Because of my sociology class, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about race. When I heard about the Muslim riots in France, I instantly thought of black riots in the US. It’s definitely not a stretch to compare the two. The main direct cause of these riots is economic frustration. What causes this economic frustration? A lack of social mobility.

Why does this occur? Residential segregation. We have riots because of residential segregation. The in-between steps are important, but this is something really key.

Blacks were forced into ghettos because of white racism. Blacks never integrated into white culture because of racism. (I can go into this further, but I just want an overall general view of my thoughts now. I’m not writing an essay at this point.)

In France, the Muslims live in particular neighborhoods. Whatever the reason, they were not integrated into French culture.

I see the root cause as a problem of assimilation. Blacks and Muslims didn’t integrate into the predominant culture, and were denied opportunities to succeed economically.

I realize I don’t know enough about France to say anything definitively, but, as a conservative, my first instinct is to blame multiculturalism. By opening your gates to any and all immigrants, sheer numbers will hamper assimilation. Segregation of cultures, coupled with economic inferiority of one group, within a country will produce conflict.

It’s not about preserving “white” culture. It’s about preserving the American character and French culture. It’s about economic mobility and social stability.

There’s so much more to say about this, so I’m going to eat lunch, think about it more, and write either today or tomorrow.

But first, I want to say that any study of this will be problematic because France doesn’t collect data on race. Bad choice, France. That’s why we must continue to collect data on race in the US.