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As far as I can tell, most European cities are predominantly white This is both true, and yet misleading and hence false. Yes, by US racial/ethnic definitions

by rmc 13y ago

As far as I can tell, most European cities are predominantly white This is both true, and yet misleading and hence false. Yes, by US racial/ethnic definitions the majority of european cities are majority 'white'. But we don't use the US categories (of white/black/latino/etc.) here in EU because it's not accurate. In fact EU law claims "The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races."[1], and anti-racism law talks about "racial or ethnic origins"[1] Let's take the UK and their main point of ethnic conflict, Belfast in Northern Ireland. Both the "nationalist/catholic" and "unionist/protestant" communities would be counted as "white" under US racial terminology, but they are 2 different ethnicies. So yes, "most EU cities are white" by US standards, but by EU standards there's a lot of racial/ethnic mixing and conflict, including full on wars (look at what happened in Yugoslavia!) [1] EU law on discrimination http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0043:EN:HTML http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...

rayiner 13y ago
That's certainly a fair point, but would you say that there are axes of diversity in European cities that have properties similar to racial delineations in the U.S.? That is to say, political tensions arising from economic disparity as well as strong cohesion within distinct social groups? I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of European social conflict, but I don't imagine there is a lot of catholic versus protestant tension in say London, nor do I imagine there are persistent and massive socioeconomic disparities between the two groups in London (or at least nothing comparable to the more than factor of 2x disparity between blacks and whites I cited for Chicago). And running with your example, what do you imagine would have been the political situation in the U.K. if say London had consisted of 60-70% Irish nationalist Catholics in 1985? Or is there still discrimination within categories of whites? Are Londoners whose families originally hail from say Poland still dramatically disadvantaged compared to ones who can trace their origins in England for centuries? And if so, what would the politics be in the U.K. if London consisted of 60-70% of these hypothetical disadvantaged poles?
- rmc 13y ago
  And running with your example, what do you imagine would have been the political situation in the U.K. if say London had consisted of 60-70% Irish nationalist Catholics in 1985? Well Ireland was 95% Catholic, and had a terrorist guerilla war and seceeded from the UK in 1922. This often happens in Europe when there are ethnic disagrements (latest example: Kosovo). Or there's policial independence movements (e.g. Catalonia, Scotland). Or is there still discrimination within categories of whites? With regard to Polish people, there has been a lot of Polish migration to UK in the last few years since Poland fully joined the EU. So there'd be loads of "white Polish" families who moved there in the last 10 years. Not exactly comparable. There would be racism against ethnic Polish people. The UK does have a large Indian and Pakistani population, some third generation by now. And yes there can be racism against them. I suppose a pedant would claim the US racial definitions are still relevant by claiming things are different, but social and legally racism against Polish people, and Pakistani people would be seen as quite similar, not different types of discrimination. "They took our jobs" would a common type of discrimination in the UK against "white" migrants from Eastern & Central Europe. Racism between, what in the USA would be considered, "whites" does happen in Europe.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    What's the magnitude of the discrimination within categories of whites? Do white British make twice as much as white ethnic Polish? Do white British barely ever associate with white ethnic Polish in private gatherings? Do white British cross the street when passing by a white ethnic Polish at night? Are their schools that are 90% white polish? Do the info pages for individual schools in London prominently display "country of origin" information, so white British can ensure they don't accidentally send their kids to a school that's 90% white ethnic Polish? http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?SchoolId=609951 http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?SchoolId=609951. Or are Poles in London seen like say Jews in the U.S.? Sometimes the butt of a mean joke or nasty comment, but otherwise not situated fundamentally different from the majority group?
    - rmc 13y ago
      Eek, that seems pretty racist. Though in Northern Ireland they do separate the schools (they've been trying to stop that), and there is quotas for public jobs (though mostly because they had a long history of having a quota of 0 for one side). Remember, Europe and the USA are different and have had different histories. Europe has had a slightly different history of racial discrimination than USA. The have literally been wars.
rowanseymour 13y ago
Not sure if my homeland Northern Ireland is good example for defining ethnicity. I've rarely heard anyone talk about our "two communities" as ethnic groups, and even your own descriptions are political (Unionist/Nationalist) and religious (Protestant/Catholic). Ethnicity is not a clearly defined term and in a "post-conflict" place like Northern Ireland, I think we intentionally avoid terminology which can encourage a sense of division. It also suffers from the same deficiency as the word "race" when it comes to mixing. Even if we can say that this community predominantly came from English and Scottish settlers and this community predominantly came from "native" Irish, how many people today can say that they only have ancestors from one of those two?
- rmc 13y ago
  Ethnicity is not a clearly defined term Oh I know. There is lots of disagreements about if subset of humanity X or Y counts as a different ethnicity (Irish Travellers are view as a separate ethnicity in UK, but not Ireland for example). However the existance of disagreements, nor a clear definition doesn't mean the word is useless.
tsotha 13y ago
>In fact EU law claims "The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races."[1], and anti-racism law talks about "racial or ethnic origins"[1] Very clever. "We'll deal with the subject by pretending it doesn't exist!"
- rmc 13y ago
  Oh they don't pretend it doesn't exist. The link is, effectively an EU anti-racism law. It's just that it's not based on biological race, but on "racial or ethnic origin".
  - tsotha 13y ago
    I can see ethnic origin not being biological, but how can racial origin and biological race be different things?
    - rmc 13y ago
      It's "(racial or ethnic) origin", not "(racial origin) or (ethnic origin)".
      - tsotha 13y ago
        You realize both phrases evaluate in exactly the same way?
  - jordanb 13y ago
    Official racial identification in America is based on self-identification. The data from these maps came from people filling out a form saying what race they are. On modern census forms, people are allowed to choose multiple races, and the same holds for ethnic origin. Some of the comments here seem to suggest that these maps come from measuring craniums and all that. Fortunately that's one horror that didn't survive the boat trip across the ocean.
    - rmc 13y ago

