14 ms·

Yup, minority here, and I wouldn't feel comfortable living anywhere except the US, Canada, the UK, and maybe ANZ. The Anglo-world in general is far more welcomi

by bhupy 4y ago

Yup, minority here, and I wouldn't feel comfortable living anywhere except the US, Canada, the UK, and maybe ANZ. The Anglo-world in general is far more welcoming to people of color than anywhere else. I'm sure I could be comfortable wherever I am in the world, but it would be extremely difficult for me to thrive and see myself in a position of leadership (either in the private sector or the government) anywhere outside of those countries. There's a famous quote (perhaps apocryphally) attributed to Reagan: "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American." As a brown man, I feel this viscerally; I am not only deeply proud to be American, but I feel accepted as an American by my non-immigrant peers. I think the nuanced way of putting it isn't so much that "America is not racist", it's that every country in the world deals with racism as a problem, but America is perhaps among the least racist.

dboreham 4y ago
Probably biased, but as someone who grew up in the UK then lived in the US for 20 years, the US seems orders of magnitude more racist.
starkd 4y ago
I think we have a biological tendency to be somewhat racist, but among every person that I've met who could be classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. I say, marginally racist, because I have never met a full-fledged racist (in U.S. here). Peronally, I think they are a very small insular group, if they exist at all.
- latexr 4y ago
  > Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. Daryl Davis¹, through conversation, convinced a number of Klansmen to leave and denounce the KKK. See “Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America”². ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Courtesy:_Daryl_Davis,_Race_%26_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Courtesy:_Daryl_Dav...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  > Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. An exception like "oh well you're one of the good ones"? > I have never met a full-fledged racist (in U.S. here). Peronally, I think they are a very small insular group, if they exist at all. Talk to old people if you want some disappointment then.
  - starkd 4y ago
    The "exceptions" is where racist attitudes get broken down. It creates the cognitive dissonance. It doesn't happen right away, but its a significant step in the right direction. Yes. This includes most "old people". A lot of the talk an jabs or using racial epithets is superficial when you get right down to it. At least, in my experience.
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      Well allow me to throw my two anecotes into the ring. My grandfather is an asian immigrant who dreamed of coming to the US, which he did late in life. He died in a hospital angrily denying help from black staff members. My grandmother is a sweet old italian lady. She got real mad when one of her grandkids started dating a black guy. She doesn't believe in mixed race couples / people. I'm mixed race but of course I'm "One of the good ones" largely because I'm whiteish. I assure you her liking me has not changed her general opinion at all. They're very nice at the surface level. You wouldn't expect it, but oh boy was it there an it was deep. I really, really do not believe that the racial epithets are superficial. It's not a uniquely old person problem by any definition, but it's extremely common.
      - starkd 4y ago
        My main concern is that people are not held back because of it. At some point, everyone needs to develop an innate resiliance (a thick skin) in how they deal with negativity. I think that, in the U.S. at least, there is a greater danger of a social thought-police where people feel like they can't say what they think. When my grandmother was dying in a hospital, she had some dementia. I don't think she ever uttered a racial epithet to anyone in her whole life, but one day a hospital worker was trying to clean her room up and making a bit of a commotion, she sat up and told him to go away, that she did not like black people. We apolized to the man who seemed to understand the situation. My point is that people are complicated, sometimes they say things on reflex they would not say in a healthier more positive frame of mind.
- christophilus 4y ago
  They exist. I once helped a needy young man in Seattle by taking him to get some food. The lady at the checkout counter was black, and oh, man did he spout some shit. It turned out he was a legit neonazi. I actually picked his brain for quite a while to get an idea of the “why” behind things. Anyway, this experience is the reason I roll my eyes when someone calls ____ a nazi. There are legit nazis in the world, and they’re a truly unpleasant bunch.
  - starkd 4y ago
    I don't deny they exist, but they have been marginalized in society. They don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back.
    - foobarbecue 4y ago
      The problem isn't overt racists so much as subtle, persistent bias, which absolutely holds people back in very significant ways. See my comment about my grandmother. And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. Oh yeah, I just remembered, we also recently had a president for four years who was overly racist. Remember his attacks on Judge Curiel? Remember Mexicans "are rapists"?
      - starkd 4y ago
        Not true. Any body can understand it. It's a basic human empathy characteristic. Telling people they are not in a position to know anything about it, is merely an attempt at thought control by disregarding their opinions. It's not really a discussion.
        tpoacher 4y ago
        Indeed. This is the fallacy of special pleading: https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading.html https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading....
        4y ago
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  Racism is often subtle and insidious. I'll never forget asking my grandma what she thought of Obama when he was running for president the first time. She said "I like his ideas, but he just doesn't... LOOK right." The dog whistle version of this, which you heard public figures using on TV, was "he doesn't look presidential."
  - starkd 4y ago
