Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens | Hacker News Reader

Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

persuasion.community

408 pointsdgellow368 comments

Adele, the singer, was photographed at the Nottinghill Carnival (a massive Carribean street festival over the August bank holiday in London) with her hair in Bantu Knots and wearing a bikini top in the colours of the Jamaican flag. As soon as it was on twitter the you started getting tweets from Black Americans about cultural appropriation, but this was met in turn by fierce opposition from African and Carribean posters from the Uk and Africa who thought she looked great and were incredibly pissed off at the Americans for appointing themselves the global arbiters of what parts of African or Carribean culture were allowed or not allowed to be used by non-Africans or Carribeans. They found the proscriptions to be silly or highanded behaviour. Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.

As a British person with Caribbean family background, I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange. In Britain it's normal that the different cultures here mix. Shops selling Baltic bread, next to shops selling jerk chicken, across the road from a traditional English pub. People of all colours and backgrounds frequenting all of them.

From an outside perspective, people in the USA seem very pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation, where black and white people live different lives and mixing is frowned upon. I see this attitude on both sides.

Exactly, compare the prison systems:

America’s is segregated by race. You can’t mix with the other race or borrow something from them, or even sit on their table.

In Britain the races mix, there’s no strict segregation, if there is any, it’s more segregated by town and county and areas.

In US prisons, the prisoners segregate themselves, btw - the prison itself doesn't do this.

I know. It was a comment about the culture comparisons.

> America’s is segregated by race.

That was not true in any of the prisons I was in in Texas. There were four that I lived in over ten years and several others that I traveled through. I've heard about it being the case in some prisons, but to present it as a universal truth is wrong. The most strictly segregated prison system I've heard of is California's, but it's based on alliance rather than race alone. The AB-aligned whites are allied with Sureños (a Hispanic group) while blacks are allied with Norteños, and fraternization is fine within the alliance but not outside of it.

Your perception that in the US "black and white people live different lives and mixing is frowned upon" seems like it's been heavily influenced by some less-than-honest talking points. The idea that the UK is an oasis of racial harmony versus a segregationist USA is pretty far from the truth.

Not that far I'd say. While the British have their nazis and everything in moderation, at least they're not generally 24/7 preoccupied with race. (They are however preoccupied with class a lot).

at least they're not generally 24/7 preoccupied with race

1. Not true of Americans, and

2. Probably a newsflash to all the British people who are subject to discrimination on the basis of race.

British views and issues around race are different from American ones. The article has value, because this point is important and often missed – even if it's not new.

But too many people in the UK use this idea as a "harrumph here in good old Blighty we're above all this American racism nonsense" and give themselves a good pat on the back while ignoring our entirely different and still serious problems.

Good thing this article came along so we can point at actual race related problems British people face, but not people from the states.

In an attempt to lighten the mood a little, I would just like to relate a quick story about a restaurant I saw while visiting Liverpool many years ago. It was called, "Jamaican me Hungry". :)

And... how was the food?

It was closed, damnit!

Maybe you can go backee and try it another day?

Was it a Jamaican and Hungarian restaurant, because that would be awesome! I would try a Jerk Chicken Goulash in a heartbeat.

Carribbean, and it appears to be a Raggas franchise now.

* https://www.raggas.co.uk/

Lark Lane, Liverpool seems quite apposite here. Two Turkish restaurants, an Italian-American one, a Mediterranean one, a Thai one, three Chinese takeaways, a burger place, an Indian restaurant, a Tandoori house, a pizza place, a middle-eastern restaurant, a Greek restaurant, and two bistros.

One of the takeaways is a vegan "Chinese chippy" named Woo Tan Scran.

* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scran#English

The issue is people being offended on behalf of others (which is itself not a bad thing: we should be conscious of where we might be using culturally significant signals inappropriately, or otherwise causing offence) but being hyper-sensitive and seeing offence where it doesn't really exist in the groups that they think they are standing up for.

> pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation

I think were "cultural appropriation" is being called hyper-sensitively, it is more an over-active sense of guilt-by-association[†] than any desire to segregate. This very much exists in the UK as well, though it isn't as pronounced as it seems to be in the US.

Finding the right balance point can be difficult. The dividing lines between cultural appreciation, cultural mixing, cultural appropriation, and cultural subjugation, while sometimes obvious & clear are often much more subjective.

[†] association with the past racist history of the nation and/or the many still current problems

> Finding the right balance point can be difficult. The dividing lines between cultural appreciation, cultural mixing, cultural appropriation, and cultural subjugation, while sometimes obvious & clear are often much more subjective

In my opinion, this hypersensitivity was turned into a weapon to shame people who have no ill-will. Compounded with Twitter bandwagoning, it’s downright dangerous, and now people are self-censoring anything to avoid censure

It is sometimes weaponised, often as a distraction method in political discussions, or as a defensive come-back ("yeah, I X, but you Y"), but from what I've seen it is more often people being overly sensitive and/or with too much time on their hands and looking for something to discus.

The problem is being hyper sensitive is subjective. What is hyper sensitive to you is absolutely normal to someone else. I don’t ever find it wrong to “culturally appropriate” and I don’t even know how it became a thing. I can’t actually think of any reason why it would be bad to start sharing aspects of culture whether it is clothes, music, or language. It brings people together with commonality. People enjoy copying things they like. I wouldn’t ever say someone can’t wear my outfit because my outfit is important to me. The way I see this term used in America is use by racists as a way to be racist against whites who they perceive don’t deserve the freedom to dress any way they want.

The "hyper sensitivity" also cuts both ways. There do exist hyper-sensitive people seeking out reason to be offended... and other hyper-sensitive people seeking out evidence of others' hyper-sensitivity and getting offended about that.

Both are further stirred by major media trawling through minor media and social media for something to declare as "controversial". I had never heard of the Adele thing, and a quick Google turned up a CNN article which said[1]:

> The singer was quickly accused of cultural appropriation by some users for the hairstyle and top.

How many users is "some"? A dozen? A hundred? Does it really merit "controversy"?

Much of the time, I've found, one hypersensitive person is piled on by a thousand people who have found yet more evidence that there is an enormous social effort to repress them. They rarely or never encounter anybody who actually puts them down, but they hear about somebody else, and that's repeated so often that it sounds massive.

I've even seen it here on HN an awful lot: "I can't even say X anymore without being told how bad I am by a bunch of snowflakes", blithely ignoring how much of a snowflake that makes them. All they want is to be able to say whatever they want without anybody disagreeing -- is that so wrong?

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/31/entertainment/adele-bantu-kno...

To be clear there were plenty of Black British people who were annoyed at the Bantu knots, as well as people who didn't care.

> I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange

That's because "the internet"'s voice isn't the prevailing opinion of the general population. It is the fad-driven prevailing opinion of socially dysfunctional people aged 14-27.

Social media addiction is a disease, and en masse it has cast a shadow over all of political discourse.

<27 seems generous :)

The cultures here mix too. It’s a preoccupation of a loud minority.

what happens in the U.S. is that white people take everyone's culture and continue to marginalize and disrespect minorities. It happened with the bible. It happened with karate. It happened with rock music. So people kind of have their guard up. Misinformation is so rampant here that adele very well could become the inventor of dred locks if people don't make enough noise about it.

So people still react like this because it wasn't too long ago that back to the future was implying that Chuck Berry stole the idea for Johnny B Good from a white person. That's an example right there straight from my parents' childhood.

It's normal in the USA as well, only the vocal micro minority on twitter get enraged at everything. I really hope it's just a decade long trend that will go away. Social justice warriors get mocked for a reason.

As a Greek, I agree. Ancient Greek culture influences a lot of things, but I've never heard of any Greek being offended by any of it, we consider it homage/remixing.

Except the Parthenon marbles, we want those back.

The world would be much poorer without Greek culture. Would life be worth living without gyros?

As a Brit who visited Greece it shocked me how much of a political issue it is there. I kind of came to the conclusion that any slippery slope or historical argument is less relevant than "If they want them so badly and we don't really care, just hand them over"

I agree.

The British Museum would be pretty empty if we had to give everyone their stuff back. I can see why they resist so much.

Museums constantly have borrowed items on display - borrowed as in not stolen. I'm aware this is a more common practice the more modern arts you're displaying but still. I'm sure an institution of such prestige as the British Museum could find ways to arrange temporary exhibitions of like everything (I'm tempted to make silly parallels to the handling of Brexit negotiations but I will better stop here)

Don't they usually arrange these as "swaps" though? (I'm no expert on this). I mean with other museums - I know there's the thing where rich people buy impressive shit and then lend it to museums so they don't have to worry about security.

>it shocked me how much of a political issue it is there

Not that much at all. Perhaps you encoutered it at all because you're a Brit and so got into related discussions. It's not like people talk about it that much there.

I’ve never heard of this being an issue and I’ve visited Greece several times and have Greek coworkers.

I saw it in (I think, it wa sa while ago):

Posters in the airport Museums Tour Guides Random conversations

So some touristic and some just random like airport and people

Basically the marbles were stolen decades ago, and the argument was that Greece was in no shape to hold them, so England was protecting them. Now we have the Acropolis museum, that argument doesn't hold so well any more.

Just to make the history clearer, they were taken centuries ago -- they were taken to Britain between 1801 and 1812.

A lot of Brits would like the British Museum to give the marbles back too! <3

Not me

Damn you

I don't really care who owns it, I'd just like it to be in a place where I can easily enjoy it.

Well the effort is to move them from the British Museum to the Acropolis museum, so I guess "easily" depends on where you're located.

Well, that's not "cultural appropreation" though (the marbles thing) it's downright stealing...

This is true.

We'll swap them for the magic sphere: https://labrujulaverde.com/en/2019/05/the-intriguing-magic-s...

North Macedonia/FYROM claiming ancient Greek/Macedonian heritage was (and still is I think, even after the recent events) a big issue though, no?

I think that has died down after the agreement (where they agree not to claim that any more). Their claim to ancient Greek heritage was an overreaction to a Greek overreaction to drive them out of south Macedonia (the Greek part) around 100 years ago. Before then, both races were coexisting pretty happily, as far as I know, but the Greek government decided to launch a propaganda against North Macedonians (slavs) in the early 1900s.

There is some reaction within Greece after the agreement, about how it's a betrayal etc, but I expect that to die down pretty quickly now that the matter is settled.

> Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.

It is not a problem anywhere, actually. Some people just want to make it into one.

I think it can be and it's something to at least consider. But yes there are many examples where the criticism feels inconsidered and knee-jerk

I mean it sometimes is, and your categorical rejection of it is just weird.

No, it really isn't. American I presume? You have full rights to use elements of our culture from this here part of Europe (not that you ever asked our permission, you use them anyway. But it's not like we care either...).

No, your presumption is wrong and I'm Scottish.

Everybody has the absolute right to use elements of others' cultures – and using them in a disrespectful or exploitative manner is something that I find distasteful and think its reasonable to object to.

Alright. And people have the right of being distasteful, it's an essential part of freedom of speech.

How many elements of other cultures do the Scots use everyday?

Do the other cultures get a say in whether the Scots use them in a "disrespectful or exploitative manner"?

Yours is the original idea of cultural appropriation criticism but the way the word is used is to gatekeep “Traditional American Lifestyle” from non-white cultures. The word’s dead.

Define disrespectful and exploitative.

There are some obvious cases that I think no one on HN would argue. But to use an example from above, Adele had a Caribbean-style look, and definitely got press and clicks because of it -- indirect, but definitely profiting. Is that exploitative?

> I mean it sometimes is

Trying to think of an example of it being a problem, but am drawing a blank. Any ideas?

A common example would be profiting from cultural developments or ideas from cultures that had been historically looked down upon or disadvantaged by your own, particularly when doing so in a disrespectful manner.

For example – a white European artist designing fabrics and prints with traditionally African patterns, without acknowledging the contribution or involving members of that community, would sit uneasily with me. Using one's inherent advantages to profit from the culture of others who don't have access to the same opportunities is something I object to people doing.

This idea in no way prevents people from mixing and incorporating cultural ideas and concepts themselves, or participating in those cultures.

> A common example would be profiting from cultural developments or ideas from cultures that had been historically looked down upon or disadvantaged by your own, particularly when doing so in a disrespectful manner.

I have two problems with your constraint "from cultures that had been historically looked down upon". How far back do we have to look? This might seem obvious between Europe and African countries. But if you look far enough you will find African invaders (Hannibal of Carthago) passing the Alps. I am convinced if you look far enough you will find instances where every culture frowned upon another. So, this criteria is open for interpretation. What is serious enough? How war back do we look? Therefor your constraint "from cultures that had been historically looked down upon" is far from trivial to apply.

Secondly, does that mean that I am responsible for the wrong doing of my ancestors? Does the question whether something is morally right if I do it depend on the behavior my ancestors? How far back do we go? Should we send children to prison for the crimes of their parents? Obviously, I am playing devil's advocate, here. But I am strongly against inconsistent standards.

On top of that, what is the proper way to acknowledge contribution? "CC-BY-SA Africa and Finland"?

lol, are you african? Why are you getting offended on behalf of people? Laughable!

I'm Bolivian, when I see someone selling clothing with indigena designs I love it because it reminds me of home.

It would seem very strange to stop and question who made the design before you can enjoy it.

Yeah “cultural appropriation” criticism is often cultural purism.

In some cases the way “appropriated” culture is represented look embarrassing to those native in said culture, like people are wearing ethnic clothing without the trousers that go with it, or cooking food not in the way it should be done and ending up with horrible slurry, but that’s rare in recent years.

This. If some idiot wants to put chorizo on their paella and eat the result, valencians will not really be offended, they will be slightly amused, if anything. Next thing, americans will want to forbid any kind of "fusion" cooking.

Exactly, Americans seem to have this weird view that no-one's culture should mix. I think in the UK the view of most people is that mixing cultures is fine as long as it's respectful

I grew up in a multicultural town in the UK (also home to a lot of racism unfortunately) but we had a yearly (carribean I think) carnival with music and floats and costumes and food.

