Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.

There is a contradiction at the heart of how progressives think about immigration.

If a black resident of Harlem bemoans the fact that mostly white college students are coming in and changing the character of his neighborhood,

very few people would call that person a bigot.

But if a white person living in San Diego complains that

Mexican immigrants are changing the character of his city, that immediately marks that person

as a racist. My own opinion is that America has benefited on net from immigration, and we certainly

wouldn't want to trade places with the zero immigration population collapse

countries like Japan and South Korea. But I also think it's important to keep a consistent

set of books. Is it necessarily racist to resist cultural change, or is it just human nature? On the other

hand, is it realistic to resist change? After all, before it was a black

neighborhood, Harlem was an Italian and Jewish neighborhood. I'm sure they didn't love it when

black people started moving in. As the Buddhists say, the only constant in life is change.

All of these questions and more came up in today's conversation with Lionel Shriver.

Lionel is an American-born novelist and journalist, best known for her book, We Need to

Talk About Kevin, which was made into a movie. In this episode, we talk about her new book,

A Better Life, a story about what happens when an American family opens their home to a

migrant from Central America. There are points where this conversation became uncomfortable,

both for Lionel and for myself, and she actually flags where that happens. The line between

honestly discussing the problems associated with Muslim immigration to Western Europe

and simply sounding racist can be hard to walk. And you'll hear her hesitation at one point.

But I think it's important to have these conversations without a jump to demonizing feelings

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