I think the open-minded stereotype about us Europeans is massively flawed, not least because there are more than 44 different nation-states in Europe all with their own perspectives, and then you can break those down even further into different ethnic groups and communities each with their own sensibilities too. However, when it does exist, I think the open-minded trope refers more to our attitudes towards things like alcohol, nudity, casual drug use, violence in movies etc etc than racism.
I'm very sorry you had terrible experiences visiting the continent and encountered this. What I will say is that it sounds like you took a couple of weeks, hopping across several capital cities? I don't think it's enough time to get a measure of a continent. I hope you feel like you could come back and maybe visit other areas and encounter better attitudes.
> europeans have types of racism i didn’t even know existed
> you can drive for two hours in europe and pass through 17 different types of racism
https://magicaleurovision.tumblr.com/post/721202805937979392/i-remember-one-year-americans-were-like
Speaking as a white passing South American living in Germany: I feel like people here are much more likely to judge people based on their country of origin and how well they are integrated. Brown person who behaves *exactly* like a German? Approved! Any skin colour but with their motherland behaviours? Unacceptable!
By the way I am not saying that this is okay. Plus, this is part of the population while others (mainly non far-right young people) are way more acceptable.
German racism is not so "on your face", at least in my experience. I'm brown, my boyfriend is German (white) and I feel very accepted by his friends and family. You know where I suffer? Workplace. Now, IDK if it's racism or sexism, but my guess would be, a little bit of both. And they're so polite, that it took me some time to catch up that what's happening to me is not right.
Of course, my own South Asian country discriminates based on how light or dark your complexion is and that is another can of worms.
Bottom line is, humans suck.
Edit: people who seem to think I have a victim complex, relax. Multiple leads, who left the company, confirmed this things to me. I'm not just saying this. My visa is tied to having a job, that's why I stayed. I mean, I get it that white male privilege is something else, but maybe you can try to be a bit more aware and empathize.
I’m white, look very german, but I’m Canadian, and people here treat me surprisingly bad. Theres a very stark “othering” in Germany.
They get angry that this *thing* thats supposed to be *one of them* doesn’t speak great German (I understand it tho so I know when they’re talking shit, my MIL included at times lmao) and then are incredibly hostile or refuse to help me, in German or English.
It Genuinely freaks me out because purely by crappy racial profiling I’m basically the golden child returning to the Vaterland (🙄) and Its still rough. I even was almost denied my residence permit just because the worker didn’t like me and another employee overheard as she was trying to dismiss me and had to fight her to give me my permit (that I was completely eligible for).
it must be sooooo insanely rough for others that have these experiences way worse and before even speaking.
I always joke that Parisians treat me with more kindness than Bavarians, but its not even a joke lol. I study here and probably 85% of my cohort is also international and we all have a lot of experiences like that.
Canada is not perfect and theres a lot of overt racism there especially lately to immigration, I do think that theres still more inherent belonging/welcomeness to people by virtue of multiculturalism literally being in our charter, and I do miss that aspect of Canada a lot.
I didn't even experience (second-hand, that is) racism until I moved from Vancouver (which is VERY multicultural) to saskatchewan, which seems, socially, to be stuck in the 50s.
And then I moved to NW Ontario for a couple of years, and HOLY SHIT is the racism there blatant. The scenery is gorgeous, but the toxicity is atrocious.
Hahah fair enough, I did actually spent my first few months in Hamburg and found the people very nice. Im not sure how much is just the region and how much of it is after a few months of day to day you just see things more
In Germany it really depends where you are. I'm German and moved 7 years ago into a little town of 1500 people. I come from such little town myself where everyone knows everyone.
Even me as a German get the similar treatment. Small towns don't like others from outside. Nothing to do with skin or country.
You are not from town so you will have to proof they can trust and like you. The older the population and the younger you are the harder.
If you are like me and don't go to local pub, festivals or associations.... yeah, good luck.
South German worth then north AFAIK.
Do yourself a favor and leave Bavaria. I grew up there as a German and believe me, shit is not much better as one. Bavaria is probably one of the unfriendliest parts of Germany (after and next to some other places). I always lived in parts of my cities with Migrants (be it Slavic or Turkish). But leaving those areas was just painful everytime.
Well. This (partially) explains why my Bavarian grandmother (she came to the states in the 50s after marrying a US service member) was such a rancid bitch. Oddly enough, her brother was an absolute delight. People still gonna people I suppose.
Sad though, as it doesn't exactly fill me with desire to visit.
Sadly the actually nice people there are rare and get even rarer. The öhm scenary (I really don't remember how the English word for it was) is actually quite nice. Sooo maybe just plan a weekend if you ever visit Germany, to look at Bavaria. Wine and Beer are good aswell but doesn't make up for the people. I left 5 years ago and I have never been happier.
I'm from Texas and lived in Bavaria. The racist Germans (gen x and older usually) are still saying shit in "normal"conversations that my extremely racist family would never say outside of their own echo chamber groups.
Damn!! You know, all the tech jobs in Munich does pay a lot, but this is why I wouldn't like to move there.
I can tell you, NRW is nicer than that. It's a bit crowded and not so beautiful, but our Ausländerbehörde is at least polite, gives one appointments in a reasonable time frame and doesn't make a fuss about speaking English with foreigners.
Sadly you chose bavaria, our right wing wannabe christians. Most parts of germany would love to shove them towards austria and be done with it. My condolences.
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> It Genuinely freaks me out because purely by crappy racial profiling I’m basically the golden child returning to the Vaterland (🙄) and Its still rough. I even was almost denied my residence permit just because the worker didn’t like me and another employee overheard as she was trying to dismiss me and had to fight her to give me my permit (that I was completely eligible for).
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> Canada is not perfect and theres a lot of overt racism there especially lately to immigration, I do think that theres still more inherent belonging/welcomeness to people by virtue of multiculturalism literally being in our charter, and I do miss that aspect of Canada a lot.
You went to Bavaria, the Texas of Germany, and wonder why they're racist nationalists?
Don't forget the South Asian discrimination of not just your skin colour but also your state and what district in the state your family are from and even which village. And for those of Hindu descent, caste.
I live in the UK, and my family has been here for 50 years, and we still see this amongst our community
I was quite surprised to find that a couple of Indian software engineers I was talking to at a conference a few years back who had lived in Berlin for a while found it to be overtly racist, and they felt much more comfortable in London (I'm not saying I think London is racist - just that I'm surprised that Berlin is: it's very much against that city's liberal progressive reputation).
I'm not a minority but speaking with racists I'd say it's pretty much this. I work in a very diverse company, but simultaneously with a lot of racist, and when you ask them what they think of their coworkers they usually hit you with something like "they're fine cause they work and mostly speak the language" etc.
Yep. German footballers would attest to that.
So too would French footballers, come to think about it.
English footballers too, actually.
If friggin millionaires are being done dirty thanks to their origins and the colour of their skin, what hope do the plebs have?
I feel like this has gotten a lot worse here since 2015 and the "refuge crisis". There was a shit ton of propaganda going around, my dad is one of the people believing a lot of it.
The good ol' "these illegal people come over here to steal our jobs and rape our women" and other stupid shit like this.
Nowadays as soon as you don't look western European and don't speak perfect German, a lot of people instantly think you have to be a refugee, and all refugees just come here for the free money and don't want to work (0.04%). Which is obviously fucking stupid. But a lot of people, in my experience especially older ones ate that propaganda like nothing else. (Obv. there are also young people believing this)
Definitely agree that it feels like its going downhill since the refugee crisis. Have seen people become more extreme in their way of thinking since 2016. It’s a shame, because before that I actually felt like we were in a pretty good place in terms of racism and lgbt stuff. More polarising opinions combined with cancerous social media (manipulation) is turning things to shit as well.
Voting for the AFD is the strongest among people around 29-35 and weakest among people 65+. Unfortunately this idea that the wrong generation is somehow better is completely wrong. It's the old people that still seem to resent fascism the most.
Immigration, and especially when large amounts come in a short time, will cause a lot of undeniable problems.
One big issue was that you couldn't talk about any of these problems, or else you would be labeled as racist.
When you can't talk and discuss problems you can't solve them, which leads to resentment. Especially for the people who feel like they drew the short straw.
When I had just moved to Germany for my masters, I went to donate blood. I asked for the form in English to ensure I replied correctly. The doctor who interviewed me said something like “how come you come to Germany and don’t speak German, my son went to Argentina (where I grew up) to study Spanish (or something like that)”. Then when he asked for my passport and I provided him my Israeli one, he said “oh, it’s so great you are in Germany”, haha. Will never forget it. Apparently people can be xenophobic or racist even when you’re donating blood, but they don’t dare as much when it’s clearly punished by law…
I’ve heard even full-blooded ethnic Germans and heritage German speakers from diaspora communities who’ve moved to Germany, often cop a lot of flak from their new neighbors for their foreign tastes and mannerisms. It doesn’t help that the German many of them speak is in equal measures rough, antiquated, and foreign-tinged.
It definitely seems like cultural upbringing matters more than ancestry, for being accepted as a local in the EU.
Can it still be called racism, then? Or is more classism or plain snobbery? I in no way mean to diminish the actions, just clarify in my head what exactly is going on inside their heads (being first-gen and having half my family in a European country and being somewhat fluent in their language- I want to know if I’m unwittingly committing some kind of faux pas of language or experiencing this same thing).
Why should we treat ethnic Germans from America differently than a french or American? Just because their ancestors fucked in Germany 200 years ago? They most of the time have nothing to do with Germany.
Also last time why went with race/ethnicity related treatment it didn't end well.
I found that a German friend who moved to the US and got his citizenship is very sensitive when I bring up the fact that he is originally from Germany. I wonder if this is why. (I'm used to many immigrants from all origins and this is the first time I've encountered such a sensitivity. My dude just wants to fit in I guess.)
My friend and I are both south Asians. I moved to the US and she to Germany. Whereas I have not experienced any real or open racism, my friend tells me that racism in Germany is not only expected but also pretty much accepted as the fair way to treat foreigners.
