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June 6, 1995 Dear Editor: In his most recent letter (June 2), reader Michael B. Bobrow denies the racist implications of his previous statement that "Third World immigration" poses a threat to "Western and European civilization." What poses a threat, he says, is not the race of a potential immigrant, but the culture represented by his nationality. Unfortunately, in shifting his emphasis from race to nationality, Mr. Bobrow still commits the same fundamental error, because in the context of his argument the concepts of race and nationality are virtually synonymous; there is little difference between improperly generalizing about "people from North Korea" (nationality) vs. "North Koreans" (race). Nor is it logical to presume, as Mr. Bobrow apparently does, that an individual fleeing a dictatorship in North Korea (or China, or Iran, or Cuba, etc.) would hold the cultural values prevalent in the nation he is rejecting. It is individual people, not abstract concepts (such as "nation" or "race"), who choose values; as a result, it is individual people who have the right to choose where they would like to live. Therefore, the logical (and just) principle that applies to the concepts of race, nationality, and immigration is the original American principle that every human being, regardless of where he is born or what race he is born into, has an inalienable right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Sincerely, Chuck Braman |