+1 from Australia. Our police kill more white people in custody per capita than black.
I'm so over hearing about this bullshit here. The aboriginal people of Australia face real problems. The police isn't one of them.
PS, keep your debates to yourselves too. Nobody cares and your media cutting Trump out of context is obvious and gross. You are literally becoming the fake news he always said you were.
Right, because there are 10x more aboriginal people in prison, that's not racist policing, that's just natural, is that what you're saying?
“There is a sadly high level of Indigenous incarceration, I think it’s about 30% compared to 3% of the population,” Mitchell said, while interviewing the prime minister on Thursday. “But black deaths in custody, I mean, that’s, that’s a furphy, isn’t it? I mean, since the royal commission, as I saw it, there have been fewer Indigenous people, per head of prison population, dying in custody than have white people?”
Morrison replied: “That is welcome news.”
However, the death rate per prisoner is only part of the story. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 10 times more likely to die in custody than non-Indigenous people in Australia."
Unfortunate, an injustice, a tragedy, a disaster, a systemic failure to integrate, yes. But racist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me. Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist. Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs.
Talk about the real problem not the symptom, but whatever you do, don't start calling all white people racist for being nothing but white, all that does is alienate allies and make you look like a moron.
Yeah, a tragic injustice that only happens to aboriginal people. If only we could do something.
Edited to respond to your edits:
> Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist.
Unqualified statements asserting that a specific racial group "just commit more crime" is pretty much an applied definition of the word "racist". Isolated statistics about aboriginal behaviour used to buttress your assertion that you are not racist, just seem to underline the fact that perhaps you have much to learn.
If you'd said, "statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government", that would probably not be racist, but I'd want to defer to an aboriginal person before putting my neck out too far on that one either.
One of the difficult things about racism is that it does not matter how we (ie, people of European descent) feel about it, but how the people we're talking about feel about it.
> Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs
What problem are you talking about? The problem that we invaded their land, shot them, stole their children, and to this day oppress them both economically and legally?
> all that does is alienate allies and make you look like a moron
No ally of mine is going to be alienated or offended by simple statements of truth.
One of the difficult things about racism is that it does not matter how we (ie, people of European descent) feel about it, but how the people we're talking about feel about it.
For what it's worth you are doing the EXACT same thing the post in this article is about: you are pushing a very American view on racism.
First of all, racism is absolutely not White -> Black. Or White -> Aboriginal. If you think that I'd assume you haven't met a lot of people form other parts of the world. Racism is everywhere and it's not a White-only issue. That's a very American view.
Second of all, it absolutely DOES matter what 'we' (white people) think of it. Saying only people we talk about get to have a say in this is also a very American viewpoint.
We really don't need to "defer to an aboriginal person", as you say. Just like this article states you are now assuming that all aboriginal people agree on this subject.
Saying we aren't qualified to say what's racist but we need a minority for that is the kind of generalizations the article pushes against.
I’m not pushing a view on racism, I’m saying that the OP’s statements are clearly racist. I just applied the dictionary definition of the term.
I never said that racism was white/black, but I was writing specifically in the context of European racism against Aboriginals in Australia, which happens to be fairly black and white. I’m happy to discuss racism in other countries, but that wasn’t the topic at hand.
Of course it matters what white people think about racism. But it doesn’t hurt to get the opinion of those who are actually harmed by it, does it? I mean I have never had the misfortune of experiencing racism first hand, so if I say something that an aboriginal person considers racist, that’s something I would want to take very seriously.
I never said “we” aren’t qualified to say what is racist. What I’m not so confident about, when specifically talking about aboriginal people, is claiming that my statements are not racist.
Overt racism is pretty easy to spot, but just because I try to be considerate doesn’t mean that the things I say in good faith can’t nevertheless be racist.
Keeping an open mind and listening to how others feel is more important than my biased opinion.
As someone who does experience racism on the regular I don't have quite the same level of trouble discerning racism from biggotry.
One is extremely diminishing and the other is a pretty easy to write off as ignorance, differing upbringing, and a general intolerance of difference.
If you need me to spell out a clear cut example of racism it's a few comments earlier where you assumed I was white and discounted my views on this matter solely because of it. Either that or what I was saying didn't fit your American centric narrative.
For what it's worth,
"statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government"
Was pretty much the gist of what I was getting at but I thought that was pretty obvious given the context and adding the context doesn't really make my statement any more or less factual. More credible maybe, but if you took my remarks on good faith it wouldn't have been a problem. But that is the problem with this American narrative, everyone is too busy trying to win, nobody is trying to look at facts for what they are and find the common ground therein.
These facts don't make aboriginal people any less human or any less successful as a people. They're just shitty truths about the world.
I'm sorry that you experience racism regularly. It's unacceptable. If I've said something that you consider racist then I sincerely apologise.
You are right that I thought you were white. It is because you said, "don't start calling all white people racist for being nothing but white". I apologise for the assumption.
You did, however, call me a moron, which doesn't really strike me as arguing in good faith.
You also said this:
> The aboriginal people of Australia face real problems. The police isn't one of them.
If you live in Australia and you don't think that cops are, at least until relatively recently, a huge part of the problem with Aboriginal welfare, then maybe you missed the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody [0]. I was in high school when that stuff went down, I remember how many people were being killed, and the fact stands that Aboriginal people are 10x more likely to die in prison than Europeans.
"The key finding of the royal commission was that Aboriginal people are more likely to die in custody because they are arrested and jailed at disproportionate rates. That remains as true in 2020 as it was in 1991." [1]
> For what it's worth, "statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government" Was pretty much the gist of what I was getting
But that's not what you actually said.
> I thought that was pretty obvious given the context and adding the context doesn't really make my statement any more or less factual.
Mate, there was very little context in what you wrote. If I took you the wrong way then I apologise, but maybe you can accept your part in this too. Maybe you didn't express yourself as well as you might have. That's cool, but how you express yourself is not my responsibility.
> if you took my remarks on good faith it wouldn't have been a problem. But that is the problem
You called me a moron!!
> with this American narrative
...and you assumed I'm American? Or that I don't have my own reasoned narrative? That's not really good faith now is it?
> everyone is too busy trying to win, nobody is trying to look at facts for what they are and find the common ground therein.
When you say that "Aboriginal people just commit more crime", that's not a fact, it's a tautology; of course they commit more crime, they are generally poorer and sicker, because of how they've been treated. I'm pretty sure that poor white people commit more crime too. Aboriginality has nothing to do with criminality; and just because a statement is true, through some twisted logic, doesn't mean it can't also be racist.
That doesn't mean that I think you are a racist; I have no idea. But I do think what you said is.
Don't waste your words, he's just one of those racist internet trolls following the same time old (if a little tired) strategies. You won't get anything fruitful from calling him out IME. I find this video series [0] useful for identifying and ignoring trolls online.
I think was the OP was saying is that indigenous people are more likely to commit crimes because of the circumstances that are put upon them by the system, and that they also lack access to better legal representation for the same reason, and are therefore more likely to be convicted of crimes.
Really, it's due to economic circumstance (I bet poor white people are convicted of more crimes than rich white people). It just so happens that the system makes it very difficult for indigenous people to move up the economic ladder. The system is set up in such a way that it assumes indigenous people want to and/or should confirm to white European ideas of what is "normal" as well.
> circumstances that are put upon them by the system, and that they also lack access to better legal representation for the same reason, and are therefore more likely to be convicted of crimes.
If only we had a convenient word for this, "the confluence of negative formal and material circumstances put upon someone because of race"...
I'd like to think that's what the OP was saying, but that's not remotely what the OP actually said.
Also, they called me a moron, which (accurate or not) is not cool.
> The system is set up in such a way that it assumes indigenous people want to and/or should confirm to white European ideas of what is "normal" as well
I suspect that the system does not assume that aboriginal people want or should be European; rather, it doesn't think about aboriginal people at all.
>Really, it's due to economic circumstance (I bet poor white people are convicted of more crimes than rich white people).
Absolutely. Not that it's anything new. Nor is it limited to ethnic minorities. Consider Anatole France's observation[0]:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Facts taken out of context can obviously be racist.
> Aboriginal people just commit more crime
More crime than who?
More crime than "Normal" people?
Or, More crime than all other groups with the same economic opportunieis?
More crime than groups with the same health issues? More crime than other people who go blind from trachoma and trichiasis despite it no longer being a public health problem in any other developed country in the world? [0]
More crime than other people who have had their children systematically stolen?
More crime than other people who have been racially abused in public, while playing a game of football?
I mean, come on, you're a smart cookie. You can't accept a claim that "aboriginal people commit more crime" unless you compare it to some equivalent group. Aboriginal and non-aboriginal people are not remotely equivalent, because aboriginal people have been systematically denied the freedom, health outcomes and economic opportunities available to almost any other group in Australia.
> Facts taken out of context can obviously be racist.
A fact is a statement about reality. It can induce racism, but cannot be racist in itself. Facts are scientific, and science is not political.
> More crime than who?
Of non-Aboriginal people.
> Or, More crime than all other groups with the same economic opportunities?
Maybe or maybe not. That is beside the point. If you compare incarceration rates of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people you have already decided that that is the division of the population you want to reason about. You cannot argue that the reason group A has higher incarceration rates of group B is because of racism, and when someone else proposes crime rates as an explanation, suddenly you switch to different population subdivisions: by economic opportunities, by health issues, etc.
The question about incarceration is: are Aboriginals more likely to be incarcerated for the same crimes than non-Aboriginals?
Statistics can absolutely be both racist and inaccurate, because you can choose which numbers to highlight, or how to slice and dice your data. Simpson's Paradox is a perfect example of how you can bucket data to show a trend that is the opposite of reality.
A statistic is a calculation. Are you saying that the result of a calculation can be racist?
It can be produced with a racist intent, or it can be interpreted as such. You can talk of the result of the calculation in a racist way, or derive racist conclusions from it. But per se, it cannot be racist. And you cannot decide to ignore the result of a calculation because you don't agree with the discussion or the questions it generates.
EDIT (rate limited): as for your other answer "By saying "Aboriginal people just commit more crime" you are declaring that race is a relevant factor..." you are confusing correlation with causation. Or you are assuming that I might be confusing them.
It's a statement about reality. It can be true or false. Racist/ not-racist is not a category of reality, it's an attribute of human intentions and actions.
Nope, you're reading more into my statement than you should if that's what your take away. I mean I literally qualified it straight away, how you got "racist" from that I really don't know.
Surely that means that information generated by the system is also going to be influenced by that racism?
If we over-police, over-charge, over-prosecute, and over-convict one group of people then the system will generate "facts" that tell us this group of people commit more crime. Obviously we don't know if that group of people do commit more crime because we're relying on broken data.
It's a good hypothesis, but don't you think it should be tested? It's not enough to vaguely propose a possible alternative explanation for the numbers, you should also check whether it's right. Missing more data, the null hypothesis is that crime rate among Aboriginals is actually higher (which in turn doesn't mean anything racist, as it can have myriad explanations that only correlate with race).
Skin color is not the reason of a certain person to have certain ability, or certain moral standard.
"Aboriginal people just commit more crime." is a factual statement about how many aboriginal people committing crime. It could be true or false. If the statement is "Aboriginal people just commit more crime, because they are aboriginal", then it is racist because it draws a causal relationship of race and crime rate which is completely false.
Nowadays, from a statement of "Aboriginal people just commit more crime.", someone can see through the proposer's mind to assume he has stereotype impression on aboriginal people and inside his/her mind, the proposer thinks because of people's skin color, they will just magically commit more crime. So, it is concluded that the proposer is racist. This is thought crime, and law should assume people is innocent until proven in case of criminal law.
It is really bad, because it does not let people to lay out the data based on race, and therefore cannot solve the real problem behind it. Why a specific race would commit more crime in a country? There must be a reason behind it. Maybe only one community with majority of a specific race committing most of the crime, and other communities of that race are completely normal. Then you have to further find the reason why that community committing so many crime etc.
However, the left in America does not think like that. They just get a aggregate data of the country and lay out many disadvantage of certain race facing, and so it can justify minority group to victimize themselves.
A term systematic racism is coined. If there is no equal outcome for each race then the society is racist. No active actors of racist is involved. The system itself is designed which cause non equal outcome among races and therefore must be overthrown and replaced with a non racist system.
The whole idea is just giving up thinking analytically about the root cause of non equal outcome and blame it all to the society. If there is not enough educational resource because the state is consist of mainly poor blacks, then just let the rich state to subsidize the poor state. Rejecting better grade non-black is just solving the problem by a racist measure which is not moral. And it is also racist against the black because it implied black are just dumber, and I find it strange for black to accept that. No, because they are poor and does not have enough educational resource.
I think the America left is so irrational that it starts to be very similar to Soviet Union style of thinking.
PS: Not-White. Just a observation from other race outside America.
Cultural integration requires both cultures to integrate.
No, it isn't equal sided, no it isn't fair what has happened, but ignoring the current status quo and positing Europeans should be actively trying to go bush is just facetious.
It's also the argument about why AI isn't racist, the data is racist, and thus hotspot-based-policing is just a search for the optimal distribution of police resources.
This is a couple of vloggers lifting quotes from the royal commission and discussing it. It’s an opinion piece, nothing more.
In this video they also say that changing the date of Australia Day is “ridiculous”. That’s not necessarily bad in and of itself, but it’s certainly not an opinion shared by all aboriginal people and it strongly suggests that they aren’t impartial.
If this is the best you’ve got to defend your views, you don’t got much at all.
Please don't pretend that Australia is free of racism. There are plenty of backwards and indefensible views that are socially acceptable and given plenty of air time in mainstream media: portrayal of Aboriginals as a drain on society, narratives about "African gangs" and the "cashed up Chinese buying properties". These are not niche opinions, they're mainstream.
But racist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me.
Laws are written by human beings. In the US, a lot of laws were written with explicitly racist goals of denying certain groups equal access. We are still living with that legacy in myriad ways.
If you write laws designed to target certain groups and land them in jail, don't be all shocked when a lot of those folks wind up in jail. And then, yes, "x group just commits more crimes" is a racist statement because it glosses over the context that the "crimes" they commit are "crimes" invented by White power holders to intentionally deny such people rights.
Why they commit crime at such higher rates than the White population would be an interesting conversation to have. Unfortunately, it seems as if you're implying that we shouldn't police them equally because of their race. I cannot endorse that, and I would urge you to consider their victims (most of whom are also Aboriginals, if they are your concern).
-1 for Australia. Its a pretty racists country. And you forget FoxNews is a transplant of the Rupert Murdoch's empire that he established in Australia. Thier propaganda in support of Trump is obvious and gross. But you as an Australia probably grew up with this type of media surrounding you.
TFA is talking about racism as if it can be seen through the lens of how an entire nation feels about and handles racism, so that seems like a reasonable way of talking about it in this thread.
In addition to the entirety of the author's examples and experiences, we need to recall that the UK/British view of race is heavily influenced by the fact that skin color is not the only way in which folks in the UK experience racial discrimination. For centuries, the Scottish and Irish natives have been variously oppressed by the British, creating a racial context which is distinct from one wholly concerned with skin tone.
Not less racist, not more racist, just differently racist.
Americans also conveniently forget that Irish people have been discriminated against there nearly as badly as black people, despite being the whitest shade of white. From the outside perspective, it seems like that kind of discrimination just doesn't fit the narrative so of course isn't mentioned.
In the last 10 years have a lot of Scottish, Irish or Black people been murdered by UK police officers? 20 years? 30?
I'm sure you can think of a few examples, but the idea that the UK is equally as racist as the US is laughable.
To be clear: I am not saying that racism doesn't exist in the UK or that it isn't a problem - but the kind of false equivalence you put forward doesn't really advance the conversation.
> In the last 10 years have a lot of Scottish, Irish or Black people been murdered by UK police officers? 20 years? 30?
How many people of any colour or ethnicity have been killed by UK police in the last 10, 20, 30 years? It doesn't happen very often, principally because they're not routinely armed.
> I'm sure you can think of a few examples, but the idea that the UK is equally as racist as the US is laughable.
In some ways, sure. But in other ways, the UK is behind the US: the UK has (and has had) no Black generals, admirals, or supreme court judges, for example.
It doesn't quite fall under your "10/20/30", but a lot of Irish and Northern Irish people were killed in The Troubles by British soldiers - a major event which many remember vividly.
> we need to recall that the UK/British view of race is heavily influenced by the fact that skin color is not the only way in which folks in the UK experience racial discrimination.
But that's true of lots of places, including the US, antisemitism being the obvious example.
> For centuries, the Scottish and Irish natives have been variously oppressed by the British
I'm not sure it make sense to talk about Scots being oppressed by the British: Scots are British (though many are not particularly fond of the label). Did you mean to say English?
Would you mind stop overloading the word racist with more definitions? People can be nationalists or biased towards group identities with many different flavors. The underlying issue is that people get discriminated.
And besides, the Brits are a very mature ethnic identity, as such, they've had many centuries to come up with and nourish many different ways to discriminate - be it which village you come from, what school you attended, which football/sports club you affiliate with and which side of the street your pub resides on.
> Would you mind stop overloading the word racist with more definitions?
Racism has been linked with discrimination against nationality for many years. In the UK the Race Relations Act 1965 (55 years ago) included "national origin".
>Would you mind stop overloading the word racist with more definitions? People can be nationalists or biased towards group identities with many different flavors. The underlying issue is that people get discriminated.
I completely agree. I prefer 'bigotry' rather than 'racism'.
Mostly for the reasons you suggest, but also that 'racism' is a nonsensical term in the context of biology. Homo Sapiens is a single species.
As such, one could be racist against dolphins or dogs or daffodils, but not humans.
But we can still hate and be bigoted against those who don't look or talk or dress or act like "us."
This is why I think the debate on "whitelist" is more about PR and gaining internet points than anything else.
It can be argued that the term is racist in an specific historical context (no contest there) and that applied pretty much to the whole American continent, but let's not forget this kind of racism against the Irish was happening in both sides of the pond barely 100 years ago.
Associating colors with qualities is much, much older than 500 years.
I have a strong feeling (though no data to back it up) that this holds at least as much for debate and polarisation around feminism, gender equality, trans rights and LGBT(Q+) issues.
