samwilkin.bsky.social
Freelance (managing) editor and media consultant. Amateur essayist. Former senior editor at Politico & MLex, reporter at Bloomberg & Reuters.
Essays: www.theleopard.eu
Hire me: bxlbureau.eu
Substack: substack.com/@samwilkin
182 posts
561 followers
235 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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Look on the bright side Stan, what's bad for Europe is at least good for columnists!
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Again, I'm not making that claim because I don't think the literature is definitive. But you seem to be claiming that it's definitely false, despite an equal lack of evidence.
I'm logging off, have a good day.
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That's not relevant. The comparison being made is whether members of a particular group are more likely to be homophobic *than society at large*, not than each other. If they are, then LGBT people are not bigoted for perceiving them as a source of threat.
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Two layers of straw man here. The 'stereotype' isn't that Muslims are more likely to be homophobic than other in-groups; the comparator is whole society.
Second, I'm not claiming that this is definitely true. It hasn't been proven either way, so you can't base a study on the assumption it's false.
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White evangelicals are not the baseline of society, they're a minority group that happens to be white. If they're more homophobic than average, that should be acknowledged and addressed.
Why are you willing to acknowledge potential problems among white religious minorities but not others?
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I understand the fear of singling out a single community that might then be targeted by far-right mobs. We absolutely have to keep protecting Muslims against discrimination, and avoid generalisations. But we also have to be honest about any problems that do exist within minority communities.
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Anecdotally, some gay friends tell me they feel a greater threat in majority Muslim areas. There have been some studies that show homophobic attitudes, though not conclusive. We can certainly say that most Muslim-majority countries are institutionally homophobic. This merits further study, at least.
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The problem is that the premise is unsound. The authors don't demonstrate, or even really make the case, that the 'stereotype' is false. If it's true (i.e. homophobia is more common in Muslim communities than national average) then the 'bias' they call out is actually just accurate observation.
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Good to know. Indeed, it has been enlightening!
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It came up in my feed and I thought it was a good example of the sort of narrative I think is ineffective. Nothing personal at all. Sorry if it has broken your notifications, wasn't expecting anything like this level of engagement (still quite new on this platform).
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Anyway I'm going to log off for a bit and stop feeding the trolls. Would love to pick up this discussion with you over a beer if you're ever in Brussels!
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That's very interesting, and I think I agree with that point. Europeans have a clear narrative of why we let, say, Ukrainians in. Same with Hong Kongers to UK. Some Europeans think we should let everyone in because of our colonial history, but that's not a compelling narrative shared across society.
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That seems to show that someone born in NL with 2 foreign parents is about 3 times likelier to commit a crime than someone with 2 Dutch-born parents. That seems like a failure of integration to me, and a valid cause for concern (if it holds true when controlled for wealth etc.)
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Nobody is saying that Muslims are uniquely homophobic, that would be absurd. Homophobia exists everywhere, sadly (especially on the far right).
But if a survey finds that a majority of LGBTQ+ people perceive a *particular* threat from within the Muslim community, isn't that a valid concern?
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If there's anything else I should read, please do point me in the direction.
I do find it interesting that I'm getting a huge pile-on here, and generally positive and/or constructive feedback across all other platforms.
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I've done quite a lot of reading on this, and also worked in Syria, Iraq and other countries of origin. These places have a very different culture to ours and it's not necessarily racist to be worried about recent arrivals having values that may threaten our social contract. It's not just murders.
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Firstly, thank you for engaging respectfully!
I think it's a bit of a privileged position to say that migration isn't a major issue for Germany. There are, clearly, a lot of people who do think it's an important issue and that the mainstream parties haven't done enough to address it...
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Well these things are impossible to quantify, because those are subjective terms. What I'm getting at in the essay is that there might be other reasons why people are voting AfD (not to mention economy etc.), and if we can identify them we can start to pull (most) people back to the mainstream.
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I do know what you mean! I suppose Stewart Lee is the funniest expression of the smug liberal stereotype.
At the end of the day, calling people thick and bigoted makes us feel good, but it rarely solves the problem.
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I really don't think it is. Shame can suppress people's behaviour but it rarely changes their views. Worse, it may send them into a bubble where they get radicalised. Have you ever been shamed into genuinely changing your mind?
Funnily enough I wrote about this: www.theleopard.eu/p/you-cant-s...
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Some were deliberately innocuous. The methodology is really interesting, I link to it in the footnotes.
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Thank you for reading and sorry I couldn't persuade you!
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I wrote just last week about how appeasement is a terrible idea. Do keep up! www.theleopard.eu/p/europes-mu...
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The Die Linke surge was from extremely low to very low. They almost all live in Berlin (and they appear to all be on BlueSky, judging by my mentions). The AfD surge is far more significant, and concerning.
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No, the researchers were looking specifically at perceptions of Muslims. They did ask people about other groups that might potentially threaten LGBT rights, including Christians and football hooligans, as control measures:
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Today's experience confirms my fear that BlueSky is just another filter bubble where people pile onto anyone who disagrees with the orthodoxy. It's like an equal-but-opposite X.
We need a platform where people can disagree respectfully. Wrote about it a while back:
www.theleopard.eu/p/mr-bluesky...
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Funnily enough I don't mention any of those things. Anyway, as one immigrant to another, I'll wish you well.
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I'd be very happy to have a discussion with you, but please actually read my essay first. Otherwise I'll just be repeating myself. I'd be happy to read anything you've written about this as well.
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None whatsoever. I'm a big fan of EU free movement and I regret that the UK left the bloc.
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If you're not willing to read 1,500 words, you're probably not going to be able to grasp complex issues
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I ran out of characters! The essay itself is more nuanced, if you'd care to read it.
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It's all in the essay!
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All lives matter!
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I don't make that claim at all, here or in the piece. Some of the AfD vote is absolutely motivated by racism. I just don't think all of it is.
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20% of voters is a really significant chunk, the second-biggest voting bloc in Germany (and the biggest in almost all of East Germany). Their concerns matter.
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The party, yes (or at least a significant part of its leadership).
The people who voted for it, not necessarily. I think a lot of them have valid cultural concerns about migration - often specifically LGBT rights - and no other party is addressing them.
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The problem, I think, is that we've stretched the definition of racism and bigotry to include any concern about migration.
A lot of voters may not themselves be racist, but will vote for a racist party if it's the only one that will address those concerns. It's those people we need to understand.
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Or we can just keep calling people bigots, maybe that will work bsky.app/profile/otto...
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Nothing a raised eyebrow can't fix!
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(In reality, like all rotties, he's a massive softie)
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