European unpleasntness.

The other day I was talking with an Italian engineer around my age who was incredibly affable and pleasant, and then the conversation turned to Muslims, and he started telling me how their civilization is opposed to democracy and they'll never be able to integrate.

When I brought up the experience of a Muslim friend from Britain, he said that his visit to London showed him how British integration works, with different peoples living in different neighborhoods.

When I brought up the experience of American Muslims who I know, he said that the Muslims who immigrate to the U.S. are much more educated than elsewhere, even more educated than the average American, so that's not comparable.

When I suggested that education is the key to integration, he said that I shouldn't talk, being from the U.S., and that Muslims just don't want to learn.

Then, when I suggested affirmative action for those Muslims who do make it through certain levels of education, he told me that at all the international professional engineering conferences he's ever attended, he never met an American black engineer until moving to the U.S., it was only whites or Asians, so that there was something wrong with that process, or that culture, or something.

It was very nasty, and was very much in contrast to his general affability during the rest of the conversation.

On the other hand, an (American) friend of mine recently returned from her first trip to London - she went for the christening of her god-daughter; her one friend married a British woman and is living and working in London now - and she said she felt that in London there were many more interracial couples than you'd see in New York...

I'll have to check with my British friend about his impression of that.