Italy's first black minister is target of racist attacks

[MadImmortalMan]

Integration has been happening on it's own for...well ever since humans became mobile enough to travel to different cultures I guess.

[Jacob]

And mine was a BS post

Even I got that

[Syt]

Integration has been happening on it's own for...well ever since humans became mobile enough to travel to different cultures I guess.

It's a hot topic in Austria a well. One of the projects enacted in the name of integration is mandatory German tests before kids (Austrian and immigrant alike) are let into elementary school. If the German skills are insufficient they have to spend a year catching up. It's a response to a lot of second and third generation immigrants, especially from Turkey, speaking broken or not very much German (not that their Turkish skills are much better - the vast majority of Turkish immigrants are not exactly university trained).

[Razgovory]

The Lega Nord is like the Lettows and grallons of Italy right?

[Duque de Bragança]

Integration has been happening on it's own for...well ever since humans became mobile enough to travel to different cultures I guess.

It's a hot topic in Austria a well. One of the projects enacted in the name of integration is mandatory German tests before kids (Austrian and immigrant alike) are let into elementary school. If the German skills are insufficient they have to spend a year catching up. It's a response to a lot of second and third generation immigrants, especially from Turkey, speaking broken or not very much German (not that their Turkish skills are much better - the vast majority of Turkish immigrants are not exactly university trained).

Automatically giving citizenship to sons of immigrants is all well and nice but does not make them well integrated citizens indeed so I can see the reason for this Austrian bill.
There was once a requirement of being able to read and write to become French for immigrants' son instead of just becoming it automatically when reaching 16-18 but the left deemed it reactionary.

[Razgovory]

So there aren't any French children?  You only become French at a certain age?

[katmai]

Well, he said he was sorry.  Jeez...

It was a BS apology.

And mine was a BS post

Uh aren't all your posts BS, so no need to clarify.

Words hurt

Tell me about it, Dguller had me crying last night.

[Syt]

Automatically giving citizenship to sons of immigrants is all well and nice but does not make them well integrated citizens indeed so I can see the reason for this Austrian bill.

Actually, it's also useful for kids born to Austrian parents, if they're from certain social strata that don't exactly put a premium on teaching their kids proper grammar.

Another thing that the integration minster here looks at is why foreigners and people with migrant backgrounds feature disproportionally in the unemployed statistics and, connected to this, why a lot of them are badly educated (this is a bigger problem of the Austrian society, though - despite efforts to offer studying at university to anyone qualified, kids of parents who also studied that go to university are still vastly overrepresented compared to, say, kids from working class backgrounds.

[Duque de Bragança]

Automatically giving citizenship to sons of immigrants is all well and nice but does not make them well integrated citizens indeed so I can see the reason for this Austrian bill.

Actually, it's also useful for kids born to Austrian parents, if they're from certain social strata that don't exactly put a premium on teaching their kids proper grammar.

Another thing that the integration minster here looks at is why foreigners and people with migrant backgrounds feature disproportionally in the unemployed statistics and, connected to this, why a lot of them are badly educated (this is a bigger problem of the Austrian society, though - despite efforts to offer studying at university to anyone qualified, kids of parents who also studied that go to university are still vastly overrepresented compared to, say, kids from working class backgrounds.

This would have been indeed of use to people like Ribéry with his awful French grammar. 
However, given that ethnicity question are banned in the census and other national stats due to the usual suspects, I can't see that happening in the near future.

[Eddie Teach]

Tell me about it, Dguller had me crying last night.

[The Larch]

The Lega Nord is like the Lettows and grallons of Italy right?

Good definition.  Add a dash of "we don't want our riches to go to dirty southerners" and you got it.

[Ed Anger]

The Lega Nord is like the Lettows and grallons of Italy right?

Good definition.  Add a dash of "we don't want our riches to go to dirty southerners" and you got it.

Reminds me of Black Dragon when he posted.

you stupid racist Americans!

5 seconds later...

Stupid Sicilian niggers!

[Sheilbh]

After she's done do they abolish the position?

From my understanding if they want to, yeah. She's a minister without portfolio so they don't have a specific department, rather they're responsible for policy in a certain area (that may cross departments) or for drafting specific laws, or both. What ministers you have like that and what they're for is normally up to the PM and is about the government's priorities. If the next government decides they don't need or want that position then there's no need to keep it.

So the current Italian government also has a minister for public administration and simplification who'll similarly have responsibilities across departments, and a minister for the regions. The Monti cabinet had both those positions too. Berlusconi's last government had one minister for public administration and one for simplification, none for integration and so on. I think the US equivalent would be a 'x Czar' except these are ministers with some civil servant support and a cabinet seat.

The UK is, I think, the furthest in Europe in that the departments can also be entirely reorganised at the whim of the Prime Minister. So since 1992, the Department for Education became the Department for Education and Employment, then Department for Education and Skills, then Department for Children, Schools and Families and is now back as the Department for Education.

[The Larch]

Italian cabinets always have bucketloads of positions and they change all the time. I don't think that two governments have had the same set of cabinet positions for ages.

[derspiess]

Does the UK government still have the The Minister for Not Listening to People?

Or the Minister for Running Upstairs Two at a Time, Flinging the Door Open and Saying 'Ha, hal Caught you, Mildred'?