To some extent maybe, but in some sense LGBTQ issues are a bit more universal, because LGBTQ people exist and have grown up in every country (they just have different visibility and different rights etc.), whereas with racism/xenophobia every country has their own, different pattern of immigration, social inequalities, etc.
Also because many of the issues that race presents in the US (historically marginalised/discriminated against groups having poor opportunities leading to poor outcomes leading to poor opportunities for their descendents) are present in those countries as class problems without the racial undertones.
Oh, there is a lot of data. You simply have to look at the uptick in the number of news reports from other countries dealing with the above subjects over a period of time. Now all of these are important but they are nowhere near as important as the discussion/outrage needed over poverty alleviation, social ills, economic development etc. in my country. A good example is the recent "Me too" movement. Our entire media jumped on this bandwagon while all other essential news disappeared from the channels. This is a great way to divert people's attention and hide actual problems.
Were me too issues specifically not present in country where you live? It is possible, I am not saying it is not. But for example conservatives here see lgbt and gender ideology and as the big enemy transplanted from USA. But it is not like gays did not existed before or if we would be actually egalitarian country.
Then again, the same conservatives heavily support Trump in their journal. Like print articles on his support, call Biden sleepy and stupid, really hate BLM movement .... that dont exist here.
They were really worked out about statues, all same talking points ... despite supporting take downs of status of communist when that was relevant.
American culture in general overrides local news. The debates are front-page news despite me having no vote or influence. Same with Trump's impeachment.
The problem exists elsewhere too, because of the extremely widespread proliferation of American media - I see the Polish media taking american talking points about race, sexuality, religion, and just transplanting them wholesale into the Polish frame of reference as if they were equally important here - more often than not, they simply aren't. While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in the US, and treating it as if it was does more harm than good - we have to do better, but suddenly Polish people watching American news and for instance adopting "all cops are bastards" attitude is just dumb in so many ways I could probably write a whole article about it.
In general I lament the americanization of worldwide media, as if America is some kind of paragon of behaviour that everyone should emulate, and whatever social phenomenon is happening there it must be valid elsewhere. That's simply not true.
>In general I lament the americanization of worldwide media, as if America is some kind of paragon of behaviour that everyone should emulate, and whatever social phenomenon is happening there it must be valid elsewhere. That's simply not true.
Well said! I would wager that this has become true in almost all countries and the effects are very insidious. Many real problems are often obfuscated and sidelined by the latest media export from the US which has no or at best marginal relevance in their local countries.
> Many real problems are often obfuscated and sidelined by the latest media export from the US which has no or at best marginal relevance in their local countries.
I read that Poland has quite draconian drug laws. Such laws are what institutionalised racism is based on in the US - it comes from the premise that people from disadvantaged background will be more likely to be involved in drugs than other groups - this is of course not true, as person living on handouts is just as likely to take drugs as a rich person working in banking sector. It's what law enforcement is being focused on. I believe most western countries have this setup copied from the US and it is being used for oppression of groups that government deems undesirable.
If cops were the "good guys", they would investigate why certain politicians push drug prohibition, who profits from it and why police is being used to support it.
In my country if you are black, you are 6 times more likely to be harassed by law enforcement than if you were white, despite the drug use being at the same level.
No one is saying all these countries are without their own problems. What's being said is that their problems are different then the ones in the US. And these problems need to be discussed and addressed in a narrative and setting that suites the country and cultural they are applicable to. Not by applying some US template.
Also...Poland has draconian drug laws, draconian drug laws in the US led to institutionalised racism hence the situation in the US is similar to Poland...c'mon...seriously?
I imagine the statistics are hard to get accurately (a rich person who never gets arrested isn't going to be counted as a drug user unless the study is done via survey), but is it really true that a poor person is just as likely to take drugs as a rich person? Intuitively it doesn't seem quite right, and it's hard to be rich if you are addicted to something truly destructive.
Using drugs is natural for intelligent beings. It is similar like saying only poor people listen to music. Everyone does it, but the propaganda is focused on people who governments deem undesirable.
I don't think hating police is something you got from America. It's easy to see why anyone who doesn't fit in would hate most police forces in the world.
edit:
And now I'm being downvoted for saying this despite seeing ACAB sprayed across every imaginable surface by football fans my entire life.
> While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism
I absolutely agree that transplanting US talking points wholesale into non-US frames of reference is something that's often done blindly and never really applies.
But the reason for this is that the issue is nuanced and has a lot of local context that needs consideration in its own right. It shouldn't be used as an excuse to dismiss the existence of systemic racism in your own country.
I think the above quoted line is such a pity as it truly undermines the rest of your otherwise excellent comment.
Well, you have conveniently omitted the next couple words from that sentence - "it's not systematic racism [like in the US]", which is what my argument was built upon, and the reason for the entire comment. Media treat is as if American problems not only exist in Poland, but also as if they have the same root causes as in the US.
Poland does of course have systematic racism problems - for instance against the Roma people, of whom there is a non-insignificant number and who are discriminated against literally everywhere. Same with immigrants, regardless of their skin colour - Ukrainians who come to work in Poland are treated very poorly and portrayed negatively just for who they are. That is systematic racism.
BUT - it's not systematic racism like in the US where (as far as I can understand) the racism is rooted in history of slave ownership, general belief that black people are inferior and deep history of segregation normalizing the process. None of those apply in Poland, yet some people behave as if they do - and that is what I object to.
The definition of systemic racism, as a theory, is that a country (specifically the US) was founded as a racist country (black people were the property of white people). This is not so in Poland, therefore it can't be considered systemic racism.
My own experience of the term's usage is to simply imply that racism is part of a system's inherent structural definition, rather than being purely reliant on individual/group biases.
In particular in Europe, one very simplistic example of this is the systemic intolerance of nomadic peoples. This is not limited to individuals discriminating against nomadic people, but rather that legislation and bureaucratic processes are in place that give inherent preference to those who are not nomadic; most obviously in laws related to property rentals and ownership, but also pervading every form of corporate and public administration.
> My own experience of the term's usage is to simply imply that racism is part of a system's inherent structural definition, rather than being purely reliant on individual/group biases.
By that definition, all racism is systemic racism, since the system is made up of people.
I haven't read any of Feagin's research, but from reading that article's commentary on Feagin's research, it outlines a highly US-centric approach to defining systemic racism, which would imply that systemic racism, by definition, cannot exist outside of the US.
I don't know enough in the field to know if Feagin's definition is a popular one worldwide, or even within the US, but it seems somewhat reductive on first reading.
If systemic racism cannot occur outside of the US, what then should we refer to racism that is "systemic" as?
> By that definition, all racism is systemic racism, since the system is made up of people.
Technically, I would agree, but going that far seems somewhat pedantic.
Well, Feagin defined systemic racism, as a concept it's US-specific.
> If systemic racism cannot occur outside of the US, what then should we refer to racism that is "systemic" as?
I don't know, I sincerely don't understand your definition. How can a country be comprised of racist people but have a system that isn't, or vice versa?
There is a specific reason to say it: 98% of polish population belong to a single ethic group, and even of the remaining 2% the vast majority are what most people would consider to be "white". Non-white people tend to be very rare even in metropolitan areas (maybe to a lesser extent in Warsaw), and they are usually either students or high-income people moving to Poland for professional or relationship reasons. In general, Poland isn't a very tempting target for immigration.
This said, you can argue there is some systematic racism against the Roma or Ukrainians. But it's more based on culture and national identity, so its different than what an American would think of then hearing the term.
Also "white" is typically not a category you speak of. Ethnicity is much more important and it's often lost on americans in my experience who tend to promptly dismiss differences between e.g. Ukrainians and Poles.
Your opening paragraph seems to commit the same mistake the original commenter was lamenting: you're defining racism purely through a US lens and asking if the same is present in Poland. The framing of that question isn't valid.
Yup, Poland would be very different even just from daily experience. In 20 years of living there, I have not only not interacted, but not seen a single black person. And I expect that would be the same case for majority of people. Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic. (Not that it wouldn't exist completely)
> Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.
I had a similar experience in this part of Europe. But I'm quite convinced that we don't see systemic racism against black folks there because they are such a small minority.
People are as racist as everywhere else (maybe even more so because of the lack of diversity in their country). I'm willing to bet Poland has its own minorities it's systemically discriminating against.
Sure, there are other minorities: Ukrainians, Belarusian, Jews, Roma, Germans, and others who deal with different prejudices depending on the region. I meant the original comment specifically about black people.
It's the same in Greece. Black people are very few and far between, so there isn't much pronounced racism against them. There's a lot of racism against Albanians, Pakistanis, Syrians, etc, though.
Interestingly, black people here don't tend to commit much crime. It might be because they're too few to be in the media, but I'm realizing I've never heard of a crime here being committed by a black person.
> In 20 years of living there, I have not only not interacted, but not seen a single black person. And I expect that would be the same case for majority of people. Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.
I don't follow. How can you make such judgement, if you "not only not interacted, but not seed a single black person"?
> Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.
So, just a few bad apples then? I think, some knowledge is transferable after all.
Because to have systemic racism, by definition you have to observe something happening on a large scale. There is no scale there. There are isolated interactions mostly. It could be widespread racism, or a small number of racist people. The n is too small to tell.
> Because to have systemic racism, by definition you have to observe something happening on a large scale.
Systemic only means "relating to a system, especially as opposed to a particular part".
If you and practical most people in Poland (or a lot of other countries) have never seen or talked to a black person, that is related to the system.
The way you and others have formed an opinion about foreign people, or people of different faith, or sexual orientation, that is inherent to the system in Poland.
Now, the question is, what is the experience of those likely few black people in Poland interacting with other people? Do they experience in most interactions negative prejudice, or are they only experiencing it in isolated cases, or even not at all?
The way I see it, the learning we should take from the US is, that as a member of the majority, one should avoid having a prejudice of how that experience will be. Because our n of those experiences will indeed be too small to tell. And if those people are telling us that their experience is bad, not to reject it as the exception (a few bad apples).
We've got to ask ourselves why the media takes on the American talking points, then? Where is the searching of ones own culture and country, so that we might face-off with the unique problems we then have in our countries? Is this a problem of journalism, or is it because it is easier to adopt american problems, and thereby neglect our own, real problems?
Most journalists knows at least their native language and English. So when they need something to write about, it's easy to import some problems from English-speaking nations.
I'm an American and I also lament the americanization of the American media. When I was younger, you watched the news to learn the facts about what had occurred (or was occurring or was expected to occur). I no longer trust that the major news sources are accurate and/or truthful (and I don't even want to talk about those who get their news from social media).
Agreed, but you cannot avoid it : the culture of the hegemon always set the norm inside its sphere of influence. There are major symbolic/social incentives for the local comprador elites to adopt American talking points.
I agree, but I think adopting the American viewpoint is neither here nor there in terms of dealing with local issues.
The reason these issues are different in different places is history. "Racism" in the states, as a political issue and concept, is firmly rooted in their history. Slavery, civil war, post war confederate politics, etc. Poland, and europe generally, has different historical anchors.
Poland is a prime example, in fact. Consider what Poland was before 1938 and what it is now, demographically, ethnically, culturally, etc. Those things inform the present.
In some sense, interest in US politics may be useful (even if it is often irrational). It's easier to see these things about other countries... like a fable or morality tale. By eventual analogy, it may come around.
Same here in Norway. Certain conservatives are attacking liberals for SJW-esque viewpoints that barely exist here, and certain liberals are attacking conservatives for systemic racism that also barely exists (that's not to say racism doesn't).
It's sad, because it pollutes important discussion on adjacent topics.
> While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in the US
Are you sure about that? I haven't spent much time in Poland, but I've spent quite a bit of time in the baltic states and systemic racism absolutely is a problem there. It's just (mostly) against Jews and Roma rather than black people. I fully expect this is the case in Poland too.
In a way, it's even worse: because America sets the tone of discourse and frames racism as white vs black, Polish and other Eastern European cultures feel justified in claiming they don't have any systemic racism, when in fact it's there, just not against black people.
I recognize this in my own country (Ireland) where people will so proudly declare we are not racist because we treat black and Indian immigrants well by comparison to the US. However, Irish culture has deep systemic racism rowards the Traveller minority. Getting most Irish people to admit this is basically impossible though, and I expect it's the same for racism towards Jews and Roma in Poland.
Again, the key word here is " it's not a systematic racism like in the US" - I'm not(obviously) trying to say that racism doesn't exist in Poland - it does and it's a problem. Just that the entire country isn't built on racist behaviour like US is/was, it's not systematic as in the country as it exists now(and largely how it existed in the post WW1 shape too) wasn't built with racist institutions and principles. Again, and I cannot stress this enough - that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist there.
There seems to be confusion about “systemic” vs “systematic” here. Systematic racism would imply a system that is designed to achieve racism. The more common term is systemic racism, which implies racism more or less as a “side effect” of a structure or system that arguably has a different, benign purpose.
I'd argue that the American system was systematically build to be systemic :)
There are laws in the US that, on the surface, seem to be benign, but upon closer inspection are specifically and systematically created to target a certain racial group disproportionately.
FYI, "systemic racism" is usually understood to be roughly "discriminatory treatment is embedded in the institutions". For example, if Roma get stopped by police more often, that's systemic racism.
I think you use it to mean "it played a major role in the founding of our country". Saying "there is no systemic racism in Poland" makes sense in that context, but probably not in the other, and that's why people are doubting you.
I'm Polish, and I would say, the only way right now racism is less bad than e.g. US is that Poland is pretty much racially homogeneous. Mostly all white Polish people, huge proportion is single religious denomination, at least notionally (Catholic Christian). The 'discriminatable' minorities are very small and not very visible, but when they are discernible, boy do they get abused.
Where non-white non-christian non-straight people appear, they seem to be at way too high a risk of verbal or physical violence. Hard to know about discrimination at jobs etc., but wouldn't surprise me. Poland refused to accept Syrian war refugees, but reluctantly agreed to accept some Syrian Christians (so it's none of those "terrible Muslims"). No help - so many still got beaten up and chased away.
That said, I agree with the original comment. Racism in Poland is _completely_ different in Poland, and mimicking US projections of it is counterproductive, and frankly, offensively patronising.
> [...] but reluctantly agreed to accept some Syrian Christians (so it's none of those "terrible Muslims"). No help - so many still got beaten up and chased away.
Could you link an article about that? I wasn't aware.
But it's not the same thing and it happens on a completely different scale.
Systemic racism in US means that
"the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 31 fatal shootings per million of the population as of August 2020."
Which is completely out of scale for European standards (at least 3 orders of magnitude worse), including the somewhat more problematic countries in East Europe.
EDIT: for comparison in Italy in 2019 3 people were shot dead by police, without any ethnic implication, it means 1 fatal shooting every 20 millions of the population, or 0.05 every million, VS 31 every million.
To look at it in another way: you need to gather 20 million people in Italy so that one of them risk of being shot by the police, it only takes 33 thousands black men in US.
It's 620 times more dangerous for a black man in US to encounter a policeman than it is in Italy.
EDIT 2: -1 after only 6 minutes.
It explains a lot about what's wrong in American culture...
Oversimplification, but Western Europe basically doesn't have a problem with police violence. That (very important) aspect of what's going on in the US just doesn't translate to a police force with very different culture and much better accountability.
It's great that we don't have that problem (people not being shot is a good thing), but that doesn't mean we don't have racism.
If you're talking about scale, then yes police violence in Western Europe isn't comparable to the US. Saying there's no problem seems like almost wilful ignorance though.
Well,
the "problem" is that there are not many different races in Poland, so it is hard to judge how racist we are.
The most racist thing you can see here is people staring at blacks or Asians. Because it is quite unique thing to see.
Just like when I was in South Korea and my wife was asked to pose in a picture of young Korean girl.
Similar thing happened 50 years ago, when my mother-in-law asked a black fellow to pose in a picture with her.
But that is expected when someone is unique, intriguing.
When I was young I lived in the south of Poland where we had a Roma minority. And I as a kid was afraid of them, because they were different from me and most of the time I saw them begging on streets. But same thing happened when I saw non-Romas begging on streets, just because they were dressed in old, torn and smelly cloths.
I have personally not met any Jews that I know of, because here you don't have any visual clues, it just like meeting an Orthodox Catholic, one would need to introduce him/herself like one to be recognized. And that maybe would result in interesting conversation, but thats it.
There is another negative issue here with large south city in Poland and Jews - Cracow. There is a district there that was mostly Jewish before the WW II, and now there are a lot of visitors from Israel schools that come there to look at the old buildings and synagogues. And because those are children in a difficult age and look quite unsupervised (besides the bodyguards that act very aggressively towards Poles) and leave quite a mess in hotels where they stay.
And there are also Brits :), you can recognize them because most of them walk in T-shirts during winter and are quite loud and like to have stag parties in Cracow, and also leave quite a mess in pubs/restaurants/hotels.
In Poland pretty much all land owners, anyone of any wealth and intelligentsia were killed either by the Nazis or the Soviets. It's as if the US had a purge 70 years ago and anyone of any means was killed or sent to a labour camp. US still reaps the benefits of both slavery and the past and ongoing discrimination of its minorities - Poland on the other hand does not. First the Partitions of Poland have erased the country from existence for nearly 100 years, then Nazis killed over 2 million people starting with anyone who had anything valuable first, then 50 years of communism made sure than any kind of systematic exploitation based on serfdom was eradicated and burnt to the ground. While it is taught in history books, the entire class of people who might have been perpetuating the practice have simply been killed off or exiled.
> In a way, it's even worse: because America sets the tone of discourse and frames racism as white vs black,
This. In Denmark the biggest minority is the Muslim minority, but we have still had big Black Lives Matter demonstrations with only a slight Middle Eastern twist.
Yeah, I don't know about Poland specifically, but the black players in the England football (soccer) team quite often get racially abused in Eastern Europe/Balkans.
Does that not also prove the point? The US view of racism being white against black eclipses all other forms of racism, including white A against white B, or even black against white.
That's not to say white against black is only a US problem, because it isn't, but it helpfully masks all other local problems and pretends they don't exist because "America said so".
Yes, it does. I wasn't arguing against the original point, on the contrary, I agree with it. I was arguing against the claim that Poland is free of institutional racism.
