Submitted 2 months ago by Social_Discussion@lemm.ee to [deleted]
I know that there was slavery and segregation in America based on exactly this in the past but this is over
It is not…
There’s still a lot of racial bias in housing, even by name before the landlord/realtor meets the potential client.
its just not done with the explicit approval of the government, however that is unfortunately likely to change soon.
Even after the civil rights movement, all the Republicans and a lot of the Dems opposed integration. And we’re still paying for it.
So, good for you, but the particular dynamics of being a colonial country that had a massive portion of its economy based on race-based slavery has resulted in an approach to diversity that has much deeper roots and has been wrestling with hard issues for much longer than Germany has, and Germany’s own record with dealing with identifiable minorities in the last hundred years has, shall we say, not always been great.
Many European countries are only now hitting levels of diversity America had fifty years ago, and America has been dealing with statistically significant communities with distinctive origins for hundreds of years, and this in a colonizing country where there is no historically continuous monoculture. Historically, people tend to become dicks to the “Other” among them when faced with hardship, and much of American history reflects that sort of thing, but also its aftermath and attempts to heal.
Diverse and defiantly distinctive communities formed and persisted because that was how people got by and found support and could make their way, admittedly often because opportunities to assimilate were intentionally blocked. Yet even if the reasons for them are shameful, they are real and important, and the American dialogue on race simply cannot be color-blind even when well-meaning. Instead, it has to be a dance, where people of goodwill celebrate both differences and similarities and do not set groups above one another but also do not pretend they don’t exist.
I wish more Americans would understand that our approach rarely translates well, and for fuck’s sake I wish we had fewer people who were stuck in the bad old days where reconciliation and healing were very much not priorities. That said, I also wish that people from countries with a very different cultural and historical experience would not assume that their countries have shit figured out, when a lot of it simply boils down to “we don’t have many people with darker skin shades here.”
Kid, you are nothing short of adorable.
How long were the Nazis in power in Germany? About ten years, fifteen? 1930’s to the Mid-1940’s? During how much of that time were Jews discriminated against, subjugated and slaughtered? Even if it started on day one, fifteen years is a fraction of one human lifetime. How would you describe the relationship between ethnic Germans and Jews today, given that little incident 80 years ago? Any grudges or awkwardness there?
Now I want you to imagine it was allowed to go on for a century, followed by another century of “the law says we’re merely allowed to treat you as a second-class citizen now, so get to the back of the fucking bus.”
Segregation in the United States lasted long enough for separate dialects of English to form. Turns out that wounds that took generations to carve are taking generations to heal. Imagine that for a moment.
Because I think it’s pretty much self-explanatory that separation on purely ethnicity/looks is not constructive where people are artificially treated as if they were different even though they’re not. I think the damage clearly outweighs here.
Justifying racism by saying ‘this is what we always did and it worked like that’ is not the right way forward imo as we can’t be stuck in the past and make the same mistakes that could be successfully improved.
What I’m trying to get at is that while appearance is not any kind of enlightened reason for distinct communities to have arisen, through accidents of history and genetics they did, and they are still relevant and appreciated by the people who are part of them. The color terminology is shorthand that acknowledges history. It’s not “justifying racism” to accept that in many places your ethnic background, especially if visible, means that certain experiences will have been more or less common for you. You can engage in this, even light heartedly, in good faith and as a way to understand your neighbors better, and indeed to think of them as your friends and neighbors instead of “Other.” People who are trying to do right by their fellow Americans are not using it to “separate,” but acknowledging that separation gave rise to proud, distinct communities and there’s no value in snuffing that out. The dialogue can be a way to unite us.