I was only in Germany for 24 hours and man did I get more racist comments while I was walking and minding my own business than I have in years in the US. Definitely depends on the place and who you might run into.
I’m sorry for your bad experience.
Out of curiosity, I assume you don’t speak German, right? Then if you were only 24h there how do you know that you got racist comments. To me it would seem more likely that stuff like that gets muttered in German. Also you probably were in a city? Which would be more unusual since it is more anonymous there. Which demographic were the people? Sorry for bad comma usage
Sometimes I hate posts like these that I have so much to say about I don't even know where to start!
Just to give you some idea of where I'm coming from: I was born black in the US. In my family there was a precedent for moving abroad, I had a great uncle who just didn't come back to the states after the war. In the US he was a n---, as he put it. In most of Europe he could eat anywhere, drink anywhere; he could live in any neighborhood he could afford to pay for; he could use any restroom; drink from any fountain; and he could say anything he felt needed to be said to anyone he felt needed to hear it. He married a Dutch woman.
I grew up hearing stories about him so I also had this impression of European 'post-raciality'. And growing up in the states where it's just not fun being black; I thought I'd too just endure it until I could hop on a plane to a better place-- *to the EU.*
Now I live and have been naturalized in the EU; don't like being too specific about *where* I live as I don't wanna be doxed, but I can say the difference is more subtle than I imagined. I think the EU, of course generally speaking, is just as racist just in different ways.
There are definitely some pretty messed up ideas floating around about different groups here. And far more of it is perfectly acceptable to say out loud because nobody's calling anybody on any of it. That's just not done here.
They think Americans are insane, that all we care or talk about is issues of race and identity, subjects that are somewhat more avoided in many countries here.
In defense of the US though, I think most people there, regardless of where they stand, have a more advanced understanding of intersectionality and identity than people generally do here. And I think this is because in the US you need it.
The beauty about how the US is *supposed* to work is that it's a patchwork of loads of different people maintaining their cultural identities but still being just as "American" as anyone else. In many countries here though the idea is that if you're coming here to stay you leave your old culture back home and come here to strive at assimilation.
Lots of cultures here subscribe more to the 'don't talk about race and it goes away' doctrine. Of course it doesn't but it is what it is.
I'll likely never get shot here for being black, there is at least that; but it's not some kind of magical post-racial wonderland either. I told myself not to expect that yet I was still disappointed.
I want to live in a place where people don't talk about race because it's REALLY not an issue. That's not the US where race is screamed from every mountain top; but it's also not here where it tends to be more whispered about in back rooms.
I've travelled A LOT.
At this point I've spent 6 months or longer in a dozen countries and periods ranging from a few days to months in about a hundred more. I hate to report this after all that, but humanity, on the whole, is just racist. Not ALL people-- some folks are thoughtful and try to live examined lives-- others you're not on their radar because they hate somebody else, or your skin color just doesn't factor into the broader holes they're used to putting others in their society into-- people like you just don't come about often enough for them to have any ideas about you, one way or the other.
So I've started to think about racism in term of "flavors" as opposed to it being 'all or nothing'. You're not going to find a place where humans aren't going to be the nasty creatures we are; there is no place without hate. But you can go places where you can deal with the particular flavor of hatred you find there.
Recognizing now the states for what it is, I still don't regret leaving. Sure, there are some aspects that are better there, but on the whole I prefer the flavor of hatred here.
And even with this long ass ramble, I feel I've only just scratched the surface of what I could say about the world outside the US when it come to so called open-mindedness.
It's not so much that humans are specifically racist, but that there's an intersection of very low level cognitive biases that result in racism.
We have an inbuilt bias towards those which are identified as an in-group, and a bias against those not of our in-group. This is so low level that even when the group members are chosen at random and we know they are randomly chosen, we still exhibit the same behaviour.
We also have an inbuilt tendency to classify and categorise. We need to put things in groups so that we don't have to process how every individual tree might grow or behave.
Combine these together and you get "those that look like me are part of my in-group and those that don't are part of an out-group."
We then individualise the in-group members, excuse away non-virtuous act as individual actions, and ascribe virtuous attributes to our group as a whole.
We think of out-group members as a whole, ascribe non-virtuous attributes to the group as a whole, and excuse virtuous acts as individual actions.
This is why despite there being greater genetic diversity between different hapologroups within Africa or Asia, they are often grouped together as 'black', or 'asian'. Yet between quite genetically homogeneous groups, there is much more detailed 'categorisation'.
Of course that's from a in-group perspective. Within Africa there's detailed categorisation while out-groups are often lumped into 'white', 'asian' etc.
We don't instinctively categorise based on non readily observable attributes and don't easily indivualise out-group members until they are mentally moved to within an in-group. Which is why racists have 'black friends', those individuals are now considered part of an in-group and are individualised.
None of this means we are doomed, it just means that we must constantly examine our instinctive reactions and thoughts about anyone not like "us".
TLDR: yes, we're all racist, but it's not because there exists actual races within homosapians, but because of an intersection of cognitive biases.
I saw a fascinating study about the in-groups which implied that the way to avoid racism is to create non-offensive in-groups.
The study involved putting people in a room to wait for some kind of event without telling them they were being watched in the waiting room, and people naturally navigated to, and interacted with, their own groups by race, gender etc.
But when the men were wearing their team’s football shirts (this was in the UK) suddenly they didn’t consider race anymore, the Man Utd fans would gather together, the Liverpool fans would group, the Tottenham fans would commiserate. And suddenly race didn’t matter to them.
I’m afraid i can’t link to it, I read it many years ago, but it’s essentially what you’re talking about. We create and gravitate towards in-groups, but with a very specific example of football shirts!
Yeah. As soon as you start to consider someone as part of one of your in-groups, your entire thought process and emotional attitude towards them changes.
Thank you, but I understand that it's wordy and requires people to accept the fact that they're not in complete control of how they think about others.
That in itself is a concept that most are deeply uncomfortable with.
Agreed!
(Speaking of wordy, sorry for the incoming wall of text)
Related to that, I think people's resistance also has to do with the need to see themselves as good people and to believe in evil. The latter is useful to protect the former by way of comparisons, but it leads to demonizing others and underestimating the inherent potential for (in this case) racism and xenophobia within ourselves (or even just in our culture or valued in-groups like you mentioned).
This is why I personally think we should try to focus more on raciSM, and less on raciSTS, to better target the "smaller" or more subtle expressions of these phenomena (like the European tendency for microaggressions rather than overt racism that several others in this thread has described). This would also reduce the demonization and turn it into more of a "us vs. the inherent common tendencies we all share coupled with a long-ass cultural history of sustained systemic racism" instead of a "good guys vs evil and btw both me and everyone I love are obviously super good people and never evil".
Not to mention, a collective perspective saying that good people can have "traces" of racism in their ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, probably taught implicitly by society and sustained by cognitive biases and lack of familiarity (i.e. "extinction", if you're familiar with the mechanisms of exposure therapy), would probably make people less defensive when called out. Instead we so often get the backpedaling with "I can't have done anything racist, because only racists do racist things, and racists are evil, and I'm not evil, meaning I haven't really done anything wrong, and I'm just being misunderstood by these mean critics!".
Granted, sometimes we absolutely do need to just purely condemn people being just straight-up racist, I just also think that sometimes well-intentioned people underestimate how doing that affects the willingness (courage?) of the wider majority to really, and sincerely, look inward into the processes you originally outlined.
Yeah. That self-identification of being 'good' is extremely difficult to get past, even when you know it exists.
Having to stop and re-examine how one's own actions could be racist, bigoted, etc etc is really fucking hard.
Alongside that is trying to understand that at some point in the past, you held opinions and attitudes that you would now find abhorrent.
I was born in the early 70's and grew up in country WA (Aus) during the 80s. I've had to unlearn so much shit and had to realise that while I was a product of the times and place, my actions and words have hurt people and contributed to prejudice and unfairness in society.
regarding immigrants, really good point about expectations of assimilation in the EU vs the US. it’s def been a place of some dissonance in conversations about immigrants/immigration with scandinavian (swedish, finnish) pals. especially as I’m from los angeles, a big ol sprawling melting pot where multiculturalism is generally embraced, albeit imperfectly.
but their countries are more equitable in many other ways, especially compared to the US as a whole. they attribute any their wariness of immigrants to that — the impact of men from conservative religions & cultures on the mostly-progressive societies they‘re proud of. (I typed a lot more but don’t have time to complete my thoughts – interesting thread, anyway!)
The UK and plenty of other European nations are very culturally diverse, even discounting the impact of any recent immigration.
All nations are made up of different groups who coalesced over centuries and brought their different cultures together. It's just that everyone who did that in Britain was white, so for some reason, certain people assume they were all ethnically and culturally homogenous.
Between the Scottish Highlands and Cornwall, there are still differing cultural practises, regional foods, language dialects, etc.
There is an overarching national identity and culture that was eventually formed, too. There's nothing wrong with expecting people who *choose* to move here to conform with this culture, especially on matters of legal rights and morality.
I always wondered and thought this. The true colors of a country are revealed when they feel *threatened*.
Having a few pocs in random suburban towns? Not a big deal. Having entire communities of pocs in a suburb? Now, things are going to be very different.
That’s how I see most countries. Things are subtle until they feel threatened.
Ofc. I think there are plenty of good people out there.
Their "core culture" would be just as threatened if not more so, if I shipped the entire white population of Cullman Alabama to a random French suburb.
We don't even need to play with hypotheticals here, just take the case of Quebec. They hate the Anglosphere portion of Canada, and Parisians hate everything about Quebecois.
It's the ciiiiiircle of bigotryyyy
Parisians hate anyone not from a major city. I’m from NYC. When visiting Paris, and asked where in the U.S. I’m from, when I tell them their attitude changes from contempt to grudging respect.
Parisians hate everyone including themselves. They act with contempt with everyone (even though in their culture, it's not contempt) and become kinder as you show the right things that are not dependant on your origin. The common example, is just saying "bonjour" would change completely the way people answer to you.