    That seems like mind-reading on your part. Even if you are partially right, any individual's thoughts on this are generally more complex and likely to be expressed in different ways on any given day, and in the long term, tend to shift in ways that aren't easy to map.
    - foobarbecue 4y ago
      Am I missing something? Did you know my grandmother?
  - bhupy 4y ago
    Even assuming that your grandma was coming from a place of racial animus (itself debatable), nobody is arguing that America is devoid of racism — there's no country on Earth that has truly eradicated racism. The real point is that the conversation you described happens ten times over in most peer developed countries. If you think it's bad that a few people say this about Obama (who ultimately was elected President twice), imagine what it's like running for office as a person of color in France, Germany, the Nordics, Japan, South Korea, or Italy — it's nigh impossible. Whereas in America, the kind of racism you're describing has been relegated to retirees and people who generally lack power, in Europe, this kind of thinking persists in board rooms, popular culture, and even the British Royal Family (just ask Meghan Markle) — institutions with real cultural influence and power. Ultimately, while racism continues to be a problem in America, it's much further along in solving that problem than pretty much any other developed country, save for maybe Canada, the UK, and ANZ.
    - foobarbecue 4y ago
- pixl97 4y ago
  >classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. As someone that moved to a very very racist part of the US in their teens (near a sundown town), this is by far the most scary statement you could write. I believe you would be far more concerned if you understood the enormity of it when you look at it in the converse. This person you mention that creates an exception 'for one of the good ones' will also create an exception for their buddy when they lynch someone and they just forget to tell the police about it. I recommend 'Neoslavery' by Knowing Better as a little chunk of more recent American history a lot of people would like to erase. Racism runs very deep in some places. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA
  - starkd 4y ago
    When is the last time a racial lynching happened that was not prosecuted or was utterly ignored by the local authorities? I don't deny such attitudes. But I would be suprised if such attitudes extended to a complete abnegation of local authority to prosecute a lynching. Even in a sundown town.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Let's turn around and say "When was the last 'lynching' that WAS the authorities?" If George Floyd's murder had not been filmed Derek Chauvin would still be on the police force and not in prison. This is why you should watch the video attached in my previous reply. Especially in the south the local authorities were actively involved in gathering slaves (remember prison slavery is legal to this day in the US).
      - starkd 4y ago
        First, Derek Chauvin was prosecuted, and not just because there was video evidence. Every time a black person gets shot by the police (even when it is justified) we still know about it. There have been other such situations that were investigated. They are not ignored. Second, George Floyd was not "lynched". It's even debateable if there were even racial motivations to the case. He ultimately died of a fentanyl overdose, and there is video evidence he was out of control at the time. Not to excuse Chauvin, but I'm not going to try to read his mind or judge his character on the basis that "he looks like a white supremicist" sitting in court. Saying cases exist but we simply don't know about it, is dodging the question. You can't prove a negative. That's just being disingenuous. Where is the proof that lynchings are occuring but they are just being swept under the rug?
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  No, sorry, no. When you put two children together at age 3, they play together, skin color is definitely out of consideration.
- rektide 4y ago
  A lot of this feels too much for me, as semi-dismissive of problematic & discrimatory parts of folk. One thing that I like a lot though is, > Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. Shifting somewhat off race, one of my biggest hopes with some of the covid / work-remote urban-to-rural diapora is that- by finally having some reverse brain drain- less urban places might finally see & hear from some more diverse people. Some cultural mixing & injection of other people can (I hope) add some empathy & sense in places that have had fewer & fewer huddling together & weathering the slow-but-ever-ongoing worldwide march of economic-stratification.
rayiner 4y ago
The Reagan quote is great. I was talking with my dad about this the other day. He pointed out that he’s been called “bideshi” (the Bangla word for foreigner) while traveling in a different village in Bangladesh than the one his family is from.
- bhupy 4y ago
  Yup, I'm from India, and I'm now considered "firaang" (foreigner) — even my own people won't fully accept me! "ABCD" is an acceptable pejorative, because the culture is by and for the people that were born and raised in India, and they won't have it any other way. In America, as long as you're a hard worker, believe in America's institutions, and are civically engaged, it doesn't matter where you're from, you will eventually be accepted as "American", and if anyone were to suggest otherwise, they'd likely get ostracized by most (if not all) institutions that hold power/influence.
mping 4y ago
I'm glad for you, but that quote is a huge simplification of a nuanced theme. Maybe it's hard for a completely different ethnicity to become parisienne, but I'm sure France is a big country. Maybe it applies to Japan, but not to Spain. Etc. I have been to America and it feels lots of different countries living in the same place, not necessarily a good thing. Again it's a subject full of nuances, but I have seen different people being completely integrated after just a single generation. What I think is relevant is how much a culture is exposed and capable of absorb different people from different cultures.
ignoramous 4y ago
I presume your sense of belonging may have something do with your socio-economic status.
- bhupy 4y ago
