Misconceptions about Middle Eastern and Muslim Immigrants

This isn't a thread to say... If you think this way you're an awful, racist person. Truthfully, everyone comes to the beliefs they come to because their experiences of the world have told them that belief is true. So if you are somebody who have a negative perception of Middle Eastern immigrants, I actually wanted to make this thread specifically for you because I'm not a PC SJW who will just shout and call you racist.

As with many beliefs, the mindset that being wary of Middle Eastern immigrants comes from makes logical sense, the logical train of thought is that they grew up in an environment very different from the West and that environment and the ideology that goes along with it is antithetical to American values. I think many people look at the state much of the Middle East is in and say "well I don't want America to become Syria, so I don't want people bringing Syria and all its problems with them to America." Then there's also legitimate concerns about terrorists slipping in with normal people.

I can say with 100% certainty though, that America's vetting system is well designed to make sure that doesn't happen and that you have nothing to fear from the Muslim and the Middle Eastern community here in the United States. European countries are an entirely different debate because things work very differently there, but America's vetting system is very effective at preventing this.

I've now lived with three Middle Eastern roommates, become good friends with a couple others, and become acquainted with several more. The hilarious thing is that I only have one friend at my school who isn't a Middle Eastern immigrant. He and my family often joke that I know every Middle Eastern person at my school. As is well known here though, I don't like the normal students at my school very much so I found people who were very different from the normal students. All of them were raised by different families. I know one guy who was raised in a very conservative, fundamentalist Muslim household, that adheres to many of the stereotypes about how Middle Easterners live. A couple more who were basically half-American before they even came here. Some of them are from countries well known to be more liberal minded Middle Eastern countries, and others are from the ultra-Islamic ones you hear about in the news all the time.

And I can tell you, that no matter where they come from, all of them respect the US and its values very highly. Pretty much nobody is trying to bring sharia law and sectarian tensions to the US. I'd go so far as to say Middle Eastern immigrants respect the United States much more than Americans who grew up here do. The guy from the conservative, fundamentalist family? He personally bought one of the biggest US flags I've ever seen and hung it in our apartment. On top of that, he was a big fan of Trump and covered his door in a giant Trump flag. I've said to them before that I think America is actually one of the least racist countries in the world and they almost universally agree. Everyone I've talked to has said they've never encountered racism in the US. Not even once. They say it probably does exist but that they've never personally seen it so they don't think its a big deal. All of the immigrants I've met are actually pretty hostile towards the SJW ideology and make racially insensitive jokes all the time. When I tell the average American this, they act horrified that I would dare to "whitewash the experiences of minorities in our deeply racist society."

In-fact, 80-90% of Americans I talk politics with in general are incredibly fucking annoying to talk politics with. Ironically, white Americans on average are the most politically correct and ultra-sensitive group of people I've ever talked to. Far from being racist, the majority of white people I meet are self-hating and masochistic in the way they attack their own race. People really are a product of their environment and most white people's education and environment has taught them that white people are evil. Its nauseating to listen to a classroom full of white kids and that one black chick in the class talk about how horrible white people are and how they fucked everything up for everyone. Middle Eastern immigrants have a much more nuanced and wide ranging view of different political subjects than Americans do whether they are white or non-white.

As far as some of the smaller stuff goes, again, Middle Eastern immigrants are way more Americanized than people think. Everyone who immigrates here knows what the US culture is like and many of them specifically want to experience the sex, drugs, and rock n roll of US life that they can't experience in the Middle East. A lot of the immigrants I know are huge potheads, some of them party like crazy and are obsessed with hooking up with girls. One girl that my friends are acquainted with is basically the US equivalent of a weeb, she exaggerates her American accent to the point where it sounds like a caricature of a Southerner and she apparently went to Canada in the winter time wearing short shorts and a crop top. One friend of mine went back to his home country and talked to some of his friends back home and was worried about telling them he smoked weed now. So he told them he was living in the US now but that he hadn't started smoking weed or partying and their response was... "You're living in the US? Why aren't you smoking? You should be getting high every day and living it up." One friend of mine even said he didn't like being around other immigrants because so many of them act like high schoolers who can't talk about anything besides sex, drugs, and alcohol.

In general though, the reason I feel I've gotten along with them so much better than the people who grown up in my own country is because they don't care nearly as much about who you are as much as they care about whether you're open to them. Because immigrants are immigrants, they don't come here knowing precisely how to act and talk and they don't come here with gigantic social circles so they don't tend to care how you act or talk either and are very open to making new friends. They also seem to agree much more with my idea that an argument should just remain an argument that you forget about the next day or even a few hours later. One thing I have hilariously observed is that Arabs argue with each other all the time, about all kinds of topics, and it can sound very aggressive. They will yell at each other, speak in a condescending tone, and call each other "fucking retarded." There is absolutely no holding back but an hour later, its like nothing happened. They've practically forgotten about it or are laughing about it by then.

Its one of the reasons why I think if you're somebody who hates political correctness, outrage culture, and the SJW ideology. You will actually like most Middle Eastern immigrants a lot more than you might expect.