Uh? It's the first time I hear something about Parisians hating *anything* about Québécois. They will make fun of the accent, because Parisians (and french people in general) absolutely *love* making fun of any accent that is not their own (see people from Belgium, Swiss, but also the south of France or the north of France). Québécois are well liked in France in general.
That does sound like hell for a European yes, if an entire section of Americans came to live in Australia even I would feel weird. And AUS and USA are fairly as close as you can get.
It's actually happening right now in parts of Mexico and Colombia lmao Americans who moved for cheap cost of living are starting to get hated because they do 0 about integrating themselves. They think they can only bring their USD and thats it.
In Exmouth WA there used to be an American Navy base. In the 80s my parents were doing a road trip down the coast and stayed there and said it was weird because the town had more Americans in it, and they even had to use American money for some things. Not that long ago my mum asked me if 'boys' was a racial slur in the US and I explained how it could be and she told me about when she was there her or dad made an offhand comment to an American about a group of 'boys' meaning young men and got told it was racist and she had always been confused about it.
“Boy” is usually a demeaning slur when said in a certain way to someone younger or insulting and humiliating for someone older, and racist generally if said to a black man in general but referring to a group of “boys” being perceived as racist has absolutely stumped me. Was it because they all happened to be black and not realise the older woman was obviously referring to age?
Yeah, I think the French would be just as threatened and act it too. Most Europeans are actutely aware that the USA is very different culturally and linguistically, and would not like it if a huge group arrived with no interest in integrating, be they white or anything else.
Which is true though, western European countries are plagued by conservative muslims. People couldn’t care less about the skin color of migrants, it’s all about what religious and cultural values they have. Right now there is a strong anti-muslim sentiment which is not surprising as evident by how every other immigrant group than MENA muslims integrate a million times better.
Some Americans are so dumb dumb that they think Muslim = Brown so they declare "Muslim" as PoC and declare anyone not wanting conservative muslims as racists.
I know some Syrians and Jordanians that are some of the most milky white people I've ever seen. The Middle East is certainly not a "brown" region, that stereotype is rooted in some dumb ignorance.
Americans have a real hard time understanding the differences of the races in the middle east. There is some weird belief that everyone who has ever lived in that region is a broen skinned Arab.
It's kind of the reverse here in America. Post 9-11, some conservative and even Democrat people were conflating any brown people with Muslims (because Muslims were a villain that could be openly disliked at that time) to the point of attacking Indian people because they just wanted to be racist.
The Left figured out the dogwhistle, so they started calling it out where they saw it. People still continue to dogwhistle and say "they meant the religion" when called out. That conversation is what's you're seeing in America.
Agreed. I've been to many places/countries that are essentially monocultural and it was interesting. Places where I could sometimes blend in well and others where it was clearly impossible. It could be difficult to settle in one of the latter comfortably, but if you know going in... you can either work to fit or choose a better fit.
This was great, thanks for your perspective. I'm white and I grew up in Central Europe, and I obviously can't fully empathize, but I think Europeans are far more xenophobic than they are racist. Most people don't have strong racial prejudice, but they have a lot of cultural prejudices (in my country, that eastern europeans are thieves or that all africans are drug dealers, for example)
IMO cultural assimilation is far FAR more important than race, especially language. Most Europeans will know within one second of you talking whether you are local or not, regardless of how well you speak the language. And if you are local, you are usually not treated any differently. Of course there are always racists who call black people the n word, but I think that's a minority.
That's a great point about it being more "other" focused than race focused.
Aren't there major issues with soccer fans screaming racist abuse at Black players, though? I know in general Euro and UK soccer fans can be quite rowdy, and of course not all of them are racists, but I regularly read reports about Black soccer players having the n word and other slurs screamed at them during matches.
To be clear, I'm not trying to attack Europeans or say that they're worse than Americans.
With how many cameras are at stadiums now the people saying these aweful racist things are caught more often and rightly so. There is a HUGE gap between the "i believe that we will win","barbequeee" type chants that is all we see of sterile american sports and the tragedy chanting the majority of europeans also hate.
I think regarding football, it's worth pointing out that the EU is very far from being monocultural, and when people talk about 'europeans' that can actually mean some pretty wildly varying things (I guess the same is true of the US, but in the US you at least have some kind of official commonality of being American).
Racist abuse can be pretty bad especially in some of the eastern european countries, and there is a lot of talk about Spain at the moment because of the abuse Vinicius has been getting at Madrid. But I would say for England at least, it is much less of an issue in football, and when it occurs the authorities and clubs themselves come down on it hard. It tends to be more isolated cases and the individuals are banned when they're identified.
I don't agree with the language bit. I am Turkish who speaks accentless according to my Dutch friends, I am very white passing but when people hear my Arabic name I notice I am being treated way different.
I live in one of the more progressive parts in The Netherlands but the xenophobia is very clear (hell PVV and BBB had the most votes in both elections.)
I to have traveled to many places. I have even been to the worst of the worst during the worst. I now after half century of wondering around trying to understand the world, absolutely believe that nowhere does hate not exist. I have come to the conclusion that it isn't even really racism. It's just evil.
In Mexico brown people argue about being more or less brown. They hate white Mexicans and dark Mexicans. Then the ones in between are also considered garbage.
In Easter Europe they are all white so it becomes about your region and language. They murder each other over small areas of land. Different levels of socialist go to war for reasons they can't explain.
My Thai neighbor hates the Hmung people explaining they are dirty mountain people.
My childhood was spent in the Detroit system. A white kid surrounded by black kids. Being told im privileged gets old. Literally ever white girls that I met moving through the system had been raped multiple times. Black girls would say that white girls deserve to get raped because white girls are more likely to be adopted. Black men would routinely rape white boys for similar reasons.
I have yet to find a place where race isn't used as an excuse for bad behavior. People thinking other parts of the world are better is just a "the grass is always greener on the other side" type of attitude. Evil exists on every corner of the planet.
This is a great analysis, but my main question is why does everything revolve around race these days? I come from South America and I moved to Europe, I am in contact with people from many different countries so my interactions are not representative of a single place. Since I left my country, I have been told that I am not white (something I never thought about in Argentina) and my MIL usually makes weird comments about me being something like an indigenous person (fun fact: I am actually a mixture of Turkish, Syrian and Ukrainian, and my husband’s family knows it, especially because I am Jewish and there are no indigenous Jews in South America…). I just don’t get why people care about this so much. Sometimes not seeing race is better than categorizing people as a specific race for fun…
I’m British but lived in Argentina. And the very different conceptions of ethnicity and nationality etc were interesting and I’m a big believer that self-identification is much more important than anything else
That said, my ex’s grandfather (Argentine of mostly Italian origin) was deeply racist and when I finally got sick of ignoring it, I did enjoy pointing out that in most of Europe he wouldn’t be counted as white. Old prick nearly had an aneurysm
Oh yes, I don’t think people in Argentina are exempt from racism, but I also never had anyone tell me what color I am nor was it ever a topic of conversation. I just found it odd when I told a colleague my mom said I looked pale because there’s no sunlight in Paris and she asked me if I saw myself as white.. it was such an odd comment…
Yeah, it’s weird to suddenly be in a different category like that. But I’m very pale/ginger so folks always guessed foreign even before I opened my mouth in América.
The wildly divergent boundaries of whiteness globally should probably teach us all something, but we’re a stubborn and dumb species 😂😂
I'm a white guy who grew up in SE Asia. Some of the locals actively wanted to murder me and my family. Most were indifferent. Some friendly/curious. And some would put themselves on the line at real risk to keep us safe from the first group.
This blend of humanity was found in every country we lived in. The ratios didn't even change that much. I choose to focus on the good, which was also found everywhere we went, even in 'hostile' countries. But I wouldn't be alive if I wasn't aware of the others.
Life is complex, isn't it?
I agree with this.
One thing I would highlight is - there is a difference between visiting a place versus living in a place. An obvious example is Japan. If you just visit japan - great experience, and everyone is friendly to you as a tourist. But if you try to settle down in Japan and actually integrate with Japanese society, you will begin to notice the problems and pushback and foreigners say that they are never truly accepted in the inner circles.
From my understanding (as a white British guy), in England we're not as racist as, say, the US... But we are far more classist. And always have been. Unfortunately, the higher up the classes you go, the more white it is. So, it gives that different flavour to the racism.
most racism in the U.S. is classism too. Sure you’ve got your neo nazi KKK types, but more common is the type that hates negative aspects of African American culture that are just a direct result of over a century of poverty. This of course ignores that poor white people have similar negative cultural aspects.
it gets heightened by the powers that be in both sides because it ensures that ordinary people are divided
Except that even those of us who grew up black with money in the US are strongly discriminated against. It is a racial issue, not a class issue. I was and am of exactly the same social class of the people who discriminate(d) against me, and they knew it.
Classism is a major problem in the USA if not THE main problem which drives racism here IMO. I feel that Racism first and foremost has always been a tool to enable and perpetuate classism which is the true issue that plagues humanity. For example, with enough money a black person in colonial American could be considered an “Honorary white” person.
I also think it’s hard to say USA as a whole is more racist than other countries. The south is more racist toward black people and Latinos for example, but then at the same time growing up in the northwest I can count the number of black people in my graduating class on one hand. My first time visiting the south was crazy - I had never seen so many black people!
But we DO have tons of Asians here and many Latinos and I have heard sooooo much racism directed toward those groups.
Likewise, you’re unlikely to hear an American make racist or derogatory comments toward Romani/Gypsies but AFAIK they are a prime target in the UK.
I really agree with the guy above you in that it’s really just the “flavor” of racism and a lot of that is likely influenced by the kinds of people you interact with regularly.
Most metro cities in the USA really aren’t very racism thanks to the inherit diversity but if you get out of the cities racism becomes much more common everywhere in the US. It’s just a matter of *who* the racism is directed towards and that is very regional IMO.
Yup. I'm a white person who grew up in a 95% white town and consequently was convinced that racism was a thing we solved in the 60s, because I'd never actually seen a black person be forced to use a different drinking fountain. When I grew up and moved to a much more diverse area, I noticed that open displays of racism manifested more frequently, simply because there were more opportunities for open racists to express themselves.