People would turn out in the thousands and it didn't matter your skin colour because you were there to join in the fun. It doesn't matter if you wore something that wasn't traditionally part of your culture, because you were doing so to join in the fun, not to belittle people

> Americans seem to have this weird view

Some Americans, anyway. Growing up in the US, I was always taught the US was "the great melting pot." But I agree, it doesn't seem like it lately.

You're right. I should've said the most vocal americans

The melting pot metaphor was replaced by a salad bowl, wasn't it? Assimilation (which is the melting pot) is now considered a crime against humanity and the whole "separate but equal" is the new hotness.

And you can't argue with salad because its healthy, and we are too fat, and we aught to be trying to live longer lives even though there's no incentive for most of us to prolong our misery.

I hope you don't mean that!

It was, and that's not altogether bad. A melting pot implies homogeneity and the loss of one's identity and history. A salad bowl is a pleasant mixing of everything, with each component still retaining its identity - a carrot is still a carrot, a radish is still a radish, and so forth. The irony is if I want to celebrate the zest of a radish then I'm told I'm being insensitive and appropriating the radish culture. As is so often the case we end up moving neither forward nor backward but sideways.

In the end I like the salad bowl metaphor because it scales well globally. We're a single human race, all different, yet all the same. It's appropriate to celebrate one another's histories so long as we're mindful of our collective future.

>A melting pot implies homogeneity and the loss of one's identity and history.

That's the contemporary narrative, yes. In another light it's just saying "E pluribus unum."

Before it became uncouth to express a spirit of national unity or civic pride, the melting pot was a way of expressing that who we are is defined by our coming together to participate in the great project we call our nation. And as part of that, we're sharing in the uniqueness each of us bring and hard boundaries start "melting" together as we form a shared history and culture. A very chunky concoction constantly getting new pieces added, not a smooth uniform mixture left to simmer.

We now live in an age where "identity" often means participating in a stereotype that's actively gatekept. So the melting pot metaphor had to fall out of favor.

E pluribus unum is a bit reminiscent of the fascis. I'm currently searching for a word for the rods, all trimmed to the same length à la Procrustes, that constituted fasces, and will report back here if I manage to find it.

(a different motto, unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, not only mentions the relation of the parts to the whole, but also that of whole to its parts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24661326 )

Edit: so far I've learned only that the axe was the securis and that holders of high office would have their servants put the fascis on the ground, instead of holding them aloft, when they wished to emphasise they were on the people's side of an issue. Still no word for the individual rods, however.

E pluribus unum also comes from a time when we mandated that Native American schoolchildren cut their hair and not speak their native tongue. The melting pot ended up having a very WASPy complexion in the end and harmed those who were different from that ideal.

The salad bowl allows the individual to maintain and celebrate their heritage while coming together in a spirit of national unity and civic pride. Coming to America doesn't mean you lose your heritage or your history, it means you're part of something new - you've come to a part of the world where the entire world has come together, an example of what the world could be. People living in peace where elsewhere in the world they live at war.

The problem with salad is that there are people who don't care much for some ingredients and won't touch them. There's no such issue with strained soup: you either take it or leave it, there's no picking and choosing, the differences between the ingredients literally melt away (well, or they get chopped up!).

Like all metaphors, "the melting pot" has its limits. I've always thought it's for the best that, even though I'm mostly of English and Irish descent that I enjoy Indian, Italian and middle eastern food, and while maintaining my Catholic faith I have Jewish and Muslim coworkers whom I admire and look to examples.

While my identity is still "Irish Catholic," I've been enriched (and yes, changed) through exposure to others.

>Exactly, Americans seem to have this weird view that no-one's culture should mix.

Unless you replace "Americans" with "a small group of obnoxious loudmouths from the US on social media" in your statement, you don't reflect reality.

I heartily encourage you (once it's safe to do so) to come and visit New York City.

Have some pizza at a place run by Greeks.

Have a delicious bagel (I recommend an everything bagel with brie and tomatoes, yum!) at a bagelry[0] owned and run by a Thai family.

Have some ropa vieja with shrimp fried rice at one of many Chinese/Latin restaurants.

And a place near me has wonderful Callaloo and delicious curry goat.

And there are at least half a dozen places near me where I can get a tasty mofongo[1].

Or one of many Caribbean, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian, African and European restaurants, bars, music venues, festivals and all manner of other culture from six continents.

I was really sad when the French bakery near me closed. The croissant were nearly as good as the ones I had in Paris.

And that's just the food. Cultures, languages and customs mix freely here. While there certainly are distinct cultures, they are welcomed and often incorporated into the broader culture.

I think that you'd find that to be true in most urban areas (and many suburban ones).

That said, there are many places in the US which are not culturally or ethnically diverse at all.

Which isn't surprising. The US is big. It has ~75% of the population of the EU in an area more than twice the size of the EU.

Consider how homogeneous some areas of the EU are. Why is that? Is it because they're all bigots and 'limeys' don't want 'frogs' around, etc?

[0] https://www.thrillist.com/venue/eat/new-york/restaurants/abs...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mofongo

> Exactly, Americans seem to have this weird view that no-one's culture should mix.

90%+ of the people who think that are liberals. Moderates and conservatives can mix cultures pretty freely.

>90%+ of the people who think that are liberals. Moderates and conservatives can mix cultures pretty freely.

That hasn't been my experience at all. And I'm center-left myself. You know, somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders.

It seems you don't know many of your brother and sister Americans that you call "liberals."

Here in NYC we have about a 5:1 D/R ratio and you won't find many places on the planet, let alone in the US, that are more welcoming of different cultures, practices and individual choice.

I suggest you engage with your fellow Americans. I think you'll find that the vast majority of us have much more in common than we do differences.

There are those (like the ones telling you that ~200 million of your fellow Americans are evil, twisted communists who want to destroy our economy and Constitution) who want you to hate and fear your neighbors and fellow citizens.

Those people (regardless of political bent or affiliation) are the ones who threaten to destroy our democracy and Constitution.

As a general rule, folks like that are only interested in personal benefit and self-aggrandizement. And they're a very small group.

Would it surprise you to know that most of the folks you call "liberals" just want a decent job/career so they can live decently and raise their kids to be happy, healthy and fulfilled?

Would you be shocked to hear that those you deride believe in the ideals of our democratic republic, or that we believe in the rule of law, equal protection under the law and freedom of expression?

If you believe that a majority of Americans are communists and hateful people who want to destroy their own country, then you're not seeing the world as it is.

I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of tolerance, liberty and the ideals which fomented the founding and second founding[0] of our nation with you.

As I mentioned above, I think you'll find we agree about much, much more than we disagree.

If that sounds like a good idea to you, feel free to email me (no spaces or commas): En,,,cyclic al 17,76 at pro,,,ton mail dot co, , ,m

I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I'm so sick of the negativity and lies that make us suspicious and fearful of our fellow Americans.

I want my country to be a great place with liberty and opportunity for everyone. But we can't have that if we the people let those with the desire and motivation to create conflict divide us.

Even if you don't talk to me, please open yourself to the possibility that what you read on Twitter and Facebook doesn't reflect the values of most of your fellow Americans.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Founding

I'm from the Caribbean and I can attest to this. We're always baffled at the neuroticism of America's obsession with identity politics and tribalism, especially as it relates to race and culture.

In my country for example we have six distinct races/ethnicities, from indigenous to post-colonial. When either has a celebration or period of cultural remembrance, we openly dress, cook, and celebrate in the same manner. The concept of "cultural appropriation" is nothing but hubris in our minds.

Perhaps we're more fundamentally bonded due to our shared "fragmented" heritage, as V.S. Naipaul frequently expounded upon. Perhaps we're just not victims of inept ideological monoliths that are perpetrated by a radical left and radical right as it is in the US (along with the forced illusion of binary if not zero-sum choices).

Either way, we understand that racism is inescapable in some small measure but we try our best not to elevate it above reason and certainly not above national unity (or pride for that matter). Caribbean people are both welcoming of foreign cultures and curious in our exploration of the same. We wouldn't, couldn't, have it any other way.

My spouse grew up in Botswana. Despite living a few miles from the site of the first known location of a religious ceremony of our species —- in other words a place of transcendent human history, of Black history —- it was always the colonizer centered in her formal schooling. An anecdote that in my experience in the Caribbean and in Africa ( I am most familiar with southern Africa) the process of decolonization still has so very far to go.

You do realise that your wife's Bantu-speaking ancestors displaced the Khoi and San (also known as bushmen) when they invaded the area which is now known as Botswana I hope? If you insist on decolonising Botswana it is not the western coloniser (who gave up its colonies in 1966) who bears the brunt of shame but the Bantu-speaking Kalanga since they displaced the original population - the Khoi and San go back a long time, back to the dawn of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. If your wife descends from Tswana-speaking people she doesn't escape guilt since the Bakgalagadi moved into the southern Kalahari which was, again, previously inhabited by the San and Khoi. Or did she maybe descend from the Toutswe who came out of the east and invaded parts of the territory now known as Botswana? Or maybe she descends from the Bakwena who moved into the southern Kalahari and displaced the Bakgalagadi (who earlier on had displaced the San and Khoi)? Should she descend from the Bangwaketse she has ancestors who occupied parts of western Botswana, if instead she has her ancestry with the Bangwato she'll be sad to learn that her ancestors occupied parts of Botswana which were formerly held by the Kalanga. Eventually the Batawana moved into the Okavango delta, one of the last refuges for the Khoi and San in Botswana so if she descends from them the memory of her ancestors' guilt is still fresh - the late 1700's.

Maybe it is better to take history as it is, learn lessons from where things went wrong so those mistakes are not repeated and look forward instead of back?

I’m sorry if you interpreted my comments in this way. My point was precisely the one that you seem to make, that in that in the English medium schools, this nuanced history was not conveyed, and that is the problem.

In fact, my wife’s family is among the “colonized colonizer”. My wife’s family moved to Botswana in the 1970s. They were originally from Tanzania, and had originally come from India, fleeing their own particular discrimination. They left Tanzania in the 1980s, because, in short, the country was trying to find a path in which Black Tanzanians could find a way to realize a full self determination. Their family did not want be a continued part of the problem.

Before my father in law was the thought that it was better to “un-settle” a place rather than be a continued part of its settler legacy. For many reasons, he was welcomed by the Batswana. I think it was a persistent asking of permission to enter, to join the table humbly and with respect for the people, a respect that they have the resourcefulness and brilliance to know what course is best for them. Humility.

The point being that even as another of the wave of “colonized colonizers” —- people who derive privilege by proximity to a ideal of what is presumed to be “better”, more western —- there was no mention of the rich history and the erasure of the indigenous people in the education she received.

I have been to the Three Dikgosi monument a few times, and felt it strange that for all this ancient, immeasurable history, the millenia of stories of the San an Khoi is condensed to a small mention.

The archaeological site a few hours from Gaborone, the site of a religious ceremony whose significance is lost to time. I just pieced together, but I know it predates the 1700s by tens of thousands of years.

So yes, there are layers of colonization and each prevents an accounting, a true embodiment of truth and reconciliation. There is a need to “un-settle”, to question the orthodox histories.

> So yes, there are layers of colonization and each prevents an accounting, a true embodiment of truth and reconciliation.

True

> There is a need to “un-settle”, to question the orthodox histories.

That is where things go wrong. As you stated yourself, colonisers are often colonised themselves by later colonisers. The success of mankind as the dominant species on the planet literally depends on groups being displaced by other groups, otherwise everyone would have stayed in Eden - being the fertile parts of Africa where Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved. Some groups got displaced, moved into neighbouring territory and displaced or enslaved whatever group of people happened to live there. Fast-forward a few decades or centuries and the process was repeated, the former colonisers now get 'colonised' themselves. At this moment in time it gets hard to decide who is the 'oppressed' and who is the 'oppressor' since both groups will have done their share of 'oppressing' and both will have undergone 'oppression'. If you only look at one specific groups as being the 'oppressors' the way people like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin diAngelo do you end up with a distorted view of history where you assign 'victim' status to oppressors and ignore potential 'victimisation' of the designated oppressor, a good example here being the many African tribes who partook in the capture, transport and sales of slaves to Arab and western slave traders being assigned 'oppressed' status versus the Irish who were enslaved themselves being assigned 'oppressor' status. Since the 'oppressed' status has been turned into a form of social currency lending speaking rights and preferential treatment to those who carry it while those who carry 'oppressor' status have to stand back in line and provide for those with 'oppressed' status this system often leads to more injustice and with that an increase in social tension and a decrease in social cohesion. In other words, it breaks up society.

We do not want to break up society. Those who do want this should state their goal honestly and go to the elections with this stated purpose, if enough people vote for them they can get their way. Those who want to break up society by means of force have to accept that the majority of the population opposes their intentions and that the force of law can and should be used against them, just like it should be used against any other group which commits violence.

And that, in a nutshell, is why the need to "un-settle", to question the orthodox histories - in other words why deconstruction according to Critical Theory - does not work. The cake is too thick, too much mixed up to say which layer is the most tasty. Better have the cake as it is and make a note to tweak the recipe so it comes out better next time.

"Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA."

This is usually referred to as cultural exchange or sharing of culture.

The fact that cultures shouldn't be shared is indeed a new phenomenon, one that I personally don't agree with.

Yeah, because cultural appropriation is not a thing. It doesn't make any sense.

Here in Britan, as I walk on my way to work I pass by my favorite Indian restaurant, a Polish supermarket with Eastern European products, a Romanian bakery with delicious Transylvanian meat pies and a great German sausage/cheese shop. Each one of them has their respective country flag at the door next to the UK one. I'm not even living in a big city and it is already a cocktail of cultures.

As an Italian, stop eating pizza, Americans. You are culturally appropriating our food.

Jokes aside, this happening on Twitter and so it must be somewhat important is the most depressing and disheartening aspect of this event. Stop listening to what ignorants want to say on social media.

Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.

The US tends to monetize everything. This seems to be less true elsewhere.