  It certainly does! But that's different from racism, which is the entire point. I have never felt like my race has been a barrier to reaching my current socio-economic status, and do not believe there to be some magic socio-economic ceiling imposed by the accident of my skin color / heritage. A middle-class Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Latino doesn't have much (if any) disadvantage relative to a white American from West Virginia or Alabama of the same economic status. This has been true for pretty much every group of immigrants to America. I recommend reading this thread which makes the argument better than I ever could: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 > The American immigrant story -- arrive with little, work hard and move up over three or four generations, win a place in the middle class and a place in the national tapestry even in the face of discrimination -- is still firmly in place, folks. And it's easy to take this for granted, as Americans, but this kind of economic convergence within 3-4 generations is not universal. Muslim immigrants to France suffer from multi-generational poverty. I know for a fact that if I tried hard enough, I could become the CEO of Google (like Sundar) or the CEO of Microsoft (like Satya), or even "fail" into a Director/VP position at any Fortune 500 corporation. I know I can probably become the Mayor of a major city, or a Governor of a major State, or even a member of Congress. I know that my Indian-American wife who is accomplished in her own right can potentially become the CEO of Vimeo (look her up!). I know I can probably become a star stand-up comedian (like Hasan, Hari, or Aziz). I know I can probably become a star actor in a Hollywood Blockbuster (like Mindy or Kal). I type this comment while on vacation in Stockholm, where the streets are currently littered with campaign posters for the upcoming election in September 2022, and I do not believe that I or my children can ever see ourselves on those posters and be accepted as Swedish — no matter how hard we tried. I'm not confident that I'd ever be considered to meaningfully lead H&M or Ikea or Volvo, at least not over a white blonde Swedish person with generations of Nordic lineage. As I said above, I'm sure I'd be comfortable living in Sweden — it's a remarkably easy place to live — but my success is capped by the color of my skin in a way that it simply isn't in America (or Canada, UK, and maybe ANZ).
lettergram 4y ago
People on the right in the US tend to say everywhere in the world has ethnicities underlying their social fabric. America has a constitution. That’s part of why you see such frustration on the right when people oppose things listed in the constitution (gun rights, censorship of any kind, etc). In their world view, it’s an assault on America. It’s why they call the left un-American. It’s also why the left in the US always refers to “our democracy”, in their world view the US is a “multi-cultural democracy” (not a constitutional republic - which it technically is). Both parties tapping into the same mojo
benhurmarcel 4y ago
> You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman It's quite contradictory with what happens in practice. You can absolutely go live in France and be considered a Frenchman. However Americans will always identify you by your family's origin, even if you're born in the US. Actually that difference in how countries see nationality was well illustrated when France won the soccer World Cup, and American commenters didn't see an issue with denying the French players they belonging to their country, and insisting they were from Africa and couldn't have changed that because of their ancestry. The French saw that as profoundly racist. See https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/trevor-noah-france-french-ambassador-araud-world-cup https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/t...
- bhupy 4y ago
  Oh yeah, Trevor Noah doesn't speak for me, and I (and many minorities, especially most Asians and Latinos) find his brand of progressivism to be the exact opposite of what we think America should be about. The author of the Vox piece you linked says just as much: > "After the 2016 election, Columbia University professor Mark Lilla wrote a New York Times essay, “The End of Identity Liberalism,” making an argument similar to Araud’s (a piece that also follows a long tradition of liberal hand-wringing about identity in the US). In the piece, Lilla even cited his time taking a sabbatical in France as formative of his opinions on this subject. > American liberalism’s emphasis on identity and difference, Lilla argues, is destroying the foundations of democracy in the country — helping the far right in precisely the way that Araud says To be absolutely clear, I don't deny that modern American liberals employ rhetoric directly at odds with Reagan's quote, it's in fact exactly the point I'm trying to make. You can pretty much draw a straight line from that brand of progressivism to the predisposition to draw the (in my opinion false) conclusion that America is more racist than other peer countries. From my experience as a 1st-generation immigrant, that has been not only false, but I see my success as mostly being capped by the color of my skin in every other country except for the US, UK, Canada, and ANZ. I know that to hold true for basically 100% of my peers as well. You don't just have to take my word for it, it's been true for pretty much every single immigrant group in American history. I recommend reading this thread which makes the argument better than I ever could: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 > The American immigrant story -- arrive with little, work hard and move up over three or four generations, win a place in the middle class and a place in the national tapestry even in the face of discrimination -- is still firmly in place, folks. American progressives (especially those like Trevor Noah) take this for granted in the world, and tend to undervalue just how unique it is; this kind of economic convergence within 3-4 generations is extremely atypical in the developed world. It's well and good that a handful of Africans go on to become successful football players in France, but normal non-athletic Muslim immigrants to France actually tend to suffer from multi-generational poverty. Also, while the Vox piece you linked paints the French as tolerant and proud of their footballers, scandalized by Trevor Noah, the reality is a bit more complicated: https://twitter.com/footballfactly/status/1021133330530484225 https://twitter.com/footballfactly/status/102113333053048422.... Across Europe, footballers of color are only conditionally accepted.