I believe we can agree that using visible “racial” markers to treat someone as less valuable than someone else is disturbing and evil, and still sadly common. I’m just saying that it’s not the mere use of the terms, or creating media that acknowledges them that results in the continuation of racism. Hell, in some ways, refusing to acknowledge differences gives a person with bad intent the license to settle on a single definition of what it means to be a “proper” American and to decide that anyone who doesn’t act the right way is less valuable: “I didn’t refuse to hire him because he’s black, but because he dresses and speaks differently. All he has to do is be exactly like me and I’d be more than happy to hire him!” (coughJDVancecoughcough)
They’re not justifying racism, they’re explaing how the US has gotten to where it is today and why people act as they do. The culture here regarding it is different compared to most parts of Europe, and people generally are trying very much to combat these issues. But as this is a deeply cultural and historical undertaking in the US, a lot of change - cultural, political, or otherwise - will happen very slowly and will not always appear progressive. Seit du Deutsch bist, weißt du, Fortschritt ist kompliziert.
well said!
TL;DR
its not the labels that cause the divide. it’s the divide (the racism built into the economy and laws and communities) that causes the trauma that requires us to heal within our sub-communities. But the sub-communities are not originally homogenous; i.e. sometimes the only thing sub-communities have in common is the label/slur that “Whites” assigned us and the trauma that goes with that.
Also, for anyone who’s actually lived in the US, you know we strenuously avoid using labels about someone when talking TO that person. There are very strict social rules for which labels to use when/where/with whom. Some people break those rules, then republicans elect them as president. FYI in case its not obvious, OVER HALF of US people hate Trump (and Elon). Why are they in power, you ask? Search “usa electoral system minority rule”
I appreciate you bringing this uncertainty to the community and open yourself for discussion. I understand how it can be upsetting or feel dissonant to see US people who sometimes/often brag of being the standard for freedom and equality, but still use divisive-sounding language. And worse yet, for the outward face of the US to become even more of an international symbol for fascism and oppression than ever.
many people outside the US, and even people inside the US, get confused by seeing us talk a lot about Black, White, Asian, Latinx (historically called ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic’), Indigenous. They often think the labels themselves actually caused divides in US. I’ve heard this interpretation often from young people, mostly Gen Z. This also used to be a part of the “mainstream” (aka white liberals’) mindset in the 1980s/1990s in the US. I’m not white nor black and I also believed that to some level back then.
We still are always looking for new names/terms to unite with each other regardless of sub-groups. That’s how we get terms like BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) which definitely is inconvenient without abbreviation.
Sociological research actually showed that US society was and still is divided even when we don’t use the labels. Its actually our laws, our economic practices, and “certain” groups’ superiority/inferiority mindset (psychological complex) that divide US people.
The laws, for example, sometimes create a lot of extra steps to register to vote. And when those extra steps are analyzed, it turns out it makes voting extra difficult for poor people (like that our voting days are on Tuesday, a work day, so poor people can’t always get a day off, then can’t vote). In many areas of US, the low income group is mostly one or two races, like Black and Latinx. So politicians who hate those groups can secretly make it hard for them to vote by creating voting obstacles that affect only poor people.
The economic system helps to keep people poor by creating barriers for getting house loans or starting businesses. The “Red Lining” system used to categorize land/houses in Black neighborhoods as unlikely to repay loans, so people from there (Black people) or people trying to buy homes there were not given loans. Even if banks wanted to loan to the person, the Gov’t refused to give the bank insurance. But what actually determines the ability to repay a loan? Income or assets, right? But income was usually ignored and Black people were assumed to have no assets worth money.
As for the people, when I say “superiority/inferiority mindset”, I mean that certain US pink-skin straight neurotypical people have become accustomed to feeling comfortable in a very specific way, and accustomed to not being criticized for that refusal to change, and refusal to bring other races into their lives and into their comfort zone. Research on this area found that when we don’t discuss race openly with some type of labels, children would observe and absorb parents’/adults’ implicit feelings of discomfort around other races, even if their parents were civil rights believers/activists. Then while growing up, the child believes themselves to be “non-racist” (because of the thinking “my parents/role-models were non-racist!”) while still having this discomfort. If the person realized they had this subconscious conflict and discusses it with friends of other races and in a mindset of humbleness and desire to learn, they could usually manage the discomfort and be an anti-racist (different from non-racist) without conflicted identity. However, if the person doesn’t recognize the internal conflict and eventually expresses their discomfort emotionally directed at people of other races, they would predictably face backlash. Then because they identify themselves as a non-racist, they believe the backlash was unfair and feel that they have become the victim of “political correctness” or “the woke agenda”. This scenario is EXTREMELY common in the US and, I would bet, an analogous one is common in most western countries. Particularly regarding immigrants, refugees, Roma people, or Jews.