We make a stink about "cultural appropriation" here because too much ends up being about the almighty dollar and those dollars far too often go into the pockets of White males, regardless of whose culture, creativity, labor, etc. created the thing.

I wish the idea would go die. I think it helps keep the problem alive rather than resolving it. But I think that's basically the crux of the issue.

In the 90s multiculturalism gained traction as a concept in the UK. Notting Hill Carnival is pretty much the definition of what that represented - a cultural celebration of one community being opened up to and enjoyed by others. I grew up close enough to hear the bass vibrating my windows and went almost every year despite not having any links to its origin communities. Despite this, it played an important part in my life and I feel these experiences informed my political/social outlook.

Cultural appropriation is a genuine phenomenon, but the difference between attending carnival and culturally appropriating it is a subtle one. For me, it comes down to intent and this is very hard to prove.

Am I doing it in solidarity - sharing a celebration with people who's neighbourhood I share and supporting their cultural expression? Or am I impersonating other communities for my own enjoyment? To a third party, it's can be difficult to tell the difference.

> Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.

I feel that the countries which have historically dealt with the realities of a multicultural society better have less issues with cultural appropriation - cultural segregation leads to ownership and identity issues. But that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist outside the USA. There is a context in which what Adele did is fine, and one in which it isn't - one photo won't tell you which it is.

Or am I impersonating other communities for my own enjoyment

Why would it be wrong to impersonate other communities for my own benefit?

If someone wants to wear a sombrero for a costume party or cook a Chinese dish because they enjoy it or have Chinese characters as a tattoo even though they aren't Chinese, I really don't see the problem.

That was in the context of attending an event primarily by and for that community. For example, a straight person dressing as a LBGT person (however you would do that) to attend a Pride event.

Your second and third are examples of the blending of cultures, which tends to be associated with multiculturalism which I would argue is generally a positive thing.

However, assuming that in your first example someone is trying to impersonate a Mexican person by wearing a sombrero, that could well be insensitive. My main point is that it does depend on intent and context, but at face value that is stereotyping, and not really very far from blackface. Hopefully we can all agree than we don't really want to go there.

Wearing a sombrero is not far from blackface?

Wow, we really have opposite views on this.

Also, in Amsterdam pride LOTS of straight people attend.

You're ignoring all the subtlety in what I've said and jumped to a conclusion which I was not making.

> My main point is that it does depend on intent and context

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

What is appropriate to adapt from a particular culture is itself a cultural issue. The reason this is an issue here in America is because of the problematic ways that we adopted elements of other cultures in racist and demeaning ways, without understanding the deeper meaning behind them.

Some examples:

- Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. Black Americans were historically referred to as "Boy" "Girl", or "little" as a demeaning statement of class. "Auntie" and "Uncle" were reserved for older Blacks for the same reason. Use of Black figures as mascots for these brands is a form of cultural appropriation. [1]

- Cleveland Indians logo (other sports teams as well).

- People wearing Sioux (Lakotan) headdresses as fashion statements, which is offensive because that was a thing you had to earn in that culture.

Americans (and literally every culture) appropriates everything from food to clothes to language. Thats not inherently bad. It gets bad when you commercialize and propagate negative stereotypes about cultures that you have historically subjugated.

However, nuance is hard. So on twitter we have people who have embraced the mantra "Cultural Appropriation is bad" and go about shaming every little example of it without understanding the deeper meaning behind them (see what I did there? We're not that different than what we hate). This culture of shaming is itself a form of cultural imperialism.

[1]: https://www.blackvoicenews.com/2008/01/24/boy-uncle-and-aunt...

I think context is really key here. A friend (who is a descendant of slaves) once told me that one reason hairstyles in particular are are such a sensitive subject, they were literally the only piece of culture/heritage people were able to bring with them on slave ships.

When families were ripped apart it it was a connection/ritual they could hold onto no matter what. Fast forward to the recent past and black people are still discriminated against because of their hairstyles. Some progress has been made in the past decade[0] but black women are still told their natural hair is unprofessional or unattractive and they are required to spend large amounts of $$, time and pain (styling techniques often require high heat/caustic chemicals) in order to be acceptable to corporate America.

Can you imagine the frustration of then watching wealthy white women be celebrated/complimented for adopting these hairstyles? One of the only cultural links you have to your ancestors, hairstyles you've been discriminated against, punished, and harassed for wearing?

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/19/more-stat...

I don't see consistency in logic. If the hairstyles were not accepted then 'wealthy white women' wouldn't be celebrated/complimented for adopting them. If anything having them become more celebrated by all would have those hairstyles more accepted than ever.

Yes, racism is fundamentally illogical.

>A friend (who is a descendant of slaves) once told me that one reason hairstyles in particular are are such a sensitive subject, they were literally the only piece of culture/heritage people were able to bring with them on slave ships.

Music, culinary practices, agricultural practices, etc. are all pieces of culture that African slaves brought over from Africa.

The way it was explained to me, those are cultural practices that require specific items (instruments, spices, tools, specific plants) that they may not have had access to. Or those require time/opportunity to teach. Hair was something that was consistently there. I may be mistaken, this is just one person's opinion, but I thought it was a really interesting explanation for the importance given to hair and the protectiveness some people feel over those styles. It was also a perspective that never occurred to me until my friend brought it up.

I'm not sure that american views are being imposed on US (I'm in the UK). Rather they are being adopted by us without criticism.

This makes conversation about race a confused jumbled incoherent mess. The bigger problem as I see it is more class-oriented than race centric. This should be a discussion on social mobility, which in my opinion is the best in the western world for minority communities. The race discourse in recent years has distracted from improving social mobility and hurting said communities more.

I believe the author didn't mean to say that the US imposes the views, but that the UK media and elites do. The same is true in Germany to a large degree, and it's equally weird.

Americanization of everything is a good description, I think. Of course it's very important what happens in the US, it's the heart of the empire after all. But it's given so much weight that I sometimes feel like our media are covering US domestic politics more than our domestic politics.

US politics is good soap opera material. The thinking person's celebrity gossip.

Adopted or pushed?

The BBC is fully on board with importing the US leftist narrative.

Not surprising. Just look at what they named themselves.

Not sure why this accurate observation is being downvoted?

That's because race and class aren't disentangled concepts in the US, and that's not likely to be the ground reality in the next 20 years either. One might make predictions about the mobility of the American poor, and one might rightly make a separate profile of predictions for black America. What is black America 2030? Optimistic?

There are many cities still with covenants restricting home ownership to non-Blacks, and while unenforceable today, it contributes to a story of an everlasting racial smell.

A nation ought not only speak the message of racial harmony, as China does with regards to black immigrants and citizens, but the truth must be evident on the ground for the people to see, and the air ought be pleasant to smell.

I remember American trainers for company sponsored training basically making the implication that there being no black people in most of the groups (of 10-15) being a sign of the institutionalised racism keeping them out of tech.

Not considered was the ~1% black population in the country where the training took place. Having 3/80ish black engineers was actually significantly more diverse than if you'd just grabbed a random subset of the population. (ditto for Polish, Indians and Chinese, the actual sizable minorities in the country).

Now had he been talking about the 15-20% of female engineers participating, he may have had a point, but the american perspective was "wow, there should be way more Black people because America has more Black people"

To add some numbers to this debate - the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published a survey (Nov 2018) that examined the experiences of almost 6,000 people of African descent in 12 EU Member States.

The report includes survey results from Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Sweden and the UK. It paints a varied picture across the countries surveyed.

Summary of weighted results across all surveyed countries (taken from the report): https://imgur.com/a/gcHR5dk

Full report: Being Black in the EU:

https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2018/being-black-eu

News report from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46369046

I'm pretty sure this correlates heavily to the size of the black population in each country.

The UK having the largest and most well integrated black population shows in the lower instances of reported harassment. This rings true for me, certainly there is disenfranchisement and other forms of racism, but outright harassment is not something you see often (saying this as a white person). Honestly I would expect Polish and other eastern Europeans to face more harassment.

France I feel has a reasonably large black population but probably not as well integrated.

The average black American in the United States can trace his ancestry further back than the average white American. Most black Americans are descended from enslaved Africans. Their forebears suffered through the segregation and racial terror of the Jim Crow era. The majority of black people in the United Kingdom, by contrast, are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Though many of them have certainly had harrowing experiences with injustice or discrimination, they do not have the same history of racist disadvantage.

This is a key bit here that also applies to the Netherlands. Most, if not all, black (and Moroccan, Turkish etc) Dutch people are either immigrants or children of immigrants.

This sheds a whole different light on statistics, imho. If you move a big chunck of Dutch people to Turkey it would not be weird if their kids wouldn't be CEO's, high level politicians or so. That's just not how that works, especially when your parents were lower educated, and in many cases can't (couldn't) read any Latin based language.

Yet the debate here around racism "borrows" arguments form the US, where black people have been living for 400 years sometimes and STILL aren't even close to representation in the 'top' layer of society.

Just like in the UK, Dutch media is bloody obsessed with the US.

I have a strong feeling (though no data to back it up) that this holds at least as much for debate and polarisation around feminism, gender equality, trans rights and LGBT(Q+) issues.

To some extent maybe, but in some sense LGBTQ issues are a bit more universal, because LGBTQ people exist and have grown up in every country (they just have different visibility and different rights etc.), whereas with racism/xenophobia every country has their own, different pattern of immigration, social inequalities, etc.

Also because many of the issues that race presents in the US (historically marginalised/discriminated against groups having poor opportunities leading to poor outcomes leading to poor opportunities for their descendents) are present in those countries as class problems without the racial undertones.

Kind of like the article; I'm not saying other countries don't have systemic issues, just that they aren't equivalent to the issues in the US.

Oh, there is a lot of data. You simply have to look at the uptick in the number of news reports from other countries dealing with the above subjects over a period of time. Now all of these are important but they are nowhere near as important as the discussion/outrage needed over poverty alleviation, social ills, economic development etc. in my country. A good example is the recent "Me too" movement. Our entire media jumped on this bandwagon while all other essential news disappeared from the channels. This is a great way to divert people's attention and hide actual problems.

Were me too issues specifically not present in country where you live? It is possible, I am not saying it is not. But for example conservatives here see lgbt and gender ideology and as the big enemy transplanted from USA. But it is not like gays did not existed before or if we would be actually egalitarian country.

Then again, the same conservatives heavily support Trump in their journal. Like print articles on his support, call Biden sleepy and stupid, really hate BLM movement .... that dont exist here.

They were really worked out about statues, all same talking points ... despite supporting take downs of status of communist when that was relevant.

> This is a great way to divert people's attention and hide actual problems.

Erm... if highlighting the abuse and rape of half the population is “hiding actual problems” then you’re part of the problem.

Well, it makes sense that these views (which are generally unexamined by those who repeat them) are catching on outside of America for the same reason they catch on inside America: fixating on a simplistic target is alluring, people saying nonsensical things they don't really believe in order to avoid being called racist, etc.

You could make the same points inside America as well that the article makes, like examining Nigerian success in America.

Keep trotting the article out and you have a case for why these racial essentialist views shouldn't be imposed on anyone, not just brits. And certainly not on our children.

It saddens me to see this in Portugal too.

Last week some celebrities and online publications decided to highlight how proud we should be of having a black man with dreadlocks as a TV anchor. No reference or acknowledgement of anything else about him, just "congratulations for being black". At least for a decade race had been as noteworthy as eye color, until now.

Fortunately, a good chunk of the population can still see how backwards it is to reduce an individual to the color of their skin. But I must admit I'm not very hopeful for future generations when I see schools incorporating intersectional activism in their curriculum and people gathering to protest police brutality in what must be one of the most peaceful countries in the world.

It's a sad reality that so many people exist in this Goldilocks zone of damage, where they are in positions of power and influence while being ignorant and lazy enough to parrot American media without context or critical thought.

I don't know where US Americans got the idea about social justice and all these tangential topics related to it.

In my view the result is that social justice nearly stands for race segregation, inclusion and diversity is almost synomymous with banning outsiders and heretics, methods of societal analysis lead to the worst kind of dogmatism.

At first I honestly thought the teachings of some proponents were to troll in the original sense of the word, but they were completely serious about it.

'Social justice' is far better than 'justice' in my opinion, but it can never be an argument to demand solidarity because that will inevitably lead to totalitarianism.

The "classical" US citizen that proudly swings their flag, shoots holes in the sky and idolizes freedom is a much more attractive alternative.

"Solidarity" is a big thing in my country, even on the centre right, yet we still get high marks (9+) from the Economist's Democracy Index.

Wang fo kowmang unte kowmang fo wang.

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qaA6FdAUsk (imposing the writers' inaccurate views about agriculture on us)

The one thing I took away from seeing all the BLM protests in Europe this summer, and all the discussions among my friends and family back home about it is that Europeans in general do not understand how incredibly racist the US was, and still is.

At one point in the 1800's, slave labour contributed over half of the US GDP, and to protect that economy, to protect that business, the states who benefited the most from it were completely drenched in absolutely brutal amounts of racist propaganda.

The slave economy of the US necessitated the institutionalised racism, because that was the only way you could get ordinary people to put up with the practice. And Europe has never experienced anything like that, so for the average European, there are no frames of reference, no shared history, nothing.

Sure, there's been slave economies in Europe, but the last ones were a thousand years ago. Sure, there's racism in Europe, plenty of it, but it looks completely different, and it's never been as hyperfocused on skin colour like racism in the US is. Racism in Europe is more about ethnocentrism, and some of the worst atrocities in the continent's history have been committed by super white people against other super white people.

Another thing that Europeans do not understand is how the police works in the US. Where I'm from, the police consists of two national organisations, 700 years of history, and an origin as the city watch, making sure cities in the middle ages didn't catch on fire.

Whereas in the US, the police consists of some 16000 decentralised wildly different organisations, federal, state, county, local, all with a much shorter history, wildly different histories, wildly different scopes of law enforcement. But most importantly, some of those local police organisations were explicitly founded to enforce slave laws, to enforce racial segregation, to enforce Jim Crow laws, and they were founded by the local KKK leaders.