by bhupy 4y ago

dboreham 4y ago

Probably biased, but as someone who grew up in the UK then lived in the US for 20 years, the US seems orders of magnitude more racist.

starkd 4y ago

I think we have a biological tendency to be somewhat racist, but among every person that I've met who could be classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. I say, marginally racist, because I have never met a full-fledged racist (in U.S. here). Peronally, I think they are a very small insular group, if they exist at all.

latexr 4y ago
> Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. Daryl Davis¹, through conversation, convinced a number of Klansmen to leave and denounce the KKK. See “Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America”². ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Courtesy:_Daryl_Davis,_Race_%26_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Courtesy:_Daryl_Dav...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
spywaregorilla 4y ago
> Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. An exception like "oh well you're one of the good ones"? > I have never met a full-fledged racist (in U.S. here). Peronally, I think they are a very small insular group, if they exist at all. Talk to old people if you want some disappointment then.
- starkd 4y ago
  The "exceptions" is where racist attitudes get broken down. It creates the cognitive dissonance. It doesn't happen right away, but its a significant step in the right direction. Yes. This includes most "old people". A lot of the talk an jabs or using racial epithets is superficial when you get right down to it. At least, in my experience.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Well allow me to throw my two anecotes into the ring. My grandfather is an asian immigrant who dreamed of coming to the US, which he did late in life. He died in a hospital angrily denying help from black staff members. My grandmother is a sweet old italian lady. She got real mad when one of her grandkids started dating a black guy. She doesn't believe in mixed race couples / people. I'm mixed race but of course I'm "One of the good ones" largely because I'm whiteish. I assure you her liking me has not changed her general opinion at all. They're very nice at the surface level. You wouldn't expect it, but oh boy was it there an it was deep. I really, really do not believe that the racial epithets are superficial. It's not a uniquely old person problem by any definition, but it's extremely common.
    - starkd 4y ago
      My main concern is that people are not held back because of it. At some point, everyone needs to develop an innate resiliance (a thick skin) in how they deal with negativity. I think that, in the U.S. at least, there is a greater danger of a social thought-police where people feel like they can't say what they think. When my grandmother was dying in a hospital, she had some dementia. I don't think she ever uttered a racial epithet to anyone in her whole life, but one day a hospital worker was trying to clean her room up and making a bit of a commotion, she sat up and told him to go away, that she did not like black people. We apolized to the man who seemed to understand the situation. My point is that people are complicated, sometimes they say things on reflex they would not say in a healthier more positive frame of mind.
christophilus 4y ago
They exist. I once helped a needy young man in Seattle by taking him to get some food. The lady at the checkout counter was black, and oh, man did he spout some shit. It turned out he was a legit neonazi. I actually picked his brain for quite a while to get an idea of the “why” behind things. Anyway, this experience is the reason I roll my eyes when someone calls ____ a nazi. There are legit nazis in the world, and they’re a truly unpleasant bunch.
- starkd 4y ago
  I don't deny they exist, but they have been marginalized in society. They don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back.
  - foobarbecue 4y ago
    The problem isn't overt racists so much as subtle, persistent bias, which absolutely holds people back in very significant ways. See my comment about my grandmother. And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. Oh yeah, I just remembered, we also recently had a president for four years who was overly racist. Remember his attacks on Judge Curiel? Remember Mexicans "are rapists"?
    - starkd 4y ago
      Not true. Any body can understand it. It's a basic human empathy characteristic. Telling people they are not in a position to know anything about it, is merely an attempt at thought control by disregarding their opinions. It's not really a discussion.
      - tpoacher 4y ago
        Indeed. This is the fallacy of special pleading: https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading.html https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading....
      - 4y ago
foobarbecue 4y ago