I think they lament it too to a degree and it has to do with English being so widely spread through internet adaptation. Previously it often was a matter of prestige for countries to spread their language. But we have seen election campaigns addressing certain demographics online that basically consisted out of an international audience. Context is broken right from the start and suddenly you might have more critics than countrymen for you domestic conversation.
I agree with people are blindly adopting such talking points, happened in my country too.
This has nothing to do with paragons or moral values. I think it's emergent behavior. If there is media that provides something people want, people will view it and be exposed to any message good or crappy within.
I remember when I had a queue of 5 star documentary movies to watch. I still ended up watching the 2-star scifi movies ahead of them. Had nothing to do with value of the message delivered in the documentaries.
I noticed this when internet comments for newspapers were still common, which I suggest bringing back actually.
But these divisive topics just got so much more engagement than far more important news and the media began to increase that type of content because of their precarious financial situation (Good luck earning a living wage with online news).
I remember one instance were there was an article about a important EU wide policy decision. It had around 25 comments. Next was some article about pop culture and gender. It had over 1000 comments. At one point it becomes self-reinforcing when people want to know why others comment that much...
> people watching American news and for instance adopting "all cops are bastards" attitude is just dumb in so many way
Now you know how many of us in the USA feel. Yet for some reason it seems you assume that it is correct in the US. Why? If the simple fact that this social phenomenon is happening here is what validates it, then why complain when it starts happening where you live? If, on the other hand, the we are not a paragon of virtue, perhaps consider that the news is causing just the same sort of inane, invalid response here as you are concerned about seeing where you live.
It's not the same. There really IS footage of USA police shooting innocent black people. There exists no such footage in Switzerland. Swiss people protesting against Swiss police because of this footage from the USA makes no sense. US population protesting against US police because of this footage makes sense.
I know the USA is a huge, diverse country with different problems in different areas. But it is a single country. And that single country is having a problem with police brutality against black people.
That doesn't mean all cops are bastards. It means some cops are racist bastards. And the whole of your gigantic country needs to accept that and do something about it.
USA police shoot more white people than black people. I'm not sure about the innocent numbers, but most people shot by the police of either color are not innocent.
You're argument doesn't show that police violence in the US is racist, just that it's violent.
What you mean racism is problem in Poland? Since early '90 there is for instance a growing number of people from Vietnam and I've never heard about any attacks on them?
The funniest thing to me is the discourse about "white privilege" when it's transplanted into countries where basically everyone used to be white. How can that be a privilege to be the same as everyone else? But people will repeat just anything as long as it's fashionable.
Well they certainly used racism as an excuse to justify their colonial ambitions. They were conquering for the same reasons any country conquers: money, land, prestige.
Probably money, but that doesn't exclude the obvious racism it created. In Denmark, we had Africans in cages displayed in the Tivoli amusement park in central Copenhagen, so people could look at the spectacle that was the black person (https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2017-03-31-de-sendte-bud-efte..., in Danish).
While this was not the intent of our colonization and slavery-business, it inevitably caused it, imo. Or, the racism caused the success of colonialism, because it justified it.
Something else, presumably, although their justifications usually involved racism of a far more explicit and direct variety than is commonly found today in the US. It's not very difficult to find quotes by rather recent leaders such as Churchill that would be unthinkable by a British (or American) politician today.
Spot on! Most americans believe that race, culture and ethnicity are clearly and strongly defined (and that they are simple facts rather than social constructs).
When spending time in the US I find myself experiencing double consciousness, asking myself if I fit into the stereotype that people have of me.
A case in point: in many sitcoms over the last 20 years you can find the same cliches around a white person trying awkwardly to say something without sounding racist.
Bolivian here, this has been my experience as well. People in the US need to teach their children to respect everybody, there's an entire generation of kids being brainwashed into us vs them. We won't see the effect of this until much later on. 20 years!
In my experience americans (at least the limited sample that I know) have a need to find a subculture to identify themselves with, and quick.
I'm not even talking about race here, i'm thinking about the billions of independent christian churches, of soccer fans dressing like soccer players, gang colours etc.
And when they find their subculture, they get stuck in it and become unable to see the others' point of view.
American style racism may be a consequence of that.
What is in the media, social media sites and news, is not what you run into in every day life. We all just want to get along. This a political issue where the media is being used to intimidate, insinuate, and threaten, anyone who questions any position. This is identity politics taken to its extreme. It is almost entirely from the left. Welcome to Heckler's Veto manifested on a national level with all the power of media behind it.
We used to discuss ideas, candidates used to be judged on the merits of their ideas and past. Now they are selected for their race, sex, and persuasion. Any criticism of the candidates ideas or actions they have taken, legal or not, is instead portrayed as attacking them based on those three attributes. They have weaponized thought to the point many are silent and that was the goal.
>I never even heard of anyone being as racist as americans are when trying not to be.
As I'm an American, feel free to reject my comment out of hand.
That said, yes there's plenty of racism in the US.
Sure, it's fun to sneer at Americans and feel superior. Knock yourself out.
However, you seem ignorant of reality and of history.
In many cases the issue isn't that most Americans are actively thinking about how inferior the minorities are.
It's much more about the racist structures built into American society over the past 400 years. We've been slowly (and much too slowly, to my mind) coming to grips with these issues.
In doing so, we've shed an enormous amount of blood. Before our civil war, ~13% of our population was enslaved[0].
During that war, 2% of the population were soldiers killed on the battlefield. And the number of civilians killed is unknown, but likely substantial. Imagine if wherever you live, 3% of the population were to be killed, vast swaths of your cities, towns, villages, farms and ports destroyed[2].
After the war, once the armies of the "victorious" side left the American south, tens of thousands of former slaves were, murdered, beaten, tortured or imprisoned.
Discriminatory laws were enacted and enforced[1] throughout the former Confederacy[5], and was continued in the West and Southwest[3][4], not just against the former slaves, but against those of Mexican, Native American and Asian descent as well.
Even in the North (with most of the population and nearly half the area) where slavery was illegal before the war, discriminatory practices against free blacks as well as former slaves was common.
But don't forget that Catholics (Irish, Italians, etc.) and Jews were often discriminated against too. Certainly not as harshly as people of color, but that existed, and still exists today.
For decades, legal discrimination persisted. It was more than 80 years after our civil war before we started to dismantle the governmental systems that both implicitly and explicitly discriminated against nearly 15% of our population.
And over that time, all across the country many thousands were killed and abused with impunity.
That change came only because of the bravery and determination of the blacks in the US. We would berate them, beat them and kill them for being 'uppity', but they never stopped demanding their right to be full American citizens.
And thanks to them, things have changed a great deal here in the US. We still have issues of discrimination in housing, employment, over-policing and a raft of other areas.
But even in my lifetime (I'm over 50), I've seen significant positive change. It's not nearly enough, nor is that change coming quickly enough.
But it is happening.
These days, complacency and inertia are the biggest obstacles to positive change. Many people just don't think about it, or if they do, are content with knowing that they don't discriminate.
Many have married/cohabitate with those of a different ethnic background. Many have children who do so. This varies a great deal depending on where (remember, the US is big) people live. In many places, there aren't many people of color.
Diversity tends to be more within and sprawling around urban centers and many descendants of former slaves live in the south as well.
That's not to say there aren't a whole bunch of dyed-in-the-wool racists and white supremacists here in the US. There are.
Not so long ago, the militant racists were roundly criticized and ostracized. So much so that most of them wouldn't express their bigotry unless they knew they were among those who shared their hateful ideas.
Now those folks are emboldened. Their numbers haven't really increased, it's just that they've attached themselves to other reactionaries who prefer the economic unfairness of our society.
Flamewar comments, and especially personal attacks, will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong or annoying another commment is.
My wife (Asian-American) had a former friend (also Asian-American) tell her that I "conquered" her, essentially tricking/conning her into a long-term relationship with me (white, American), simply because of our racial backgrounds and the fact that in this persons disturbing world view there is no other way to explain Asians dating or marrying outside of "their race" than things like "yellow fever."
It is horribly racist and extremely one-sided and the perpetrators don't even seem to understand that they are engaging in true-to-life racism / racist rhetoric.
I think one of the reasons this simplification is happening, is that nuance generally has failed to gain traction in the past. A large part of why the far right / racist movement has grown a lot the past 20 years or so is that their narrative is so simple: "Immigrants have higher crime rates and we're taking in more immigrants, which is bad." Fighting this with nuance and trying to say that statistics is more complicated than that hasn't worked. I would say that the public education system needs a complete overhaul to fix this (critical thinking, media literacy and such), but even if that were to happen, it would take 20-30 years.
Also, in the end, I don't think these type of views causes that much harm. Okay, so a group of people end up being "fake" anti-racists, but it's still raising awareness and it might cause people to make slightly different choices in their day-to-day lives. This isn't comparable to Kony 2012 where people changed their profile picture on Facebook for literally no effect.
> Immigrants have higher crime rates and we're taking in more immigrants, which is bad.
This statement isn't the issue. What is an issue is that the establishment isn't willing to have a real discussion on this topic (illegal immigration, cultural dilution, economic benefits, etc...). The rise of far right and far left rhetoric is an expected response to the status quo, where people feel pushed into opposing tribes.
Well, it makes sense that these views (which are generally unexamined by those who repeat them) are catching on outside of America for the same reason they catch on inside America: fixating on a simplistic target is alluring, people saying nonsensical things they don't really believe in order to avoid being called racist, etc.
You could make the same points inside America as well that the article makes, like examining Nigerian success in America.
Keep trotting the article out and you have a case for why these racial essentialist views shouldn't be imposed on anyone, not just brits. And certainly not on our children.
> All the individuals listed are American, but most of the people who have shared this on my timeline are British. In trying to express their solidarity with black Britons
Aren't they trying to express their solidarity with black Americans? Just because it's happening outside of your country of residence, doesn't mean your compassion and empathy ends at the border.
Maybe because it was Britain that started all this mess with slavery and human trafficking, so Britons should indeed try to repent, or some day face the wrath of the whole world.
You forgot to mention rape. I'm told that 1 in 200 people on this planet can claim genetic heritage with Ghenghis Khan. That happened via rape together with the 'exploitation, killing and conquest' but no one in their right mind wishes to visit this mind-numbing inglorious fact on his descendants and not just because that would be impossible.
Who knows? Maybe you and I are one of those descendants. Familiarity with world history will tell you that there are no groups of superior beings anywhere who abstained from the activities mentioned. Some won and some lost. The latter, not for the want of trying.
While solidarity is a good thing what happens is that due to the (multiplying) effect of social media it overrides and dominates the local debate. The issues that are suddenly pushed to the front are not the issues we need to be dealing with over here in order to do something about racism or to improve our society.
For example here in the Netherlands neighbourhoods are built in a way to mix people of all social standings. A gay couple has a bigger chance of getting attacked on the street then a person of any colour or background has of being shot by the police.
Social media is 99% noise anyway, it's not really the place for considered debate. Given that these platforms are globally connected and not local, it's not surprising that emotional international issues dominate over local issues.
I'm not sure that american views are being imposed on US (I'm in the UK). Rather they are being adopted by us without criticism.
This makes conversation about race a confused jumbled incoherent mess. The bigger problem as I see it is more class-oriented than race centric. This should be a discussion on social mobility, which in my opinion is the best in the western world for minority communities. The race discourse in recent years has distracted from improving social mobility and hurting said communities more.
I believe the author didn't mean to say that the US imposes the views, but that the UK media and elites do. The same is true in Germany to a large degree, and it's equally weird.
Americanization of everything is a good description, I think. Of course it's very important what happens in the US, it's the heart of the empire after all. But it's given so much weight that I sometimes feel like our media are covering US domestic politics more than our domestic politics.
That's because race and class aren't disentangled concepts in the US, and that's not likely to be the ground reality in the next 20 years either. One might make predictions about the mobility of the American poor, and one might rightly make a separate profile of predictions for black America. What is black America 2030? Optimistic?
There are many cities still with covenants restricting home ownership to non-Blacks, and while unenforceable today, it contributes to a story of an everlasting racial smell.
A nation ought not only speak the message of racial harmony, as China does with regards to black immigrants and citizens, but the truth must be evident on the ground for the people to see, and the air ought be pleasant to smell.
There's a general sense in which all the social justice debates are always filtered through a US american lens, probably because of the media presence and because the people leading these debates are more active in global online communities.
But it does feel to me that often we frame the discourse in a way that is not useful for the specific problems we have in a specific country/region. There was some of the ACAB sentiment in Germany, but it quickly died down, since most people here (even left-wing people) generally trust the police - and while I'm sure there are still problems with underrepresentation, racial profiling, etc., it's nowhere on the scale that it appears to be on the US.
Also most countries simply don't have a recent history of slavery inside their own country like the US does; black people in Germany, for example, are almost all immigrants, which does create entirely different dynamics, and we have (had) a lot more immigration from different cultures, especially Turkish people. None of this means racism and xenophobia don't exist, but the discourse and potential solutions are not the same as in the US.
>I have privilege as a White person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice about it … I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery). I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothemSean and #AtatianaJefferson). I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#Jonathan Ferrell and #RenishaMcBride). I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark). I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards). I can play loud music (#JordanDavis). I can sell CDs (#AltonSterling). I can sleep (#AiyanaJones). I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown).
Who really says this?
Michael Brown could've had a regular visit to the store too. Instead, he chose to brazenly steal whatever he wanted and waltzed out despite the owner's protestations, strutted down the middle of the street with his stolen goods, wrestled a pistol from the attending police officer and discharged a shot in the struggle, and then - having made a little distance in his getaway - chose to turn around and charge at the officer even as he demanded cooperation.
Arbery could've had a pleasant jog too. Instead he chose to enter a stranger's house, flee when confronted by concerned neighbours, and very nearly wrestle away his firearm - and we all know how that would've ended - creating a life or death situation for the good Samaritan.
Why, if this is such a terrible phenomenon, must we lie to create martyrs? I don't even disagree with the scourge of brutality, especially having seen a 17 year old White boy shot and killed by police today in a welfare check. But why is it so common in the BLM movement to rally behind violent criminals on the receiving end of justifiable responses? I understand the black incentives for doing so, but why are Whites perpetuating these myths so enthusiastically? Why aren't they rioting for the White victims instead of (or at the very least, as well as) these black thugs?
For example, why was OJ Simpson's verdict met with adulation when everyone knew he was guilty? That's the first thing that popped in my head when I read their last paragraph about lying to ourselves, though I admit I just listened to a podcast where Sam Harris or John McWhorter bring OJ up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHUu9sAGKo ("Sam Harris' podcast: The New Religion of Anti_Racism")
> For example, why was OJ Simpson's verdict met with adulation when everyone knew he was guilty?
Uh, maybe because the glove didn't fit? It's one thing to say "everyone knew" he was guilty, but when prosecutors don't even do they're job properly you can't just convict based on what "everyone knows".
I don’t really think this will stop even if Biden is elected. IMO they will coopt Biden’s victory as a victory for their propaganda and become more radical.
Yes, this selective political game of blame happens every election year. To them, it doesn't matter who is in office, they will still have someone or something to 'blame' for a selective issue.
If it doesn't fit their message, then they will ignore it. Their real message is: 'Some black lives matter to us, but not the ones that disagree with us.'
But why is it so common in the BLM movement to rally behind violent criminals on the receiving end of justifiable responses?
Are you seriously trying to assert that ending someone's life is a justifiable response to them shoplifting or trespassing? No doubt these are crimes, and the people doing them should not have been doing them, but the suggestion that the inevitable outcome is someone dying is completely ridiculous.
People commit these crimes all over the world every day, but they never don't end up getting killed. That only seems to happen in the US.
I'm sure you're not being disingenuous so I'll politely remind you of the part in each of those events where the deceased attempted to wrestle control of a firearm.
That's part of the problem. Everyone understands their career, family, home, etc may be destroyed if they don't go along with the narrative to get along, even long after that narrative has abandoned it's relationship with reality.
As a foreigner, I am perplexed too. This seems to me a class problem rather than a race problem, and ignoring the white victims and framing it as a race problem only misdirects from the actual issue.
The problem is that the rich rule the US and the poor are left to feed off the scraps, and pitting poor whites against poor blacks only benefits the elite that wants everyone to be too busy fighting each other to notice who's really in charge.
The systemic problem is the huge overlap of class (aka being poor) and race (aka being black) in the US. And that, along with general racist views, makes it such unique, and utterly racist, system. Ignoring that overlap means ignoring the root cause, for the US that is. in other countries, things are different.
There's a theory that this focus on identity politics is encouraged by elites, as a way of distracting people from class politics. I'm not convinced it's true, in that it's a deliberate strategy, but i imagine they're pretty pleased that it's happening.
You've cherry picked two names out of the eleven mentioned in the quote, and in both cases the facts as to what led to the deaths that you call "violent criminals on the receiving end of justifiable responses" are in dispute and you have chosen to present them in a way that is not truthful about what is known.
For example, your characterisation of events leading to the death of Arbery is written to suggest he broke into someone's home, where fact he entered an open construction site. To quote the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52623151:
> Around the time of the incident, a number of emergency calls were made, CBS News has reported. In one, a neighbour said a black man was seen at a home under construction. When asked if the man was breaking in, the caller replied "No, it's all open, it's under construction."
> The owner of the home that was under construction told CNN that, while his CCTV captured four short clips of a man that appeared to be Mr Arbery "trespassing" on his properly on 23 February, he had not reported any crime to the police.
> "I don't want it to be put out and misused and misinterpreted for people to think that I had accused Mr Arbery of stealing or robbery, because I never did," he said.
> A lawyer for the homeowner later said its their belief that Mr Arbery had been looking for water. Security footage shows he was not the only person to enter the construction site - children from the neighbourhood were also filmed playing at the site.
I don't know where US Americans got the idea about social justice and all these tangential topics related to it.
In my view the result is that social justice nearly stands for race segregation, inclusion and diversity is almost synomymous with banning outsiders and heretics, methods of societal analysis lead to the worst kind of dogmatism.
At first I honestly thought the teachings of some proponents were to troll in the original sense of the word, but they were completely serious about it.
'Social justice' is far better than 'justice' in my opinion, but it can never be an argument to demand solidarity because that will inevitably lead to totalitarianism.
The "classical" US citizen that proudly swings their flag, shoots holes in the sky and idolizes freedom is a much more attractive alternative.
