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I went to askjeeves.com and actually was looking for unemployment rates in Scandinavian countries
Good for you - you saw the evidence for yourself. Currently Sweden's unemployment rate is 4.5% (
http://www.scb.se). The other two Scandinavian economies are stronger. I believe the US rate is well over 5% and rapidly increasing as your economy is slipping at the moment.
Actually, the only articles that came up on the entire first page were linking unemployment issues with xenophobia. I'll take your word on the unemployment thing, but a 4.5% unemployment rate hardly fits the image of the euphoric land of dreams you are trying to paint.
Still, our problems were nothing like your continuing huge problems with racism.
Here's a neat little tid bit for ya. (Now, to be fair, I used figures that were available for all countries, so I am going with census info from 1997. I assume all numbers would be slightly larger now, but should not be too far off as far as percentages.)
In 1997, Scandinavia (I used Finland and Iceland in these figures as well, b/c the rest of the world lumps them in with Scandinavia) had a population of approximately 23,942,300 people total, with a minority population (non Nordic decent) of a mere 281,375. In doing the math, that figures out to 0.012% minority population. Of the ethnic groups listed, there were only five different ethnicities: Nordic, Lapp, Sami, Jew, and Middle Eastern decent (In the US Nordic, Lapp and Sami are all just considered caucasion).
In 1997, the US had an estimated population of approximately 271,290,000 people total, with a minority population of around 65,109,600. In doing the math, that figures out to about a 24% minority population. The ethnic groups listed were: Caucasion, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, Aluet, Polynesian, Native American and"other"...the "other" accounted for about .7%, or roughly 19,000,000 people.
To sum things up for you, we have a larger minority population than TWICE YOUR TOTAL POPULATION!!! It's awfully easy not to be prejudiced when everyone around you is the same. How large is the town you live in? How many different ethnic groups are there in your town? I live in a small town in the back hills of the tiny state of New Hampshire...anyone on this board from the US can tell you, there's pretty much mountains and cows up here and that's it. My town has a total population of only 3,500 people. Even in this middle of nowhere town we have families living here that are Colombian, two Cambodian families, a dozen or so African American familes, a group of Orthodox Jews, a few Irish immigrant families, and a Libyan family who sought political exile here...and we are considered in this country to have a very small minority population! And let's examine religions for a minute. According to the encyclopedia, in 1997 Scandinavia had a religious population of 99% Prodestant (mostly Lutheran) and 1% Roman Catholic. It mentioned that Scandanavia had "isolated" pockets of Russian Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish, and most of those are in Denmark. Let's examine the US for a second. The encyclopedia said that in 1997, 48% of the population was Prodestant (Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ), 26% Roman Catholic, 3% Jewish, 3% Muslim, 2% Mormon, and that the rest was divided between Hindu, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Johva's Witness, and "isolated factions of the aforementioned religions".
We are the Great Melting Pot. "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...." Well, that happened, and like it or not, people bring their own cultures' prejudices with them. I can't stop an Iraqi immigrant from hating an Iranian immigrant...these things happen after years of cohabitating in the same area.
You have no race problems? YOU HAVE NO RACES!!! Let me extend an invitation. I want you to come over to the US, fly down to, say, Atlanta, GA, and walk around at night. Or Tampa, FL. Or Los Angeles, CA. Better yet, just spend the week in NYC. Then MAYBE you will gain some smidgen of understanding about how hard it really is to embrace differences, while overcoming them at the same time. I think we are doing a pretty good job. Nowhere else in the world has the diversity that we do, so go stick your nose up at someone else, b/c your argument just won't fly.
Wow! We came in 6th! Booh-yeah! What? Denmark is a sad little 14th? You can't pick and choose. When you are speaking about Scandinavia, you can't say, "Oh, I just meant one of the countries." When you are comparing one thing to a group of things, then to derive the proper comparison you must do an average of the individual parts of the whole. Let's look at it like this. I'll consider the three parts of Scandinavia listed in the same light as the states in America. Now, America was given an overall ranking of 6, which means that the average of it's parts equalled 6. Not too shabby, since I assume LA would drag things down quite a bit! Now, Norway was ranked 1, and Sweden was ranked 2, but sad little Denmark was only ranked 14. So 1+2+14 / 3= 5.6 repeating. Hmm. Pretty close.
I am not ragging on Scandinavia. Although cold, I'm sure it's a lovely place. However, elitists like yourself just get under my skin. You're not perfect. Neither is your country. No one's country is, get over it.