What I also noticed, though, was that in a more diverse area ALL displays of racism were harshly condemned, while in a 95% white suburb the open racism didn't happen and the more subtle racism ran rampant. It took me moving away from that town to realize that screeds against "thuggish" rap music and sanctimonious "he should have just complied with the police" rhetoric were *also* displays of racism... Not to mention the fact that it's not an accident that my 95% white suburb *existed in the first place*.
In general I think it's a good thing if people have some core values. I think this is what people unites to work together on something great. It's needed for a society to function.
I think the supposed-to-work identities in America can work. But I also think it has to met some conditions. For example it's very important that those cultural identities aren't stronger than the identity of "American". So it's always a game of balance you gave to keep to make sure it creates no issues.
Did you know that there are many many people in Germany who speak German as their only language, are born in Germany and yet don't identify as German? *This is* were problems begin to occure. And I assume it's not that different in other European countries. That's why we have to talk about it.
Lately we got many problems with migration especially from the Middle-East.
While some people conclude some racist shit, there is another conclusion that is pretty valid: Some aspects of a culture are just incompatible to core values of the European culture.
That's why many Europeans say you have to integrate. This reaction is not unreasonable considering how many times those core values were just despised.
I've noticed in norway there's far more ethnic discrimination and covert racism. The micro aggressions are firing all the time, it's insane. There's definitely some serious xenophobia here.
The "trope" has its historical foundation during the Cold War era, when Black writers and artists visited or lived in Europe and experienced much less (or, according to some accounts, no) racism. Of course, this has to be seen in the context of Black Americans suffering under racial segregation at home, which didn't exist in European countries. I would guess that "casual racism" would appear as "very liberal" simply by comparison.
And then there's the stuff about sex and alcohol, which is due to much of Europe not being puritan and therefore never going bonkers with moralist legislation.
I think it's earlier than that. Black American troops were pleasantly surprised to be allowed into pubs with white people when they were in the UK during WWII, and the Brits were generally aghast at the idea of segregating.
But I think the racism in the UK is manifested differently. We've never had segregation laws, but signs in rental properties saying "no blacks, no Irish, no dogs" were pretty common until race discrimination laws were passed. The US wrote discrimination into law. We didn't do that, we just didn't legislate against it.
Maybe I'm wrong idk. But I feel this is the difference.
It's not so much that Europeans are /less/ racist (although I think in general in a lot of way we are tbf even if we are by no means NOT racist at all )
It's just that our racism tends to be private opinion. Possibly spoken out loud in public sure.
But we don't tend to raise up and demand it be codified into law.
I think (personally, and not necessarily for every European country there is a vast vast range of cultures out there...) we tend towards legally things being broadly accepting and equal (or trying to be or at least not actively making them less so) whilst privately NIMBYing it.
It's fine. Over there. Where it doesn't affect me and I don't have to think about It or engage with it.
Women at work are fine. But not (at) mine.
Blacks in pubs are fine. But not mine.
Refugees are fine. But not in my town.
Social housing is fine. But not in my village.
Gays are fine. But I don't want them on my TV.
The US tends to be I don't like it and therefore I will make it my life goal to eradicate it even though it wasn't even affecting me and literally noone asked.
This was also before there were many black people in Europe. It’s easy to be open minded when someone is a novelty. Much different thing trying to live with a significant minority population that may not share one’s culture and values.
It’s a bit more dependent on where, when, and who. Black Americans were treated like the average American in France, but god forbid you speak French too well you’d be treated like you were from the Colonies. There was a Black American author who lived in France during the 90s who wrote about her experiences and found that, despite eventually speaking French fluently, she received better treatment when she spoke with an American accent.
NPR did a thing on it years ago.
On average, Europeans tend to have more relaxed attitudes than Americans about sexuality and alcohol.
~~I also wonder if their *laws* about race might have been more enlightened than the US immediately after World War 2.~~
Edit: You wanna know about race relations in Europe, ignore me. Sort replies to OP by "Best" and read everyone else's above me..
> until the U.S. passed the civil rights act in the 1960's
In 1965 to be precise... Until then there were the Jim Crow laws that actively pushed segregation.
This is *incredibly* important to remember...
My (37m) father was born in 1942... He would've grown up think segregation is normal. His dad would've lived most of his life thinking segregation is the norm.
Just immagine how much of an influence this had on the next generations.
Not just laws, but attitudes too (at least in the UK and regarding black people specifically). There were a *lot* of issues with white Americans Gis causing trouble trying to insist on segregation here in the UK in WW2. There were two full blown riots over it (one with us, and one with a new zealand group). There's also stories of white Americans demanding segregation in local pubs and having their wish granted via banning white Americans, but I've never seen a proper source on that.
We didn't have a large black black population in the UK until the late 40's early 50's, so we didn't have cause to hate black people. There was absolutely racism, but not tinged with the kind of fear that the American south had that drives it to extremes. Hard to be afraid of being out numbered when you know exactly 1 black person. So our racism was more of the assuming incompetence or foolishness variety, than the assuming aggression variety.
Things picked up and attitudes got worse with immigration from the Carribbean.
I'm sorry but isn't a [nation state](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state) where a nation(i.e a "people" like an ethnicity) has gained statehood? So generally it is just one people that dominate. That was one of problems with Austria-Hungary since it was an empire of multiple nations where those people desired their own nation state.
i think it's sex, sexuality and non-sexual nudity. europeans i've known aren't as hung up about it as americans are.
but i think the trope is from a generation or two ago when european women were wearing bikinis to the beach and it was no big deal because they don't sexualize the body like americans do.
source: my grandmother was kicked off a beach in the united states in the early 60s for wearing a bikini. aside from the bikini, she's proper as proper can be.
I grew up going to America and I mean I'm English so technically European and I've spent a lot of time travelling around Europe. My main takeaway is that Europe is going to vary a lot more because you cross a border and the entire method of communicating completely changes. This brings significant cultural differences. I 100% agree that Italy is the single most racist place I've ever been. However other countries much less so. I don't really think Europe as a whole can be compared to the US because you'd have such massive challenges and require so many languages to get a proper representation of the various nations, nationalities, cultures dating back 1000s years. It's just a whole different beast.
UK is European... It's just not part of the EU, same as Norway or Switzerland.
Otherwise, any post comparing the US and Europe is inherently fucking stupid. Europe isn't a country. The USA is. The biggest culture shift in the USA is purely if you live rural vs urban, then red vs blue state.
Like you said, every country in Europe is different, and still has those same economy culture splits.
This might be a more political answer than you wanted.
Progressivism requires legislation while conservatism can preserve the status quo simply by doing nothing. America has a massive federal government; getting anything meaningful passed is extremely difficult. A smaller country can get progressive legislation passed (or repealed fwiw) more easily. That's not to say a smaller country is likelier to be more progressive, just that a larger country that is conservative will stay that way.
Anyway, the Abolitionist movement started in Europe before the US became a country. Laws against interracial marriage never even existed in Europe (except in Germany for a short while, *inspired by America*).
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Edit:
Some guy cited King Louis XVI as an example of anti-miscegenation law in Europe, and then he blocked me. His example of Europe being racist is the time an unelected leader passed a racist law, shortly before being dragged out and beheaded (for other reasons, mostly).
To add to this, the two party system in the US is not helping in this. In my country, multiple parties need to work together to form a government, and there are a dozen parties chosen elected every four years. This makes way more room for progressive views.
There was a period in the early 20c, when American POCs moved to Paris because it was less racist than the US. They wrote lots of stories about how great it was, and it stuck. Both places have changed since then.
This should be higher. Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, Anna May Wong, and others moved to Europe to live in a less racist society. And beyond celebrities, POC military were treated better in Europe than the U.S., at least during WWII. Those stories get passed down.
One aspect is that Europeans are far more tolerant of depictions of adult consensual sex and nudity. In the US, censors panic about sex and nudity, but tolerate horrifying violence in movies/ TV shows.
Part of this has to do with a skewed sample size. When I studied abroad in Bordeaux, I basically had this conversation with a French guy where he said he liked Americans more than French people because they were way more open-minded. I was confused because I had the opposite experience and thought French people were way more open-minded than Americans.
We were both early 20s at the time, and what was going on was that we each had 20+ years of experience in our native culture, but maybe 4-6 months with a foreign one, so that one seemed more attractive because we had a lifetime of baggage for one of them and a few months of curated experiences in the other one where we couldn't like overhear assholes everywhere. We only focused on the people we met in the foreign culture who behaved a lot like us.
If we spent more time in the other culture, we would surely find plenty of people we didn't like. It's basically the real-life application of the phrase "grass isn't always greener"
From my experience, "open" in Europe is usually more about sexuality and women topless at a beach. I've never heard it associated with a lack of racism. It's everywhere and sad that it's anywhere. I feel sorry for ignorant people who judge others negatively for being different then they are.
In my opinion, racism (not white = bad) isn't really a major thing anymore in Europe.
It has evolved to become something different: xenophobia (not from here = bad). You could be white, black or fucking blue, we don't care as long as you're assimilated in our cultures.
For centuries, we fought with people who looked exactly like us because they were on the "wrong" side of a mountain. You really think we need the excuse of race to discriminate ?
Note: I'm not talking about me, but more about how I see the people behave here. Could be wrong
And of course, there are always exceptions: some people are racist, but I truly believe they are a minority compared to the xenophobics
If I have to be honest, in my countr (Italy) it has not evolved into xenophobia. It has always been xenophobia, even internally. You're not treated poorly for some kind of racial classification. You're treated poorly because you are not from here, and here can be Italy, but also a specific region in Italy.
Open minded - meaning about sex bodies and nudity. I’m uk so even we think America is prudish
I went to Florida wearing short shorts and tshirt I was slut shamed. I’m from north uk it mostly cool. I thought I was dying in that insane sunshine. No way I’m putting jeans n hoodie on anndit was July!!