Racism is often subtle and insidious. I'll never forget asking my grandma what she thought of Obama when he was running for president the first time. She said "I like his ideas, but he just doesn't... LOOK right." The dog whistle version of this, which you heard public figures using on TV, was "he doesn't look presidential."
- starkd 4y ago
  That seems like mind-reading on your part. Even if you are partially right, any individual's thoughts on this are generally more complex and likely to be expressed in different ways on any given day, and in the long term, tend to shift in ways that aren't easy to map.
  - foobarbecue 4y ago
    Am I missing something? Did you know my grandmother?
- bhupy 4y ago
  Even assuming that your grandma was coming from a place of racial animus (itself debatable), nobody is arguing that America is devoid of racism — there's no country on Earth that has truly eradicated racism. The real point is that the conversation you described happens ten times over in most peer developed countries. If you think it's bad that a few people say this about Obama (who ultimately was elected President twice), imagine what it's like running for office as a person of color in France, Germany, the Nordics, Japan, South Korea, or Italy — it's nigh impossible. Whereas in America, the kind of racism you're describing has been relegated to retirees and people who generally lack power, in Europe, this kind of thinking persists in board rooms, popular culture, and even the British Royal Family (just ask Meghan Markle) — institutions with real cultural influence and power. Ultimately, while racism continues to be a problem in America, it's much further along in solving that problem than pretty much any other developed country, save for maybe Canada, the UK, and ANZ.
  - foobarbecue 4y ago
pixl97 4y ago
>classed as being marginally racist, usually they do not really mean the things they say. As someone that moved to a very very racist part of the US in their teens (near a sundown town), this is by far the most scary statement you could write. I believe you would be far more concerned if you understood the enormity of it when you look at it in the converse. This person you mention that creates an exception 'for one of the good ones' will also create an exception for their buddy when they lynch someone and they just forget to tell the police about it. I recommend 'Neoslavery' by Knowing Better as a little chunk of more recent American history a lot of people would like to erase. Racism runs very deep in some places. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA
- starkd 4y ago
  When is the last time a racial lynching happened that was not prosecuted or was utterly ignored by the local authorities? I don't deny such attitudes. But I would be suprised if such attitudes extended to a complete abnegation of local authority to prosecute a lynching. Even in a sundown town.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Let's turn around and say "When was the last 'lynching' that WAS the authorities?" If George Floyd's murder had not been filmed Derek Chauvin would still be on the police force and not in prison. This is why you should watch the video attached in my previous reply. Especially in the south the local authorities were actively involved in gathering slaves (remember prison slavery is legal to this day in the US).
    - starkd 4y ago
      First, Derek Chauvin was prosecuted, and not just because there was video evidence. Every time a black person gets shot by the police (even when it is justified) we still know about it. There have been other such situations that were investigated. They are not ignored. Second, George Floyd was not "lynched". It's even debateable if there were even racial motivations to the case. He ultimately died of a fentanyl overdose, and there is video evidence he was out of control at the time. Not to excuse Chauvin, but I'm not going to try to read his mind or judge his character on the basis that "he looks like a white supremicist" sitting in court. Saying cases exist but we simply don't know about it, is dodging the question. You can't prove a negative. That's just being disingenuous. Where is the proof that lynchings are occuring but they are just being swept under the rug?
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
No, sorry, no. When you put two children together at age 3, they play together, skin color is definitely out of consideration.
rektide 4y ago
A lot of this feels too much for me, as semi-dismissive of problematic & discrimatory parts of folk. One thing that I like a lot though is, > Nearly every one of them will create an exception once they have a reasonable conversation with someone from another race. Shifting somewhat off race, one of my biggest hopes with some of the covid / work-remote urban-to-rural diapora is that- by finally having some reverse brain drain- less urban places might finally see & hear from some more diverse people. Some cultural mixing & injection of other people can (I hope) add some empathy & sense in places that have had fewer & fewer huddling together & weathering the slow-but-ever-ongoing worldwide march of economic-stratification.

