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It's a common response on Reddit that Europe is far more racist than America because they're blind to their own problems.
by thereare5lights 5y ago
It's a common response on Reddit that Europe is far more racist than America because they're blind to their own problems.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoThe trouble with engaging in good faith with that kind of ideology is that it's often used, deliberately or otherwise, to obscure class conflict. Because racial tensions are seen as both more personal and more impossible to solve than class tensions, it tends to drag the conversation out of the realm where solutions could even be proposed. Funnily enough that bit of obfuscation seems to mostly benefit people with enough family wealth to afford a degree at an American university[1]. I had a very off-putting exchange with a redditor in which I argued that the class interests of the working poor and those dependent on welfare were quite different, and that this explained much of the demographic fault-lines in the 2016 election. He immediately accused me of equating ethnic minorities with the welfare class, despite the fact the Trump administration was at the time very publicly talking about the recent drop in black unemployment. For all of the Reddit community's talk about acknowledging one's own problems, the fact that he personally was equating black people with unemployment and his political enemies were doing the opposite wasn't something he could consciously engage with. "America has a racism problem, but only the half I don't identify with". I don't doubt that kind of projection is present all over the place where this subject comes up. [1]I wouldn't be surprised if the fact much of Europe subsidises post secondary education contributes to the fact that the debate is different there - not enough of a class marker if you don't need a private tutor to make it over the line.