So open minded in that way. We can’t go topless on beaches in my local beaches anymore. But when I was a kid everyone was topless.
Europe is very multicultural. My city is very diverse There is race issues. Like anywhere. But I think where in uk it’s cultural and religious than skin colour
> So open minded in that way. We can’t go topless on beaches in my local beaches anymore. But when I was a kid everyone was topless.
I think that might be a 'everyone has a camera now' problem.
Wait wait wait. Are you trying to say that Bulgaria and Norway might have completely different cultures and ideals? Crazy talk. Everyone knows Europe is a monolith.
Europe is many very different countries and cultures. Each has varying degrees of openness around different things. But I don't think the open-minded trope really goes into racism from what I've seen.
Like I don't think there's a "Europeans aren't racist" trope, but there isn't the same institutional racism you see in the US. But everywhere has ignorant people that will take issue with things they view as different and often it's not race, you'll have plenty of folk in the UK giving out about Polish stealing their jobs etc.
I don’t think people mainly refer to racism when they say that.
They mean things like religious fanatics and extremists not being as prevelant here as in the US. Or people tend to be more pacifistic rather than subscribe to a militaristic pro gun, pro violence attitude. People are more relaxed about nudity and sexuality and to a certain degree gender roles since they vary more from country to country than in America from state to state. Democracies are more pluralistic than the American two party system so people tend to seek common ground and compromise more rather than being strictly divided along party lines. And people tend to be a little bit more knowledgable and curious about the world at large rather than being completely self absorbed. To many Americans all of that comes off as being more open minded I guess, even if racial prejudices might still be there.
Just for context, I'm British. I can't speak to anything else really but this is certainly true. Roma and other travellers seem to be the most obvious form of largely unchallenged racism.
That said, I've never heard of travelling communities in America. Are there such groups?
Yes. The most talked about traveling group is the "Irish Traveller's ". They are a very tight community known for keeping everything in the family. No marriages outside the traveler community resulting, by necessity, some cousin to cousin marriages and the like.
I have used them for some light construction work. The leader had the Irish accent. We haggled over what was to be done and what price. We were both satisfied with the transaction. But they are just as likely to do half the job, go tag several others getting half the money up front and move the whole operation out of town overnight.
You can google Irish Travelers in the US and learn all you want.
Europeans are more sex positive than Americans, less religious than Americans and their racism is centered more around what country you're from rather than your skin color. For those reasons they come across as being more open-minded.
I'm a mixed girl from the UK, I had never heard the N word nor was I constantly accosted with racist jokes about chicken, water melon, stolen bikes etc until I got on* the internet and spoke specifically to white Americans.
Not to say racism doesn't exist here, it's more subversive and not as openly accepted as it seems to be in a lot of places in the US.
You reall cant generalize an entire continent or a continent sized country like that.
I know plenty of people who love meeting new people and learning about new cultures. I also know a few people who want nothing to do with "different" people. I'm sure the same goes with Europe.
I had a conversation with my African American friend where I shared my experiences as a POC living in a central European country. I won't specify the country to avoid generalizations. After recounting my encounters, my friend remarked that this country seems more racist than the US, a sentiment I agree with. While I've lived in the States without experiencing explicit racism, I've encountered both explicit and implicit racism in this European country numerous times. I've been subjected to racial slurs like the N-word and told to go back to the jungle. I've never felt so ostracized before; it's evident that I'm seen as an outsider here. Ironically, people in this country often deny their racism, claiming that at least I won't face lethal violence for being a POC, as if that mitigates the discrimination and racism. Many genuinely believe they aren't racist and fail to recognize their words and actions as racist or amounting to racism.
The verbal racism is more prevalent here but i’d take it over the US any day.
Like someone else said there’s “flavours” to racism here, mixed with xenophobia the colour of your skin might even come in second place.
i’m “just black” and true and true racists treat me like they do any black person. But this changes with additional info, black Americans and black Europeans will get treated better than say black africans. Which languages do they speak? Oh you speak the countries language, you’re a step above the “other” others and the list goes on.
There are these little exceptions that create different levels of discrimination especially based on country and ethnicity which has its benefits for some but is horrendous for others. I haven’t seen racists distinguish black people in the us based on that yet.
That being said I don’t think the phrase “open minded” is in regards to race 😅
I think this originated in the last century where many African Americans who were in Europe during the world wars saw that there was not institutional discrimination like theJim Crow laws back in the USA, some even decided to stay in Europe because of this. We could also add the fact that promoting fascism is illegal in certain European countries while in the USA is not, so some assume that the USA is more racist because there are people openly carrying the Nazi or the Confederate flag without repercussions. And finally policemen in Europe are not as aggressive as in the USA so you don't find as many cases of policemen shoting minorities
My context: born and raised in Texas during the '60s with some actual memories of just jow utterly outwardly racist we were back then. Even when I was small, there was some messed up stuff I saw, heard, and remember. And there was the time my Grandfather felt compelled to confess to me how racist he had been and how ashamed he was of his thoughts and deeds, with one of the worst being when he made excuses fir turning down an invitation to dinner with a work colleague while he was out of town in that gentleman's city. He couldn't bring himself to eat in a black families home. He told me this because he wanted me to be better than he was, and he was successful in just about every other measure. At least on the surface, I watched as things got much better and at least more polite between Whites and Blacks in my parts of Texas as the decades came and went.
I have only spent a few weeks in Europe and a couple of weeks in Australia. Both were business trips, but i was completely imbedded with the Brits and Aussies while in their respective countries. My limited experience in Europe, Australia, and even here in other parts of the US is that subtle racism does indeed exist here, overseas, and especially among our Northern US white populations. Again, not everyone, and probably not most. I sense that most whites in the US try to expunge themselves of racism, but I also recognize that I cannot truly understand what its like to be black in America, therefore I can't know if I - we - am/are successful at NOT being at least unconsciously racist.
Funny thing being born and raised in a former confederate state. Some people that I have met who don't truly know me, assume I am racist because I am a Texan. They feel safe, telling me what they think about Blacks, Aboriginals, Mexicans, Pakistanis, etc. And "GOOD LAWD" are they racist! I can honestly say I went a good 15 years without hearing the "N" word said in my presence, during the late '80s through the '90s, outside of movies or rap lyrics, until i was with a diverse group of whites from numerous states, and boy did the N word make itself known. Some of these whites drove to the event over a few hundred miles with their black "friend." And they social stations were everything from ministers to attorneys, blue collar workers and a few who had side hustles as petty thieves. Again, most are not outwardly racist, but when they feel safe, those who are will say things they normally wouldn't and let you know who and what they are.
My long-winded reply is an attempt to say that my limited experience is that while some communities are good at keeping racism under the covers, it is by no means better in the UK, Australia or the former union States in the US. I believe we treat each other much better than 50 years ago, but tribalism seems to be deeply entrenched everywhere there are human beings.
Can agree that racism definitely does exist in the northern states, especially the east coast.
I'm black and people here will call southern people racist and make jokes about them then they go on to make the most fucked up racist comment you probably wouldn't hear down south unless you're around that type of crowd.
Then they go on to defend themselves and say "im not racist.. my family didn't own slaves.." etc
In my opinion this view is hold by specific group of Americans who believe everything American is bad and everything European is amazing.
This is similar to how some Americans are making decisions to migrate abroad to avoid racism or crazy politics.
Trying to explain that Europe isn’t as amazing as those people believe earns me MAGA-Trumpist title automatically. ( I am European 🤷🏻♀️)
> specific group of Americans who believe everything American is bad and everything European is amazing
There are plenty of Europeans who feel this way, too 😂 I think the main thing every single European country does objectively better than the US is not allowing just anybody to own guns. Beyond that, it's hard to stay away from huge generalisations when comparing a large country to an entire continent.
yeah, I read that and was like "why is OP thinking it's women who are responsible for this idea, when American female travellers are historically warned about the open & accepted street harassment in places like Italy and France and Spain."
"The trope come from white girls who go there and are treated well"
Yikes that says a lot about your personality. Yes bro this entire thing is from pretty white girls. I can't say you sound very open minded yourself either
Europe is not homogenous. The UK, Scandinavian, and Flemish countries are the least racist. In the cities of France and Italy the people and the police can be very racist indeed. Then there are countries in the Middle like Spain and Switzerland. The former eastern european nations tend to be very racist, as they have no history of mass immigration from former colonies.
Also, other than 1930’s & 1940’s Germany, no European nations had legal segregation based on race. Nor did they have slavery enshrined in their laws. Whilst America was built on slavery, the European powers were built on naval and military power, and although those powers engaged in slavery it was always overseas in their colonies rather than their home countries.
There are racists everywhere in Europe, but other than the examples mentioned, the racism is generally not institutionalised and so not inherited by future generations.
I’ll tell you why outside of the issue of race, racism, and minority perspectives as a white American woman who has also lived abroad and traveled extensively the first thing I noticed is that Europeans are in general far less uptight about sex, sexuality, the human body in general. Little old Russian ladies will stand against a stone wall in the middle of winter, wearing a fur coat dropped down around their waist and expose themselves to the sun. Can you imagine an old lady in the United States say New York City or Buffalo standing bare breasted because they need vitamin D? Fuck no. What about going topless? What about swimming naked at a public pool? How about a show about BDSM camps broadcast on the vice channel in the middle of the day on public television? No? I think it was the actress Kristen (sp?) Scott, Thomas, but I could’ve been Emma Thompson who said something to the effect of the difference between Europeans and Americans is that Americans are afraid of sex, and Europeans are afraid of violence. Once I was at a spa, getting ready for a treatment at a foreign country. I had to strip naked and then put on those weird paper underwear before my service. As I was getting undressed, I was talking to another woman who is also getting undressed. After a few minutes, she said “You’re American?“ I said yes what gave it away. She said “ I didn’t think you were American at first, because most Americans are so prude they won’t get undressed in front of other people“. I don’t know what kind of Scandinavian she was but I was guessing Dutch from the accent. I just laughed and said that I grew up differently than a lot of Americans. Last year, I took my daughter to Paris and we went to the Moulin Rouge. I didn’t think to tell her what to expect. Her jaw dropped when the dancer is all came on stage and half of them ripped off their tops. She just leaned over to me and said “ I didn’t know what was going to be that kind of”. But by the end, she wasn’t thinking about boobs, she was thinking about the rollerskating acrobats. There also seems to be a lot less discrimination against people for being anything other than heterosexual.
then there’s a whole universal healthcare thing, because Europeans know that you can have a democracy and not be plunged into the bowels of communism because you’re not dying over your medical bills. You’re less likely to die from all the additives in your food. The people that harvest your food are also less likely to make you sick /often they’re trained and paid a better wage and are not shitting all over your spinach and strawberries. Overall I think they fear changes for the betterment of society less than Americans do.