I call the group “certain US pink-skin straight neurotypical people (PSSNTP)” because those of us with other skin color (BIPoC), other neurotypes, other sexuality have not ever had the opportunity to become that level of comfortable in the context of the entire US society that includes “straight white” people. BIPoC and LGBTQ are able to be comfortable in sub-groups that share our uncomfortable experiences. We call those groups Black, Gay, Asian, Pacific Islander, Neurodivergent, etc because other terms are more awkward/inconvenient, but also due to having bad experiences being called by those names or called more malicious synonyms, and otherwise treated badly by the PSSNTP and those bad experiences unite us in our sub-groups. Yes, some non-white, non-straight, non-neurotypical have also oppressed others. They were never the majority of oppressors, and they were hoping to hide the non-majority aspects of their identity by “going with the flow”. For what it’s worth, Empathy is also a minority identity characteristic among USA straight males, when it reaches the level of choosing discomfort for oneself in order to improve life for others.
Lastly, about "White"ness. As you mentioned, there are no “races” in the human genome except the human race. As far as I know, the term “white” referring to caucasian people was first spread widely during North American (NA) slavery in order to unite poor caucasians (British & other Europeans in debt slavery as “indentured”) in NA with rich caucasians (mostly british aristocratic slave-owners) in order to motivate the poor to report African slaves who had escaped. They also motivated the poor caucasians to side with rich by hiring them as a slave patrol unit, with higher salary etc. This is the origin of the entire concept of Police (for the whole Earth, as far as I know) as an enforcement unit under civilian authorities and separate from military.
Southern Slave Patrols as a Transitional Police Type | Office of Justice Programs - ojp(dot)gov - archive.ph/OSLBv
The Invention of the Police | The New Yorker - archive.ph/CkfpI
Even Police themselves admit it
ima say this, I never really liked all of the “politically correct ways” to refer to race. It always urked me when people would refer to me as “A person of color” or Bipoc. Like honey just call me Black, cus thats what I am. 😭
I feel like theres this weird fear amongst some white people that if they say the wrong thing while a black person is present, that they’re life will be RUINED. Shit I even had a piano teacher express to me what was basically White guilt one time. She felt ashamed of herself for just being born white, and I remember just feeling absolutely awful that whatever the hell was happening in the media right now made her feel that way. I dont care about reparations or idk- whatever tf BLM the organization is babbling about (Bad organization btw, they’re shady. DO NOT give them your money.) I just want people to treat me like a person :/
I dont want my white friends to “fear” for me or any of that shit (all I have is white friends lmao) Race is only relevant once I start cracking jokes about myself. I hate that in this day and age, there is this expectation that just because I’m black, that I MUST care about certain things. We tried moving away from pigeon-holing ourselves and only made it astronomically worse. You ever hear jokes about “Oh- White people always do this-” or “Black people don’t do that”? THAT WAS THE GATEWAY to segregating ourselves all over again, and we perpetuated it! We AS BLACK PEOPLE, saw ourselves as certain way and made it so that its an expectation TO be that certain way. Do you have any idea how many weird looks I get when I tell another black person I’m Agnostic? The response is almost always “Nah what?? Your black and you don’t go to church or any of that? Thats crazy…”
TBH a lot of the bullying I got through my entire life was by other black people, and that was when I realized that even we have prejudice against our own people. Dude- WE STEREOTYPE OURSELVES!! All the time! So much so I got a whole ass list of things Black people arent supposed to do ENTIERLY CURATED from comments I got by other black people.
