6 ms·

America Isn’t a Racist Country

5 points by andrenth 6y ago

sawaruna 6y ago
>The operating thesis of a significant segment of the leadership in these states is that America is a racist nation, governed by a horde of white male supremacists who use the pretense of equality to maintain their superior position. When asked for evidence to support the claim of white supremacy,” the only response I have been given is, “Look all around.” They hold this untruth to be self-evident. I'm sure some are able to offer specific evidence beyond 'look all around' to support their claim.
- jfengel 6y ago
  Indeed, he seems to be illustrating the point. "I'm not listening, and a major newspaper will publish my failure to listen as news."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
foldr 6y ago
My home country (UK) has plenty of its own problems with racism, but the one thing that stands out about the US is the level of unquestioned de facto racial segregation in society. For example, I lived for around a year in a smallish town in a very progressive area of Massachusetts. Almost uniformly, waiters in restaurants were white and kitchen staff were Latino. Similarly, the town was almost all white, and almost all of the African Americans in the local area lived in another town. Naturally, all of the white progressives advised me in hushed tones not to live there. Racism is so deeply ingrained in the US that a lot of it simply passes unnoticed. Similarly, a lot of British people are blind to the amount of class snobbery that still exists in British society. Sometimes you need an outsider's perspective to see clearly.
- brudgers 6y ago
  Sure buddy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Asians_in_association_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Asians_in_association_...
  - foldr 6y ago
    I said quite explicitly that the UK also has problems with racism. In any case, a UK/US comparison is not really the main focus of my comment. I'm not saying that the UK is "less racist" than the US. (Amusingly, Brits and Americans are often each equally convinced that the other country is the more racist.) However, I do think that there is de facto racial segregation in the US on a larger scale than there is in the UK. Certainly, this difference was visible to me, and I think it is a notable feature of American society and race politics. Football is an odd one. For some reason professional sports in general, both in the UK and the US, can be very socially regressive. For example, there are hardly any out gay footballers either, but you'd be wrong to infer from this that the UK is a massively homophobic country in comparison to others. (We legalized gay marriage before the US did, and through legislation rather than a court decision.) Anyway, these are all complex issues, and "sure buddy" plus a link to a Wikipedia article doesn't really add much to the discussion, does it? Anyone can find innumerable examples of racism in both the US and the UK just by googling.
    - brudgers 6y ago
      The US legalized same sex marriage in 2003 via a ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and it came into effect in 2004. That's ten years prior to the UK. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution made those marriages binding everywhere in the US. Comparing a European country to the US is, in the vast majority of cases, blub provincialism. On the US scale, Qaddafi's atrocities were in every Londoner's back yard. England is the size of Alabama and the western leg of the first US trans-continental railroad was longer than all the high speed rail in France. It's that convenient smugness that glosses over the historical fact that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a European endeavor. Europeans in Europe were turning profit by selling slaves to Europeans in the Americas. And of course, same sex-marriage is still against the adopted policy of the UK's official churches which in 2016 kicked the Episcopalians out for performing same-sex marriages. The same year the Orlando Pride started playing. The next year, they moved along with the Lions to the stadium with the 49 rainbow seats.
torstenvl 6y ago
> put his knee and the full weight of his body on Floyd’s throat for roughly nine minutes I don't see any possible way in which dishonestly stretching the truth will benefit the national conversation. The knee on Floyd's neck was not the only load-bearing point of contact with the ground, i.e., was not bearing Chauvin's full weight; and it was on the side of his neck, not on his throat. That is bad enough without exaggerating.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
foxyv 6y ago
America's racism is kind of lazy and cowardly. It's mostly just leftovers from the 20th century that we keep because no one wants to reverse it all. We have anti-homelessness laws, housing laws, education laws, drug laws and prosecutorial discretion that all target or allow non-overt racial discrimination. On the surface they aren't specific to a racial group like the Jim Crow laws. It's just like: "Oh hey black people are doing this. Let's make that illegal!" (Crack, Loitering, etc...) "Let's give cops and prosecutors the ability to choose who they enforce this law against." (White boys will be boys) "White people already have an advantage in this area. Let's cement that advantage with a carefully planned regulation." (Housing, tax incentives, education system) Then 50 years later we just keep those laws. Now it seems "Normal" to us to say: "School districts should be funded based on standardized test scores." "Credit scores for those who buy a home will be higher than those who pay rent on time." "Student loans should be non-dischargeable so people don't run out on loans after graduating."