by rmc 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

That's certainly a fair point, but would you say that there are axes of diversity in European cities that have properties similar to racial delineations in the U.S.? That is to say, political tensions arising from economic disparity as well as strong cohesion within distinct social groups? I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of European social conflict, but I don't imagine there is a lot of catholic versus protestant tension in say London, nor do I imagine there are persistent and massive socioeconomic disparities between the two groups in London (or at least nothing comparable to the more than factor of 2x disparity between blacks and whites I cited for Chicago). And running with your example, what do you imagine would have been the political situation in the U.K. if say London had consisted of 60-70% Irish nationalist Catholics in 1985? Or is there still discrimination within categories of whites? Are Londoners whose families originally hail from say Poland still dramatically disadvantaged compared to ones who can trace their origins in England for centuries? And if so, what would the politics be in the U.K. if London consisted of 60-70% of these hypothetical disadvantaged poles?

rmc 13y ago
And running with your example, what do you imagine would have been the political situation in the U.K. if say London had consisted of 60-70% Irish nationalist Catholics in 1985? Well Ireland was 95% Catholic, and had a terrorist guerilla war and seceeded from the UK in 1922. This often happens in Europe when there are ethnic disagrements (latest example: Kosovo). Or there's policial independence movements (e.g. Catalonia, Scotland). Or is there still discrimination within categories of whites? With regard to Polish people, there has been a lot of Polish migration to UK in the last few years since Poland fully joined the EU. So there'd be loads of "white Polish" families who moved there in the last 10 years. Not exactly comparable. There would be racism against ethnic Polish people. The UK does have a large Indian and Pakistani population, some third generation by now. And yes there can be racism against them. I suppose a pedant would claim the US racial definitions are still relevant by claiming things are different, but social and legally racism against Polish people, and Pakistani people would be seen as quite similar, not different types of discrimination. "They took our jobs" would a common type of discrimination in the UK against "white" migrants from Eastern & Central Europe. Racism between, what in the USA would be considered, "whites" does happen in Europe.
- rayiner 13y ago
  What's the magnitude of the discrimination within categories of whites? Do white British make twice as much as white ethnic Polish? Do white British barely ever associate with white ethnic Polish in private gatherings? Do white British cross the street when passing by a white ethnic Polish at night? Are their schools that are 90% white polish? Do the info pages for individual schools in London prominently display "country of origin" information, so white British can ensure they don't accidentally send their kids to a school that's 90% white ethnic Polish? http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?SchoolId=609951 http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?SchoolId=609951. Or are Poles in London seen like say Jews in the U.S.? Sometimes the butt of a mean joke or nasty comment, but otherwise not situated fundamentally different from the majority group?
  - rmc 13y ago
    Eek, that seems pretty racist. Though in Northern Ireland they do separate the schools (they've been trying to stop that), and there is quotas for public jobs (though mostly because they had a long history of having a quota of 0 for one side). Remember, Europe and the USA are different and have had different histories. Europe has had a slightly different history of racial discrimination than USA. The have literally been wars.

rowanseymour 13y ago

Not sure if my homeland Northern Ireland is good example for defining ethnicity. I've rarely heard anyone talk about our "two communities" as ethnic groups, and even your own descriptions are political (Unionist/Nationalist) and religious (Protestant/Catholic). Ethnicity is not a clearly defined term and in a "post-conflict" place like Northern Ireland, I think we intentionally avoid terminology which can encourage a sense of division. It also suffers from the same deficiency as the word "race" when it comes to mixing. Even if we can say that this community predominantly came from English and Scottish settlers and this community predominantly came from "native" Irish, how many people today can say that they only have ancestors from one of those two?

rmc 13y ago
Ethnicity is not a clearly defined term Oh I know. There is lots of disagreements about if subset of humanity X or Y counts as a different ethnicity (Irish Travellers are view as a separate ethnicity in UK, but not Ireland for example). However the existance of disagreements, nor a clear definition doesn't mean the word is useless.

tsotha 13y ago

>In fact EU law claims "The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races."[1], and anti-racism law talks about "racial or ethnic origins"[1] Very clever. "We'll deal with the subject by pretending it doesn't exist!"

rmc 13y ago
Oh they don't pretend it doesn't exist. The link is, effectively an EU anti-racism law. It's just that it's not based on biological race, but on "racial or ethnic origin".
- tsotha 13y ago
  I can see ethnic origin not being biological, but how can racial origin and biological race be different things?
  - rmc 13y ago
    It's "(racial or ethnic) origin", not "(racial origin) or (ethnic origin)".
    - tsotha 13y ago
      You realize both phrases evaluate in exactly the same way?
- jordanb 13y ago
  Official racial identification in America is based on self-identification. The data from these maps came from people filling out a form saying what race they are. On modern census forms, people are allowed to choose multiple races, and the same holds for ethnic origin. Some of the comments here seem to suggest that these maps come from measuring craniums and all that. Fortunately that's one horror that didn't survive the boat trip across the ocean.
  - rmc 13y ago