“Post #31, here is the real aggression. My sister told me I’m fat to my face more than once, but she is no thinner.”
You should smack her so hard that she gets some sense into her brain. No matter what she thinks, a sister needs to be sweet. It’s the law.
Here’s my sister’s microaggression. Sometimes I see her when I have worked all night, am exhausted, and look like crap. My hair is looking limp and I am way overdue on getting it highlighted. She’ll smile and say, “Your hair looks great, it looks so HEALTHY.” It’s such a baldfaced lie that I know it’s a passive aggressive insult. Fortunately she has an awesome sense of humor and laughs hysterically when I tell her to shut the …up.
I think we have successfully illustrated the key concept here: what people hear is not necessarily what you thought you were saying. I’m pretty sure the Maasai leader who said to my husband “you must be very rich, your wife is very fat” did not intend to insult me, for example. Nor did his wife when she said that I must be “quite old, to have such white hair.”
“I think being called “Ma’am” is a microaggression implying a certain age.”
I agree. Along with a young person calling you “young lady”. Or asking for your ID while giggling a bit in the grocery checkout line. Just ring me up already. I didn’t quite know whether to be insulted or complimented when the Whole Foods checker asked for my ID (in a routine manner, not a joking one), looked at my ID, looked up at me and said, “Wow, I really didn’t expect THAT.”
Oh, there are microaggressions all day when you start getting older. Or if you start gaining weight.
I haven’t hit anyone since I was a child. And then only my sister, a few times, because she deserved it. I suppose I should put more of so you realize that I am actually kidding.
In terms of opportunity, the US has less intergenerational class mobility than many other rich countries, so it is likely that opportunity for those born into lower income and class families is less in the US than in many other countries.
Of course, the opportunity levels in the US are significantly higher than in many other countries from where immigrants come from (such as Vietnam in your example). Obviously, the US has far better opportunities than Vietnam does, but that does not mean that it is the only country with far better opportunities than Vietnam does, nor does it necessarily mean that the US is unquestionably the best in opportunity out of all of the countries that emigrants from Vietnam headed to.
Note also that those moving to a new country tend to be among the most highly motivated. The emigrants also included many former business owners and descendants of ethnic Chinese, both of whom tended to be more heavily oppressed than others by the government of Vietnam in the late 1970s.
The US is clearly one of the better countries to live in, but that does not mean that there are not any problems to be concerned about and make efforts to fix.
http://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/44582910.pdf (fifth page, numbered 187) indicates that Denmark, Australia, and Canada, among others, have more intergenerational class mobility than the US, based on lower linkage between parent and child earnings. Meaning that, for those born into poor families, those other countries offer greater opportunity to become non-poor than the US.
http://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/44582910.pdf (fifth page, numbered 187) indicates that Denmark, Australia, and Canada, among others, have more intergenerational class mobility than the US, based on lower linkage between parent and child earnings. Meaning that, for those born into poor families, those other countries offer greater opportunity to become non-poor than the US.
Good grief. Arguing which country has #1 ranking for “Land of Opportunity” is like arguing USNWR college ranking. I think we can all agree that the US is pretty high up on the opportunity food chain.
And since 2007 a lot has happened. There is a huge African population in southern China. Koreans, Vietnamese, Russians all stream in. Foreign professors move to China for better funding and high salaries. If the Chinese language was as accessible as English, many more would come.
In terms of % of population that is foreign born, many countries exceed the US, including Switzerland, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Canada and Sweden.
That’s why there’s such a big section on CC for the American students who are just dying to go to college in China or India @@. America IS the land of opportunity.
Well you could get a fantastic STEM education in China very cheap, if you bothered to learn Chinese.
America is a land of opportunity for sure, but not THE land of opportunity. There is no need to claim that nobody wants or even prefers other countries.
@sorghum, are expat workers considered immigrants?
NKoreans may pay to immigrate to china, but other people expect inducement pay to move there. I have a number of expat friends who abandoned their china posting early because the air pollution was killing them & their kids.
That World Bank data I linked (post #53) shows 2012 net migration for different countries:
India -2.3 million
Bangladesh -2 million
Pakistan -1.6 million
China -1.5 million
Mexico -1.2 million
Aruba +1 thousand
Japan +0.3 million
Germany +0.5 million
Australia +0.7 million
UK +0.9 million
Russia +1.1 million
Canada +1.1 million
USA +5 million
**People are voting with their feet. ** Even dinky Aruba had a net immigration greater than china.
so you realize that I am actually kidding.