rayiner 4y ago

The Reagan quote is great. I was talking with my dad about this the other day. He pointed out that he’s been called “bideshi” (the Bangla word for foreigner) while traveling in a different village in Bangladesh than the one his family is from.

bhupy 4y ago
Yup, I'm from India, and I'm now considered "firaang" (foreigner) — even my own people won't fully accept me! "ABCD" is an acceptable pejorative, because the culture is by and for the people that were born and raised in India, and they won't have it any other way. In America, as long as you're a hard worker, believe in America's institutions, and are civically engaged, it doesn't matter where you're from, you will eventually be accepted as "American", and if anyone were to suggest otherwise, they'd likely get ostracized by most (if not all) institutions that hold power/influence.

mping 4y ago

I'm glad for you, but that quote is a huge simplification of a nuanced theme. Maybe it's hard for a completely different ethnicity to become parisienne, but I'm sure France is a big country. Maybe it applies to Japan, but not to Spain. Etc. I have been to America and it feels lots of different countries living in the same place, not necessarily a good thing. Again it's a subject full of nuances, but I have seen different people being completely integrated after just a single generation. What I think is relevant is how much a culture is exposed and capable of absorb different people from different cultures.

ignoramous 4y ago

I presume your sense of belonging may have something do with your socio-economic status.

bhupy 4y ago
It certainly does! But that's different from racism, which is the entire point. I have never felt like my race has been a barrier to reaching my current socio-economic status, and do not believe there to be some magic socio-economic ceiling imposed by the accident of my skin color / heritage. A middle-class Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Latino doesn't have much (if any) disadvantage relative to a white American from West Virginia or Alabama of the same economic status. This has been true for pretty much every group of immigrants to America. I recommend reading this thread which makes the argument better than I ever could: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 > The American immigrant story -- arrive with little, work hard and move up over three or four generations, win a place in the middle class and a place in the national tapestry even in the face of discrimination -- is still firmly in place, folks. And it's easy to take this for granted, as Americans, but this kind of economic convergence within 3-4 generations is not universal. Muslim immigrants to France suffer from multi-generational poverty. I know for a fact that if I tried hard enough, I could become the CEO of Google (like Sundar) or the CEO of Microsoft (like Satya), or even "fail" into a Director/VP position at any Fortune 500 corporation. I know I can probably become the Mayor of a major city, or a Governor of a major State, or even a member of Congress. I know that my Indian-American wife who is accomplished in her own right can potentially become the CEO of Vimeo (look her up!). I know I can probably become a star stand-up comedian (like Hasan, Hari, or Aziz). I know I can probably become a star actor in a Hollywood Blockbuster (like Mindy or Kal). I type this comment while on vacation in Stockholm, where the streets are currently littered with campaign posters for the upcoming election in September 2022, and I do not believe that I or my children can ever see ourselves on those posters and be accepted as Swedish — no matter how hard we tried. I'm not confident that I'd ever be considered to meaningfully lead H&M or Ikea or Volvo, at least not over a white blonde Swedish person with generations of Nordic lineage. As I said above, I'm sure I'd be comfortable living in Sweden — it's a remarkably easy place to live — but my success is capped by the color of my skin in a way that it simply isn't in America (or Canada, UK, and maybe ANZ).