Black people dont:
idk, I hope me going off about this wasnt offensive or some shit, but what I’m basically trynna say is white people aint the bad guys a lotta the time, deadass we can become our own enemy, and that goes to any Gay, Trans, Black, Mexican, etc etc. But the only people to experience that typa shit would have to be people in those communities, and a lot of the time, we get scared to actually speak out about that stuff out of fear of being ostracized by own own people simply cus we don’t fit some sort of Behavioral quota.
if there was anyone or anything I could 100% point to as being an enemy or crooked, its the rich 1% People wanna always be like “oh the rich old white men…” Honey, theres black people there doing the same thing. Like be real with me, do yall got any fuckin clue how many Rappers just blow up and become stupid rich. And then what do they do with all that wealth?? Spend it on dumb shit the same way a privileged white boy would, and not a single fuckin bit goes back into donating to the black community let alone bettering the already shitty conditions we live in. If anything most of em make the stereotyping WORSE being acting as some kind of figurehead for the Hood. If a black person gets stupid rich stupid quick, 9/10 they’re going to become a terrible person and not give a rats ass about poor people. They’re rich, why would they need to?
I used to be so scared of the hood growing up, I live in a mostly white neighborhood full of friendly old white ladies. But the music- Oh my god it made it seem like if I breathed wrong, I was gonna get shot or gangr8pd INSTANTLY. Bro, the hood is full of so many friendly communities. People will walk over to each others houses n shit ALL THE TIME and have cookouts and little community gatherings. So much so its a meme about the shit we do at cookouts. I still sometimes face prejudice now, but its mostly from younger black kids who are just naive asf. But fr, the Hiphop industry and the shit they churn out DOES NOT HELP, it just worsens the idea that we black folks gotta act hard and be hard and shoot a mofucker if they look at you sideways and ALLLLLLLLLL that. Female rap is even worse. More likely than not though, the reason the music is like that is cus of the industry doing that shit on purpose, how tf else did Sexxy Red or Ice Spice get as popular as they did?
Alright thanks for coming to my TEDtalk, there was refreshments in the back but I ate all the biscuits n gravy, mah bad.
I’m a white guy, but I know a decent amount of people either born in, or ethnically from, Latin American countries. I don’t know a single one of them who doesn’t despise “Latinx” haha
I totally agree that the root problem exists not only with the rich old white men. They are simply one of the urgent external threats, mainly because rich people’s money gives the ability to oppress all the groups at once.
But yeah, we definitely oppress each other.
My Dad used to be a local leader in our community and he would organize parties once in a while, sometimes for a holiday, sometimes for an election, etc. It’s the type of community where everyone is considered a relative, regardless of family ties. Every single time I attended those parties, some slobbering drunk old guy would come up to me and say “Why are you still fat? You need to exercise, kid.” I was in elementary school! And the old guy had fucking fat beer belly too!
…I can’t even bring myself to talk about the shit my own Dad said to me.
Across the world, the more colonized or enveloped in majority control that the country/community is, the worse the internal oppression and othering seems to be in sub-communities.
I hate it.
Love how your reply is both respectful/compassionate and informative. Well done.
thank you very much!
It happened for so long, at all levels of society, that it is still affecting us today. It has shaped the cities we currently live in. It has shaped our language. It has shaped our laws.
The first girl Black girl to go to a school that was all white is only 71 years old. And that was barely the start of the end of segregation.
A bad example, because I’m only American, but anyone in the European Union could move anywhere in the European Union. Some places just have depressing weather, or are very isolated. But it would still take a great effort for the people who even want to move to actually move.
am I the only one…
No, you never are.
America is still very much racist. The Trump regime is particularly racist. They seek to codify their unspoken biases.
If you ever see little kids with different skin tones playing together, they are clearly not bothered by skin color, and it has no bearing on their play. The racism in America is completely learned. It is not natural. Sometimes consciously, but many times unconsciously.