American cultural influence has always been substantial, but since Trump and the hyper-interesting reality TV politics of recent years... it's on a hole new level.
Here (in Ireland), the Brexit show (slightly receding) and Trump show have eclipsed local politics by a long shot. ROI politics are a distant fourth (after NI), in terms of affecting the local political conversation. It has become truly absurd. The average person can name far more politicians in the US or UK than locally.
Recent Irish politicians my experience is that most people know:
Michael D, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Mary Lou, Simon Coveney, Phil Hogan, Paul Murphy, Ming
Recent UK politicians my experience is that most people know:
Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Bercow, Arlene Foster, Jeremy Corbyn
Recent US politicians that most people know:
Trump, Hilary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden, Obama
People who follow politics more closely might also know Irish politications like Simon Harris or Stephen Donnelly, Eamon Ryan or their local TDs, UK politicians like Gove, Rees-Mogg and Nicola Sturgeon, and US politicians like AOC or Mitch McConnell. And of course you get people who look way more closely into politics with a much broader view of things or much deeper for a specific country.
But also in terms of potential impact on Ireland, the reality is that the order is:
1. COVID-19
2. Brexit
3. Anything else the coalition government is likely to get passed.
So it's not surprising that Brexit and consequently UK politics have had such an outsized influence these past few years.
There is a practical aspect to it, but a lot of it is pure drama. Yes, Brexit affects us. Brexit was also extremely dramaful.
I agree that it depends on social circles, but IMO, Boris or Trump animate much stronger & livelier opinions than Leo or Martin. Moreover, they can probably identify their political positions on more issues.
The American brand of racism is very much obsessed about skin color. Historically European racism is quite different. The Nazis were deeply racist, but didn't care much about skin color in particular - they hated and murdered Slavs and Jews and Roma, groups not identified by skin color. Europe have to acknowledge and engage with this horrible past, but things like obsessing about the Dutch "Zwarte Piet" tradition is totally missing the point IMHO.
Adele, the singer, was photographed at the Nottinghill Carnival (a massive Carribean street festival over the August bank holiday in London) with her hair in Bantu Knots and wearing a bikini top in the colours of the Jamaican flag. As soon as it was on twitter the you started getting tweets from Black Americans about cultural appropriation, but this was met in turn by fierce opposition from African and Carribean posters from the Uk and Africa who thought she looked great and were incredibly pissed off at the Americans for appointing themselves the global arbiters of what parts of African or Carribean culture were allowed or not allowed to be used by non-Africans or Carribeans. They found the proscriptions to be silly or highanded behaviour.
Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.
As a British person with Caribbean family background, I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange. In Britain it's normal that the different cultures here mix. Shops selling Baltic bread, next to shops selling jerk chicken, across the road from a traditional English pub. People of all colours and backgrounds frequenting all of them.
From an outside perspective, people in the USA seem very pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation, where black and white people live different lives and mixing is frowned upon. I see this attitude on both sides.
That was not true in any of the prisons I was in in Texas. There were four that I lived in over ten years and several others that I traveled through. I've heard about it being the case in some prisons, but to present it as a universal truth is wrong. The most strictly segregated prison system I've heard of is California's, but it's based on alliance rather than race alone. The AB-aligned whites are allied with Sureños (a Hispanic group) while blacks are allied with Norteños, and fraternization is fine within the alliance but not outside of it.
Your perception that in the US "black and white people live different lives and mixing is frowned upon" seems like it's been heavily influenced by some less-than-honest talking points. The idea that the UK is an oasis of racial harmony versus a segregationist USA is pretty far from the truth.
Not that far I'd say. While the British have their nazis and everything in moderation, at least they're not generally 24/7 preoccupied with race. (They are however preoccupied with class a lot).
at least they're not generally 24/7 preoccupied with race
1. Not true of Americans, and
2. Probably a newsflash to all the British people who are subject to discrimination on the basis of race.
British views and issues around race are different from American ones. The article has value, because this point is important and often missed – even if it's not new.
But too many people in the UK use this idea as a "harrumph here in good old Blighty we're above all this American racism nonsense" and give themselves a good pat on the back while ignoring our entirely different and still serious problems.
In an attempt to lighten the mood a little, I would just like to relate a quick story about a restaurant I saw while visiting Liverpool many years ago. It was called, "Jamaican me Hungry". :)
Lark Lane, Liverpool seems quite apposite here. Two Turkish restaurants, an Italian-American one, a Mediterranean one, a Thai one, three Chinese takeaways, a burger place, an Indian restaurant, a Tandoori house, a pizza place, a middle-eastern restaurant, a Greek restaurant, and two bistros.
One of the takeaways is a vegan "Chinese chippy" named Woo Tan Scran.
The issue is people being offended on behalf of others (which is itself not a bad thing: we should be conscious of where we might be using culturally significant signals inappropriately, or otherwise causing offence) but being hyper-sensitive and seeing offence where it doesn't really exist in the groups that they think they are standing up for.
> pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation
I think were "cultural appropriation" is being called hyper-sensitively, it is more an over-active sense of guilt-by-association[†] than any desire to segregate. This very much exists in the UK as well, though it isn't as pronounced as it seems to be in the US.
Finding the right balance point can be difficult. The dividing lines between cultural appreciation, cultural mixing, cultural appropriation, and cultural subjugation, while sometimes obvious & clear are often much more subjective.
[†] association with the past racist history of the nation and/or the many still current problems
> Finding the right balance point can be difficult. The dividing lines between cultural appreciation, cultural mixing, cultural appropriation, and cultural subjugation, while sometimes obvious & clear are often much more subjective
In my opinion, this hypersensitivity was turned into a weapon to shame people who have no ill-will. Compounded with Twitter bandwagoning, it’s downright dangerous, and now people are self-censoring anything to avoid censure
It is sometimes weaponised, often as a distraction method in political discussions, or as a defensive come-back ("yeah, I X, but you Y"), but from what I've seen it is more often people being overly sensitive and/or with too much time on their hands and looking for something to discus.
The problem is being hyper sensitive is subjective. What is hyper sensitive to you is absolutely normal to someone else. I don’t ever find it wrong to “culturally appropriate” and I don’t even know how it became a thing. I can’t actually think of any reason why it would be bad to start sharing aspects of culture whether it is clothes, music, or language. It brings people together with commonality. People enjoy copying things they like. I wouldn’t ever say someone can’t wear my outfit because my outfit is important to me. The way I see this term used in America is use by racists as a way to be racist against whites who they perceive don’t deserve the freedom to dress any way they want.
The "hyper sensitivity" also cuts both ways. There do exist hyper-sensitive people seeking out reason to be offended... and other hyper-sensitive people seeking out evidence of others' hyper-sensitivity and getting offended about that.
Both are further stirred by major media trawling through minor media and social media for something to declare as "controversial". I had never heard of the Adele thing, and a quick Google turned up a CNN article which said[1]:
> The singer was quickly accused of cultural appropriation by some users for the hairstyle and top.
How many users is "some"? A dozen? A hundred? Does it really merit "controversy"?
Much of the time, I've found, one hypersensitive person is piled on by a thousand people who have found yet more evidence that there is an enormous social effort to repress them. They rarely or never encounter anybody who actually puts them down, but they hear about somebody else, and that's repeated so often that it sounds massive.
I've even seen it here on HN an awful lot: "I can't even say X anymore without being told how bad I am by a bunch of snowflakes", blithely ignoring how much of a snowflake that makes them. All they want is to be able to say whatever they want without anybody disagreeing -- is that so wrong?
> I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange
That's because "the internet"'s voice isn't the prevailing opinion of the general population. It is the fad-driven prevailing opinion of socially dysfunctional people aged 14-27.
Social media addiction is a disease, and en masse it has cast a shadow over all of political discourse.
what happens in the U.S. is that white people take everyone's culture and continue to marginalize and disrespect minorities. It happened with the bible. It happened with karate. It happened with rock music. So people kind of have their guard up. Misinformation is so rampant here that adele very well could become the inventor of dred locks if people don't make enough noise about it.
So people still react like this because it wasn't too long ago that back to the future was implying that Chuck Berry stole the idea for Johnny B Good from a white person. That's an example right there straight from my parents' childhood.
It's normal in the USA as well, only the vocal micro minority on twitter get enraged at everything. I really hope it's just a decade long trend that will go away. Social justice warriors get mocked for a reason.
As a Greek, I agree. Ancient Greek culture influences a lot of things, but I've never heard of any Greek being offended by any of it, we consider it homage/remixing.
As a Brit who visited Greece it shocked me how much of a political issue it is there. I kind of came to the conclusion that any slippery slope or historical argument is less relevant than "If they want them so badly and we don't really care, just hand them over"
Museums constantly have borrowed items on display - borrowed as in not stolen. I'm aware this is a more common practice the more modern arts you're displaying but still. I'm sure an institution of such prestige as the British Museum could find ways to arrange temporary exhibitions of like everything (I'm tempted to make silly parallels to the handling of Brexit negotiations but I will better stop here)
Don't they usually arrange these as "swaps" though? (I'm no expert on this). I mean with other museums - I know there's the thing where rich people buy impressive shit and then lend it to museums so they don't have to worry about security.
>it shocked me how much of a political issue it is there
Not that much at all. Perhaps you encoutered it at all because you're a Brit and so got into related discussions. It's not like people talk about it that much there.
Basically the marbles were stolen decades ago, and the argument was that Greece was in no shape to hold them, so England was protecting them. Now we have the Acropolis museum, that argument doesn't hold so well any more.
I think that has died down after the agreement (where they agree not to claim that any more). Their claim to ancient Greek heritage was an overreaction to a Greek overreaction to drive them out of south Macedonia (the Greek part) around 100 years ago. Before then, both races were coexisting pretty happily, as far as I know, but the Greek government decided to launch a propaganda against North Macedonians (slavs) in the early 1900s.
There is some reaction within Greece after the agreement, about how it's a betrayal etc, but I expect that to die down pretty quickly now that the matter is settled.
No, it really isn't. American I presume? You have full rights to use elements of our culture from this here part of Europe (not that you ever asked our permission, you use them anyway. But it's not like we care either...).
Everybody has the absolute right to use elements of others' cultures – and using them in a disrespectful or exploitative manner is something that I find distasteful and think its reasonable to object to.
Yours is the original idea of cultural appropriation criticism but the way the word is used is to gatekeep “Traditional American Lifestyle” from non-white cultures. The word’s dead.
There are some obvious cases that I think no one on HN would argue. But to use an example from above, Adele had a Caribbean-style look, and definitely got press and clicks because of it -- indirect, but definitely profiting. Is that exploitative?
A common example would be profiting from cultural developments or ideas from cultures that had been historically looked down upon or disadvantaged by your own, particularly when doing so in a disrespectful manner.
For example – a white European artist designing fabrics and prints with traditionally African patterns, without acknowledging the contribution or involving members of that community, would sit uneasily with me. Using one's inherent advantages to profit from the culture of others who don't have access to the same opportunities is something I object to people doing.
This idea in no way prevents people from mixing and incorporating cultural ideas and concepts themselves, or participating in those cultures.
> A common example would be profiting from cultural developments or ideas from cultures that had been historically looked down upon or disadvantaged by your own, particularly when doing so in a disrespectful manner.
I have two problems with your constraint "from cultures that had been historically looked down upon". How far back do we have to look? This might seem obvious between Europe and African countries. But if you look far enough you will find African invaders (Hannibal of Carthago) passing the Alps. I am convinced if you look far enough you will find instances where every culture frowned upon another. So, this criteria is open for interpretation. What is serious enough? How war back do we look? Therefor your constraint "from cultures that had been historically looked down upon" is far from trivial to apply.
Secondly, does that mean that I am responsible for the wrong doing of my ancestors? Does the question whether something is morally right if I do it depend on the behavior my ancestors? How far back do we go? Should we send children to prison for the crimes of their parents? Obviously, I am playing devil's advocate, here. But I am strongly against inconsistent standards.
Yeah “cultural appropriation” criticism is often cultural purism.
In some cases the way “appropriated” culture is represented look embarrassing to those native in said culture, like people are wearing ethnic clothing without the trousers that go with it, or cooking food not in the way it should be done and ending up with horrible slurry, but that’s rare in recent years.
This. If some idiot wants to put chorizo on their paella and eat the result, valencians will not really be offended, they will be slightly amused, if anything. Next thing, americans will want to forbid any kind of "fusion" cooking.
Exactly, Americans seem to have this weird view that no-one's culture should mix. I think in the UK the view of most people is that mixing cultures is fine as long as it's respectful
I grew up in a multicultural town in the UK (also home to a lot of racism unfortunately) but we had a yearly (carribean I think) carnival with music and floats and costumes and food.
People would turn out in the thousands and it didn't matter your skin colour because you were there to join in the fun. It doesn't matter if you wore something that wasn't traditionally part of your culture, because you were doing so to join in the fun, not to belittle people
The melting pot metaphor was replaced by a salad bowl, wasn't it? Assimilation (which is the melting pot) is now considered a crime against humanity and the whole "separate but equal" is the new hotness.
And you can't argue with salad because its healthy, and we are too fat, and we aught to be trying to live longer lives even though there's no incentive for most of us to prolong our misery.
It was, and that's not altogether bad. A melting pot implies homogeneity and the loss of one's identity and history. A salad bowl is a pleasant mixing of everything, with each component still retaining its identity - a carrot is still a carrot, a radish is still a radish, and so forth. The irony is if I want to celebrate the zest of a radish then I'm told I'm being insensitive and appropriating the radish culture. As is so often the case we end up moving neither forward nor backward but sideways.
In the end I like the salad bowl metaphor because it scales well globally. We're a single human race, all different, yet all the same. It's appropriate to celebrate one another's histories so long as we're mindful of our collective future.
>A melting pot implies homogeneity and the loss of one's identity and history.
That's the contemporary narrative, yes. In another light it's just saying "E pluribus unum."
Before it became uncouth to express a spirit of national unity or civic pride, the melting pot was a way of expressing that who we are is defined by our coming together to participate in the great project we call our nation. And as part of that, we're sharing in the uniqueness each of us bring and hard boundaries start "melting" together as we form a shared history and culture. A very chunky concoction constantly getting new pieces added, not a smooth uniform mixture left to simmer.
We now live in an age where "identity" often means participating in a stereotype that's actively gatekept. So the melting pot metaphor had to fall out of favor.
E pluribus unum is a bit reminiscent of the fascis. I'm currently searching for a word for the rods, all trimmed to the same length à la Procrustes, that constituted fasces, and will report back here if I manage to find it.
(a different motto, unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, not only mentions the relation of the parts to the whole, but also that of whole to its parts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24661326 )
Edit: so far I've learned only that the axe was the securis and that holders of high office would have their servants put the fascis on the ground, instead of holding them aloft, when they wished to emphasise they were on the people's side of an issue. Still no word for the individual rods, however.
E pluribus unum also comes from a time when we mandated that Native American schoolchildren cut their hair and not speak their native tongue. The melting pot ended up having a very WASPy complexion in the end and harmed those who were different from that ideal.
The salad bowl allows the individual to maintain and celebrate their heritage while coming together in a spirit of national unity and civic pride. Coming to America doesn't mean you lose your heritage or your history, it means you're part of something new - you've come to a part of the world where the entire world has come together, an example of what the world could be. People living in peace where elsewhere in the world they live at war.
The problem with salad is that there are people who don't care much for some ingredients and won't touch them. There's no such issue with strained soup: you either take it or leave it, there's no picking and choosing, the differences between the ingredients literally melt away (well, or they get chopped up!).
Like all metaphors, "the melting pot" has its limits. I've always thought it's for the best that, even though I'm mostly of English and Irish descent that I enjoy Indian, Italian and middle eastern food, and while maintaining my Catholic faith I have Jewish and Muslim coworkers whom I admire and look to examples.
While my identity is still "Irish Catholic," I've been enriched (and yes, changed) through exposure to others.
>Exactly, Americans seem to have this weird view that no-one's culture should mix.
Unless you replace "Americans" with "a small group of obnoxious loudmouths from the US on social media" in your statement, you don't reflect reality.
I heartily encourage you (once it's safe to do so) to come and visit New York City.
Have some pizza at a place run by Greeks.
Have a delicious bagel (I recommend an everything bagel with brie and tomatoes, yum!) at a bagelry[0] owned and run by a Thai family.
Have some ropa vieja with shrimp fried rice at one of many Chinese/Latin restaurants.
And a place near me has wonderful Callaloo and delicious curry goat.
And there are at least half a dozen places near me where I can get a tasty mofongo[1].
Or one of many Caribbean, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian, African and European restaurants, bars, music venues, festivals and all manner of other culture from six continents.
I was really sad when the French bakery near me closed. The croissant were nearly as good as the ones I had in Paris.
And that's just the food. Cultures, languages and customs mix freely here. While there certainly are distinct cultures, they are welcomed and often incorporated into the broader culture.
I think that you'd find that to be true in most urban areas (and many suburban ones).
That said, there are many places in the US which are not culturally or ethnically diverse at all.
Which isn't surprising. The US is big. It has ~75% of the population of the EU in an area more than twice the size of the EU.
Consider how homogeneous some areas of the EU are. Why is that? Is it because they're all bigots and 'limeys' don't want 'frogs' around, etc?
>90%+ of the people who think that are liberals. Moderates and conservatives can mix cultures pretty freely.
That hasn't been my experience at all. And I'm center-left myself. You know, somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders.
It seems you don't know many of your brother and sister Americans that you call "liberals."
Here in NYC we have about a 5:1 D/R ratio and you won't find many places on the planet, let alone in the US, that are more welcoming of different cultures, practices and individual choice.
I suggest you engage with your fellow Americans. I think you'll find that the vast majority of us have much more in common than we do differences.
There are those (like the ones telling you that ~200 million of your fellow Americans are evil, twisted communists who want to destroy our economy and Constitution) who want you to hate and fear your neighbors and fellow citizens.
Those people (regardless of political bent or affiliation) are the ones who threaten to destroy our democracy and Constitution.
As a general rule, folks like that are only interested in personal benefit and self-aggrandizement. And they're a very small group.
Would it surprise you to know that most of the folks you call "liberals" just want a decent job/career so they can live decently and raise their kids to be happy, healthy and fulfilled?