lettergram 4y ago

People on the right in the US tend to say everywhere in the world has ethnicities underlying their social fabric. America has a constitution. That’s part of why you see such frustration on the right when people oppose things listed in the constitution (gun rights, censorship of any kind, etc). In their world view, it’s an assault on America. It’s why they call the left un-American. It’s also why the left in the US always refers to “our democracy”, in their world view the US is a “multi-cultural democracy” (not a constitutional republic - which it technically is). Both parties tapping into the same mojo

benhurmarcel 4y ago

> You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman It's quite contradictory with what happens in practice. You can absolutely go live in France and be considered a Frenchman. However Americans will always identify you by your family's origin, even if you're born in the US. Actually that difference in how countries see nationality was well illustrated when France won the soccer World Cup, and American commenters didn't see an issue with denying the French players they belonging to their country, and insisting they were from Africa and couldn't have changed that because of their ancestry. The French saw that as profoundly racist. See https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/trevor-noah-france-french-ambassador-araud-world-cup https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/t...

bhupy 4y ago
Oh yeah, Trevor Noah doesn't speak for me, and I (and many minorities, especially most Asians and Latinos) find his brand of progressivism to be the exact opposite of what we think America should be about. The author of the Vox piece you linked says just as much: > "After the 2016 election, Columbia University professor Mark Lilla wrote a New York Times essay, “The End of Identity Liberalism,” making an argument similar to Araud’s (a piece that also follows a long tradition of liberal hand-wringing about identity in the US). In the piece, Lilla even cited his time taking a sabbatical in France as formative of his opinions on this subject. > American liberalism’s emphasis on identity and difference, Lilla argues, is destroying the foundations of democracy in the country — helping the far right in precisely the way that Araud says To be absolutely clear, I don't deny that modern American liberals employ rhetoric directly at odds with Reagan's quote, it's in fact exactly the point I'm trying to make. You can pretty much draw a straight line from that brand of progressivism to the predisposition to draw the (in my opinion false) conclusion that America is more racist than other peer countries. From my experience as a 1st-generation immigrant, that has been not only false, but I see my success as mostly being capped by the color of my skin in every other country except for the US, UK, Canada, and ANZ. I know that to hold true for basically 100% of my peers as well. You don't just have to take my word for it, it's been true for pretty much every single immigrant group in American history. I recommend reading this thread which makes the argument better than I ever could: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1469031915768279045 > The American immigrant story -- arrive with little, work hard and move up over three or four generations, win a place in the middle class and a place in the national tapestry even in the face of discrimination -- is still firmly in place, folks. American progressives (especially those like Trevor Noah) take this for granted in the world, and tend to undervalue just how unique it is; this kind of economic convergence within 3-4 generations is extremely atypical in the developed world. It's well and good that a handful of Africans go on to become successful football players in France, but normal non-athletic Muslim immigrants to France actually tend to suffer from multi-generational poverty. Also, while the Vox piece you linked paints the French as tolerant and proud of their footballers, scandalized by Trevor Noah, the reality is a bit more complicated: https://twitter.com/footballfactly/status/1021133330530484225 https://twitter.com/footballfactly/status/102113333053048422.... Across Europe, footballers of color are only conditionally accepted.