Loosely similar is how men in most places are fine walking around alone at night. While women consciously try to move in groups, even during the daytime. Many men have no idea how different it is for many women.
They aren’t bothered by it. But they’ll also still say “the dark girl”, with no malice of course.
Skin color, hair color, height, weight. These are all easy to see and use to identify people when we don’t know names.
There’s nothing wrong with saying “the black guy” if you don’t know Steve yet. I guess you could also say “the darker hair individual, maybe a 4c”.
Because to me personally this kinda feels like America is still stuck in those slavery/segregation times
Yes. American culture is very much based on social hierarchies, and slavery created a very easy, color-coded social hierarchy. So it’s hard to get rid of because a lot of people are invested in it - whether they admit it or not.
Americans (except for the most liberal) tend to look at race as a biological reality and regard anyone saying race isn’t science as woke extremism. Generally when science conflicts with common/traditional sense in America, common sense wins. The only reason quantum physics isn’t banned from schools yet is because probably only about 10% of Americans know the first thing about quantum physics.
Americans also regard a wide variety of racial discrimination - such as in dating (including who you allow your kids to date), or where you live, or where you send your kids to school, as “not racist”. This is considered not racist because the goal isn’t to harm racial minorities, but rather you’re just doing it to protect your place in the social hierarchy. The race-based social hierarchy. And if this harms minorities, well it’s not like it’s your fault right?
And if you dare try to suggest that the above is racist, people will get very angry at you and do things like elect Trump.
So yeah, racism is still very prevalent in the US.
People make way too much of a fuss about race now. Back in the 90s the focus was to be colorblind, ie to treat everyone the same. Now people are focusing on race again in a big way. It boggles my mind that people now think treating people differently based on race is somehow a good thing.
Pretending to be colorblind hurts non-white people more than not.
I recommend you check out “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander.
The basic getaway from the book is this: Segregationists didn’t go anywhere, and since the time of Ronald Reagan, the ways the segregationists found to keep black people down are mostly related to the economy and law enforcement. The stereotype being attacked is now the “gang-bangers”, those from “the hood”. Not all black people… Just most of them.
From the 60s-70s, black people living in near industrial zones where they mostly worked were hit by mass unemployment due to their relocation. Rather than try to find a solution, propaganda stigmatising them was massively produced, the “war on drugs” was started to punish them for the only survival means that some found. Black people serve disproportionately long sentences, and are forever alienated when they get out, often unable to find jobs. Not only those who were imprisoned, but their families and communities suffer from this. This is not only true of drug-related crime; but sometimes things like misfiled taxes. The war on drugs was basically a pretext to over police and arbitrarily arrest black people, and dissuade them from forms of protest against their situation.
Now, compared to segregation, this is as big a net, but not such a tight one: This systems allows some black people to escape this system and get a situation equal to white people… But of you look at the bulk of the stats, many aren’t better off than during segregation.
These were at first, right-wing policies bore by the Republican Party, but Bill Clinton ended up doubling down on them instead of opposing them, because he didn’t want to appear “weak on crime”, since then there has been no opposition to it in mainstream politics.
Colorblindness helps this system, because it keeps you from naming the oppressed group, and thus from seing the oppression. It makes it easier to swallow the idea that the millions in prison are no-good gand hooligans from the mysterious land of “hood”, but that for the most part, black people are doing fine, because those who went to the same school as you or are among your coworkers are doing fine.
Didn’t you already post about this?
I watched a TV show called 'Justified: City Primeval' - it's not very good, but something I found weird was how often the characters mentioned each other's race I'm from the UK, so maybe it was just badly written, or maybe Americans do actually talk like that.
So I’m a 21 year old from Germany
When, as a people, or a nation do unprecedented crimes and evil, it rings out through history, carried by the parents and given to the children. Racism is still a topic for discussion because it’s still a problem. I’m sure you understand.
