explain people being wary of multiculturalism (especially if it seems "forced") than to assume there is a direct correlation between "interracial trust and ethnic homogeneity". He's basically saying "we've always thought more is better, but could it actually be worse?" He's observing a supposed increase in interracial trust within ethnically homogeneous communities (and I honestly question this result entirely, it could be skewed by the methodology of the surveying process) and saying "well, this could mean that making more ethnically heterogeneous communities would lead to less interracial trust" when there's no reason to assume that having more heterogeneous (diverse) communities is the cause; it's a classic case of missing the confounding factor(s), maybe even for the sake of confirmation bias. Really though, that depends on whether the author is using the study to further his own agenda and presents certain things with more certainty than is possible or if the study actually just objectively reports some findings for people to use for w.e they like. I didn't read the study, but it seems likely that its the latter.

~~~

I think its way more simple to say that people who understand each other tend to trust each other and people who are afraid of or misunderstand other people are less likely to trust them, simple as that. There are larger more interesting factors at play that can influence whether or not people of X culture trust and respect and get along with people of Y culture. For example, there's some truth to theorists believing that people who identify as something that has social power (so like, white, male, cisgender) may subconsciously and implicitly see the inclusion of people of other cultures as an attack on their identity, again especially if its perceived as forced. Look at Christian people in America that HONESTLY believe Christianity is under attack. They tend to see America as this Christian, wholesome nation and think that things like Homosexuality, Women's increased liberation, the increase of brown people (of various religions and ethnicities) and more are literally attacks on their way of life. Because people tend to see parts of their identity as critical parts of their worth as human beings, perceived attacks on classes they fall into become personal attacks. (E.g., race theorists pointing out that institutional racism against black people is factually not only supported by white government, but also perpetuated and kept in place by regular citizens may result in white people believing that whiteness is under attack)

Also can I just say, this article from 9 years ago is super transparent and was honestly kind of annoying to read.

Yes it exists in most countries in Europe