The situation is completely different, the history is completely different, the racial divides are completely different. And then people try to import the US discourse on racism, and nothing fits, nothing makes sense, but people still don't want to be seen as racists, so they try to make it fit, try to agree, and it's all just weird.

You can stand in solidarity with BLM no matter where you live, that's fine, but if you're European, please stop there. Don't try to deal with uniquely US issues in your own country, because I promise you, they don't exist. You have other issues to deal with.

I’m going to pull an unimaginable outside-of-the-box thinking for these times and propose something:

if people want to be doctors and not actors, let them do what they want to do.

I’m getting very tired of this US mania with nudging everyone to their preferred outputs.

If you "let" people be whatever they want, we'll have an unlimited herd of digital influencers and coaches, all of them poor.

So? Let those people be poor, most of them will realize that it's not really what they wanted and will adjust.

I think one of the reasons this simplification is happening, is that nuance generally has failed to gain traction in the past. A large part of why the far right / racist movement has grown a lot the past 20 years or so is that their narrative is so simple: "Immigrants have higher crime rates and we're taking in more immigrants, which is bad." Fighting this with nuance and trying to say that statistics is more complicated than that hasn't worked. I would say that the public education system needs a complete overhaul to fix this (critical thinking, media literacy and such), but even if that were to happen, it would take 20-30 years.

Also, in the end, I don't think these type of views causes that much harm. Okay, so a group of people end up being "fake" anti-racists, but it's still raising awareness and it might cause people to make slightly different choices in their day-to-day lives. This isn't comparable to Kony 2012 where people changed their profile picture on Facebook for literally no effect.

> Immigrants have higher crime rates and we're taking in more immigrants, which is bad.

This statement isn't the issue. What is an issue is that the establishment isn't willing to have a real discussion on this topic (illegal immigration, cultural dilution, economic benefits, etc...). The rise of far right and far left rhetoric is an expected response to the status quo, where people feel pushed into opposing tribes.

Many americans (including journalists, thinkers, politicians, etc) can't imagine that there's any legitimate culture, or any issues, and preoccupations, other than their own. Or that their views are not the pinnacle of civilization, and they're not the white knights humanity waits to be saved by.

It's part of the traditional exceptionalism...

This annoys me a lot as well. Especially when people here in the Netherlands protest against "police violence", which is a thing that barely even exists in our country.

A mostly good article.

> There has, for example, been a lot of concern about the underrepresentation of black Britons in professions like the arts and publishing. But why would you choose to go into theater or journalism—rather than law, medicine or finance—if you are a talented child of ambitious but not well off immigrants?

A really weird point. There's plenty of concern about under-representation of black people in law, and medicine, and finance.

In law there is a lot of effort spent getting more black lawyers and judges into the system, and we've recently seen the experience of Alexandra Wilson who was mistaken for a defendant at least 3 times in one day in her place of work. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/investigation-launched-aft...

In healthcare we have NHSWRES (NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard) who are trying to increase representation in NHS exec and non-exec teams.

> In a country in which black people make up only three percent of the population, for example, six percent of junior doctors are black.

They got this information from here: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce...

If we're looking at racism we don't want to compare junior doctors with journalists. We want to compare junior doctors to consultants and senior leaders. We also want to compare the different levels of junior doctors to each other to see if the ratio of black:white doctors changes.

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce...

> a higher percentage of junior doctors were from the Black, Chinese, Mixed and Other groups than senior doctors

We can see that 6.2% of junior doctors are black, but only 3.5% of consultants are black. Where did all those juniors go?

> We can see that 6.2% of junior doctors are black, but only 3.5% of consultants are black. Where did all those juniors go?

If 3% of the population is black, then having 3.5% of consultants being black means they're still overrepresented! Regression to the mean is the most likely explanation.

Also how long has the proportion of junior doctors been 6%? If the ratio 15-20 years ago was closer to 3-4%, and medicine is a slow field to progress through, then there's your answer.

> We can see that 6.2% of junior doctors are black, but only 3.5% of consultants are black. Where did all those juniors go?

It takes a long time for demographic shifts to work their way through a population. Senior medical staff are more likely to be white, male, and old. But in a few decades that’s going to look very different.

Well, presumably not the old part, unless career progression in the medical space speeds up somehow.

(1) Yes, Americal cultural hegemony is widespread, especially in the English-speaking world (second language or first).

(2) Yes, your country has racism, including systemic racism. Denial is one of the privileges that marks you as a member of the dominant group.

Your job is not to deny the racism, but to try to identify it an root it out.

The crux of the biscuit is that the American concept of 'race' is so very very nebulous. Since there is no hard definition of 'race', there is no way to definitively sort an individual into a 'race.' It's entirely subjective and relies on an individual's prejudice.

The American brand of racism is very much obsessed about skin color. Historically European racism is quite different. The Nazis were deeply racist, but didn't care much about skin color in particular - they hated and murdered Slavs and Jews and Roma, groups not identified by skin color. Europe have to acknowledge and engage with this horrible past, but things like obsessing about the Dutch "Zwarte Piet" tradition is totally missing the point IMHO.

Who is this addressed to? From the article it seems addressed to British people using social media to share American specific viewpoints. But the comments here make it seem like it's Americans doing the imposing of views.

For europeans, working in the tech industry increases people's exposure to Americans and American points of view significantly. So I think it's likely true in general that as the author represents, this is is mostly people making the change in their own country, people on this forum are going to have disproportionately more experience with it coming from the US because of their greater dealings with the US. Hence most of the discussion here being about US-imposed incidents.

This reminds me of when I was in San Diego in 2000. A neighbour (African American) told me how in the early 90s he was in Sydney and decided to see how he could support the "people of colour". He went to Redfern and found that all the dark people were giving him the hate stare. He found this confusing.

I pointed out to him that to our Indigenous people, being coloured didn't make him a brother (usually "cousin" amongst Aboriginal Australians), in fact he was just another invader.

Assumptions about colour don't always apply in different countries.

I'd be interesting to compare snapshot of upvotes/downvotes in this thread from between now and when the US gets out of bed.

It'd a good measure of how much control the US has over other types of media.

As Rammstein said: We're all living in America.

Did you know that Rammstein is named after Ramstein, the biggest US military base in Germany?

They're actually named that because of the air show crash at Ramstein involving the Italian Frecce Trcolori, not because of the base itself.

70 people were killed and over 300 wounded so it was a controversial & intentionally shocking name.

"I don't sing my mother's tongue"

"Coca-Cola, sometimes war"

At least we get sugar and not corn sweetener in our Coca-Cola :-)

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o

I used to think Britain and the USA had a dominant but equal share in exporting culture since the 50s. We had the Beatles, they had Elvis. We had Jaguars, they had Mustangs. (this is deliberately simplified example)

However the internet has made everything smaller and the dominant force in tech is in the USA. Sure there are spikes in influence of Asian and other cultures (Gangam K-pop etc.) but most of it gets churned out from celebs, artists, influencers, bloggers, writers and thinkers in the liberal east and west coasts.

Do we all want to hear what these people have to say, no, but when everyone else is wanting to follow them then it becomes easier to be influenced directly or indirectly.

The last cultural influence that stood in opposition to "Western culture", was communism, but that died on 1990 with the first McDonald's in Moscow. Sure the idea of communism isn't dead; you might see a few random people still promote it online or outside a shopping centre with a shabby looking stall, but these people are seen as weird or uncool (communism isn't cool btw).

So back to the topic, do we just want to be cool, is BLM cool, will it be forgotten, after the main proponents find another flag to wave?

Are we all just inadvertently programmed to consume and conform due to our DNA and society by those at the top, or do we risk being an outcast by going against them?

What happens when China takes the reigns as a new culture to oppose and compete with this idea of "Americanized Western Culture"?

Will we eventually have a Blade Runner like culture with a Chinese European blend in the future?

Will we all homogenise in the end? Will I see someone in the Amazonas eating KFC and wearing Adidas just like the person in the township in Johannesburg?

I don't know the answer.

> communism isn't cool btw

These communists might beg to differ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPeLF-qi6X0&t=11

(but tbh they're nominally communists in a country with billionaires, hedge funds, and retail investors, while the nominally capitalist US is a surveillance state doing its utmost to pursue industrial policy with public means, so I'm not sure how one is supposed to be able to tell the difference anymore. That's part of why I've decided, for my own idiolect, to use Eastasia and Oceania, respectively.)

Edit: I guess they'd say 牛逼 instead of cool. Maybe 酷?

You're probably on point. This globalization thing is just taking a while, and the transition period is not ideal. Give it a few more generations and the relevance of smaller cultures will shrink more and more.

American cultural influence has always been substantial, but since Trump and the hyper-interesting reality TV politics of recent years... it's on a hole new level.

Here (in Ireland), the Brexit show (slightly receding) and Trump show have eclipsed local politics by a long shot. ROI politics are a distant fourth (after NI), in terms of affecting the local political conversation. It has become truly absurd. The average person can name far more politicians in the US or UK than locally.

I think it depends on your social circles.

Recent Irish politicians my experience is that most people know:

Michael D, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Mary Lou, Simon Coveney, Phil Hogan, Paul Murphy, Ming

Recent UK politicians my experience is that most people know:

Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Bercow, Arlene Foster, Jeremy Corbyn

Recent US politicians that most people know:

Trump, Hilary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden, Obama

People who follow politics more closely might also know Irish politications like Simon Harris or Stephen Donnelly, Eamon Ryan or their local TDs, UK politicians like Gove, Rees-Mogg and Nicola Sturgeon, and US politicians like AOC or Mitch McConnell. And of course you get people who look way more closely into politics with a much broader view of things or much deeper for a specific country.

But also in terms of potential impact on Ireland, the reality is that the order is:

1. COVID-19

2. Brexit

3. Anything else the coalition government is likely to get passed.

So it's not surprising that Brexit and consequently UK politics have had such an outsized influence these past few years.

There is a practical aspect to it, but a lot of it is pure drama. Yes, Brexit affects us. Brexit was also extremely dramaful.

I agree that it depends on social circles, but IMO, Boris or Trump animate much stronger & livelier opinions than Leo or Martin. Moreover, they can probably identify their political positions on more issues.

Another key difference is that we don't have the right to own guns. Whether you're for or against gun rights you can't argue that they don't seem to incentivise more militarized police. Militarized police means that you get tragic and divisive police killings but I guess it also causes more general distance from and distrust of police.

We also I don't think have the American civil war history and Jim Crow stuff, so it's not as much of a political football and the history of oppression diminishes MUCH earlier.

Yes, thank you for this opinion piece. I do believe however that we non-Americans are also to blame. We consume American media like there's no tomorrow and don't support our local media even barely enough.

The great advantage America has for spreading their culture is its single official language. It's able to echo within the country, gain a large following and then spread outside of its borders. Europe has done nothing like that.

Ever since the European Union was made, there has been no successful attempt to find a common language in order to unify the countries lingually. It's not a surprise due to the divisive history, but I strongly believe that Esperanto could've been that language. Of course, it's too late now and English (especially American English) has become the virtual lingua franca, but that means Europe (and other countries) should learn from the U.S.

What the U.S has is practically a large propaganda machine that blasts its views across the world. The entertainment industry (film, music, news) is large and the major window into American life. It's available everywhere at either no cost or when the demand is large, at a premium.

I'd say other countries should:

- subsidize their entertainment industry heavily

- expand their education to provide world-wide

- do away with geo-blocking and exclusivity

- have free national programs to help learn their language from anywhere in the world

and last, but definitely most importantly: educate their populace to think logically and to broaden their horizons to think out of the box.

Culture, tradition and language are in a product in today's capitalistic world. If you do not make your product attractive, appealing, and available, people will not buy it. The U.S has understood that and are doing a mighty fine job at exporting it.

We should all switch to English in Europe.

In addition to the entirety of the author's examples and experiences, we need to recall that the UK/British view of race is heavily influenced by the fact that skin color is not the only way in which folks in the UK experience racial discrimination. For centuries, the Scottish and Irish natives have been variously oppressed by the British, creating a racial context which is distinct from one wholly concerned with skin tone.

Not less racist, not more racist, just differently racist.

Americans also conveniently forget that Irish people have been discriminated against there nearly as badly as black people, despite being the whitest shade of white. From the outside perspective, it seems like that kind of discrimination just doesn't fit the narrative so of course isn't mentioned.

In the last 10 years have a lot of Scottish, Irish or Black people been murdered by UK police officers? 20 years? 30?

I'm sure you can think of a few examples, but the idea that the UK is equally as racist as the US is laughable.

To be clear: I am not saying that racism doesn't exist in the UK or that it isn't a problem - but the kind of false equivalence you put forward doesn't really advance the conversation.

> In the last 10 years have a lot of Scottish, Irish or Black people been murdered by UK police officers? 20 years? 30?

How many people of any colour or ethnicity have been killed by UK police in the last 10, 20, 30 years? It doesn't happen very often, principally because they're not routinely armed.

> I'm sure you can think of a few examples, but the idea that the UK is equally as racist as the US is laughable.

In some ways, sure. But in other ways, the UK is behind the US: the UK has (and has had) no Black generals, admirals, or supreme court judges, for example.

It doesn't quite fall under your "10/20/30", but a lot of Irish and Northern Irish people were killed in The Troubles by British soldiers - a major event which many remember vividly.

> we need to recall that the UK/British view of race is heavily influenced by the fact that skin color is not the only way in which folks in the UK experience racial discrimination.

But that's true of lots of places, including the US, antisemitism being the obvious example.

> For centuries, the Scottish and Irish natives have been variously oppressed by the British

I'm not sure it make sense to talk about Scots being oppressed by the British: Scots are British (though many are not particularly fond of the label). Did you mean to say English?

Would you mind stop overloading the word racist with more definitions? People can be nationalists or biased towards group identities with many different flavors. The underlying issue is that people get discriminated.