Would you be shocked to hear that those you deride believe in the ideals of our democratic republic, or that we believe in the rule of law, equal protection under the law and freedom of expression?
If you believe that a majority of Americans are communists and hateful people who want to destroy their own country, then you're not seeing the world as it is.
I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of tolerance, liberty and the ideals which fomented the founding and second founding[0] of our nation with you.
As I mentioned above, I think you'll find we agree about much, much more than we disagree.
If that sounds like a good idea to you, feel free to email me (no spaces or commas): En,,,cyclic al 17,76 at pro,,,ton mail dot co, , ,m
I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I'm so sick of the negativity and lies that make us suspicious and fearful of our fellow Americans.
I want my country to be a great place with liberty and opportunity for everyone. But we can't have that if we the people let those with the desire and motivation to create conflict divide us.
Even if you don't talk to me, please open yourself to the possibility that what you read on Twitter and Facebook doesn't reflect the values of most of your fellow Americans.
I'm from the Caribbean and I can attest to this. We're always baffled at the neuroticism of America's obsession with identity politics and tribalism, especially as it relates to race and culture.
In my country for example we have six distinct races/ethnicities, from indigenous to post-colonial. When either has a celebration or period of cultural remembrance, we openly dress, cook, and celebrate in the same manner. The concept of "cultural appropriation" is nothing but hubris in our minds.
Perhaps we're more fundamentally bonded due to our shared "fragmented" heritage, as V.S. Naipaul frequently expounded upon. Perhaps we're just not victims of inept ideological monoliths that are perpetrated by a radical left and radical right as it is in the US (along with the forced illusion of binary if not zero-sum choices).
Either way, we understand that racism is inescapable in some small measure but we try our best not to elevate it above reason and certainly not above national unity (or pride for that matter). Caribbean people are both welcoming of foreign cultures and curious in our exploration of the same. We wouldn't, couldn't, have it any other way.
My spouse grew up in Botswana. Despite living a few miles from the site of the first known location of a religious ceremony of our species —- in other words a place of transcendent human history, of Black history —- it was always the colonizer centered in her formal schooling.
An anecdote that in my experience in the Caribbean and in Africa ( I am most familiar with southern Africa) the process of decolonization still has so very far to go.
You do realise that your wife's Bantu-speaking ancestors displaced the Khoi and San (also known as bushmen) when they invaded the area which is now known as Botswana I hope? If you insist on decolonising Botswana it is not the western coloniser (who gave up its colonies in 1966) who bears the brunt of shame but the Bantu-speaking Kalanga since they displaced the original population - the Khoi and San go back a long time, back to the dawn of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. If your wife descends from Tswana-speaking people she doesn't escape guilt since the Bakgalagadi moved into the southern Kalahari which was, again, previously inhabited by the San and Khoi. Or did she maybe descend from the Toutswe who came out of the east and invaded parts of the territory now known as Botswana? Or maybe she descends from the Bakwena who moved into the southern Kalahari and displaced the Bakgalagadi (who earlier on had displaced the San and Khoi)? Should she descend from the Bangwaketse she has ancestors who occupied parts of western Botswana, if instead she has her ancestry with the Bangwato she'll be sad to learn that her ancestors occupied parts of Botswana which were formerly held by the Kalanga. Eventually the Batawana moved into the Okavango delta, one of the last refuges for the Khoi and San in Botswana so if she descends from them the memory of her ancestors' guilt is still fresh - the late 1700's.
Maybe it is better to take history as it is, learn lessons from where things went wrong so those mistakes are not repeated and look forward instead of back?
I’m sorry if you interpreted my comments in this way. My point was precisely the one that you seem to make, that in that in the English medium schools, this nuanced history was not conveyed, and that is the problem.
In fact, my wife’s family is among the “colonized colonizer”. My wife’s family moved to Botswana in the 1970s. They were originally from Tanzania, and had originally come from India, fleeing their own particular discrimination. They left Tanzania in the 1980s, because, in short, the country was trying to find a path in which Black Tanzanians could find a way to realize a full self determination. Their family did not want be a continued part of the problem.
Before my father in law was the thought that it was better to “un-settle” a place rather than be a continued part of its settler legacy. For many reasons, he was welcomed by the Batswana. I think it was a persistent asking of permission to enter, to join the table humbly and with respect for the people, a respect that they have the resourcefulness and brilliance to know what course is best for them. Humility.
The point being that even as another of the wave of “colonized colonizers” —- people who derive privilege by proximity to a ideal of what is presumed to be “better”, more western —- there was no mention of the rich history and the erasure of the indigenous people in the education she received.
I have been to the Three Dikgosi monument a few times, and felt it strange that for all this ancient, immeasurable history, the millenia of stories of the San an Khoi is condensed to a small mention.
The archaeological site a few hours from Gaborone, the site of a religious ceremony whose significance is lost to time. I just pieced together, but I know it predates the 1700s by tens of thousands of years.
So yes, there are layers of colonization and each prevents an accounting, a true embodiment of truth and reconciliation. There is a need to “un-settle”, to
question the orthodox histories.
> So yes, there are layers of colonization and each prevents an accounting, a true embodiment of truth and reconciliation.
True
> There is a need to “un-settle”, to question the orthodox histories.
That is where things go wrong. As you stated yourself, colonisers are often colonised themselves by later colonisers. The success of mankind as the dominant species on the planet literally depends on groups being displaced by other groups, otherwise everyone would have stayed in Eden - being the fertile parts of Africa where Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved. Some groups got displaced, moved into neighbouring territory and displaced or enslaved whatever group of people happened to live there. Fast-forward a few decades or centuries and the process was repeated, the former colonisers now get 'colonised' themselves. At this moment in time it gets hard to decide who is the 'oppressed' and who is the 'oppressor' since both groups will have done their share of 'oppressing' and both will have undergone 'oppression'. If you only look at one specific groups as being the 'oppressors' the way people like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin diAngelo do you end up with a distorted view of history where you assign 'victim' status to oppressors and ignore potential 'victimisation' of the designated oppressor, a good example here being the many African tribes who partook in the capture, transport and sales of slaves to Arab and western slave traders being assigned 'oppressed' status versus the Irish who were enslaved themselves being assigned 'oppressor' status. Since the 'oppressed' status has been turned into a form of social currency lending speaking rights and preferential treatment to those who carry it while those who carry 'oppressor' status have to stand back in line and provide for those with 'oppressed' status this system often leads to more injustice and with that an increase in social tension and a decrease in social cohesion. In other words, it breaks up society.
We do not want to break up society. Those who do want this should state their goal honestly and go to the elections with this stated purpose, if enough people vote for them they can get their way. Those who want to break up society by means of force have to accept that the majority of the population opposes their intentions and that the force of law can and should be used against them, just like it should be used against any other group which commits violence.
And that, in a nutshell, is why the need to "un-settle", to question the orthodox histories - in other words why deconstruction according to Critical Theory - does not work. The cake is too thick, too much mixed up to say which layer is the most tasty. Better have the cake as it is and make a note to tweak the recipe so it comes out better next time.
Here in Britan, as I walk on my way to work I pass by my favorite Indian restaurant, a Polish supermarket with Eastern European products, a Romanian bakery with delicious Transylvanian meat pies and a great German sausage/cheese shop. Each one of them has their respective country flag at the door next to the UK one. I'm not even living in a big city and it is already a cocktail of cultures.
As an Italian, stop eating pizza, Americans. You are culturally appropriating our food.
Jokes aside, this happening on Twitter and so it must be somewhat important is the most depressing and disheartening aspect of this event. Stop listening to what ignorants want to say on social media.
Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.
The US tends to monetize everything. This seems to be less true elsewhere.
We make a stink about "cultural appropriation" here because too much ends up being about the almighty dollar and those dollars far too often go into the pockets of White males, regardless of whose culture, creativity, labor, etc. created the thing.
I wish the idea would go die. I think it helps keep the problem alive rather than resolving it. But I think that's basically the crux of the issue.
In the 90s multiculturalism gained traction as a concept in the UK. Notting Hill Carnival is pretty much the definition of what that represented - a cultural celebration of one community being opened up to and enjoyed by others. I grew up close enough to hear the bass vibrating my windows and went almost every year despite not having any links to its origin communities. Despite this, it played an important part in my life and I feel these experiences informed my political/social outlook.
Cultural appropriation is a genuine phenomenon, but the difference between attending carnival and culturally appropriating it is a subtle one. For me, it comes down to intent and this is very hard to prove.
Am I doing it in solidarity - sharing a celebration with people who's neighbourhood I share and supporting their cultural expression? Or am I impersonating other communities for my own enjoyment? To a third party, it's can be difficult to tell the difference.
> Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.
I feel that the countries which have historically dealt with the realities of a multicultural society better have less issues with cultural appropriation - cultural segregation leads to ownership and identity issues. But that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist outside the USA. There is a context in which what Adele did is fine, and one in which it isn't - one photo won't tell you which it is.
Or am I impersonating other communities for my own enjoyment
Why would it be wrong to impersonate other communities for my own benefit?
If someone wants to wear a sombrero for a costume party or cook a Chinese dish because they enjoy it or have Chinese characters as a tattoo even though they aren't Chinese, I really don't see the problem.
That was in the context of attending an event primarily by and for that community. For example, a straight person dressing as a LBGT person (however you would do that) to attend a Pride event.
Your second and third are examples of the blending of cultures, which tends to be associated with multiculturalism which I would argue is generally a positive thing.
However, assuming that in your first example someone is trying to impersonate a Mexican person by wearing a sombrero, that could well be insensitive. My main point is that it does depend on intent and context, but at face value that is stereotyping, and not really very far from blackface. Hopefully we can all agree than we don't really want to go there.
What is appropriate to adapt from a particular culture is itself a cultural issue. The reason this is an issue here in America is because of the problematic ways that we adopted elements of other cultures in racist and demeaning ways, without understanding the deeper meaning behind them.
Some examples:
- Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. Black Americans were historically referred to as "Boy" "Girl", or "little" as a demeaning statement of class. "Auntie" and "Uncle" were reserved for older Blacks for the same reason. Use of Black figures as mascots for these brands is a form of cultural appropriation. [1]
- Cleveland Indians logo (other sports teams as well).
- People wearing Sioux (Lakotan) headdresses as fashion statements, which is offensive because that was a thing you had to earn in that culture.
Americans (and literally every culture) appropriates everything from food to clothes to language. Thats not inherently bad. It gets bad when you commercialize and propagate negative stereotypes about cultures that you have historically subjugated.
However, nuance is hard. So on twitter we have people who have embraced the mantra "Cultural Appropriation is bad" and go about shaming every little example of it without understanding the deeper meaning behind them (see what I did there? We're not that different than what we hate). This culture of shaming is itself a form of cultural imperialism.
I think context is really key here. A friend (who is a descendant of slaves) once told me that one reason hairstyles in particular are are such a sensitive subject, they were literally the only piece of culture/heritage people were able to bring with them on slave ships.
When families were ripped apart it it was a connection/ritual they could hold onto no matter what. Fast forward to the recent past and black people are still discriminated against because of their hairstyles. Some progress has been made in the past decade[0] but black women are still told their natural hair is unprofessional or unattractive and they are required to spend large amounts of $$, time and pain (styling techniques often require high heat/caustic chemicals) in order to be acceptable to corporate America.
Can you imagine the frustration of then watching wealthy white women be celebrated/complimented for adopting these hairstyles? One of the only cultural links you have to your ancestors, hairstyles you've been discriminated against, punished, and harassed for wearing?
I don't see consistency in logic. If the hairstyles were not accepted then 'wealthy white women' wouldn't be celebrated/complimented for adopting them. If anything having them become more celebrated by all would have those hairstyles more accepted than ever.
>A friend (who is a descendant of slaves) once told me that one reason hairstyles in particular are are such a sensitive subject, they were literally the only piece of culture/heritage people were able to bring with them on slave ships.
Music, culinary practices, agricultural practices, etc. are all pieces of culture that African slaves brought over from Africa.
The way it was explained to me, those are cultural practices that require specific items (instruments, spices, tools, specific plants) that they may not have had access to. Or those require time/opportunity to teach.
Hair was something that was consistently there.
I may be mistaken, this is just one person's opinion, but I thought it was a really interesting explanation for the importance given to hair and the protectiveness some people feel over those styles. It was also a perspective that never occurred to me until my friend brought it up.
I used to think Britain and the USA had a dominant but equal share in exporting culture since the 50s. We had the Beatles, they had Elvis. We had Jaguars, they had Mustangs. (this is deliberately simplified example)
However the internet has made everything smaller and the dominant force in tech is in the USA. Sure there are spikes in influence of Asian and other cultures (Gangam K-pop etc.) but most of it gets churned out from celebs, artists, influencers, bloggers, writers and thinkers in the liberal east and west coasts.
Do we all want to hear what these people have to say, no, but when everyone else is wanting to follow them then it becomes easier to be influenced directly or indirectly.
The last cultural influence that stood in opposition to "Western culture", was communism, but that died on 1990 with the first McDonald's in Moscow.
Sure the idea of communism isn't dead; you might see a few random people still promote it online or outside a shopping centre with a shabby looking stall, but these people are seen as weird or uncool (communism isn't cool btw).
So back to the topic, do we just want to be cool, is BLM cool, will it be forgotten, after the main proponents find another flag to wave?
Are we all just inadvertently programmed to consume and conform due to our DNA and society by those at the top, or do we risk being an outcast by going against them?
What happens when China takes the reigns as a new culture to oppose and compete with this idea of "Americanized Western Culture"?
Will we eventually have a Blade Runner like culture with a Chinese European blend in the future?
Will we all homogenise in the end? Will I see someone in the Amazonas eating KFC and wearing Adidas just like the person in the township in Johannesburg?
(but tbh they're nominally communists in a country with billionaires, hedge funds, and retail investors, while the nominally capitalist US is a surveillance state doing its utmost to pursue industrial policy with public means, so I'm not sure how one is supposed to be able to tell the difference anymore. That's part of why I've decided, for my own idiolect, to use Eastasia and Oceania, respectively.)
Edit: I guess they'd say 牛逼 instead of cool. Maybe 酷?
You're probably on point. This globalization thing is just taking a while, and the transition period is not ideal. Give it a few more generations and the relevance of smaller cultures will shrink more and more.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 304 ms ] threadI'm so over hearing about this bullshit here. The aboriginal people of Australia face real problems. The police isn't one of them.
PS, keep your debates to yourselves too. Nobody cares and your media cutting Trump out of context is obvious and gross. You are literally becoming the fake news he always said you were.
“There is a sadly high level of Indigenous incarceration, I think it’s about 30% compared to 3% of the population,” Mitchell said, while interviewing the prime minister on Thursday. “But black deaths in custody, I mean, that’s, that’s a furphy, isn’t it? I mean, since the royal commission, as I saw it, there have been fewer Indigenous people, per head of prison population, dying in custody than have white people?”
Morrison replied: “That is welcome news.”
However, the death rate per prisoner is only part of the story. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 10 times more likely to die in custody than non-Indigenous people in Australia."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/death...
Unfortunate, an injustice, a tragedy, a disaster, a systemic failure to integrate, yes. But racist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me. Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist. Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs.
Talk about the real problem not the symptom, but whatever you do, don't start calling all white people racist for being nothing but white, all that does is alienate allies and make you look like a moron.
Edited to respond to your edits:
> Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist.
Unqualified statements asserting that a specific racial group "just commit more crime" is pretty much an applied definition of the word "racist". Isolated statistics about aboriginal behaviour used to buttress your assertion that you are not racist, just seem to underline the fact that perhaps you have much to learn.
If you'd said, "statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government", that would probably not be racist, but I'd want to defer to an aboriginal person before putting my neck out too far on that one either.
One of the difficult things about racism is that it does not matter how we (ie, people of European descent) feel about it, but how the people we're talking about feel about it.
> Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs
What problem are you talking about? The problem that we invaded their land, shot them, stole their children, and to this day oppress them both economically and legally?
> all that does is alienate allies and make you look like a moron
No ally of mine is going to be alienated or offended by simple statements of truth.
For what it's worth you are doing the EXACT same thing the post in this article is about: you are pushing a very American view on racism.
First of all, racism is absolutely not White -> Black. Or White -> Aboriginal. If you think that I'd assume you haven't met a lot of people form other parts of the world. Racism is everywhere and it's not a White-only issue. That's a very American view.
Second of all, it absolutely DOES matter what 'we' (white people) think of it. Saying only people we talk about get to have a say in this is also a very American viewpoint.
We really don't need to "defer to an aboriginal person", as you say. Just like this article states you are now assuming that all aboriginal people agree on this subject.
Saying we aren't qualified to say what's racist but we need a minority for that is the kind of generalizations the article pushes against.
I never said that racism was white/black, but I was writing specifically in the context of European racism against Aboriginals in Australia, which happens to be fairly black and white. I’m happy to discuss racism in other countries, but that wasn’t the topic at hand.
Of course it matters what white people think about racism. But it doesn’t hurt to get the opinion of those who are actually harmed by it, does it? I mean I have never had the misfortune of experiencing racism first hand, so if I say something that an aboriginal person considers racist, that’s something I would want to take very seriously.
I never said “we” aren’t qualified to say what is racist. What I’m not so confident about, when specifically talking about aboriginal people, is claiming that my statements are not racist.
Overt racism is pretty easy to spot, but just because I try to be considerate doesn’t mean that the things I say in good faith can’t nevertheless be racist.
Keeping an open mind and listening to how others feel is more important than my biased opinion.
One is extremely diminishing and the other is a pretty easy to write off as ignorance, differing upbringing, and a general intolerance of difference.
If you need me to spell out a clear cut example of racism it's a few comments earlier where you assumed I was white and discounted my views on this matter solely because of it. Either that or what I was saying didn't fit your American centric narrative.
For what it's worth,
"statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government"
Was pretty much the gist of what I was getting at but I thought that was pretty obvious given the context and adding the context doesn't really make my statement any more or less factual. More credible maybe, but if you took my remarks on good faith it wouldn't have been a problem. But that is the problem with this American narrative, everyone is too busy trying to win, nobody is trying to look at facts for what they are and find the common ground therein.
These facts don't make aboriginal people any less human or any less successful as a people. They're just shitty truths about the world.
You are right that I thought you were white. It is because you said, "don't start calling all white people racist for being nothing but white". I apologise for the assumption.