5 points by andrenth 6y ago

>The operating thesis of a significant segment of the leadership in these states is that America is a racist nation, governed by a horde of white male supremacists who use the pretense of equality to maintain their superior position. When asked for evidence to support the claim of white supremacy,” the only response I have been given is, “Look all around.” They hold this untruth to be self-evident. I'm sure some are able to offer specific evidence beyond 'look all around' to support their claim.

jfengel 6y ago
Indeed, he seems to be illustrating the point. "I'm not listening, and a major newspaper will publish my failure to listen as news."
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

foldr 6y ago

My home country (UK) has plenty of its own problems with racism, but the one thing that stands out about the US is the level of unquestioned de facto racial segregation in society. For example, I lived for around a year in a smallish town in a very progressive area of Massachusetts. Almost uniformly, waiters in restaurants were white and kitchen staff were Latino. Similarly, the town was almost all white, and almost all of the African Americans in the local area lived in another town. Naturally, all of the white progressives advised me in hushed tones not to live there. Racism is so deeply ingrained in the US that a lot of it simply passes unnoticed. Similarly, a lot of British people are blind to the amount of class snobbery that still exists in British society. Sometimes you need an outsider's perspective to see clearly.

brudgers 6y ago
Sure buddy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Asians_in_association_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Asians_in_association_...
- foldr 6y ago
  I said quite explicitly that the UK also has problems with racism. In any case, a UK/US comparison is not really the main focus of my comment. I'm not saying that the UK is "less racist" than the US. (Amusingly, Brits and Americans are often each equally convinced that the other country is the more racist.) However, I do think that there is de facto racial segregation in the US on a larger scale than there is in the UK. Certainly, this difference was visible to me, and I think it is a notable feature of American society and race politics. Football is an odd one. For some reason professional sports in general, both in the UK and the US, can be very socially regressive. For example, there are hardly any out gay footballers either, but you'd be wrong to infer from this that the UK is a massively homophobic country in comparison to others. (We legalized gay marriage before the US did, and through legislation rather than a court decision.) Anyway, these are all complex issues, and "sure buddy" plus a link to a Wikipedia article doesn't really add much to the discussion, does it? Anyone can find innumerable examples of racism in both the US and the UK just by googling.
  - brudgers 6y ago
    The US legalized same sex marriage in 2003 via a ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and it came into effect in 2004. That's ten years prior to the UK. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution made those marriages binding everywhere in the US. Comparing a European country to the US is, in the vast majority of cases, blub provincialism. On the US scale, Qaddafi's atrocities were in every Londoner's back yard. England is the size of Alabama and the western leg of the first US trans-continental railroad was longer than all the high speed rail in France. It's that convenient smugness that glosses over the historical fact that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a European endeavor. Europeans in Europe were turning profit by selling slaves to Europeans in the Americas. And of course, same sex-marriage is still against the adopted policy of the UK's official churches which in 2016 kicked the Episcopalians out for performing same-sex marriages. The same year the Orlando Pride started playing. The next year, they moved along with the Lions to the stadium with the 49 rainbow seats.

torstenvl 6y ago

> put his knee and the full weight of his body on Floyd’s throat for roughly nine minutes I don't see any possible way in which dishonestly stretching the truth will benefit the national conversation. The knee on Floyd's neck was not the only load-bearing point of contact with the ground, i.e., was not bearing Chauvin's full weight; and it was on the side of his neck, not on his throat. That is bad enough without exaggerating.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

foxyv 6y ago

America's racism is kind of lazy and cowardly. It's mostly just leftovers from the 20th century that we keep because no one wants to reverse it all. We have anti-homelessness laws, housing laws, education laws, drug laws and prosecutorial discretion that all target or allow non-overt racial discrimination. On the surface they aren't specific to a racial group like the Jim Crow laws. It's just like: "Oh hey black people are doing this. Let's make that illegal!" (Crack, Loitering, etc...) "Let's give cops and prosecutors the ability to choose who they enforce this law against." (White boys will be boys) "White people already have an advantage in this area. Let's cement that advantage with a carefully planned regulation." (Housing, tax incentives, education system) Then 50 years later we just keep those laws. Now it seems "Normal" to us to say: "School districts should be funded based on standardized test scores." "Credit scores for those who buy a home will be higher than those who pay rent on time." "Student loans should be non-dischargeable so people don't run out on loans after graduating."