And besides, the Brits are a very mature ethnic identity, as such, they've had many centuries to come up with and nourish many different ways to discriminate - be it which village you come from, what school you attended, which football/sports club you affiliate with and which side of the street your pub resides on.

> Would you mind stop overloading the word racist with more definitions?

Racism has been linked with discrimination against nationality for many years. In the UK the Race Relations Act 1965 (55 years ago) included "national origin".

>Would you mind stop overloading the word racist with more definitions? People can be nationalists or biased towards group identities with many different flavors. The underlying issue is that people get discriminated.

I completely agree. I prefer 'bigotry' rather than 'racism'.

Mostly for the reasons you suggest, but also that 'racism' is a nonsensical term in the context of biology. Homo Sapiens is a single species.

As such, one could be racist against dolphins or dogs or daffodils, but not humans.

But we can still hate and be bigoted against those who don't look or talk or dress or act like "us."

Exactly

This is why I think the debate on "whitelist" is more about PR and gaining internet points than anything else.

It can be argued that the term is racist in an specific historical context (no contest there) and that applied pretty much to the whole American continent, but let's not forget this kind of racism against the Irish was happening in both sides of the pond barely 100 years ago.

Associating colors with qualities is much, much older than 500 years.

Brits complaining about a foreign power imposing their culture on them from across the globe seems deliciously ironic.

There's a general sense in which all the social justice debates are always filtered through a US american lens, probably because of the media presence and because the people leading these debates are more active in global online communities.

But it does feel to me that often we frame the discourse in a way that is not useful for the specific problems we have in a specific country/region. There was some of the ACAB sentiment in Germany, but it quickly died down, since most people here (even left-wing people) generally trust the police - and while I'm sure there are still problems with underrepresentation, racial profiling, etc., it's nowhere on the scale that it appears to be on the US.

Also most countries simply don't have a recent history of slavery inside their own country like the US does; black people in Germany, for example, are almost all immigrants, which does create entirely different dynamics, and we have (had) a lot more immigration from different cultures, especially Turkish people. None of this means racism and xenophobia don't exist, but the discourse and potential solutions are not the same as in the US.

+1 for the plea for nuance, consideration and rational discussion.

> The debate is worth having. But in the place of that debate, there have only been pious paeans to diversity.

Whatever could have made people unwilling to publicly debate these issues?

American culture in general overrides local news. The debates are front-page news despite me having no vote or influence. Same with Trump's impeachment.

I'd be really really careful stating that "you can't be racist against whites" outside the US. According to where you say it in Europe, such a bold claim can get you in quite the discussion.

I'll never get why the all-encompassing "racism is the discrimination on the basis of race" must be corrected by narrower american version of "no, only if it's systemic". But that is already included in the original definition... or is it a shortcut to hate on whites?

And I think probably Americans could sometimes do well to stop imposing American views about Race on themselves.

The problem exists elsewhere too, because of the extremely widespread proliferation of American media - I see the Polish media taking american talking points about race, sexuality, religion, and just transplanting them wholesale into the Polish frame of reference as if they were equally important here - more often than not, they simply aren't. While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in the US, and treating it as if it was does more harm than good - we have to do better, but suddenly Polish people watching American news and for instance adopting "all cops are bastards" attitude is just dumb in so many ways I could probably write a whole article about it.

In general I lament the americanization of worldwide media, as if America is some kind of paragon of behaviour that everyone should emulate, and whatever social phenomenon is happening there it must be valid elsewhere. That's simply not true.

I know very little about Poland, but can't help but see a similarity between attitudes to the former serfs in Poland and the Irish in Great Britain.

This article touches on it: https://wachtyrz.eu/antisemitism-in-poland-each-pole-is-a-je...

>In general I lament the americanization of worldwide media, as if America is some kind of paragon of behaviour that everyone should emulate, and whatever social phenomenon is happening there it must be valid elsewhere. That's simply not true.

Well said! I would wager that this has become true in almost all countries and the effects are very insidious. Many real problems are often obfuscated and sidelined by the latest media export from the US which has no or at best marginal relevance in their local countries.

> Many real problems are often obfuscated and sidelined by the latest media export from the US which has no or at best marginal relevance in their local countries.

Or in their local counties (in the US).

I read that Poland has quite draconian drug laws. Such laws are what institutionalised racism is based on in the US - it comes from the premise that people from disadvantaged background will be more likely to be involved in drugs than other groups - this is of course not true, as person living on handouts is just as likely to take drugs as a rich person working in banking sector. It's what law enforcement is being focused on. I believe most western countries have this setup copied from the US and it is being used for oppression of groups that government deems undesirable. If cops were the "good guys", they would investigate why certain politicians push drug prohibition, who profits from it and why police is being used to support it. In my country if you are black, you are 6 times more likely to be harassed by law enforcement than if you were white, despite the drug use being at the same level.

No one is saying all these countries are without their own problems. What's being said is that their problems are different then the ones in the US. And these problems need to be discussed and addressed in a narrative and setting that suites the country and cultural they are applicable to. Not by applying some US template.

Also...Poland has draconian drug laws, draconian drug laws in the US led to institutionalised racism hence the situation in the US is similar to Poland...c'mon...seriously?

I am just saying to Poland is likely oppressing groups of people, just not based on race. They use the same tools, however.

I imagine the statistics are hard to get accurately (a rich person who never gets arrested isn't going to be counted as a drug user unless the study is done via survey), but is it really true that a poor person is just as likely to take drugs as a rich person? Intuitively it doesn't seem quite right, and it's hard to be rich if you are addicted to something truly destructive.

It's also hard to bootstrap a cocaine habit if you're strapped for cash.

Using drugs is natural for intelligent beings. It is similar like saying only poor people listen to music. Everyone does it, but the propaganda is focused on people who governments deem undesirable.

I don't think hating police is something you got from America. It's easy to see why anyone who doesn't fit in would hate most police forces in the world.

edit:

And now I'm being downvoted for saying this despite seeing ACAB sprayed across every imaginable surface by football fans my entire life.

> While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism

I absolutely agree that transplanting US talking points wholesale into non-US frames of reference is something that's often done blindly and never really applies.

But the reason for this is that the issue is nuanced and has a lot of local context that needs consideration in its own right. It shouldn't be used as an excuse to dismiss the existence of systemic racism in your own country.

I think the above quoted line is such a pity as it truly undermines the rest of your otherwise excellent comment.

Well, you have conveniently omitted the next couple words from that sentence - "it's not systematic racism [like in the US]", which is what my argument was built upon, and the reason for the entire comment. Media treat is as if American problems not only exist in Poland, but also as if they have the same root causes as in the US.

Poland does of course have systematic racism problems - for instance against the Roma people, of whom there is a non-insignificant number and who are discriminated against literally everywhere. Same with immigrants, regardless of their skin colour - Ukrainians who come to work in Poland are treated very poorly and portrayed negatively just for who they are. That is systematic racism.

BUT - it's not systematic racism like in the US where (as far as I can understand) the racism is rooted in history of slave ownership, general belief that black people are inferior and deep history of segregation normalizing the process. None of those apply in Poland, yet some people behave as if they do - and that is what I object to.

The definition of systemic racism, as a theory, is that a country (specifically the US) was founded as a racist country (black people were the property of white people). This is not so in Poland, therefore it can't be considered systemic racism.

Do you have citations for this?

My own experience of the term's usage is to simply imply that racism is part of a system's inherent structural definition, rather than being purely reliant on individual/group biases.

In particular in Europe, one very simplistic example of this is the systemic intolerance of nomadic peoples. This is not limited to individuals discriminating against nomadic people, but rather that legislation and bureaucratic processes are in place that give inherent preference to those who are not nomadic; most obviously in laws related to property rentals and ownership, but also pervading every form of corporate and public administration.

Sure:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415952786

https://www.thoughtco.com/systemic-racism-3026565

> My own experience of the term's usage is to simply imply that racism is part of a system's inherent structural definition, rather than being purely reliant on individual/group biases.

By that definition, all racism is systemic racism, since the system is made up of people.

I haven't read any of Feagin's research, but from reading that article's commentary on Feagin's research, it outlines a highly US-centric approach to defining systemic racism, which would imply that systemic racism, by definition, cannot exist outside of the US.

I don't know enough in the field to know if Feagin's definition is a popular one worldwide, or even within the US, but it seems somewhat reductive on first reading.

If systemic racism cannot occur outside of the US, what then should we refer to racism that is "systemic" as?

> By that definition, all racism is systemic racism, since the system is made up of people.

Technically, I would agree, but going that far seems somewhat pedantic.

Well, Feagin defined systemic racism, as a concept it's US-specific.

> If systemic racism cannot occur outside of the US, what then should we refer to racism that is "systemic" as?

I don't know, I sincerely don't understand your definition. How can a country be comprised of racist people but have a system that isn't, or vice versa?

There is a specific reason to say it: 98% of polish population belong to a single ethic group, and even of the remaining 2% the vast majority are what most people would consider to be "white". Non-white people tend to be very rare even in metropolitan areas (maybe to a lesser extent in Warsaw), and they are usually either students or high-income people moving to Poland for professional or relationship reasons. In general, Poland isn't a very tempting target for immigration.

This said, you can argue there is some systematic racism against the Roma or Ukrainians. But it's more based on culture and national identity, so its different than what an American would think of then hearing the term.

Also "white" is typically not a category you speak of. Ethnicity is much more important and it's often lost on americans in my experience who tend to promptly dismiss differences between e.g. Ukrainians and Poles.

Your final paragraph is what I would think of.

Your opening paragraph seems to commit the same mistake the original commenter was lamenting: you're defining racism purely through a US lens and asking if the same is present in Poland. The framing of that question isn't valid.

Yup, Poland would be very different even just from daily experience. In 20 years of living there, I have not only not interacted, but not seen a single black person. And I expect that would be the same case for majority of people. Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic. (Not that it wouldn't exist completely)

> Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.

I had a similar experience in this part of Europe. But I'm quite convinced that we don't see systemic racism against black folks there because they are such a small minority.

People are as racist as everywhere else (maybe even more so because of the lack of diversity in their country). I'm willing to bet Poland has its own minorities it's systemically discriminating against.

Sure, there are other minorities: Ukrainians, Belarusian, Jews, Roma, Germans, and others who deal with different prejudices depending on the region. I meant the original comment specifically about black people.

It's the same in Greece. Black people are very few and far between, so there isn't much pronounced racism against them. There's a lot of racism against Albanians, Pakistanis, Syrians, etc, though.

Interestingly, black people here don't tend to commit much crime. It might be because they're too few to be in the media, but I'm realizing I've never heard of a crime here being committed by a black person.

> In 20 years of living there, I have not only not interacted, but not seen a single black person. And I expect that would be the same case for majority of people. Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.

I don't follow. How can you make such judgement, if you "not only not interacted, but not seed a single black person"?

> Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.

So, just a few bad apples then? I think, some knowledge is transferable after all.

Because to have systemic racism, by definition you have to observe something happening on a large scale. There is no scale there. There are isolated interactions mostly. It could be widespread racism, or a small number of racist people. The n is too small to tell.

> Because to have systemic racism, by definition you have to observe something happening on a large scale.

Systemic only means "relating to a system, especially as opposed to a particular part".

If you and practical most people in Poland (or a lot of other countries) have never seen or talked to a black person, that is related to the system. The way you and others have formed an opinion about foreign people, or people of different faith, or sexual orientation, that is inherent to the system in Poland.

Now, the question is, what is the experience of those likely few black people in Poland interacting with other people? Do they experience in most interactions negative prejudice, or are they only experiencing it in isolated cases, or even not at all?

The way I see it, the learning we should take from the US is, that as a member of the majority, one should avoid having a prejudice of how that experience will be. Because our n of those experiences will indeed be too small to tell. And if those people are telling us that their experience is bad, not to reject it as the exception (a few bad apples).

We've got to ask ourselves why the media takes on the American talking points, then? Where is the searching of ones own culture and country, so that we might face-off with the unique problems we then have in our countries? Is this a problem of journalism, or is it because it is easier to adopt american problems, and thereby neglect our own, real problems?

Here in Australia, our media seems to wholesale import US content.

My best guess is that the media owners are a) American (and want to push "the American way"), and b) it's somehow cheaper.

Most journalists knows at least their native language and English. So when they need something to write about, it's easy to import some problems from English-speaking nations.

I'm an American and I also lament the americanization of the American media. When I was younger, you watched the news to learn the facts about what had occurred (or was occurring or was expected to occur). I no longer trust that the major news sources are accurate and/or truthful (and I don't even want to talk about those who get their news from social media).

Agreed, but you cannot avoid it : the culture of the hegemon always set the norm inside its sphere of influence. There are major symbolic/social incentives for the local comprador elites to adopt American talking points.

I agree, but I think adopting the American viewpoint is neither here nor there in terms of dealing with local issues.

The reason these issues are different in different places is history. "Racism" in the states, as a political issue and concept, is firmly rooted in their history. Slavery, civil war, post war confederate politics, etc. Poland, and europe generally, has different historical anchors.

Poland is a prime example, in fact. Consider what Poland was before 1938 and what it is now, demographically, ethnically, culturally, etc. Those things inform the present.

In some sense, interest in US politics may be useful (even if it is often irrational). It's easier to see these things about other countries... like a fable or morality tale. By eventual analogy, it may come around.

Same here in Norway. Certain conservatives are attacking liberals for SJW-esque viewpoints that barely exist here, and certain liberals are attacking conservatives for systemic racism that also barely exists (that's not to say racism doesn't).

It's sad, because it pollutes important discussion on adjacent topics.

> While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in the US

Are you sure about that? I haven't spent much time in Poland, but I've spent quite a bit of time in the baltic states and systemic racism absolutely is a problem there. It's just (mostly) against Jews and Roma rather than black people. I fully expect this is the case in Poland too.

EDIT: yes,as I thought.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Poland

In a way, it's even worse: because America sets the tone of discourse and frames racism as white vs black, Polish and other Eastern European cultures feel justified in claiming they don't have any systemic racism, when in fact it's there, just not against black people.