You did, however, call me a moron, which doesn't really strike me as arguing in good faith.
You also said this:
> The aboriginal people of Australia face real problems. The police isn't one of them.
If you live in Australia and you don't think that cops are, at least until relatively recently, a huge part of the problem with Aboriginal welfare, then maybe you missed the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody [0]. I was in high school when that stuff went down, I remember how many people were being killed, and the fact stands that Aboriginal people are 10x more likely to die in prison than Europeans.
"The key finding of the royal commission was that Aboriginal people are more likely to die in custody because they are arrested and jailed at disproportionate rates. That remains as true in 2020 as it was in 1991." [1]
> For what it's worth, "statistically, aboriginal people commit more crime. Studies have shown that this is because of chronic health and economic issues which have never been adequately addressed by any Australian government" Was pretty much the gist of what I was getting
But that's not what you actually said.
> I thought that was pretty obvious given the context and adding the context doesn't really make my statement any more or less factual.
Mate, there was very little context in what you wrote. If I took you the wrong way then I apologise, but maybe you can accept your part in this too. Maybe you didn't express yourself as well as you might have. That's cool, but how you express yourself is not my responsibility.
> if you took my remarks on good faith it wouldn't have been a problem. But that is the problem
You called me a moron!!
> with this American narrative
...and you assumed I'm American? Or that I don't have my own reasoned narrative? That's not really good faith now is it?
> everyone is too busy trying to win, nobody is trying to look at facts for what they are and find the common ground therein.
When you say that "Aboriginal people just commit more crime", that's not a fact, it's a tautology; of course they commit more crime, they are generally poorer and sicker, because of how they've been treated. I'm pretty sure that poor white people commit more crime too. Aboriginality has nothing to do with criminality; and just because a statement is true, through some twisted logic, doesn't mean it can't also be racist.
That doesn't mean that I think you are a racist; I have no idea. But I do think what you said is.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Aborigin...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/death...
edit: add quote
https://youtu.be/fNSRz-MCM1w?t=253
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xGawJIseNY
Er... that sounds incredibly racist?
Really, it's due to economic circumstance (I bet poor white people are convicted of more crimes than rich white people). It just so happens that the system makes it very difficult for indigenous people to move up the economic ladder. The system is set up in such a way that it assumes indigenous people want to and/or should confirm to white European ideas of what is "normal" as well.
If only we had a convenient word for this, "the confluence of negative formal and material circumstances put upon someone because of race"...
Also, they called me a moron, which (accurate or not) is not cool.
> The system is set up in such a way that it assumes indigenous people want to and/or should confirm to white European ideas of what is "normal" as well
I suspect that the system does not assume that aboriginal people want or should be European; rather, it doesn't think about aboriginal people at all.
Absolutely. Not that it's anything new. Nor is it limited to ethnic minorities. Consider Anatole France's observation[0]: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France
> Aboriginal people just commit more crime
More crime than who?
More crime than "Normal" people?
Or, More crime than all other groups with the same economic opportunieis?
More crime than groups with the same health issues? More crime than other people who go blind from trachoma and trichiasis despite it no longer being a public health problem in any other developed country in the world? [0]
More crime than other people who have had their children systematically stolen?
More crime than other people who have been racially abused in public, while playing a game of football?
I mean, come on, you're a smart cookie. You can't accept a claim that "aboriginal people commit more crime" unless you compare it to some equivalent group. Aboriginal and non-aboriginal people are not remotely equivalent, because aboriginal people have been systematically denied the freedom, health outcomes and economic opportunities available to almost any other group in Australia.
[0] https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/learn/health-topics/eye-hea...
A fact is a statement about reality. It can induce racism, but cannot be racist in itself. Facts are scientific, and science is not political.
> More crime than who?
Of non-Aboriginal people.
> Or, More crime than all other groups with the same economic opportunities?
Maybe or maybe not. That is beside the point. If you compare incarceration rates of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people you have already decided that that is the division of the population you want to reason about. You cannot argue that the reason group A has higher incarceration rates of group B is because of racism, and when someone else proposes crime rates as an explanation, suddenly you switch to different population subdivisions: by economic opportunities, by health issues, etc.
The question about incarceration is: are Aboriginals more likely to be incarcerated for the same crimes than non-Aboriginals?
It can be produced with a racist intent, or it can be interpreted as such. You can talk of the result of the calculation in a racist way, or derive racist conclusions from it. But per se, it cannot be racist. And you cannot decide to ignore the result of a calculation because you don't agree with the discussion or the questions it generates.
EDIT (rate limited): as for your other answer "By saying "Aboriginal people just commit more crime" you are declaring that race is a relevant factor..." you are confusing correlation with causation. Or you are assuming that I might be confusing them.
By saying "Aboriginal people just commit more crime" you are declaring that race is a relevant factor in someone's propensity to commit crime.
Surely that means that information generated by the system is also going to be influenced by that racism?
If we over-police, over-charge, over-prosecute, and over-convict one group of people then the system will generate "facts" that tell us this group of people commit more crime. Obviously we don't know if that group of people do commit more crime because we're relying on broken data.
Racist is a race discrimination. Race discrimination is when you are treated differently because of your race.
https://equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/race-...
Skin color is not the reason of a certain person to have certain ability, or certain moral standard.
"Aboriginal people just commit more crime." is a factual statement about how many aboriginal people committing crime. It could be true or false. If the statement is "Aboriginal people just commit more crime, because they are aboriginal", then it is racist because it draws a causal relationship of race and crime rate which is completely false.
Nowadays, from a statement of "Aboriginal people just commit more crime.", someone can see through the proposer's mind to assume he has stereotype impression on aboriginal people and inside his/her mind, the proposer thinks because of people's skin color, they will just magically commit more crime. So, it is concluded that the proposer is racist. This is thought crime, and law should assume people is innocent until proven in case of criminal law.
It is really bad, because it does not let people to lay out the data based on race, and therefore cannot solve the real problem behind it. Why a specific race would commit more crime in a country? There must be a reason behind it. Maybe only one community with majority of a specific race committing most of the crime, and other communities of that race are completely normal. Then you have to further find the reason why that community committing so many crime etc.
However, the left in America does not think like that. They just get a aggregate data of the country and lay out many disadvantage of certain race facing, and so it can justify minority group to victimize themselves.
A term systematic racism is coined. If there is no equal outcome for each race then the society is racist. No active actors of racist is involved. The system itself is designed which cause non equal outcome among races and therefore must be overthrown and replaced with a non racist system.
The whole idea is just giving up thinking analytically about the root cause of non equal outcome and blame it all to the society. If there is not enough educational resource because the state is consist of mainly poor blacks, then just let the rich state to subsidize the poor state. Rejecting better grade non-black is just solving the problem by a racist measure which is not moral. And it is also racist against the black because it implied black are just dumber, and I find it strange for black to accept that. No, because they are poor and does not have enough educational resource.
I think the America left is so irrational that it starts to be very similar to Soviet Union style of thinking.
PS: Not-White. Just a observation from other race outside America.
The statement "people who have been abused continuously for 200 years commit more crime" might be true, and is not racist. [0]
The statement "Aboriginal people just commit more crime" is true only because Aboriginal people have been abused continuously for 200 years.
If you single out the race but leave out the cause, then the statement is clearly racist.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
Given chronology, that's not entirely or even largely on them.
White fragility is a best seller being heavily pushed by people all over America.
You're talking about white Europeans failure to integrate with Indigenous Australian societies, right?
Cultural integration requires both cultures to integrate.
No, it isn't equal sided, no it isn't fair what has happened, but ignoring the current status quo and positing Europeans should be actively trying to go bush is just facetious.
Isn't that the same argument people use in the US to justify why more Black Americans are incarcerated / killed by cops?
If that is actually your stance, I'm confused as to how you see Australia as fundamentally different from the US.
https://youtu.be/fNSRz-MCM1w?t=253
Seriously this trying to draw false comparisons with America where there aren't any is exactly what the OPs article is about.
In this video they also say that changing the date of Australia Day is “ridiculous”. That’s not necessarily bad in and of itself, but it’s certainly not an opinion shared by all aboriginal people and it strongly suggests that they aren’t impartial.
If this is the best you’ve got to defend your views, you don’t got much at all.
Jordan shanks is one of the small handful of legitimate journalists we have in this country.
Laws are written by human beings. In the US, a lot of laws were written with explicitly racist goals of denying certain groups equal access. We are still living with that legacy in myriad ways.
If you write laws designed to target certain groups and land them in jail, don't be all shocked when a lot of those folks wind up in jail. And then, yes, "x group just commits more crimes" is a racist statement because it glosses over the context that the "crimes" they commit are "crimes" invented by White power holders to intentionally deny such people rights.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
All of the comments are getting flagged and killed. I don't see any rule breaking.
2. Nothing good is going to come out of adding to that flamewar.
3. It crosses into personal attack, which is particularly not ok.
4. Please email hn@ycombinator.com with questions like this, rather than posting off-topic comments. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Not less racist, not more racist, just differently racist.
OK.
> nearly as badly as black people
Nah, fuck off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_slaves_myth
I'm sure you can think of a few examples, but the idea that the UK is equally as racist as the US is laughable.
To be clear: I am not saying that racism doesn't exist in the UK or that it isn't a problem - but the kind of false equivalence you put forward doesn't really advance the conversation.
How many people of any colour or ethnicity have been killed by UK police in the last 10, 20, 30 years? It doesn't happen very often, principally because they're not routinely armed.
> I'm sure you can think of a few examples, but the idea that the UK is equally as racist as the US is laughable.
In some ways, sure. But in other ways, the UK is behind the US: the UK has (and has had) no Black generals, admirals, or supreme court judges, for example.
But that's true of lots of places, including the US, antisemitism being the obvious example.
> For centuries, the Scottish and Irish natives have been variously oppressed by the British
I'm not sure it make sense to talk about Scots being oppressed by the British: Scots are British (though many are not particularly fond of the label). Did you mean to say English?
And besides, the Brits are a very mature ethnic identity, as such, they've had many centuries to come up with and nourish many different ways to discriminate - be it which village you come from, what school you attended, which football/sports club you affiliate with and which side of the street your pub resides on.
Racism has been linked with discrimination against nationality for many years. In the UK the Race Relations Act 1965 (55 years ago) included "national origin".
I completely agree. I prefer 'bigotry' rather than 'racism'.
Mostly for the reasons you suggest, but also that 'racism' is a nonsensical term in the context of biology. Homo Sapiens is a single species.
As such, one could be racist against dolphins or dogs or daffodils, but not humans.
But we can still hate and be bigoted against those who don't look or talk or dress or act like "us."
This is why I think the debate on "whitelist" is more about PR and gaining internet points than anything else.
It can be argued that the term is racist in an specific historical context (no contest there) and that applied pretty much to the whole American continent, but let's not forget this kind of racism against the Irish was happening in both sides of the pond barely 100 years ago.
Associating colors with qualities is much, much older than 500 years.
Then again, the same conservatives heavily support Trump in their journal. Like print articles on his support, call Biden sleepy and stupid, really hate BLM movement .... that dont exist here.
They were really worked out about statues, all same talking points ... despite supporting take downs of status of communist when that was relevant.
Erm... if highlighting the abuse and rape of half the population is “hiding actual problems” then you’re part of the problem.
In general I lament the americanization of worldwide media, as if America is some kind of paragon of behaviour that everyone should emulate, and whatever social phenomenon is happening there it must be valid elsewhere. That's simply not true.
This article touches on it: https://wachtyrz.eu/antisemitism-in-poland-each-pole-is-a-je...
Well said! I would wager that this has become true in almost all countries and the effects are very insidious. Many real problems are often obfuscated and sidelined by the latest media export from the US which has no or at best marginal relevance in their local countries.
Or in their local counties (in the US).
Also...Poland has draconian drug laws, draconian drug laws in the US led to institutionalised racism hence the situation in the US is similar to Poland...c'mon...seriously?
edit:
And now I'm being downvoted for saying this despite seeing ACAB sprayed across every imaginable surface by football fans my entire life.
I absolutely agree that transplanting US talking points wholesale into non-US frames of reference is something that's often done blindly and never really applies.
But the reason for this is that the issue is nuanced and has a lot of local context that needs consideration in its own right. It shouldn't be used as an excuse to dismiss the existence of systemic racism in your own country.
I think the above quoted line is such a pity as it truly undermines the rest of your otherwise excellent comment.
Poland does of course have systematic racism problems - for instance against the Roma people, of whom there is a non-insignificant number and who are discriminated against literally everywhere. Same with immigrants, regardless of their skin colour - Ukrainians who come to work in Poland are treated very poorly and portrayed negatively just for who they are. That is systematic racism.
BUT - it's not systematic racism like in the US where (as far as I can understand) the racism is rooted in history of slave ownership, general belief that black people are inferior and deep history of segregation normalizing the process. None of those apply in Poland, yet some people behave as if they do - and that is what I object to.
My own experience of the term's usage is to simply imply that racism is part of a system's inherent structural definition, rather than being purely reliant on individual/group biases.
In particular in Europe, one very simplistic example of this is the systemic intolerance of nomadic peoples. This is not limited to individuals discriminating against nomadic people, but rather that legislation and bureaucratic processes are in place that give inherent preference to those who are not nomadic; most obviously in laws related to property rentals and ownership, but also pervading every form of corporate and public administration.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415952786
https://www.thoughtco.com/systemic-racism-3026565
> My own experience of the term's usage is to simply imply that racism is part of a system's inherent structural definition, rather than being purely reliant on individual/group biases.
By that definition, all racism is systemic racism, since the system is made up of people.
I don't know enough in the field to know if Feagin's definition is a popular one worldwide, or even within the US, but it seems somewhat reductive on first reading.
If systemic racism cannot occur outside of the US, what then should we refer to racism that is "systemic" as?
> By that definition, all racism is systemic racism, since the system is made up of people.
Technically, I would agree, but going that far seems somewhat pedantic.
> If systemic racism cannot occur outside of the US, what then should we refer to racism that is "systemic" as?
I don't know, I sincerely don't understand your definition. How can a country be comprised of racist people but have a system that isn't, or vice versa?
This said, you can argue there is some systematic racism against the Roma or Ukrainians. But it's more based on culture and national identity, so its different than what an American would think of then hearing the term.
Your opening paragraph seems to commit the same mistake the original commenter was lamenting: you're defining racism purely through a US lens and asking if the same is present in Poland. The framing of that question isn't valid.
I had a similar experience in this part of Europe. But I'm quite convinced that we don't see systemic racism against black folks there because they are such a small minority.
People are as racist as everywhere else (maybe even more so because of the lack of diversity in their country). I'm willing to bet Poland has its own minorities it's systemically discriminating against.
Interestingly, black people here don't tend to commit much crime. It might be because they're too few to be in the media, but I'm realizing I've never heard of a crime here being committed by a black person.
I don't follow. How can you make such judgement, if you "not only not interacted, but not seed a single black person"?
> Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic.
So, just a few bad apples then? I think, some knowledge is transferable after all.
Systemic only means "relating to a system, especially as opposed to a particular part".
If you and practical most people in Poland (or a lot of other countries) have never seen or talked to a black person, that is related to the system. The way you and others have formed an opinion about foreign people, or people of different faith, or sexual orientation, that is inherent to the system in Poland.
Now, the question is, what is the experience of those likely few black people in Poland interacting with other people? Do they experience in most interactions negative prejudice, or are they only experiencing it in isolated cases, or even not at all?
The way I see it, the learning we should take from the US is, that as a member of the majority, one should avoid having a prejudice of how that experience will be. Because our n of those experiences will indeed be too small to tell. And if those people are telling us that their experience is bad, not to reject it as the exception (a few bad apples).
My best guess is that the media owners are a) American (and want to push "the American way"), and b) it's somehow cheaper.
The reason these issues are different in different places is history. "Racism" in the states, as a political issue and concept, is firmly rooted in their history. Slavery, civil war, post war confederate politics, etc. Poland, and europe generally, has different historical anchors.
Poland is a prime example, in fact. Consider what Poland was before 1938 and what it is now, demographically, ethnically, culturally, etc. Those things inform the present.
In some sense, interest in US politics may be useful (even if it is often irrational). It's easier to see these things about other countries... like a fable or morality tale. By eventual analogy, it may come around.
It's sad, because it pollutes important discussion on adjacent topics.
Are you sure about that? I haven't spent much time in Poland, but I've spent quite a bit of time in the baltic states and systemic racism absolutely is a problem there. It's just (mostly) against Jews and Roma rather than black people. I fully expect this is the case in Poland too.
EDIT: yes,as I thought.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Poland
In a way, it's even worse: because America sets the tone of discourse and frames racism as white vs black, Polish and other Eastern European cultures feel justified in claiming they don't have any systemic racism, when in fact it's there, just not against black people.
I recognize this in my own country (Ireland) where people will so proudly declare we are not racist because we treat black and Indian immigrants well by comparison to the US. However, Irish culture has deep systemic racism rowards the Traveller minority. Getting most Irish people to admit this is basically impossible though, and I expect it's the same for racism towards Jews and Roma in Poland.
There are laws in the US that, on the surface, seem to be benign, but upon closer inspection are specifically and systematically created to target a certain racial group disproportionately.
I think you use it to mean "it played a major role in the founding of our country". Saying "there is no systemic racism in Poland" makes sense in that context, but probably not in the other, and that's why people are doubting you.
Where non-white non-christian non-straight people appear, they seem to be at way too high a risk of verbal or physical violence. Hard to know about discrimination at jobs etc., but wouldn't surprise me. Poland refused to accept Syrian war refugees, but reluctantly agreed to accept some Syrian Christians (so it's none of those "terrible Muslims"). No help - so many still got beaten up and chased away.
That said, I agree with the original comment. Racism in Poland is _completely_ different in Poland, and mimicking US projections of it is counterproductive, and frankly, offensively patronising.
Could you link an article about that? I wasn't aware.
But it's not the same thing and it happens on a completely different scale.
Systemic racism in US means that
"the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 31 fatal shootings per million of the population as of August 2020."
Which is completely out of scale for European standards (at least 3 orders of magnitude worse), including the somewhat more problematic countries in East Europe.