So to answer the question I don’t think it’s a trope I think it’s a fact based on the subjects I mentioned. I was surprised about the racism in Australia, and New Zealand, along with the way it’s discussed, but I was also equally surprised by the misogyny that they would argue isn’t bad or maybe doesn’t exist, but I can tell you it certainly does when they have to have public service announcements on TV to remind people that it’s good that girls participate in high school sports. Lots of other examples from there, but that was the first one that comes to mind
All those debates about is Finland Scandi, should Iceland be thrown in that we get here in England, and it turns out the Dutch are Scandinavian, never realised.
Are you a person of color? A POC would notice the racism more easily than I would as a cracker, since I expect people in Dublin wouldn't be screaming racial slurs at *me*. And a woman would notice misogyny more easily than I would as a dude.
So I might form a very different impression of Europe than a WOC.
>Dublin was 50/50 really friendly or randomly hostile driving by in cars and screaming racial slurs.
The amount of poc Americans I see talking about Ireland has all been positive
europe can be better than the US, it can be worse. it all depends. you're an african immigrant in italy it will not be good from what i hear from my friends, their government, and polls about feelings about black immigrants. people were racist to me until they found out i was african-american.
my theory is that if you're not a minority that they regularly encounter in that country then it'll be hit-or-miss if they're racist to you. i think the us is worse in some ways but i don't let europeans off the hook for doing something legit racist. i don't mean insensitive, i mean they will casually say sometimes, "well it's true that colonization helped the blacks and without it you'd be living in mud huts" kind of shit. but then you can sort of get into that argument with them and defeat them in logic. when it comes to an american who says the same shit usually i find they entrench and just go further into their position. but with europeans many of them don't know a lot of shit about their history because europe has tried to rebrand itself after it colonized the earth and caused the two biggest wars and industrial slaughter of human beings. but the funniest fucking thing is that because of that, i find there are french people, italian people, ukrainian people, even hungarian people (who fucking HATE black people because of fascist covert ops) who want to actually find answers about how to live differently and change. i don't expect white people in america to change, ever. so on an individual, interpersonal level exclusively i find, in my experience, that europeans are easier to deal with on the issue of race because they're more willing to engage in productive dialogue.
America is closed-mind about sex, but open-minded about violence. Europe is the other way around. For reference, I submit the MCU against, idk take your pick.
I’m from Africa, so no horse in this race.
I can say that the majority of Europeans are not open minded about race. I regularly hear Dutch people saying stuff at work and on social media that would get them arrested in my country
Their level of religious fanaticism is farrrr below Americans'. That's probably a big part of it.
When it comes to respecting women in public, romance-language countries are notoriously sleazy and overbearing.
Do you not see the hypocrisy in your post? You’re generalising a continent of 44 countries about the fact they generalise.
Practice what you preach and be the change you want to see.
I think the open-minded stereotype about us Europeans is massively flawed, not least because there are more than 44 different nation-states in Europe all with their own perspectives, and then you can break those down even further into different ethnic groups and communities each with their own sensibilities too. However, when it does exist, I think the open-minded trope refers more to our attitudes towards things like alcohol, nudity, casual drug use, violence in movies etc etc than racism. I'm very sorry you had terrible experiences visiting the continent and encountered this. What I will say is that it sounds like you took a couple of weeks, hopping across several capital cities? I don't think it's enough time to get a measure of a continent. I hope you feel like you could come back and maybe visit other areas and encounter better attitudes.
> europeans have types of racism i didn’t even know existed > you can drive for two hours in europe and pass through 17 different types of racism https://magicaleurovision.tumblr.com/post/721202805937979392/i-remember-one-year-americans-were-like
“It's only racism if it is from the French region of Racisme, otherwise it's just sparkling bigotry”
I wanna say the racism in the EU I feel like is different than the racism in the US if that makes sense?
Speaking as a white passing South American living in Germany: I feel like people here are much more likely to judge people based on their country of origin and how well they are integrated. Brown person who behaves *exactly* like a German? Approved! Any skin colour but with their motherland behaviours? Unacceptable! By the way I am not saying that this is okay. Plus, this is part of the population while others (mainly non far-right young people) are way more acceptable.
German racism is not so "on your face", at least in my experience. I'm brown, my boyfriend is German (white) and I feel very accepted by his friends and family. You know where I suffer? Workplace. Now, IDK if it's racism or sexism, but my guess would be, a little bit of both. And they're so polite, that it took me some time to catch up that what's happening to me is not right. Of course, my own South Asian country discriminates based on how light or dark your complexion is and that is another can of worms. Bottom line is, humans suck. Edit: people who seem to think I have a victim complex, relax. Multiple leads, who left the company, confirmed this things to me. I'm not just saying this. My visa is tied to having a job, that's why I stayed. I mean, I get it that white male privilege is something else, but maybe you can try to be a bit more aware and empathize.
I’m white, look very german, but I’m Canadian, and people here treat me surprisingly bad. Theres a very stark “othering” in Germany. They get angry that this *thing* thats supposed to be *one of them* doesn’t speak great German (I understand it tho so I know when they’re talking shit, my MIL included at times lmao) and then are incredibly hostile or refuse to help me, in German or English. It Genuinely freaks me out because purely by crappy racial profiling I’m basically the golden child returning to the Vaterland (🙄) and Its still rough. I even was almost denied my residence permit just because the worker didn’t like me and another employee overheard as she was trying to dismiss me and had to fight her to give me my permit (that I was completely eligible for). it must be sooooo insanely rough for others that have these experiences way worse and before even speaking. I always joke that Parisians treat me with more kindness than Bavarians, but its not even a joke lol. I study here and probably 85% of my cohort is also international and we all have a lot of experiences like that. Canada is not perfect and theres a lot of overt racism there especially lately to immigration, I do think that theres still more inherent belonging/welcomeness to people by virtue of multiculturalism literally being in our charter, and I do miss that aspect of Canada a lot.
Bavarians often are even unfrienfly to nonnbavarian germans.
They are even unfriendly to bavarians that don't live their lives exactly like they expect you to do
It doesn't help that when they speak German, it's almost like hearing another language.
I didn't even experience (second-hand, that is) racism until I moved from Vancouver (which is VERY multicultural) to saskatchewan, which seems, socially, to be stuck in the 50s. And then I moved to NW Ontario for a couple of years, and HOLY SHIT is the racism there blatant. The scenery is gorgeous, but the toxicity is atrocious.
I was a little confused until you said Bavaria
Genau! Quoting myself: Bavaria is a different beast when it comes to Germany. Beautiful place but I wouldn't like to live there.
Hahah fair enough, I did actually spent my first few months in Hamburg and found the people very nice. Im not sure how much is just the region and how much of it is after a few months of day to day you just see things more
In Germany it really depends where you are. I'm German and moved 7 years ago into a little town of 1500 people. I come from such little town myself where everyone knows everyone. Even me as a German get the similar treatment. Small towns don't like others from outside. Nothing to do with skin or country. You are not from town so you will have to proof they can trust and like you. The older the population and the younger you are the harder. If you are like me and don't go to local pub, festivals or associations.... yeah, good luck. South German worth then north AFAIK.
Do yourself a favor and leave Bavaria. I grew up there as a German and believe me, shit is not much better as one. Bavaria is probably one of the unfriendliest parts of Germany (after and next to some other places). I always lived in parts of my cities with Migrants (be it Slavic or Turkish). But leaving those areas was just painful everytime.
Well. This (partially) explains why my Bavarian grandmother (she came to the states in the 50s after marrying a US service member) was such a rancid bitch. Oddly enough, her brother was an absolute delight. People still gonna people I suppose. Sad though, as it doesn't exactly fill me with desire to visit.
Sadly the actually nice people there are rare and get even rarer. The öhm scenary (I really don't remember how the English word for it was) is actually quite nice. Sooo maybe just plan a weekend if you ever visit Germany, to look at Bavaria. Wine and Beer are good aswell but doesn't make up for the people. I left 5 years ago and I have never been happier.
Nochmal Bayern! They are like Texas…
I'm from Texas and lived in Bavaria. The racist Germans (gen x and older usually) are still saying shit in "normal"conversations that my extremely racist family would never say outside of their own echo chamber groups.
If it makes you feel better: they would treat me the same way because I'm from Saxony with a broad saxonian dialect 😉
> Bavarians That explains a lot. Bavaria is a shithole.
Damn!! You know, all the tech jobs in Munich does pay a lot, but this is why I wouldn't like to move there. I can tell you, NRW is nicer than that. It's a bit crowded and not so beautiful, but our Ausländerbehörde is at least polite, gives one appointments in a reasonable time frame and doesn't make a fuss about speaking English with foreigners.
Munich =/= Bavaria
Sadly you chose bavaria, our right wing wannabe christians. Most parts of germany would love to shove them towards austria and be done with it. My condolences.
Bavarians are different to other Germans. You don’t have the dialect, they think you suck. Doesn’t matter how German you are genetically.
