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> If I had been a black kid? No way. I can’t imagine that the teachers of a white, white, white suburban Boston high school would have patted me on the head for
by knivets 11y ago
> If I had been a black kid? No way. I can’t imagine that the teachers of a white, white, white suburban Boston high school would have patted me on the head for all of that. Opening unlocked doors would have been taken as breaking and entering. If I told them that I’d put in a lot of time to decipher the mechanical workings of a common school lock and how to exploit its weaknesses, they’d have assumed the only reason I’d have gone to all of that trouble was because I planned to steal stuff, not because I was intellectually excited by an intriguing puzzle.
Too polarized and emotional. There is a problem, yes. But that doesn't mean that all teachers will treat a black or brown child differently from the white one. And also America is not the worst case. Here in Ukraine almost everyone hates black and brown people.
- cpcat 11y agoalmost everyone? another sweeping generalisation?
- striking 11y agoWhen on vacation in Poland, I had the opportunity to meet some Ukrainian emigrants. And they asked me in Polish, in earnest: "...so, are black people dangerous? I hear there are a lot of them in America." They had never met a black person in real life. Your culture is different than theirs. Wolfram-Alpha agrees: they will likely never have met a black person. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=black+people+in+ukraine http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=black+people+in+ukraine
- david-given 11y agoAbsolutely. (Although bear in mind that the term 'African-American' for someone with brown skin is American-centric, and other countries don't use it. Luckily WA understood you.) On the other side of the coin, while visiting Dallas on work from Europe, I was asked, quite seriously, whether I was worried about the the Muslim campaign to control Europe by outbreeding the natives (or something, I'm not good at remembering this stuff). I don't think they'd ever met a Muslim in their life.
- striking 11y agoWhoops. I edited, thank you. And yeah. What a world we live in. Hopefully someday these people will find out how perfectly usual everyone is, even people from different cultures.
- ashwinaj 11y agoThere is a large Muslim population in the Dallas area. The problem is a combination of (self or social) segregation and poor integration of the immigrant communities. Not knowing members of your society just because you have preconceived notions about them is pathetic, but painfully real.
- antod 11y ago> When on vacation in Poland, I had the opportunity to meet some Ukrainian emigrants. And they asked me in Polish, in earnest: "...so, are black people dangerous? I hear there are a lot of them in America." > They had never met a black person in real life. So their only impression of what African Americans are really like is presumably formed via American media? Hmmm....
- theworstshill 11y agoBut...but... Obama?
- Borogravia 11y agoOf course America isn't the worst case - but the point is kind of at the heart of the matter, and minimizing the issue just because the issue is even worse elsewhere is nonsensical.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- notNow 11y agoHere in Ukraine almost everyone hates black and brown people. I knew some Ukrainian girls over the years and they seemed to me like good people with no racial prejudices towards people of other ethnicities and they blended very well with non Caucasian people. Maybe you're hanging out with neo Nazis and ultra nationalist nutjobs and then extrapolating this to all Ukrainians?
- Torgo 11y agoMaybe Ukrainians that you meet in a foreign country are naturally going to be more cosmopolitan than the larger percentage remaining at home in Ukraine.