I’m sure you understand
Idk I spent a few years in Europe and, to be honest, I don’t think so. You ask a European about gypsies or Muslim immigrants and all of a sudden they’re mask off. But “it’s different” so it’s okay
Because Americans conflate this with race when it’s not the skin color that causes pain for Europeans but the cultural aspects. Clearly Islam and gypsy cultures are much more than race right?
Lol someone already posted this, was that you?
I’m gonna copy paste my reply again:
I don’t really see this, in my area at least. Other people’s experience will vary. I notice my white and black clasmates get along very well. Hate is not born, it’s taught. I think this “divide” is more in rural areas. I’m in Philly and it’s a very diverse city, racism between white and black kids are almost non-existent (or at least I never witnessed any actual racism between white kids and black kids beyond the kids being “edgy” with their “dark humor”). I mean like, I never heard a white kid said the N word with the hard R.
I did, however, notice a lot of kids making racist “jokes” against me (For context: I was born in PRC, and immigrated to the US). Like white kids and black kids would both make jokes like “Chinese language probably sounds like ‘Chng Chng’” and then they both laugh at the “joke” I’m just like wtf dude. Luckily, as you go up higher in the grade level, the less racist people seem to be.
For context, my high school was like (approximately): 30% White, 20% Black, maybe like 15% Latino, 30% Asian.
Now, the school was very shitty, there were bullying everywhere. But bullying usually wasn’t based on race.
And despite the racism that I personally have faced, I do have some Chinese-American classmates who were born here in the US, and they seem to get along with everyone else well, so I’m guessing I’m just not “Americanized” enough and its more like Xenophobia more than Racism/Sinopobia. I’m don’t use an “American” name so I guess that’s is one of the major reasons why I get targed for racism but others who look just like me don’t get targeted.
Now, to be clear, that’s not to say there aren’t racism between white people and black people. I’m not downplaying racism, I’m just saying I’m lucky to live in a place where the racism is very minimal. There are probably some racists in certain neighborhoods in Philly. I did see some trump flags when traveling around the city, so those people definitely exist. But my point is that its so rare and so socially unacceptable (at least in my city) that I’m having a hard time recalling when I personally witnessed any serious (as in a non-joke) racism between white people and black people happened (I mean, other than on those on the news).
But, outside of my city, especially the rural areas… I don’t have first hand experience, but those are probably not somewhere a racial minority would want to go to. And I personally would NEVER go to any republican dominated area.
Americans are racist, and dumb. One plays into the other, and the politicians like it this way because its easy to manipulate.
Does America have racists and dumb people within its borders? Absolutely. What country doesn’t?
Is America the most racist country? Absolutely not. Is it the dumbest country? Also no.
Nowhere is perfect. Despite all its flaws America is still the number 1 immigration destination so clearly we must be doing something right.
Got a feeling that number 1 spot ain’t lasting much longer, bud. Look at who won. I’d say we’re plenty racist and stupid to let grifters pick our pockets when they promise to kick out all the brown people. Like I said, downvote me. It doesnt make it not true.
It’s a complicated issue in the United States because of the history. Lots of countries did slavery, but at the point the United States did it, science was starting to spark into its modern form and one idea that “seemed good at the time” was pursuing superior genes.
That … went really really really sideways and basically became a justification for continued slavery on the premise that white people were just better and they were doing the inferior black people a favor. Basically while the rest of the world was going “maybe slavery isn’t good” the US was like “slavery is the humane thing to do, because science!”
Even after shit like that gets disproven people still tend to believe some amount of it (look at the antivax movement). So, even after the slaves were freed, they and their children were looked down upon by the culture. Many black people remained uneducated, financially bankrupt, etc. The culture especially in the south fought really hard to keep it that way for a looonnngggggg time.
That kind of formed a counter culture of its own, the “gang” culture. Which isn’t all that different from the counter culture you see that came from prohibition and the moonshiners and such … basically outlaws fighting the man, looked down upon, etc
So basically there are several main US cultures, Northern East White, Midwestern White, West Coast White, Southern White, Black, and the Appalachian White/redneck culture that descends from a mix of the moonshine runners, rural farmers, coal miners, and white southern culture.