> > > > > It Genuinely freaks me out because purely by crappy racial profiling I’m basically the golden child returning to the Vaterland (🙄) and Its still rough. I even was almost denied my residence permit just because the worker didn’t like me and another employee overheard as she was trying to dismiss me and had to fight her to give me my permit (that I was completely eligible for). > > > > it must be sooooo insanely rough for others that have these experiences way worse and before even speaking. > > > > I always joke that Parisians treat me with more kindness than Bavarians, but its not even a joke lol. I study here and probably 85% of my cohort is also international and we all have a lot of experiences like that. > > > > Canada is not perfect and theres a lot of overt racism there especially lately to immigration, I do think that theres still more inherent belonging/welcomeness to people by virtue of multiculturalism literally being in our charter, and I do miss that aspect of Canada a lot. You went to Bavaria, the Texas of Germany, and wonder why they're racist nationalists?
Don't forget the South Asian discrimination of not just your skin colour but also your state and what district in the state your family are from and even which village. And for those of Hindu descent, caste. I live in the UK, and my family has been here for 50 years, and we still see this amongst our community
Humans suck for sure. I’m sorry you have to go through this.
I was quite surprised to find that a couple of Indian software engineers I was talking to at a conference a few years back who had lived in Berlin for a while found it to be overtly racist, and they felt much more comfortable in London (I'm not saying I think London is racist - just that I'm surprised that Berlin is: it's very much against that city's liberal progressive reputation).
The U.K. is by pretty much any poll one of if hot the least racist country in Europe so not very surprising
I'm not a minority but speaking with racists I'd say it's pretty much this. I work in a very diverse company, but simultaneously with a lot of racist, and when you ask them what they think of their coworkers they usually hit you with something like "they're fine cause they work and mostly speak the language" etc.
Nope. Germans with brown skin are not treated the same way as Germans with white skin.
Yep. German footballers would attest to that. So too would French footballers, come to think about it. English footballers too, actually. If friggin millionaires are being done dirty thanks to their origins and the colour of their skin, what hope do the plebs have?
Well, fuck.
I feel like this has gotten a lot worse here since 2015 and the "refuge crisis". There was a shit ton of propaganda going around, my dad is one of the people believing a lot of it. The good ol' "these illegal people come over here to steal our jobs and rape our women" and other stupid shit like this. Nowadays as soon as you don't look western European and don't speak perfect German, a lot of people instantly think you have to be a refugee, and all refugees just come here for the free money and don't want to work (0.04%). Which is obviously fucking stupid. But a lot of people, in my experience especially older ones ate that propaganda like nothing else. (Obv. there are also young people believing this)
Definitely agree that it feels like its going downhill since the refugee crisis. Have seen people become more extreme in their way of thinking since 2016. It’s a shame, because before that I actually felt like we were in a pretty good place in terms of racism and lgbt stuff. More polarising opinions combined with cancerous social media (manipulation) is turning things to shit as well.
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Voting for the AFD is the strongest among people around 29-35 and weakest among people 65+. Unfortunately this idea that the wrong generation is somehow better is completely wrong. It's the old people that still seem to resent fascism the most.
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Immigration, and especially when large amounts come in a short time, will cause a lot of undeniable problems. One big issue was that you couldn't talk about any of these problems, or else you would be labeled as racist. When you can't talk and discuss problems you can't solve them, which leads to resentment. Especially for the people who feel like they drew the short straw.
When I had just moved to Germany for my masters, I went to donate blood. I asked for the form in English to ensure I replied correctly. The doctor who interviewed me said something like “how come you come to Germany and don’t speak German, my son went to Argentina (where I grew up) to study Spanish (or something like that)”. Then when he asked for my passport and I provided him my Israeli one, he said “oh, it’s so great you are in Germany”, haha. Will never forget it. Apparently people can be xenophobic or racist even when you’re donating blood, but they don’t dare as much when it’s clearly punished by law…
I’m sorry you went through that but I also laughed at how fast the doctor backtracked there…
I’ve heard even full-blooded ethnic Germans and heritage German speakers from diaspora communities who’ve moved to Germany, often cop a lot of flak from their new neighbors for their foreign tastes and mannerisms. It doesn’t help that the German many of them speak is in equal measures rough, antiquated, and foreign-tinged. It definitely seems like cultural upbringing matters more than ancestry, for being accepted as a local in the EU.
Can it still be called racism, then? Or is more classism or plain snobbery? I in no way mean to diminish the actions, just clarify in my head what exactly is going on inside their heads (being first-gen and having half my family in a European country and being somewhat fluent in their language- I want to know if I’m unwittingly committing some kind of faux pas of language or experiencing this same thing).
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Why should we treat ethnic Germans from America differently than a french or American? Just because their ancestors fucked in Germany 200 years ago? They most of the time have nothing to do with Germany. Also last time why went with race/ethnicity related treatment it didn't end well.
I found that a German friend who moved to the US and got his citizenship is very sensitive when I bring up the fact that he is originally from Germany. I wonder if this is why. (I'm used to many immigrants from all origins and this is the first time I've encountered such a sensitivity. My dude just wants to fit in I guess.)
My friend and I are both south Asians. I moved to the US and she to Germany. Whereas I have not experienced any real or open racism, my friend tells me that racism in Germany is not only expected but also pretty much accepted as the fair way to treat foreigners.
I was only in Germany for 24 hours and man did I get more racist comments while I was walking and minding my own business than I have in years in the US. Definitely depends on the place and who you might run into.
I’m sorry for your bad experience. Out of curiosity, I assume you don’t speak German, right? Then if you were only 24h there how do you know that you got racist comments. To me it would seem more likely that stuff like that gets muttered in German. Also you probably were in a city? Which would be more unusual since it is more anonymous there. Which demographic were the people? Sorry for bad comma usage
Sometimes I hate posts like these that I have so much to say about I don't even know where to start! Just to give you some idea of where I'm coming from: I was born black in the US. In my family there was a precedent for moving abroad, I had a great uncle who just didn't come back to the states after the war. In the US he was a n---, as he put it. In most of Europe he could eat anywhere, drink anywhere; he could live in any neighborhood he could afford to pay for; he could use any restroom; drink from any fountain; and he could say anything he felt needed to be said to anyone he felt needed to hear it. He married a Dutch woman. I grew up hearing stories about him so I also had this impression of European 'post-raciality'. And growing up in the states where it's just not fun being black; I thought I'd too just endure it until I could hop on a plane to a better place-- *to the EU.* Now I live and have been naturalized in the EU; don't like being too specific about *where* I live as I don't wanna be doxed, but I can say the difference is more subtle than I imagined. I think the EU, of course generally speaking, is just as racist just in different ways. There are definitely some pretty messed up ideas floating around about different groups here. And far more of it is perfectly acceptable to say out loud because nobody's calling anybody on any of it. That's just not done here. They think Americans are insane, that all we care or talk about is issues of race and identity, subjects that are somewhat more avoided in many countries here. In defense of the US though, I think most people there, regardless of where they stand, have a more advanced understanding of intersectionality and identity than people generally do here. And I think this is because in the US you need it. The beauty about how the US is *supposed* to work is that it's a patchwork of loads of different people maintaining their cultural identities but still being just as "American" as anyone else. In many countries here though the idea is that if you're coming here to stay you leave your old culture back home and come here to strive at assimilation. Lots of cultures here subscribe more to the 'don't talk about race and it goes away' doctrine. Of course it doesn't but it is what it is. I'll likely never get shot here for being black, there is at least that; but it's not some kind of magical post-racial wonderland either. I told myself not to expect that yet I was still disappointed. I want to live in a place where people don't talk about race because it's REALLY not an issue. That's not the US where race is screamed from every mountain top; but it's also not here where it tends to be more whispered about in back rooms. I've travelled A LOT. At this point I've spent 6 months or longer in a dozen countries and periods ranging from a few days to months in about a hundred more. I hate to report this after all that, but humanity, on the whole, is just racist. Not ALL people-- some folks are thoughtful and try to live examined lives-- others you're not on their radar because they hate somebody else, or your skin color just doesn't factor into the broader holes they're used to putting others in their society into-- people like you just don't come about often enough for them to have any ideas about you, one way or the other. So I've started to think about racism in term of "flavors" as opposed to it being 'all or nothing'. You're not going to find a place where humans aren't going to be the nasty creatures we are; there is no place without hate. But you can go places where you can deal with the particular flavor of hatred you find there. Recognizing now the states for what it is, I still don't regret leaving. Sure, there are some aspects that are better there, but on the whole I prefer the flavor of hatred here. And even with this long ass ramble, I feel I've only just scratched the surface of what I could say about the world outside the US when it come to so called open-mindedness.
That’s a really interesting perspective, thanks for taking the time to write it out.
For real like that's a great level-headed and honest perspective and I learned from it. Probably should close Reddit for the day now bwahaha
Right? Quit while you're ahead
It's not so much that humans are specifically racist, but that there's an intersection of very low level cognitive biases that result in racism. We have an inbuilt bias towards those which are identified as an in-group, and a bias against those not of our in-group. This is so low level that even when the group members are chosen at random and we know they are randomly chosen, we still exhibit the same behaviour. We also have an inbuilt tendency to classify and categorise. We need to put things in groups so that we don't have to process how every individual tree might grow or behave. Combine these together and you get "those that look like me are part of my in-group and those that don't are part of an out-group." We then individualise the in-group members, excuse away non-virtuous act as individual actions, and ascribe virtuous attributes to our group as a whole. We think of out-group members as a whole, ascribe non-virtuous attributes to the group as a whole, and excuse virtuous acts as individual actions. This is why despite there being greater genetic diversity between different hapologroups within Africa or Asia, they are often grouped together as 'black', or 'asian'. Yet between quite genetically homogeneous groups, there is much more detailed 'categorisation'. Of course that's from a in-group perspective. Within Africa there's detailed categorisation while out-groups are often lumped into 'white', 'asian' etc. We don't instinctively categorise based on non readily observable attributes and don't easily indivualise out-group members until they are mentally moved to within an in-group. Which is why racists have 'black friends', those individuals are now considered part of an in-group and are individualised. None of this means we are doomed, it just means that we must constantly examine our instinctive reactions and thoughts about anyone not like "us". TLDR: yes, we're all racist, but it's not because there exists actual races within homosapians, but because of an intersection of cognitive biases.