I recognize this in my own country (Ireland) where people will so proudly declare we are not racist because we treat black and Indian immigrants well by comparison to the US. However, Irish culture has deep systemic racism rowards the Traveller minority. Getting most Irish people to admit this is basically impossible though, and I expect it's the same for racism towards Jews and Roma in Poland.

Again, the key word here is " it's not a systematic racism like in the US" - I'm not(obviously) trying to say that racism doesn't exist in Poland - it does and it's a problem. Just that the entire country isn't built on racist behaviour like US is/was, it's not systematic as in the country as it exists now(and largely how it existed in the post WW1 shape too) wasn't built with racist institutions and principles. Again, and I cannot stress this enough - that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist there.

There seems to be confusion about “systemic” vs “systematic” here. Systematic racism would imply a system that is designed to achieve racism. The more common term is systemic racism, which implies racism more or less as a “side effect” of a structure or system that arguably has a different, benign purpose.

I'd argue that the American system was systematically build to be systemic :)

There are laws in the US that, on the surface, seem to be benign, but upon closer inspection are specifically and systematically created to target a certain racial group disproportionately.

FYI, "systemic racism" is usually understood to be roughly "discriminatory treatment is embedded in the institutions". For example, if Roma get stopped by police more often, that's systemic racism.

I think you use it to mean "it played a major role in the founding of our country". Saying "there is no systemic racism in Poland" makes sense in that context, but probably not in the other, and that's why people are doubting you.

I'm Polish, and I would say, the only way right now racism is less bad than e.g. US is that Poland is pretty much racially homogeneous. Mostly all white Polish people, huge proportion is single religious denomination, at least notionally (Catholic Christian). The 'discriminatable' minorities are very small and not very visible, but when they are discernible, boy do they get abused.

Where non-white non-christian non-straight people appear, they seem to be at way too high a risk of verbal or physical violence. Hard to know about discrimination at jobs etc., but wouldn't surprise me. Poland refused to accept Syrian war refugees, but reluctantly agreed to accept some Syrian Christians (so it's none of those "terrible Muslims"). No help - so many still got beaten up and chased away.

That said, I agree with the original comment. Racism in Poland is _completely_ different in Poland, and mimicking US projections of it is counterproductive, and frankly, offensively patronising.

> [...] but reluctantly agreed to accept some Syrian Christians (so it's none of those "terrible Muslims"). No help - so many still got beaten up and chased away.

Could you link an article about that? I wasn't aware.

> systemic racism absolutely is a problem there

But it's not the same thing and it happens on a completely different scale.

Systemic racism in US means that

"the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 31 fatal shootings per million of the population as of August 2020."

Which is completely out of scale for European standards (at least 3 orders of magnitude worse), including the somewhat more problematic countries in East Europe.

EDIT: for comparison in Italy in 2019 3 people were shot dead by police, without any ethnic implication, it means 1 fatal shooting every 20 millions of the population, or 0.05 every million, VS 31 every million.

To look at it in another way: you need to gather 20 million people in Italy so that one of them risk of being shot by the police, it only takes 33 thousands black men in US. It's 620 times more dangerous for a black man in US to encounter a policeman than it is in Italy.

EDIT 2: -1 after only 6 minutes.

It explains a lot about what's wrong in American culture...

Oversimplification, but Western Europe basically doesn't have a problem with police violence. That (very important) aspect of what's going on in the US just doesn't translate to a police force with very different culture and much better accountability.

It's great that we don't have that problem (people not being shot is a good thing), but that doesn't mean we don't have racism.

If you're talking about scale, then yes police violence in Western Europe isn't comparable to the US. Saying there's no problem seems like almost wilful ignorance though.

Well, the "problem" is that there are not many different races in Poland, so it is hard to judge how racist we are.

The most racist thing you can see here is people staring at blacks or Asians. Because it is quite unique thing to see.

Just like when I was in South Korea and my wife was asked to pose in a picture of young Korean girl.

Similar thing happened 50 years ago, when my mother-in-law asked a black fellow to pose in a picture with her.

But that is expected when someone is unique, intriguing.

When I was young I lived in the south of Poland where we had a Roma minority. And I as a kid was afraid of them, because they were different from me and most of the time I saw them begging on streets. But same thing happened when I saw non-Romas begging on streets, just because they were dressed in old, torn and smelly cloths.

I have personally not met any Jews that I know of, because here you don't have any visual clues, it just like meeting an Orthodox Catholic, one would need to introduce him/herself like one to be recognized. And that maybe would result in interesting conversation, but thats it.

There is another negative issue here with large south city in Poland and Jews - Cracow. There is a district there that was mostly Jewish before the WW II, and now there are a lot of visitors from Israel schools that come there to look at the old buildings and synagogues. And because those are children in a difficult age and look quite unsupervised (besides the bodyguards that act very aggressively towards Poles) and leave quite a mess in hotels where they stay.

And there are also Brits :), you can recognize them because most of them walk in T-shirts during winter and are quite loud and like to have stag parties in Cracow, and also leave quite a mess in pubs/restaurants/hotels.

>Well, the "problem" is that there are not many different races in Poland, so it is hard to judge how racist we are.

Well, the Poles didn't bring in slaves from Africa and had them working at their planations and so on for centuries though, so there's also that...

You don't need slaves from Africa if you can enslave your own people through serfdom.

If you enslave your own people it's not racism them, so that's a different problem...

I’m not saying it’s racism.

In Poland pretty much all land owners, anyone of any wealth and intelligentsia were killed either by the Nazis or the Soviets. It's as if the US had a purge 70 years ago and anyone of any means was killed or sent to a labour camp. US still reaps the benefits of both slavery and the past and ongoing discrimination of its minorities - Poland on the other hand does not. First the Partitions of Poland have erased the country from existence for nearly 100 years, then Nazis killed over 2 million people starting with anyone who had anything valuable first, then 50 years of communism made sure than any kind of systematic exploitation based on serfdom was eradicated and burnt to the ground. While it is taught in history books, the entire class of people who might have been perpetuating the practice have simply been killed off or exiled.

I'm not blaming Poles for it (being a Pole myself), just making an observation.

> In a way, it's even worse: because America sets the tone of discourse and frames racism as white vs black,

This. In Denmark the biggest minority is the Muslim minority, but we have still had big Black Lives Matter demonstrations with only a slight Middle Eastern twist.

Yeah, I don't know about Poland specifically, but the black players in the England football (soccer) team quite often get racially abused in Eastern Europe/Balkans.

Does that not also prove the point? The US view of racism being white against black eclipses all other forms of racism, including white A against white B, or even black against white.

That's not to say white against black is only a US problem, because it isn't, but it helpfully masks all other local problems and pretends they don't exist because "America said so".

Yes, it does. I wasn't arguing against the original point, on the contrary, I agree with it. I was arguing against the claim that Poland is free of institutional racism.

I think they lament it too to a degree and it has to do with English being so widely spread through internet adaptation. Previously it often was a matter of prestige for countries to spread their language. But we have seen election campaigns addressing certain demographics online that basically consisted out of an international audience. Context is broken right from the start and suddenly you might have more critics than countrymen for you domestic conversation.

I agree with people are blindly adopting such talking points, happened in my country too.

This has nothing to do with paragons or moral values. I think it's emergent behavior. If there is media that provides something people want, people will view it and be exposed to any message good or crappy within.

I remember when I had a queue of 5 star documentary movies to watch. I still ended up watching the 2-star scifi movies ahead of them. Had nothing to do with value of the message delivered in the documentaries.

I noticed this when internet comments for newspapers were still common, which I suggest bringing back actually.

But these divisive topics just got so much more engagement than far more important news and the media began to increase that type of content because of their precarious financial situation (Good luck earning a living wage with online news).

I remember one instance were there was an article about a important EU wide policy decision. It had around 25 comments. Next was some article about pop culture and gender. It had over 1000 comments. At one point it becomes self-reinforcing when people want to know why others comment that much...

> That's simply not true

I would argue that not only it is false, it is also wrong.

There are many traits of the American culture that are not desirable, in general.

> people watching American news and for instance adopting "all cops are bastards" attitude is just dumb in so many way

Now you know how many of us in the USA feel. Yet for some reason it seems you assume that it is correct in the US. Why? If the simple fact that this social phenomenon is happening here is what validates it, then why complain when it starts happening where you live? If, on the other hand, the we are not a paragon of virtue, perhaps consider that the news is causing just the same sort of inane, invalid response here as you are concerned about seeing where you live.

It's not the same. There really IS footage of USA police shooting innocent black people. There exists no such footage in Switzerland. Swiss people protesting against Swiss police because of this footage from the USA makes no sense. US population protesting against US police because of this footage makes sense.

So Americans across this gigantic country should adopt the attitude that all cops are bastards?

If there are tons of shootings in all 50 states of "this gigantic country", to the score of 10x of that in another country, then perhaps...

Heck, in the US you're not even allowed to get out of your car when stopped by a cop lest you be shot. In Europe that's a total non issue...

That's a straw man argument.

I know the USA is a huge, diverse country with different problems in different areas. But it is a single country. And that single country is having a problem with police brutality against black people.

That doesn't mean all cops are bastards. It means some cops are racist bastards. And the whole of your gigantic country needs to accept that and do something about it.

No it’s not a straw man. It’s literally the specific complaint I was initially responding to in GP.

Yes, but it's a straw man argument.

USA police shoot more white people than black people. I'm not sure about the innocent numbers, but most people shot by the police of either color are not innocent.

You're argument doesn't show that police violence in the US is racist, just that it's violent.

What you mean racism is problem in Poland? Since early '90 there is for instance a growing number of people from Vietnam and I've never heard about any attacks on them?

The funniest thing to me is the discourse about "white privilege" when it's transplanted into countries where basically everyone used to be white. How can that be a privilege to be the same as everyone else? But people will repeat just anything as long as it's fashionable.

I think that the article was so insightful in complexifying the experience of racism that Black people still encounter across this planet. There are a 100 million ways of existing in a Black body in this world. I am reading Yaa Gyasi’s amazing novel Transcendent Kingdom which in a semi-autobiographical way, explores the complexity of a Ghanaian scientist who grew up in a Pentecostal family in Alabama. I would also recommend listening to the author’s recent Fresh Air interview. There are many threads here in the manner of “the American obsession with racism”. Different does not mean “does not exist”. I wonder if the commenters have digested C.L.R. James or Walter Rodney. Haiti is still waiting on reparations from France, Namibia is still waiting on reparations from Germany for genocide. The list is long.

I fix the title:

Please Stop Imposing American Views about everything on Us.

I never even heard of anyone being as racist as americans are when trying not to be.

I really hope you mean today, as in people who are currently alive. Have you read about any history, perhaps including European colonization abroad?

Were they conquering because of race or something else?

Well they certainly used racism as an excuse to justify their colonial ambitions. They were conquering for the same reasons any country conquers: money, land, prestige.

Probably money, but that doesn't exclude the obvious racism it created. In Denmark, we had Africans in cages displayed in the Tivoli amusement park in central Copenhagen, so people could look at the spectacle that was the black person (https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2017-03-31-de-sendte-bud-efte..., in Danish).

While this was not the intent of our colonization and slavery-business, it inevitably caused it, imo. Or, the racism caused the success of colonialism, because it justified it.

> Probably money, but that doesn't exclude the obvious racism it created.

This! In history, a lot of racism has been created to justify wars, economical exploitation, slavery, creating political scapegoats and so on.

Demonizing an enemy is the most basic method to polarize people. This type of "psyops" was extremely common during WW2.

People often don't really want to look at the root of racial, ethnic, political discrimination because it has to do with economic and political power.

Money was the main reason for American plantation slavery, too.

Sixty years ago, Belgium set up a live display of people from Congo for the 1958 world fair.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/649600217/where-human-zoos-on...

Something else, presumably, although their justifications usually involved racism of a far more explicit and direct variety than is commonly found today in the US. It's not very difficult to find quotes by rather recent leaders such as Churchill that would be unthinkable by a British (or American) politician today.

Spot on! Most americans believe that race, culture and ethnicity are clearly and strongly defined (and that they are simple facts rather than social constructs).

When spending time in the US I find myself experiencing double consciousness, asking myself if I fit into the stereotype that people have of me.

A case in point: in many sitcoms over the last 20 years you can find the same cliches around a white person trying awkwardly to say something without sounding racist.

Bolivian here, this has been my experience as well. People in the US need to teach their children to respect everybody, there's an entire generation of kids being brainwashed into us vs them. We won't see the effect of this until much later on. 20 years!

In my experience americans (at least the limited sample that I know) have a need to find a subculture to identify themselves with, and quick.

I'm not even talking about race here, i'm thinking about the billions of independent christian churches, of soccer fans dressing like soccer players, gang colours etc.

And when they find their subculture, they get stuck in it and become unable to see the others' point of view.

American style racism may be a consequence of that.

What is in the media, social media sites and news, is not what you run into in every day life. We all just want to get along. This a political issue where the media is being used to intimidate, insinuate, and threaten, anyone who questions any position. This is identity politics taken to its extreme. It is almost entirely from the left. Welcome to Heckler's Veto manifested on a national level with all the power of media behind it.

We used to discuss ideas, candidates used to be judged on the merits of their ideas and past. Now they are selected for their race, sex, and persuasion. Any criticism of the candidates ideas or actions they have taken, legal or not, is instead portrayed as attacking them based on those three attributes. They have weaponized thought to the point many are silent and that was the goal.

>I never even heard of anyone being as racist as americans are when trying not to be.

As I'm an American, feel free to reject my comment out of hand.

That said, yes there's plenty of racism in the US.

Sure, it's fun to sneer at Americans and feel superior. Knock yourself out.

However, you seem ignorant of reality and of history.

In many cases the issue isn't that most Americans are actively thinking about how inferior the minorities are.

It's much more about the racist structures built into American society over the past 400 years. We've been slowly (and much too slowly, to my mind) coming to grips with these issues.