EDIT: for comparison in Italy in 2019 3 people were shot dead by police, without any ethnic implication, it means 1 fatal shooting every 20 millions of the population, or 0.05 every million, VS 31 every million.
To look at it in another way: you need to gather 20 million people in Italy so that one of them risk of being shot by the police, it only takes 33 thousands black men in US. It's 620 times more dangerous for a black man in US to encounter a policeman than it is in Italy.
EDIT 2: -1 after only 6 minutes.
It explains a lot about what's wrong in American culture...
It's great that we don't have that problem (people not being shot is a good thing), but that doesn't mean we don't have racism.
The most racist thing you can see here is people staring at blacks or Asians. Because it is quite unique thing to see.
Just like when I was in South Korea and my wife was asked to pose in a picture of young Korean girl.
Similar thing happened 50 years ago, when my mother-in-law asked a black fellow to pose in a picture with her.
But that is expected when someone is unique, intriguing.
When I was young I lived in the south of Poland where we had a Roma minority. And I as a kid was afraid of them, because they were different from me and most of the time I saw them begging on streets. But same thing happened when I saw non-Romas begging on streets, just because they were dressed in old, torn and smelly cloths.
I have personally not met any Jews that I know of, because here you don't have any visual clues, it just like meeting an Orthodox Catholic, one would need to introduce him/herself like one to be recognized. And that maybe would result in interesting conversation, but thats it.
There is another negative issue here with large south city in Poland and Jews - Cracow. There is a district there that was mostly Jewish before the WW II, and now there are a lot of visitors from Israel schools that come there to look at the old buildings and synagogues. And because those are children in a difficult age and look quite unsupervised (besides the bodyguards that act very aggressively towards Poles) and leave quite a mess in hotels where they stay.
And there are also Brits :), you can recognize them because most of them walk in T-shirts during winter and are quite loud and like to have stag parties in Cracow, and also leave quite a mess in pubs/restaurants/hotels.
Well, the Poles didn't bring in slaves from Africa and had them working at their planations and so on for centuries though, so there's also that...
This. In Denmark the biggest minority is the Muslim minority, but we have still had big Black Lives Matter demonstrations with only a slight Middle Eastern twist.
That's not to say white against black is only a US problem, because it isn't, but it helpfully masks all other local problems and pretends they don't exist because "America said so".
I agree with people are blindly adopting such talking points, happened in my country too.
I remember when I had a queue of 5 star documentary movies to watch. I still ended up watching the 2-star scifi movies ahead of them. Had nothing to do with value of the message delivered in the documentaries.
But these divisive topics just got so much more engagement than far more important news and the media began to increase that type of content because of their precarious financial situation (Good luck earning a living wage with online news).
I remember one instance were there was an article about a important EU wide policy decision. It had around 25 comments. Next was some article about pop culture and gender. It had over 1000 comments. At one point it becomes self-reinforcing when people want to know why others comment that much...
I would argue that not only it is false, it is also wrong.
There are many traits of the American culture that are not desirable, in general.
Now you know how many of us in the USA feel. Yet for some reason it seems you assume that it is correct in the US. Why? If the simple fact that this social phenomenon is happening here is what validates it, then why complain when it starts happening where you live? If, on the other hand, the we are not a paragon of virtue, perhaps consider that the news is causing just the same sort of inane, invalid response here as you are concerned about seeing where you live.
Heck, in the US you're not even allowed to get out of your car when stopped by a cop lest you be shot. In Europe that's a total non issue...
I know the USA is a huge, diverse country with different problems in different areas. But it is a single country. And that single country is having a problem with police brutality against black people.
That doesn't mean all cops are bastards. It means some cops are racist bastards. And the whole of your gigantic country needs to accept that and do something about it.
You're argument doesn't show that police violence in the US is racist, just that it's violent.
While this was not the intent of our colonization and slavery-business, it inevitably caused it, imo. Or, the racism caused the success of colonialism, because it justified it.
This! In history, a lot of racism has been created to justify wars, economical exploitation, slavery, creating political scapegoats and so on.
Demonizing an enemy is the most basic method to polarize people. This type of "psyops" was extremely common during WW2.
People often don't really want to look at the root of racial, ethnic, political discrimination because it has to do with economic and political power.
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/649600217/where-human-zoos-on...
When spending time in the US I find myself experiencing double consciousness, asking myself if I fit into the stereotype that people have of me.
A case in point: in many sitcoms over the last 20 years you can find the same cliches around a white person trying awkwardly to say something without sounding racist.
I'm not even talking about race here, i'm thinking about the billions of independent christian churches, of soccer fans dressing like soccer players, gang colours etc.
And when they find their subculture, they get stuck in it and become unable to see the others' point of view.
American style racism may be a consequence of that.
We used to discuss ideas, candidates used to be judged on the merits of their ideas and past. Now they are selected for their race, sex, and persuasion. Any criticism of the candidates ideas or actions they have taken, legal or not, is instead portrayed as attacking them based on those three attributes. They have weaponized thought to the point many are silent and that was the goal.
As I'm an American, feel free to reject my comment out of hand.
That said, yes there's plenty of racism in the US.
Sure, it's fun to sneer at Americans and feel superior. Knock yourself out.
However, you seem ignorant of reality and of history.
In many cases the issue isn't that most Americans are actively thinking about how inferior the minorities are.
It's much more about the racist structures built into American society over the past 400 years. We've been slowly (and much too slowly, to my mind) coming to grips with these issues.
In doing so, we've shed an enormous amount of blood. Before our civil war, ~13% of our population was enslaved[0].
During that war, 2% of the population were soldiers killed on the battlefield. And the number of civilians killed is unknown, but likely substantial. Imagine if wherever you live, 3% of the population were to be killed, vast swaths of your cities, towns, villages, farms and ports destroyed[2].
After the war, once the armies of the "victorious" side left the American south, tens of thousands of former slaves were, murdered, beaten, tortured or imprisoned.
Discriminatory laws were enacted and enforced[1] throughout the former Confederacy[5], and was continued in the West and Southwest[3][4], not just against the former slaves, but against those of Mexican, Native American and Asian descent as well.
Even in the North (with most of the population and nearly half the area) where slavery was illegal before the war, discriminatory practices against free blacks as well as former slaves was common.
But don't forget that Catholics (Irish, Italians, etc.) and Jews were often discriminated against too. Certainly not as harshly as people of color, but that existed, and still exists today.
For decades, legal discrimination persisted. It was more than 80 years after our civil war before we started to dismantle the governmental systems that both implicitly and explicitly discriminated against nearly 15% of our population.
And over that time, all across the country many thousands were killed and abused with impunity.
That change came only because of the bravery and determination of the blacks in the US. We would berate them, beat them and kill them for being 'uppity', but they never stopped demanding their right to be full American citizens.
And thanks to them, things have changed a great deal here in the US. We still have issues of discrimination in housing, employment, over-policing and a raft of other areas.
But even in my lifetime (I'm over 50), I've seen significant positive change. It's not nearly enough, nor is that change coming quickly enough.
But it is happening.
These days, complacency and inertia are the biggest obstacles to positive change. Many people just don't think about it, or if they do, are content with knowing that they don't discriminate.
Many have married/cohabitate with those of a different ethnic background. Many have children who do so. This varies a great deal depending on where (remember, the US is big) people live. In many places, there aren't many people of color.
Diversity tends to be more within and sprawling around urban centers and many descendants of former slaves live in the south as well.
That's not to say there aren't a whole bunch of dyed-in-the-wool racists and white supremacists here in the US. There are.
Not so long ago, the militant racists were roundly criticized and ostracized. So much so that most of them wouldn't express their bigotry unless they knew they were among those who shared their hateful ideas.
Now those folks are emboldened. Their numbers haven't really increased, it's just that they've attached themselves to other reactionaries who prefer the economic unfairness of our society.
The difference these days is that factions
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It is horribly racist and extremely one-sided and the perpetrators don't even seem to understand that they are engaging in true-to-life racism / racist rhetoric.
You managed to combine race flamewar and nationalistic flamewar with this one-liner. That's bomb tossing. No more of this on HN, please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also, in the end, I don't think these type of views causes that much harm. Okay, so a group of people end up being "fake" anti-racists, but it's still raising awareness and it might cause people to make slightly different choices in their day-to-day lives. This isn't comparable to Kony 2012 where people changed their profile picture on Facebook for literally no effect.
This statement isn't the issue. What is an issue is that the establishment isn't willing to have a real discussion on this topic (illegal immigration, cultural dilution, economic benefits, etc...). The rise of far right and far left rhetoric is an expected response to the status quo, where people feel pushed into opposing tribes.
You could make the same points inside America as well that the article makes, like examining Nigerian success in America.
Keep trotting the article out and you have a case for why these racial essentialist views shouldn't be imposed on anyone, not just brits. And certainly not on our children.
Aren't they trying to express their solidarity with black Americans? Just because it's happening outside of your country of residence, doesn't mean your compassion and empathy ends at the border.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_s...
For example here in the Netherlands neighbourhoods are built in a way to mix people of all social standings. A gay couple has a bigger chance of getting attacked on the street then a person of any colour or background has of being shot by the police.
This makes conversation about race a confused jumbled incoherent mess. The bigger problem as I see it is more class-oriented than race centric. This should be a discussion on social mobility, which in my opinion is the best in the western world for minority communities. The race discourse in recent years has distracted from improving social mobility and hurting said communities more.
Americanization of everything is a good description, I think. Of course it's very important what happens in the US, it's the heart of the empire after all. But it's given so much weight that I sometimes feel like our media are covering US domestic politics more than our domestic politics.
The BBC is fully on board with importing the US leftist narrative.
There are many cities still with covenants restricting home ownership to non-Blacks, and while unenforceable today, it contributes to a story of an everlasting racial smell.
A nation ought not only speak the message of racial harmony, as China does with regards to black immigrants and citizens, but the truth must be evident on the ground for the people to see, and the air ought be pleasant to smell.
But it does feel to me that often we frame the discourse in a way that is not useful for the specific problems we have in a specific country/region. There was some of the ACAB sentiment in Germany, but it quickly died down, since most people here (even left-wing people) generally trust the police - and while I'm sure there are still problems with underrepresentation, racial profiling, etc., it's nowhere on the scale that it appears to be on the US.
Also most countries simply don't have a recent history of slavery inside their own country like the US does; black people in Germany, for example, are almost all immigrants, which does create entirely different dynamics, and we have (had) a lot more immigration from different cultures, especially Turkish people. None of this means racism and xenophobia don't exist, but the discourse and potential solutions are not the same as in the US.
https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f388ec.html
if people want to be doctors and not actors, let them do what they want to do.
I’m getting very tired of this US mania with nudging everyone to their preferred outputs.
Who really says this?
Michael Brown could've had a regular visit to the store too. Instead, he chose to brazenly steal whatever he wanted and waltzed out despite the owner's protestations, strutted down the middle of the street with his stolen goods, wrestled a pistol from the attending police officer and discharged a shot in the struggle, and then - having made a little distance in his getaway - chose to turn around and charge at the officer even as he demanded cooperation.
Arbery could've had a pleasant jog too. Instead he chose to enter a stranger's house, flee when confronted by concerned neighbours, and very nearly wrestle away his firearm - and we all know how that would've ended - creating a life or death situation for the good Samaritan.
Why, if this is such a terrible phenomenon, must we lie to create martyrs? I don't even disagree with the scourge of brutality, especially having seen a 17 year old White boy shot and killed by police today in a welfare check. But why is it so common in the BLM movement to rally behind violent criminals on the receiving end of justifiable responses? I understand the black incentives for doing so, but why are Whites perpetuating these myths so enthusiastically? Why aren't they rioting for the White victims instead of (or at the very least, as well as) these black thugs?
For example, why was OJ Simpson's verdict met with adulation when everyone knew he was guilty? That's the first thing that popped in my head when I read their last paragraph about lying to ourselves, though I admit I just listened to a podcast where Sam Harris or John McWhorter bring OJ up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHUu9sAGKo ("Sam Harris' podcast: The New Religion of Anti_Racism")
Uh, maybe because the glove didn't fit? It's one thing to say "everyone knew" he was guilty, but when prosecutors don't even do they're job properly you can't just convict based on what "everyone knows".
If it doesn't fit their message, then they will ignore it. Their real message is: 'Some black lives matter to us, but not the ones that disagree with us.'
So much for inclusivity™... /s
Great analysis of how we got here.
Are you seriously trying to assert that ending someone's life is a justifiable response to them shoplifting or trespassing? No doubt these are crimes, and the people doing them should not have been doing them, but the suggestion that the inevitable outcome is someone dying is completely ridiculous.
People commit these crimes all over the world every day, but they never don't end up getting killed. That only seems to happen in the US.
Granted, i totally just grabbed the two numbers and divided so it's possible it was a bad source.
But then is the problem racism or simply police violence, which is both a product and a demand of the whole of American society?
Unless there is a uniform penalty for these behaviours of death without trial, these are not in fact 'justifiable responses'.
The problem is that the rich rule the US and the poor are left to feed off the scraps, and pitting poor whites against poor blacks only benefits the elite that wants everyone to be too busy fighting each other to notice who's really in charge.
For example, your characterisation of events leading to the death of Arbery is written to suggest he broke into someone's home, where fact he entered an open construction site. To quote the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52623151:
> Around the time of the incident, a number of emergency calls were made, CBS News has reported. In one, a neighbour said a black man was seen at a home under construction. When asked if the man was breaking in, the caller replied "No, it's all open, it's under construction."
> The owner of the home that was under construction told CNN that, while his CCTV captured four short clips of a man that appeared to be Mr Arbery "trespassing" on his properly on 23 February, he had not reported any crime to the police.
> "I don't want it to be put out and misused and misinterpreted for people to think that I had accused Mr Arbery of stealing or robbery, because I never did," he said.
> A lawyer for the homeowner later said its their belief that Mr Arbery had been looking for water. Security footage shows he was not the only person to enter the construction site - children from the neighbourhood were also filmed playing at the site.
Though justice be thy plea, consider this: That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation.
Britain made lots of money for centuries from two main sources: 1. Piracy. 2. Slavery trade.
It is very interesting that they critizice S
In my view the result is that social justice nearly stands for race segregation, inclusion and diversity is almost synomymous with banning outsiders and heretics, methods of societal analysis lead to the worst kind of dogmatism.
At first I honestly thought the teachings of some proponents were to troll in the original sense of the word, but they were completely serious about it.
'Social justice' is far better than 'justice' in my opinion, but it can never be an argument to demand solidarity because that will inevitably lead to totalitarianism.
The "classical" US citizen that proudly swings their flag, shoots holes in the sky and idolizes freedom is a much more attractive alternative.
Wang fo kowmang unte kowmang fo wang.
Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qaA6FdAUsk (imposing the writers' inaccurate views about agriculture on us)
Here (in Ireland), the Brexit show (slightly receding) and Trump show have eclipsed local politics by a long shot. ROI politics are a distant fourth (after NI), in terms of affecting the local political conversation. It has become truly absurd. The average person can name far more politicians in the US or UK than locally.
Recent Irish politicians my experience is that most people know:
Michael D, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Mary Lou, Simon Coveney, Phil Hogan, Paul Murphy, Ming
Recent UK politicians my experience is that most people know:
Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Bercow, Arlene Foster, Jeremy Corbyn
Recent US politicians that most people know:
Trump, Hilary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden, Obama
People who follow politics more closely might also know Irish politications like Simon Harris or Stephen Donnelly, Eamon Ryan or their local TDs, UK politicians like Gove, Rees-Mogg and Nicola Sturgeon, and US politicians like AOC or Mitch McConnell. And of course you get people who look way more closely into politics with a much broader view of things or much deeper for a specific country.
But also in terms of potential impact on Ireland, the reality is that the order is:
1. COVID-19
2. Brexit
3. Anything else the coalition government is likely to get passed.
So it's not surprising that Brexit and consequently UK politics have had such an outsized influence these past few years.
I agree that it depends on social circles, but IMO, Boris or Trump animate much stronger & livelier opinions than Leo or Martin. Moreover, they can probably identify their political positions on more issues.
From an outside perspective, people in the USA seem very pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation, where black and white people live different lives and mixing is frowned upon. I see this attitude on both sides.
America’s is segregated by race. You can’t mix with the other race or borrow something from them, or even sit on their table.
In Britain the races mix, there’s no strict segregation, if there is any, it’s more segregated by town and county and areas.
That was not true in any of the prisons I was in in Texas. There were four that I lived in over ten years and several others that I traveled through. I've heard about it being the case in some prisons, but to present it as a universal truth is wrong. The most strictly segregated prison system I've heard of is California's, but it's based on alliance rather than race alone. The AB-aligned whites are allied with Sureños (a Hispanic group) while blacks are allied with Norteños, and fraternization is fine within the alliance but not outside of it.
1. Not true of Americans, and
2. Probably a newsflash to all the British people who are subject to discrimination on the basis of race.
British views and issues around race are different from American ones. The article has value, because this point is important and often missed – even if it's not new.
But too many people in the UK use this idea as a "harrumph here in good old Blighty we're above all this American racism nonsense" and give themselves a good pat on the back while ignoring our entirely different and still serious problems.
* https://www.raggas.co.uk/
Lark Lane, Liverpool seems quite apposite here. Two Turkish restaurants, an Italian-American one, a Mediterranean one, a Thai one, three Chinese takeaways, a burger place, an Indian restaurant, a Tandoori house, a pizza place, a middle-eastern restaurant, a Greek restaurant, and two bistros.
One of the takeaways is a vegan "Chinese chippy" named Woo Tan Scran.
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scran#English
> pre-occupied with continuing a culture of segregation
I think were "cultural appropriation" is being called hyper-sensitively, it is more an over-active sense of guilt-by-association[†] than any desire to segregate. This very much exists in the UK as well, though it isn't as pronounced as it seems to be in the US.
Finding the right balance point can be difficult. The dividing lines between cultural appreciation, cultural mixing, cultural appropriation, and cultural subjugation, while sometimes obvious & clear are often much more subjective.
[†] association with the past racist history of the nation and/or the many still current problems
In my opinion, this hypersensitivity was turned into a weapon to shame people who have no ill-will. Compounded with Twitter bandwagoning, it’s downright dangerous, and now people are self-censoring anything to avoid censure
Both are further stirred by major media trawling through minor media and social media for something to declare as "controversial". I had never heard of the Adele thing, and a quick Google turned up a CNN article which said[1]:
> The singer was quickly accused of cultural appropriation by some users for the hairstyle and top.