Black people of course have multiple cultures even within the US but it’s all kind of lumped into this messy “black culture” thing. Some black people I’ve met love the black gangster with the gold chains imagery and hold it up as something great and the “true black culture”, others see it as ridiculous and trashy.
Calling these other cultures white is also intellectually dishonest as the entire US is a melting pot and the cultures of those regions were not formed by a single skin color … but I’m using “white” for the purposes of the contrast …
Anyways, black people just kind of stand out so they’re an easy target… and they have been targeted for a very long time fueled (at least in part) by that long ruled scientifically ridiculous idea that they’re inferior.
Add in the extra spice that the Appalachian subculture is angry about being tied in with the other white cultures despite being screwed over by the government a lot (not to the extent black people were, but still badly) … and you’ve basically got the mess that is America in 2025.
There’s a mix of justifiably mad people on both sides, outright racists, and people that serve to benefit from the conflict never ending politically.
That’s funny, I’m an American who literally argued with a German why Schwarze Pete (Black Pete) being a thing in the Netherlands, a country that heavily dealt in the slave trade, serving as a servant for Santa, and encouraging a form a black face… maybe a little racist?
Germans really like to analyze American politics, but mention nuclear power or Palestine and you see there’s a lot more in common than different.
I’ve never understood why Americans want to come over and tell us it’s “racist” to dress up as a character that happens to look too much like an African in their eyes
I also grew up being told America is the best and most powerful country in the world.
Lol, when I was in China, I was told China was the best, then I immigrated to the US and was told the USA was the best. Seems like just nationalism.
Scientifically race does exist in the sense that humans with certain genotypes can present certain phenotypes but we are all the same species. I don’t think you can really quantify it at the individual human level though without ending up with all this old fashioned racist concepts coming into play, i.e. someone with 1/8 asian hertiage is “still asian” or whatever.
Race seems to be a bigger deal in the states because it is more politicised in terms of voting blocs. That’s not to say we are immune to it in Europe like people with south asian heritage often vote for particular candidates in the UK for example.
I think one major factor in perceived differences is that our larger cities in Europe tend to be more genuine melting pots with fewer segregated areas. There are probably other reasons like having a stronger sense of civil society too.
tl;dr: race is real in a fuzzy sense but not particularly important. Europe has a different culture to the USA in some key senses.
There’s already a better word to describe genetic clusters - ethnicity/ethnic group, which is a real scientific concept defined by shared genealogy. Race has pretty much always been defined by someone’s sociopolitical relationship with the British upper class.
I suppose my point was that phenotypes are real regardless of what you call them. Totally agree that the normative sense of the word “race” is a social construct.
Some great videos on the subject:
Franz Fanon vs Identity Politics
cetaceanprayers@lemmy.world 2 months ago
racism is an accepted reality in the US. racism is a denied reality in Europe.
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is oversimplification.
Americans made a huge mistake tying race to identity so hard and it’s incredibly cringy from outsiders pov. Europe is taking more of a colorblind approach and while it still needs a lot of work it’s much more sustainable and really the only viable future.
UnculturedSwine@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Pretending to be colorblind doesn’t make one colorblind. Americans have largely adopted an ideology of anti-racism. That is, acknowledge that racial biases exist and keep the door open for healthy conversations. You may try to ignore the fact that racial biases exist but doing so only perpetuates them.
cetaceanprayers@lemmy.world 2 months ago
go to one soccer (football) game.
Loid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My balls, you fucking eurotard. Saying that Europe isn’t racist is like saying the sky is green.
LonstedBrowryBased@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Learn how to read
andy1@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I think you might need to read their comment again. They’re saying both places are racist, but Europeans tend to deny that racism exists.
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Bro lacks reading comprehension 💀
exasperation@lemm.ee 2 months ago
You’ve completely missed the point of the comment you’re replying to.