In doing so, we've shed an enormous amount of blood. Before our civil war, ~13% of our population was enslaved[0].

During that war, 2% of the population were soldiers killed on the battlefield. And the number of civilians killed is unknown, but likely substantial. Imagine if wherever you live, 3% of the population were to be killed, vast swaths of your cities, towns, villages, farms and ports destroyed[2].

After the war, once the armies of the "victorious" side left the American south, tens of thousands of former slaves were, murdered, beaten, tortured or imprisoned.

Discriminatory laws were enacted and enforced[1] throughout the former Confederacy[5], and was continued in the West and Southwest[3][4], not just against the former slaves, but against those of Mexican, Native American and Asian descent as well.

Even in the North (with most of the population and nearly half the area) where slavery was illegal before the war, discriminatory practices against free blacks as well as former slaves was common.

But don't forget that Catholics (Irish, Italians, etc.) and Jews were often discriminated against too. Certainly not as harshly as people of color, but that existed, and still exists today.

For decades, legal discrimination persisted. It was more than 80 years after our civil war before we started to dismantle the governmental systems that both implicitly and explicitly discriminated against nearly 15% of our population.

And over that time, all across the country many thousands were killed and abused with impunity.

That change came only because of the bravery and determination of the blacks in the US. We would berate them, beat them and kill them for being 'uppity', but they never stopped demanding their right to be full American citizens.

And thanks to them, things have changed a great deal here in the US. We still have issues of discrimination in housing, employment, over-policing and a raft of other areas.

But even in my lifetime (I'm over 50), I've seen significant positive change. It's not nearly enough, nor is that change coming quickly enough.

But it is happening.

These days, complacency and inertia are the biggest obstacles to positive change. Many people just don't think about it, or if they do, are content with knowing that they don't discriminate.

Many have married/cohabitate with those of a different ethnic background. Many have children who do so. This varies a great deal depending on where (remember, the US is big) people live. In many places, there aren't many people of color.

Diversity tends to be more within and sprawling around urban centers and many descendants of former slaves live in the south as well.

That's not to say there aren't a whole bunch of dyed-in-the-wool racists and white supremacists here in the US. There are.

Not so long ago, the militant racists were roundly criticized and ostracized. So much so that most of them wouldn't express their bigotry unless they knew they were among those who shared their hateful ideas.

Now those folks are emboldened. Their numbers haven't really increased, it's just that they've attached themselves to other reactionaries who prefer the economic unfairness of our society.

The difference these days is that factions of certain political groups want to use bigotry as a political tool.

Yeah, we've got problems here in the US. But you don't repair 250 years of slavery and a 100 years of legalized discrimination overnight. And you don't do it in 70 years either.

This is a bleeding gash on American society that's slowly healing.

I hope that I "will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."[6]

You may recognize those words, but read the whole speech. It's almost as much a demand for economic fairness as it is one for an end to discrimination. Which, given the increased inequality we've been seeing, should give all of us some food for thought.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/13/how-the-south-...

[4] https://www.c-span.org/video/?471923-1/how-south-won-civil-w...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America

[6] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-h...

Edit: Fixed link references and subject/verb agreement.

Thank you for giving a nice example. You people assume so much and know so little ...

Flamewar comments, and especially personal attacks, will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong or annoying another commment is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My wife (Asian-American) had a former friend (also Asian-American) tell her that I "conquered" her, essentially tricking/conning her into a long-term relationship with me (white, American), simply because of our racial backgrounds and the fact that in this persons disturbing world view there is no other way to explain Asians dating or marrying outside of "their race" than things like "yellow fever."

It is horribly racist and extremely one-sided and the perpetrators don't even seem to understand that they are engaging in true-to-life racism / racist rhetoric.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN, especially on inflammatory topics.

You managed to combine race flamewar and nationalistic flamewar with this one-liner. That's bomb tossing. No more of this on HN, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> But Britain is not America.

Actually, the rest of the world is not the USA.

But it looks like too many people in theUSA are too thick to get it.

+1 from Australia. Our police kill more white people in custody per capita than black.

I'm so over hearing about this bullshit here. The aboriginal people of Australia face real problems. The police isn't one of them.

PS, keep your debates to yourselves too. Nobody cares and your media cutting Trump out of context is obvious and gross. You are literally becoming the fake news he always said you were.

Right, because there are 10x more aboriginal people in prison, that's not racist policing, that's just natural, is that what you're saying?

“There is a sadly high level of Indigenous incarceration, I think it’s about 30% compared to 3% of the population,” Mitchell said, while interviewing the prime minister on Thursday. “But black deaths in custody, I mean, that’s, that’s a furphy, isn’t it? I mean, since the royal commission, as I saw it, there have been fewer Indigenous people, per head of prison population, dying in custody than have white people?”

Morrison replied: “That is welcome news.”

However, the death rate per prisoner is only part of the story. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 10 times more likely to die in custody than non-Indigenous people in Australia."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/death...

No, that isn't racist at all.

Unfortunate, an injustice, a tragedy, a disaster, a systemic failure to integrate, yes. But racist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me. Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist. Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs.

Talk about the real problem not the symptom, but whatever you do, don't start calling all white people racist for being nothing but white, all that does is alienate allies and make you look like a moron.

Yeah, a tragic injustice that only happens to aboriginal people. If only we could do something.

Edited to respond to your edits:

> Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist.

Unqualified statements asserting that a specific racial group "just commit more crime" is pretty much an applied definition of the word "racist". Isolated statistics about aboriginal behaviour used to buttress your assertion that you are not racist, just seem to underline the fact that perhaps you have much to learn.

If you'd said, "statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government", that would probably not be racist, but I'd want to defer to an aboriginal person before putting my neck out too far on that one either.

One of the difficult things about racism is that it does not matter how we (ie, people of European descent) feel about it, but how the people we're talking about feel about it.

> Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs

What problem are you talking about? The problem that we invaded their land, shot them, stole their children, and to this day oppress them both economically and legally?

> all that does is alienate allies and make you look like a moron

No ally of mine is going to be alienated or offended by simple statements of truth.

One of the difficult things about racism is that it does not matter how we (ie, people of European descent) feel about it, but how the people we're talking about feel about it.

For what it's worth you are doing the EXACT same thing the post in this article is about: you are pushing a very American view on racism.

First of all, racism is absolutely not White -> Black. Or White -> Aboriginal. If you think that I'd assume you haven't met a lot of people form other parts of the world. Racism is everywhere and it's not a White-only issue. That's a very American view.

Second of all, it absolutely DOES matter what 'we' (white people) think of it. Saying only people we talk about get to have a say in this is also a very American viewpoint.

We really don't need to "defer to an aboriginal person", as you say. Just like this article states you are now assuming that all aboriginal people agree on this subject.

Saying we aren't qualified to say what's racist but we need a minority for that is the kind of generalizations the article pushes against.

I’m not pushing a view on racism, I’m saying that the OP’s statements are clearly racist. I just applied the dictionary definition of the term.

I never said that racism was white/black, but I was writing specifically in the context of European racism against Aboriginals in Australia, which happens to be fairly black and white. I’m happy to discuss racism in other countries, but that wasn’t the topic at hand.

Of course it matters what white people think about racism. But it doesn’t hurt to get the opinion of those who are actually harmed by it, does it? I mean I have never had the misfortune of experiencing racism first hand, so if I say something that an aboriginal person considers racist, that’s something I would want to take very seriously.

I never said “we” aren’t qualified to say what is racist. What I’m not so confident about, when specifically talking about aboriginal people, is claiming that my statements are not racist.

Overt racism is pretty easy to spot, but just because I try to be considerate doesn’t mean that the things I say in good faith can’t nevertheless be racist.

Keeping an open mind and listening to how others feel is more important than my biased opinion.

As someone who does experience racism on the regular I don't have quite the same level of trouble discerning racism from biggotry.

One is extremely diminishing and the other is a pretty easy to write off as ignorance, differing upbringing, and a general intolerance of difference.

If you need me to spell out a clear cut example of racism it's a few comments earlier where you assumed I was white and discounted my views on this matter solely because of it. Either that or what I was saying didn't fit your American centric narrative.

For what it's worth,

"statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government"

Was pretty much the gist of what I was getting at but I thought that was pretty obvious given the context and adding the context doesn't really make my statement any more or less factual. More credible maybe, but if you took my remarks on good faith it wouldn't have been a problem. But that is the problem with this American narrative, everyone is too busy trying to win, nobody is trying to look at facts for what they are and find the common ground therein.

These facts don't make aboriginal people any less human or any less successful as a people. They're just shitty truths about the world.

I'm sorry that you experience racism regularly. It's unacceptable. If I've said something that you consider racist then I sincerely apologise.

You are right that I thought you were white. It is because you said, "don't start calling all white people racist for being nothing but white". I apologise for the assumption.

You did, however, call me a moron, which doesn't really strike me as arguing in good faith.

You also said this:

> The aboriginal people of Australia face real problems. The police isn't one of them.

If you live in Australia and you don't think that cops are, at least until relatively recently, a huge part of the problem with Aboriginal welfare, then maybe you missed the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody [0]. I was in high school when that stuff went down, I remember how many people were being killed, and the fact stands that Aboriginal people are 10x more likely to die in prison than Europeans.

"The key finding of the royal commission was that Aboriginal people are more likely to die in custody because they are arrested and jailed at disproportionate rates. That remains as true in 2020 as it was in 1991." [1]

> For what it's worth, "statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government" Was pretty much the gist of what I was getting

But that's not what you actually said.

> I thought that was pretty obvious given the context and adding the context doesn't really make my statement any more or less factual.

Mate, there was very little context in what you wrote. If I took you the wrong way then I apologise, but maybe you can accept your part in this too. Maybe you didn't express yourself as well as you might have. That's cool, but how you express yourself is not my responsibility.

> if you took my remarks on good faith it wouldn't have been a problem. But that is the problem

You called me a moron!!

> with this American narrative

...and you assumed I'm American? Or that I don't have my own reasoned narrative? That's not really good faith now is it?

> everyone is too busy trying to win, nobody is trying to look at facts for what they are and find the common ground therein.

When you say that "Aboriginal people just commit more crime", that's not a fact, it's a tautology; of course they commit more crime, they are generally poorer and sicker, because of how they've been treated. I'm pretty sure that poor white people commit more crime too. Aboriginality has nothing to do with criminality; and just because a statement is true, through some twisted logic, doesn't mean it can't also be racist.

That doesn't mean that I think you are a racist; I have no idea. But I do think what you said is.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Aborigin...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/death...

edit: add quote

Tell me again about the royal commission and what it has found.

https://youtu.be/fNSRz-MCM1w?t=253

Don't waste your words, he's just one of those racist internet trolls following the same time old (if a little tired) strategies. You won't get anything fruitful from calling him out IME. I find this video series [0] useful for identifying and ignoring trolls online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xGawJIseNY

> Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist.

Er... that sounds incredibly racist?

I think was the OP was saying is that indigenous people are more likely to commit crimes because of the circumstances that are put upon them by the system, and that they also lack access to better legal representation for the same reason, and are therefore more likely to be convicted of crimes.

Really, it's due to economic circumstance (I bet poor white people are convicted of more crimes than rich white people). It just so happens that the system makes it very difficult for indigenous people to move up the economic ladder. The system is set up in such a way that it assumes indigenous people want to and/or should confirm to white European ideas of what is "normal" as well.

> circumstances that are put upon them by the system, and that they also lack access to better legal representation for the same reason, and are therefore more likely to be convicted of crimes.

If only we had a convenient word for this, "the confluence of negative formal and material circumstances put upon someone because of race"...

I'd like to think that's what the OP was saying, but that's not remotely what the OP actually said.

Also, they called me a moron, which (accurate or not) is not cool.

> The system is set up in such a way that it assumes indigenous people want to and/or should confirm to white European ideas of what is "normal" as well

I suspect that the system does not assume that aboriginal people want or should be European; rather, it doesn't think about aboriginal people at all.

>Really, it's due to economic circumstance (I bet poor white people are convicted of more crimes than rich white people).

Absolutely. Not that it's anything new. Nor is it limited to ethnic minorities. Consider Anatole France's observation[0]: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France

I find it really illogical to say some statement is racist because it lay out tendency of certain race having certain weakness.

Racist is a race discrimination. Race discrimination is when you are treated differently because of your race.

https://equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/race-...

Skin color is not the reason of a certain person to have certain ability, or certain moral standard.

"Aboriginal people just commit more crime." is a factual statement about how many aboriginal people committing crime. It could be true or false. If the statement is "Aboriginal people just commit more crime, because they are aboriginal", then it is racist because it draws a causal relationship of race and crime rate which is completely false.

Nowadays, from a statement of "Aboriginal people just commit more crime.", someone can see through the proposer's mind to assume he has stereotype impression on aboriginal people and inside his/her mind, the proposer thinks because of people's skin color, they will just magically commit more crime. So, it is concluded that the proposer is racist. This is thought crime, and law should assume people is innocent until proven in case of criminal law.

It is really bad, because it does not let people to lay out the data based on race, and therefore cannot solve the real problem behind it. Why a specific race would commit more crime in a country? There must be a reason behind it. Maybe only one community with majority of a specific race committing most of the crime, and other communities of that race are completely normal. Then you have to further find the reason why that community committing so many crime etc.

However, the left in America does not think like that. They just get a aggregate data of the country and lay out many disadvantage of certain race facing, and so it can justify minority group to victimize themselves.

A term systematic racism is coined. If there is no equal outcome for each race then the society is racist. No active actors of racist is involved. The system itself is designed which cause non equal outcome among races and therefore must be overthrown and replaced with a non racist system.

The whole idea is just giving up thinking analytically about the root cause of non equal outcome and blame it all to the society. If there is not enough educational resource because the state is consist of mainly poor blacks, then just let the rich state to subsidize the poor state. Rejecting better grade non-black is just solving the problem by a racist measure which is not moral. And it is also racist against the black because it implied black are just dumber, and I find it strange for black to accept that. No, because they are poor and does not have enough educational resource.