How many users is "some"? A dozen? A hundred? Does it really merit "controversy"?
Much of the time, I've found, one hypersensitive person is piled on by a thousand people who have found yet more evidence that there is an enormous social effort to repress them. They rarely or never encounter anybody who actually puts them down, but they hear about somebody else, and that's repeated so often that it sounds massive.
I've even seen it here on HN an awful lot: "I can't even say X anymore without being told how bad I am by a bunch of snowflakes", blithely ignoring how much of a snowflake that makes them. All they want is to be able to say whatever they want without anybody disagreeing -- is that so wrong?
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/31/entertainment/adele-bantu-kno...
That's because "the internet"'s voice isn't the prevailing opinion of the general population. It is the fad-driven prevailing opinion of socially dysfunctional people aged 14-27.
Social media addiction is a disease, and en masse it has cast a shadow over all of political discourse.
So people still react like this because it wasn't too long ago that back to the future was implying that Chuck Berry stole the idea for Johnny B Good from a white person. That's an example right there straight from my parents' childhood.
Except the Parthenon marbles, we want those back.
The British Museum would be pretty empty if we had to give everyone their stuff back. I can see why they resist so much.
Not that much at all. Perhaps you encoutered it at all because you're a Brit and so got into related discussions. It's not like people talk about it that much there.
Posters in the airport Museums Tour Guides Random conversations
So some touristic and some just random like airport and people
There is some reaction within Greece after the agreement, about how it's a betrayal etc, but I expect that to die down pretty quickly now that the matter is settled.
It is not a problem anywhere, actually. Some people just want to make it into one.
Everybody has the absolute right to use elements of others' cultures – and using them in a disrespectful or exploitative manner is something that I find distasteful and think its reasonable to object to.
Do the other cultures get a say in whether the Scots use them in a "disrespectful or exploitative manner"?
There are some obvious cases that I think no one on HN would argue. But to use an example from above, Adele had a Caribbean-style look, and definitely got press and clicks because of it -- indirect, but definitely profiting. Is that exploitative?
Trying to think of an example of it being a problem, but am drawing a blank. Any ideas?
For example – a white European artist designing fabrics and prints with traditionally African patterns, without acknowledging the contribution or involving members of that community, would sit uneasily with me. Using one's inherent advantages to profit from the culture of others who don't have access to the same opportunities is something I object to people doing.
This idea in no way prevents people from mixing and incorporating cultural ideas and concepts themselves, or participating in those cultures.
I have two problems with your constraint "from cultures that had been historically looked down upon". How far back do we have to look? This might seem obvious between Europe and African countries. But if you look far enough you will find African invaders (Hannibal of Carthago) passing the Alps. I am convinced if you look far enough you will find instances where every culture frowned upon another. So, this criteria is open for interpretation. What is serious enough? How war back do we look? Therefor your constraint "from cultures that had been historically looked down upon" is far from trivial to apply.
Secondly, does that mean that I am responsible for the wrong doing of my ancestors? Does the question whether something is morally right if I do it depend on the behavior my ancestors? How far back do we go? Should we send children to prison for the crimes of their parents? Obviously, I am playing devil's advocate, here. But I am strongly against inconsistent standards.
I'm Bolivian, when I see someone selling clothing with indigena designs I love it because it reminds me of home.
In some cases the way “appropriated” culture is represented look embarrassing to those native in said culture, like people are wearing ethnic clothing without the trousers that go with it, or cooking food not in the way it should be done and ending up with horrible slurry, but that’s rare in recent years.
I grew up in a multicultural town in the UK (also home to a lot of racism unfortunately) but we had a yearly (carribean I think) carnival with music and floats and costumes and food.
People would turn out in the thousands and it didn't matter your skin colour because you were there to join in the fun. It doesn't matter if you wore something that wasn't traditionally part of your culture, because you were doing so to join in the fun, not to belittle people
Some Americans, anyway. Growing up in the US, I was always taught the US was "the great melting pot." But I agree, it doesn't seem like it lately.
In the end I like the salad bowl metaphor because it scales well globally. We're a single human race, all different, yet all the same. It's appropriate to celebrate one another's histories so long as we're mindful of our collective future.
That's the contemporary narrative, yes. In another light it's just saying "E pluribus unum."
Before it became uncouth to express a spirit of national unity or civic pride, the melting pot was a way of expressing that who we are is defined by our coming together to participate in the great project we call our nation. And as part of that, we're sharing in the uniqueness each of us bring and hard boundaries start "melting" together as we form a shared history and culture. A very chunky concoction constantly getting new pieces added, not a smooth uniform mixture left to simmer.
We now live in an age where "identity" often means participating in a stereotype that's actively gatekept. So the melting pot metaphor had to fall out of favor.
(a different motto, unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, not only mentions the relation of the parts to the whole, but also that of whole to its parts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24661326 )
Edit: so far I've learned only that the axe was the securis and that holders of high office would have their servants put the fascis on the ground, instead of holding them aloft, when they wished to emphasise they were on the people's side of an issue. Still no word for the individual rods, however.
The salad bowl allows the individual to maintain and celebrate their heritage while coming together in a spirit of national unity and civic pride. Coming to America doesn't mean you lose your heritage or your history, it means you're part of something new - you've come to a part of the world where the entire world has come together, an example of what the world could be. People living in peace where elsewhere in the world they live at war.
While my identity is still "Irish Catholic," I've been enriched (and yes, changed) through exposure to others.
Unless you replace "Americans" with "a small group of obnoxious loudmouths from the US on social media" in your statement, you don't reflect reality.
I heartily encourage you (once it's safe to do so) to come and visit New York City.
Have some pizza at a place run by Greeks.
Have a delicious bagel (I recommend an everything bagel with brie and tomatoes, yum!) at a bagelry[0] owned and run by a Thai family.
Have some ropa vieja with shrimp fried rice at one of many Chinese/Latin restaurants.
And a place near me has wonderful Callaloo and delicious curry goat.
And there are at least half a dozen places near me where I can get a tasty mofongo[1].
Or one of many Caribbean, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian, African and European restaurants, bars, music venues, festivals and all manner of other culture from six continents.
I was really sad when the French bakery near me closed. The croissant were nearly as good as the ones I had in Paris.
And that's just the food. Cultures, languages and customs mix freely here. While there certainly are distinct cultures, they are welcomed and often incorporated into the broader culture.
I think that you'd find that to be true in most urban areas (and many suburban ones).
That said, there are many places in the US which are not culturally or ethnically diverse at all.
Which isn't surprising. The US is big. It has ~75% of the population of the EU in an area more than twice the size of the EU.
Consider how homogeneous some areas of the EU are. Why is that? Is it because they're all bigots and 'limeys' don't want 'frogs' around, etc?
[0] https://www.thrillist.com/venue/eat/new-york/restaurants/abs...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mofongo
90%+ of the people who think that are liberals. Moderates and conservatives can mix cultures pretty freely.
That hasn't been my experience at all. And I'm center-left myself. You know, somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders.
It seems you don't know many of your brother and sister Americans that you call "liberals."
Here in NYC we have about a 5:1 D/R ratio and you won't find many places on the planet, let alone in the US, that are more welcoming of different cultures, practices and individual choice.
I suggest you engage with your fellow Americans. I think you'll find that the vast majority of us have much more in common than we do differences.
There are those (like the ones telling you that ~200 million of your fellow Americans are evil, twisted communists who want to destroy our economy and Constitution) who want you to hate and fear your neighbors and fellow citizens.
Those people (regardless of political bent or affiliation) are the ones who threaten to destroy our democracy and Constitution.
As a general rule, folks like that are only interested in personal benefit and self-aggrandizement. And they're a very small group.
Would it surprise you to know that most of the folks you call "liberals" just want a decent job/career so they can live decently and raise their kids to be happy, healthy and fulfilled?
Would you be shocked to hear that those you deride believe in the ideals of our democratic republic, or that we believe in the rule of law, equal protection under the law and freedom of expression?
If you believe that a majority of Americans are communists and hateful people who want to destroy their own country, then you're not seeing the world as it is.
I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of tolerance, liberty and the ideals which fomented the founding and second founding[0] of our nation with you.
As I mentioned above, I think you'll find we agree about much, much more than we disagree.
If that sounds like a good idea to you, feel free to email me (no spaces or commas): En,,,cyclic al 17,76 at pro,,,ton mail dot co, , ,m
I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I'm so sick of the negativity and lies that make us suspicious and fearful of our fellow Americans.
I want my country to be a great place with liberty and opportunity for everyone. But we can't have that if we the people let those with the desire and motivation to create conflict divide us.
Even if you don't talk to me, please open yourself to the possibility that what you read on Twitter and Facebook doesn't reflect the values of most of your fellow Americans.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Founding
In my country for example we have six distinct races/ethnicities, from indigenous to post-colonial. When either has a celebration or period of cultural remembrance, we openly dress, cook, and celebrate in the same manner. The concept of "cultural appropriation" is nothing but hubris in our minds.
Perhaps we're more fundamentally bonded due to our shared "fragmented" heritage, as V.S. Naipaul frequently expounded upon. Perhaps we're just not victims of inept ideological monoliths that are perpetrated by a radical left and radical right as it is in the US (along with the forced illusion of binary if not zero-sum choices).
Either way, we understand that racism is inescapable in some small measure but we try our best not to elevate it above reason and certainly not above national unity (or pride for that matter). Caribbean people are both welcoming of foreign cultures and curious in our exploration of the same. We wouldn't, couldn't, have it any other way.
Maybe it is better to take history as it is, learn lessons from where things went wrong so those mistakes are not repeated and look forward instead of back?
In fact, my wife’s family is among the “colonized colonizer”. My wife’s family moved to Botswana in the 1970s. They were originally from Tanzania, and had originally come from India, fleeing their own particular discrimination. They left Tanzania in the 1980s, because, in short, the country was trying to find a path in which Black Tanzanians could find a way to realize a full self determination. Their family did not want be a continued part of the problem.
Before my father in law was the thought that it was better to “un-settle” a place rather than be a continued part of its settler legacy. For many reasons, he was welcomed by the Batswana. I think it was a persistent asking of permission to enter, to join the table humbly and with respect for the people, a respect that they have the resourcefulness and brilliance to know what course is best for them. Humility.
The point being that even as another of the wave of “colonized colonizers” —- people who derive privilege by proximity to a ideal of what is presumed to be “better”, more western —- there was no mention of the rich history and the erasure of the indigenous people in the education she received.
I have been to the Three Dikgosi monument a few times, and felt it strange that for all this ancient, immeasurable history, the millenia of stories of the San an Khoi is condensed to a small mention.
The archaeological site a few hours from Gaborone, the site of a religious ceremony whose significance is lost to time. I just pieced together, but I know it predates the 1700s by tens of thousands of years.
So yes, there are layers of colonization and each prevents an accounting, a true embodiment of truth and reconciliation. There is a need to “un-settle”, to question the orthodox histories.
True
> There is a need to “un-settle”, to question the orthodox histories.
That is where things go wrong. As you stated yourself, colonisers are often colonised themselves by later colonisers. The success of mankind as the dominant species on the planet literally depends on groups being displaced by other groups, otherwise everyone would have stayed in Eden - being the fertile parts of Africa where Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved. Some groups got displaced, moved into neighbouring territory and displaced or enslaved whatever group of people happened to live there. Fast-forward a few decades or centuries and the process was repeated, the former colonisers now get 'colonised' themselves. At this moment in time it gets hard to decide who is the 'oppressed' and who is the 'oppressor' since both groups will have done their share of 'oppressing' and both will have undergone 'oppression'. If you only look at one specific groups as being the 'oppressors' the way people like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin diAngelo do you end up with a distorted view of history where you assign 'victim' status to oppressors and ignore potential 'victimisation' of the designated oppressor, a good example here being the many African tribes who partook in the capture, transport and sales of slaves to Arab and western slave traders being assigned 'oppressed' status versus the Irish who were enslaved themselves being assigned 'oppressor' status. Since the 'oppressed' status has been turned into a form of social currency lending speaking rights and preferential treatment to those who carry it while those who carry 'oppressor' status have to stand back in line and provide for those with 'oppressed' status this system often leads to more injustice and with that an increase in social tension and a decrease in social cohesion. In other words, it breaks up society.
We do not want to break up society. Those who do want this should state their goal honestly and go to the elections with this stated purpose, if enough people vote for them they can get their way. Those who want to break up society by means of force have to accept that the majority of the population opposes their intentions and that the force of law can and should be used against them, just like it should be used against any other group which commits violence.
And that, in a nutshell, is why the need to "un-settle", to question the orthodox histories - in other words why deconstruction according to Critical Theory - does not work. The cake is too thick, too much mixed up to say which layer is the most tasty. Better have the cake as it is and make a note to tweak the recipe so it comes out better next time.
This is usually referred to as cultural exchange or sharing of culture.
The fact that cultures shouldn't be shared is indeed a new phenomenon, one that I personally don't agree with.
Jokes aside, this happening on Twitter and so it must be somewhat important is the most depressing and disheartening aspect of this event. Stop listening to what ignorants want to say on social media.
The US tends to monetize everything. This seems to be less true elsewhere.
We make a stink about "cultural appropriation" here because too much ends up being about the almighty dollar and those dollars far too often go into the pockets of White males, regardless of whose culture, creativity, labor, etc. created the thing.
I wish the idea would go die. I think it helps keep the problem alive rather than resolving it. But I think that's basically the crux of the issue.
Cultural appropriation is a genuine phenomenon, but the difference between attending carnival and culturally appropriating it is a subtle one. For me, it comes down to intent and this is very hard to prove.
Am I doing it in solidarity - sharing a celebration with people who's neighbourhood I share and supporting their cultural expression? Or am I impersonating other communities for my own enjoyment? To a third party, it's can be difficult to tell the difference.
> Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA.
I feel that the countries which have historically dealt with the realities of a multicultural society better have less issues with cultural appropriation - cultural segregation leads to ownership and identity issues. But that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist outside the USA. There is a context in which what Adele did is fine, and one in which it isn't - one photo won't tell you which it is.
Why would it be wrong to impersonate other communities for my own benefit?
If someone wants to wear a sombrero for a costume party or cook a Chinese dish because they enjoy it or have Chinese characters as a tattoo even though they aren't Chinese, I really don't see the problem.
Your second and third are examples of the blending of cultures, which tends to be associated with multiculturalism which I would argue is generally a positive thing.
However, assuming that in your first example someone is trying to impersonate a Mexican person by wearing a sombrero, that could well be insensitive. My main point is that it does depend on intent and context, but at face value that is stereotyping, and not really very far from blackface. Hopefully we can all agree than we don't really want to go there.
Wow, we really have opposite views on this.
Also, in Amsterdam pride LOTS of straight people attend.
> My main point is that it does depend on intent and context
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Some examples:
- Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. Black Americans were historically referred to as "Boy" "Girl", or "little" as a demeaning statement of class. "Auntie" and "Uncle" were reserved for older Blacks for the same reason. Use of Black figures as mascots for these brands is a form of cultural appropriation. [1]
- Cleveland Indians logo (other sports teams as well).
- People wearing Sioux (Lakotan) headdresses as fashion statements, which is offensive because that was a thing you had to earn in that culture.
Americans (and literally every culture) appropriates everything from food to clothes to language. Thats not inherently bad. It gets bad when you commercialize and propagate negative stereotypes about cultures that you have historically subjugated.
However, nuance is hard. So on twitter we have people who have embraced the mantra "Cultural Appropriation is bad" and go about shaming every little example of it without understanding the deeper meaning behind them (see what I did there? We're not that different than what we hate). This culture of shaming is itself a form of cultural imperialism.
[1]: https://www.blackvoicenews.com/2008/01/24/boy-uncle-and-aunt...
When families were ripped apart it it was a connection/ritual they could hold onto no matter what. Fast forward to the recent past and black people are still discriminated against because of their hairstyles. Some progress has been made in the past decade[0] but black women are still told their natural hair is unprofessional or unattractive and they are required to spend large amounts of $$, time and pain (styling techniques often require high heat/caustic chemicals) in order to be acceptable to corporate America.
Can you imagine the frustration of then watching wealthy white women be celebrated/complimented for adopting these hairstyles? One of the only cultural links you have to your ancestors, hairstyles you've been discriminated against, punished, and harassed for wearing?
[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/19/more-stat...
Music, culinary practices, agricultural practices, etc. are all pieces of culture that African slaves brought over from Africa.
However the internet has made everything smaller and the dominant force in tech is in the USA. Sure there are spikes in influence of Asian and other cultures (Gangam K-pop etc.) but most of it gets churned out from celebs, artists, influencers, bloggers, writers and thinkers in the liberal east and west coasts.
Do we all want to hear what these people have to say, no, but when everyone else is wanting to follow them then it becomes easier to be influenced directly or indirectly.
The last cultural influence that stood in opposition to "Western culture", was communism, but that died on 1990 with the first McDonald's in Moscow. Sure the idea of communism isn't dead; you might see a few random people still promote it online or outside a shopping centre with a shabby looking stall, but these people are seen as weird or uncool (communism isn't cool btw).
So back to the topic, do we just want to be cool, is BLM cool, will it be forgotten, after the main proponents find another flag to wave?
Are we all just inadvertently programmed to consume and conform due to our DNA and society by those at the top, or do we risk being an outcast by going against them?
What happens when China takes the reigns as a new culture to oppose and compete with this idea of "Americanized Western Culture"?
Will we eventually have a Blade Runner like culture with a Chinese European blend in the future?
Will we all homogenise in the end? Will I see someone in the Amazonas eating KFC and wearing Adidas just like the person in the township in Johannesburg?
I don't know the answer.
These communists might beg to differ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPeLF-qi6X0&t=11
(but tbh they're nominally communists in a country with billionaires, hedge funds, and retail investors, while the nominally capitalist US is a surveillance state doing its utmost to pursue industrial policy with public means, so I'm not sure how one is supposed to be able to tell the difference anymore. That's part of why I've decided, for my own idiolect, to use Eastasia and Oceania, respectively.)
Edit: I guess they'd say 牛逼 instead of cool. Maybe 酷?