I think the America left is so irrational that it starts to be very similar to Soviet Union style of thinking.

PS: Not-White. Just a observation from other race outside America.

> "Aboriginal people just commit more crime" is a factual statement about how many aboriginal people committing crime

The statement "people who have been abused continuously for 200 years commit more crime" might be true, and is not racist. [0]

The statement "Aboriginal people just commit more crime" is true only because Aboriginal people have been abused continuously for 200 years.

If you single out the race but leave out the cause, then the statement is clearly racist.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

> a systemic failure to integrate

Given chronology, that's not entirely or even largely on them.

No one is calling all white people racist?

Lots of people are calling all white people racist.

White fragility is a best seller being heavily pushed by people all over America.

> a systemic failure to integrate

You're talking about white Europeans failure to integrate with Indigenous Australian societies, right?

Did I specify?

Cultural integration requires both cultures to integrate.

No, it isn't equal sided, no it isn't fair what has happened, but ignoring the current status quo and positing Europeans should be actively trying to go bush is just facetious.

> Aboriginal people just commit more crime.

Isn't that the same argument people use in the US to justify why more Black Americans are incarcerated / killed by cops?

If that is actually your stance, I'm confused as to how you see Australia as fundamentally different from the US.

It's also the argument about why AI isn't racist, the data is racist, and thus hotspot-based-policing is just a search for the optimal distribution of police resources.

Because we had a royal commission into this and that is what we found.

https://youtu.be/fNSRz-MCM1w?t=253

Seriously this trying to draw false comparisons with America where there aren't any is exactly what the OPs article is about.

This is a couple of vloggers lifting quotes from the royal commission and discussing it. It’s an opinion piece, nothing more.

In this video they also say that changing the date of Australia Day is “ridiculous”. That’s not necessarily bad in and of itself, but it’s certainly not an opinion shared by all aboriginal people and it strongly suggests that they aren’t impartial.

If this is the best you’ve got to defend your views, you don’t got much at all.

That wasn't just a couple of vlooggers...

Jordan shanks is one of the small handful of legitimate journalists we have in this country.

Please don't pretend that Australia is free of racism. There are plenty of backwards and indefensible views that are socially acceptable and given plenty of air time in mainstream media: portrayal of Aboriginals as a drain on society, narratives about "African gangs" and the "cashed up Chinese buying properties". These are not niche opinions, they're mainstream.

But racist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me.

Laws are written by human beings. In the US, a lot of laws were written with explicitly racist goals of denying certain groups equal access. We are still living with that legacy in myriad ways.

If you write laws designed to target certain groups and land them in jail, don't be all shocked when a lot of those folks wind up in jail. And then, yes, "x group just commits more crimes" is a racist statement because it glosses over the context that the "crimes" they commit are "crimes" invented by White power holders to intentionally deny such people rights.

Why they commit crime at such higher rates than the White population would be an interesting conversation to have. Unfortunately, it seems as if you're implying that we shouldn't police them equally because of their race. I cannot endorse that, and I would urge you to consider their victims (most of whom are also Aboriginals, if they are your concern).

If aboriginal people were policed equally, there wouldn't be a problem.

-1 for Australia. Its a pretty racists country. And you forget FoxNews is a transplant of the Rupert Murdoch's empire that he established in Australia. Thier propaganda in support of Trump is obvious and gross. But you as an Australia probably grew up with this type of media surrounding you.

I don’t think trying to argue against racism while lumping an entire country of tens of millions of people together is productive.

TFA is talking about racism as if it can be seen through the lens of how an entire nation feels about and handles racism, so that seems like a reasonable way of talking about it in this thread.

The article is about contexts for racism differing between countries. It’s not about saying “x country is super racist.”

In response to someone saying "our country is not racist like America is".

That’s what they’re doing with the US though.

Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. We don't want flamewars here, and you did it repeatedly in this thread. Not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Are you able to comment about what's happening here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24652987

All of the comments are getting flagged and killed. I don't see any rule breaking.

1. Repeatedly creating accounts to circumvent bans is not ok.

2. Nothing good is going to come out of adding to that flamewar.

3. It crosses into personal attack, which is particularly not ok.

4. Please email hn@ycombinator.com with questions like this, rather than posting off-topic comments. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Lol, correcting people taking me out of context and calling me racist is trying to start a flamewar? Ok dude?

> but that doesn't mean we don't have racism

Absolutely right!

We do have racism.

But "systemic racism" is on a whole another level in US.

It's in the system means "you can be shot and killed just because you are of some ethnicity" by those that sworn to protect and serve.

I'm scared only thinking about it. I would live in constant fear.

Plus, it is true that Europe society is not racism free, it is also true that US society is not racism free as well.

At least in Europe we don' t have to fight against police racism on the same scale.

p.s.: my reference to the police brutality is linked to what's said in the article

"to be black is to live in perpetual terror of being murdered by the state. But Britain is not America"

> But "systemic racism" is on a whole another level in US.

You have a very skewed view of race relations in the US. Racist police is a popular media narrative, but it's not backed up by evidence.

Cops are more likely to kill a white fugitive then a black one; black cops are just as likely to kill as white cops; many victims of police violence are white; etc...

> Racist police is a popular media narrative, but it's not backed up by evidence.

What I posted earlier IS evidence.

It comes from official statistics

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6080222/

Victims were majority white (52%) but disproportionately black (32%) with a fatality rate 2.8 times higher among blacks than whites

I imagined people from the US knew their country better than me, that am from Italy, where police doesn't kill us anyway, regardless of the colour of our skin, and in those rare cases when it happens, because sometimes it happens here too, nobody take the killer's side.

If we needed more proof on what's wrong in US culture, your line of thinking - or should I call it bury the head in the sand? - is one.

Genuine question: what would it take for you to admit it?

I mean, if you tell me "in Italy you have mafia" I would answer, "yes, and I am ashamed of it".

I wouldn't try to hide it, like you tried to do with the police brutality in your country (large part of the system racism in US is the fact that some ethnicities are more in danger of being killed or victimized by the police, having their lives and careers prospects ruined forever).

You may be misreading that paper because it doesn't back up your claim.

Blacks are more likely to have confrontations with police and also more likely to be killed by them. There are explanations for that which aren't police racism.

Blacks also have a higher fatality rate for being murdered by criminals. The ratio is many times higher than 2.8. Are you saying the criminals are racist?

I have confrontations every time with the police in my country.

I'm still alive.

To be clear, you may not understand what the problem is.

For 2019, it reported a total of 1,004 people shot and killed by police

It's 1 kill every 328 thousands citizens.

In my country it's 1 every 20 millions.

20,000,000/328,000 =~ 60

If you can't see that's what you would expect from a narco state run by warlord criminals, I don't really know how to help you.

Or maybe that's exactly what you want.

Because what you are saying is that the police in your country have, more or less, the same behaviour of criminals.

You might be onto something there.

Enjoy your violence man...

But I don't wish for it in my backyard

Sorry not sorry!

I don't think you are understanding or respecting their argument. Population is not a relevant factor. Violent crime is the relevant factor. The amount of violent crime committed by members of a group is what correlates to higher shootings of that group. Population based analysis has many faults. For example: Say one group consisting of white people has 100 of 1 million people drowning. One group of black people has only 1 out of 1 million people drowning. You might say wow white people have a drowning problem, they can't swim. But, in this case race is irrelevant. If you looked closer you might find one group consisting of white people are more likely to live by a lake and go swimming. It is impossible to have a drowning problem when you aren't swimming. This is why population based analysis is useless and refuted by articles such as the linked.

https://www.forcescience.org/2019/08/researchers-find-no-rac...

Violent crime in US is relevant because the state is the one committing it.

In US there are 6 homicide every 100 thousands of population, in Europe is 0.6, ten times less, in Japan it's 0.5.

Do you wanna know some country that have similar stats to US?

Nigeria, Sudan, Angola, Cuba, Somalia, Burundi, Zambia

Some countries that have better stats?

Rwanda (2.3), Mozambico, Camerun (1.4), Algeria (1.3),Burkina Faso (2.1)

That already speaks volumes about what's wrong in US society, but if that wasn't enough to be considered outside the western standards, police killing stats are completely off the charts

What you fail to understand with your simplistic view is that if the police kills, there is going to be a group that is more marginalized and victimised than any other, regardless if they live or not near a lake, because of prejudice and prejudice is a form of racism.

If the police don't kill, like in every other developed western country (which US is not in these regards) there is not going to be any accountability of state enforced racism, but simply episodes of racism, because the single copo is a racist.

If you believe that you can't have a drowning problem if you live in a city, consider that the majority of drownings that happen in my country are people not living near water that go to swim.

Your mistake is believing that police killings of people of colour don't happen near a lake.

You know what is true instead?

That police can't kill people of colour if they don't live when they serve.

Your proposition reinforce the hypothesis.

Also because

- you posted no relevant fact, only your opinions ("say one group ... say another group" say you are wong and making up numbers, no? Is it possible you are?)

- the link you posted only talks about police report, which is a source incredibly biased. Police reports are known to be falsified to protect the police and cover their abuses.

- we don't even kill mobsters and still we have almost zero killings by the police and ten times less homicides per unit of population of US. It is entirely possible if you live in a developed country that is able to produce a civilized society. US is arguably incapable of doing that.

- in the end you support he idea that the only way for people of colour to not be shot and killed by the police is, using your metaphor, to avoid swimming . Which is called segregation. That's why from a distance we look at US in horror. Because US is a scary society, not only for people of colour, but especially for minorities like people of colour, which are American, have been for centuries, but are not considered as such.

You should see a black American shot dead by the police as an American shot by the police. You still see at him like someone who's dead because he dared to swim.

First, I don’t live in the US. Second, I was clearly disagreeing with your claim of racism. I never said anything about violence levels.

Maybe you should try responding to what people say instead of spewing word salad.

I simply posted statistics about police killings that say they are disproportionate against people of colour

It's you that spewed your salad when tried to read it as "people of colour deserve it for their behaviour"

Maybe you are the racist too...

But, they are way more likely to kill at all in the US. And that is a very large problem, not only of the police, but also of a society that believes everyone should carry a gun to be able to fight against "the state".

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24661268.

Talking about bigotry in the UK without mentioning colonialism is a bit like talking about racism in the USA without mentioning slavery. Different history, different consequences, different present, different context.

A few weeks back historian John Dolan pointed out that all the iconoclasm recently occurring in Britain was targeting statues of people who had participated in the Atlantic slave trade. This is curious, because while some British were involved in the Atlantic slave trade it ranks pretty low on the list of Horrible Things the British Empire Did. The fact that Cecil Rhodes statues weren't getting dumped in rivers says about all you need to know on this subject.

Rhodes was a monster. Look him up. Yet his statue continues to stand at Oxford. There is a movement to get it and other statues to Rhodes torn down, check out #RhodesMustFall on Twitter for example. But by and large British society refuses to engage with their genocidal past.

This will get flagged when most of the US wake up, or when users get fed up with yet another cultural war submission that leads to flame.

Are you saying being woken will not make you woke?

You can illustrate this point by comparing prison systems.

In America is segregated by race, blacks, whites, Mexicans etc.

In the U.K all races mix, towns and counties may stick together more but that’s it.

Even in the US it doesnt ring true to many, many people. And I am not just talking about privileged white people not seeing the point, the people spreading these PC views on everyone are a minority and are the same ones always playing the victim, bitching and complaining for one reason or another.

Britain is not America. In some ways is worse.

Britain made lots of money for centuries from two main sources: 1. Piracy. 2. Slavery trade.

It is very interesting that they critizice S

> All the individuals listed are American, but most of the people who have shared this on my timeline are British. In trying to express their solidarity with black Britons

Aren't they trying to express their solidarity with black Americans? Just because it's happening outside of your country of residence, doesn't mean your compassion and empathy ends at the border.

Maybe because it was Britain that started all this mess with slavery and human trafficking, so Britons should indeed try to repent, or some day face the wrath of the whole world.

Britain did more to end slavery than to start it (though it did also benefit greatly from it in between).

That's probably what makes you feel better, but nope, your kingdom was built through exploitation, killing and looting.

You forgot to mention rape. I'm told that 1 in 200 people on this planet can claim genetic heritage with Ghenghis Khan. That happened via rape together with the 'exploitation, killing and conquest' but no one in their right mind wishes to visit this mind-numbing inglorious fact on his descendants and not just because that would be impossible. Who knows? Maybe you and I are one of those descendants. Familiarity with world history will tell you that there are no groups of superior beings anywhere who abstained from the activities mentioned. Some won and some lost. The latter, not for the want of trying.

Nah mate. You need to keep reading.

Perhaps it's time to take a couple of minutes to watch the sources and destinations in Slate's The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes animation.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_s...

While solidarity is a good thing what happens is that due to the (multiplying) effect of social media it overrides and dominates the local debate. The issues that are suddenly pushed to the front are not the issues we need to be dealing with over here in order to do something about racism or to improve our society.

For example here in the Netherlands neighbourhoods are built in a way to mix people of all social standings. A gay couple has a bigger chance of getting attacked on the street then a person of any colour or background has of being shot by the police.

Social media is 99% noise anyway, it's not really the place for considered debate. Given that these platforms are globally connected and not local, it's not surprising that emotional international issues dominate over local issues.

The article briskly skips over the indisputable fact that Britain’s colonial expansion enslaved, tortured and exterminated people of color everywhere on this planet for longer than a the US has existed in its current form.

It attempts to delegitimize the people in the ex-colonies claim to the wealth generated during their exploration using the currently drawn geopolitical boundaries.

For most of the people labeled as immigrants by the author, tracing their lineage with direct link to suffering under colonialization is a direct formal requirement for immigration.

To not acknowledge this comes across as massively tone deaf and makes the article read too much like denial of responsibility.

Just to add, they also had white Afrikaans women and children in concentration camps in the Boer wars of South Africa.

We can only learn from history and be better for it. People in general should stop crying about events that happened a hundred years or more ago. That's no way to live your life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com