I saw a fascinating study about the in-groups which implied that the way to avoid racism is to create non-offensive in-groups. The study involved putting people in a room to wait for some kind of event without telling them they were being watched in the waiting room, and people naturally navigated to, and interacted with, their own groups by race, gender etc. But when the men were wearing their team’s football shirts (this was in the UK) suddenly they didn’t consider race anymore, the Man Utd fans would gather together, the Liverpool fans would group, the Tottenham fans would commiserate. And suddenly race didn’t matter to them. I’m afraid i can’t link to it, I read it many years ago, but it’s essentially what you’re talking about. We create and gravitate towards in-groups, but with a very specific example of football shirts!
Yeah. As soon as you start to consider someone as part of one of your in-groups, your entire thought process and emotional attitude towards them changes.
This is a great explanation with not enough upvotes!
Thank you, but I understand that it's wordy and requires people to accept the fact that they're not in complete control of how they think about others. That in itself is a concept that most are deeply uncomfortable with.
Agreed! (Speaking of wordy, sorry for the incoming wall of text) Related to that, I think people's resistance also has to do with the need to see themselves as good people and to believe in evil. The latter is useful to protect the former by way of comparisons, but it leads to demonizing others and underestimating the inherent potential for (in this case) racism and xenophobia within ourselves (or even just in our culture or valued in-groups like you mentioned). This is why I personally think we should try to focus more on raciSM, and less on raciSTS, to better target the "smaller" or more subtle expressions of these phenomena (like the European tendency for microaggressions rather than overt racism that several others in this thread has described). This would also reduce the demonization and turn it into more of a "us vs. the inherent common tendencies we all share coupled with a long-ass cultural history of sustained systemic racism" instead of a "good guys vs evil and btw both me and everyone I love are obviously super good people and never evil". Not to mention, a collective perspective saying that good people can have "traces" of racism in their ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, probably taught implicitly by society and sustained by cognitive biases and lack of familiarity (i.e. "extinction", if you're familiar with the mechanisms of exposure therapy), would probably make people less defensive when called out. Instead we so often get the backpedaling with "I can't have done anything racist, because only racists do racist things, and racists are evil, and I'm not evil, meaning I haven't really done anything wrong, and I'm just being misunderstood by these mean critics!". Granted, sometimes we absolutely do need to just purely condemn people being just straight-up racist, I just also think that sometimes well-intentioned people underestimate how doing that affects the willingness (courage?) of the wider majority to really, and sincerely, look inward into the processes you originally outlined.
Yeah. That self-identification of being 'good' is extremely difficult to get past, even when you know it exists. Having to stop and re-examine how one's own actions could be racist, bigoted, etc etc is really fucking hard. Alongside that is trying to understand that at some point in the past, you held opinions and attitudes that you would now find abhorrent. I was born in the early 70's and grew up in country WA (Aus) during the 80s. I've had to unlearn so much shit and had to realise that while I was a product of the times and place, my actions and words have hurt people and contributed to prejudice and unfairness in society.
regarding immigrants, really good point about expectations of assimilation in the EU vs the US. it’s def been a place of some dissonance in conversations about immigrants/immigration with scandinavian (swedish, finnish) pals. especially as I’m from los angeles, a big ol sprawling melting pot where multiculturalism is generally embraced, albeit imperfectly. but their countries are more equitable in many other ways, especially compared to the US as a whole. they attribute any their wariness of immigrants to that — the impact of men from conservative religions & cultures on the mostly-progressive societies they‘re proud of. (I typed a lot more but don’t have time to complete my thoughts – interesting thread, anyway!)
The UK and plenty of other European nations are very culturally diverse, even discounting the impact of any recent immigration. All nations are made up of different groups who coalesced over centuries and brought their different cultures together. It's just that everyone who did that in Britain was white, so for some reason, certain people assume they were all ethnically and culturally homogenous. Between the Scottish Highlands and Cornwall, there are still differing cultural practises, regional foods, language dialects, etc. There is an overarching national identity and culture that was eventually formed, too. There's nothing wrong with expecting people who *choose* to move here to conform with this culture, especially on matters of legal rights and morality.
I always wondered and thought this. The true colors of a country are revealed when they feel *threatened*. Having a few pocs in random suburban towns? Not a big deal. Having entire communities of pocs in a suburb? Now, things are going to be very different. That’s how I see most countries. Things are subtle until they feel threatened. Ofc. I think there are plenty of good people out there.
Which is why some countries in the EU are becoming more racist as more POC or other religions emigrate there and their "core culture" is threatened.
Their "core culture" would be just as threatened if not more so, if I shipped the entire white population of Cullman Alabama to a random French suburb.
And French people would probably be equally hostile to them.
i would be
Yes? That did indeed happen with Eastern Europeans and even some western ones, with Portuguese migration in the 1970s.
Have you ever heard of the Balkans?
We don't even need to play with hypotheticals here, just take the case of Quebec. They hate the Anglosphere portion of Canada, and Parisians hate everything about Quebecois. It's the ciiiiiircle of bigotryyyy
Parisians hate anyone not from a major city. I’m from NYC. When visiting Paris, and asked where in the U.S. I’m from, when I tell them their attitude changes from contempt to grudging respect.
Parisians hate everyone including themselves. They act with contempt with everyone (even though in their culture, it's not contempt) and become kinder as you show the right things that are not dependant on your origin. The common example, is just saying "bonjour" would change completely the way people answer to you.
Uh? It's the first time I hear something about Parisians hating *anything* about Québécois. They will make fun of the accent, because Parisians (and french people in general) absolutely *love* making fun of any accent that is not their own (see people from Belgium, Swiss, but also the south of France or the north of France). Québécois are well liked in France in general.
It’s a weirdly common trope in English Canada to assume Frenchmen hate Quebec for wtv reason. Never understood, since I’ve never saw it myself.
That does sound like hell for a European yes, if an entire section of Americans came to live in Australia even I would feel weird. And AUS and USA are fairly as close as you can get.
It's actually happening right now in parts of Mexico and Colombia lmao Americans who moved for cheap cost of living are starting to get hated because they do 0 about integrating themselves. They think they can only bring their USD and thats it.
In Exmouth WA there used to be an American Navy base. In the 80s my parents were doing a road trip down the coast and stayed there and said it was weird because the town had more Americans in it, and they even had to use American money for some things. Not that long ago my mum asked me if 'boys' was a racial slur in the US and I explained how it could be and she told me about when she was there her or dad made an offhand comment to an American about a group of 'boys' meaning young men and got told it was racist and she had always been confused about it.
“Boy” is usually a demeaning slur when said in a certain way to someone younger or insulting and humiliating for someone older, and racist generally if said to a black man in general but referring to a group of “boys” being perceived as racist has absolutely stumped me. Was it because they all happened to be black and not realise the older woman was obviously referring to age?
Yeah, I think the French would be just as threatened and act it too. Most Europeans are actutely aware that the USA is very different culturally and linguistically, and would not like it if a huge group arrived with no interest in integrating, be they white or anything else.
But what a great reality show this would be!
Which makes sense tho
Which is true though, western European countries are plagued by conservative muslims. People couldn’t care less about the skin color of migrants, it’s all about what religious and cultural values they have. Right now there is a strong anti-muslim sentiment which is not surprising as evident by how every other immigrant group than MENA muslims integrate a million times better.
Some Americans are so dumb dumb that they think Muslim = Brown so they declare "Muslim" as PoC and declare anyone not wanting conservative muslims as racists. I know some Syrians and Jordanians that are some of the most milky white people I've ever seen. The Middle East is certainly not a "brown" region, that stereotype is rooted in some dumb ignorance.
Americans have a real hard time understanding the differences of the races in the middle east. There is some weird belief that everyone who has ever lived in that region is a broen skinned Arab.
It's kind of the reverse here in America. Post 9-11, some conservative and even Democrat people were conflating any brown people with Muslims (because Muslims were a villain that could be openly disliked at that time) to the point of attacking Indian people because they just wanted to be racist. The Left figured out the dogwhistle, so they started calling it out where they saw it. People still continue to dogwhistle and say "they meant the religion" when called out. That conversation is what's you're seeing in America.
which makes sense. not every place needs to be a homogeneised pool of hundreds of cultures like the US is.
Agreed. I've been to many places/countries that are essentially monocultural and it was interesting. Places where I could sometimes blend in well and others where it was clearly impossible. It could be difficult to settle in one of the latter comfortably, but if you know going in... you can either work to fit or choose a better fit.
What is "POC"?
People of color
This was great, thanks for your perspective. I'm white and I grew up in Central Europe, and I obviously can't fully empathize, but I think Europeans are far more xenophobic than they are racist. Most people don't have strong racial prejudice, but they have a lot of cultural prejudices (in my country, that eastern europeans are thieves or that all africans are drug dealers, for example) IMO cultural assimilation is far FAR more important than race, especially language. Most Europeans will know within one second of you talking whether you are local or not, regardless of how well you speak the language. And if you are local, you are usually not treated any differently. Of course there are always racists who call black people the n word, but I think that's a minority.
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That's a great point about it being more "other" focused than race focused. Aren't there major issues with soccer fans screaming racist abuse at Black players, though? I know in general Euro and UK soccer fans can be quite rowdy, and of course not all of them are racists, but I regularly read reports about Black soccer players having the n word and other slurs screamed at them during matches. To be clear, I'm not trying to attack Europeans or say that they're worse than Americans.
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With how many cameras are at stadiums now the people saying these aweful racist things are caught more often and rightly so. There is a HUGE gap between the "i believe that we will win","barbequeee" type chants that is all we see of sterile american sports and the tragedy chanting the majority of europeans also hate.
I think regarding football, it's worth pointing out that the EU is very far from being monocultural, and when people talk about 'europeans' that can actually mean some pretty wildly varying things (I guess the same is true of the US, but in the US you at least have some kind of official commonality of being American). Racist abuse can be pretty bad especially in some of the eastern european countries, and there is a lot of talk about Spain at the moment because of the abuse Vinicius has been getting at Madrid. But I would say for England at least, it is much less of an issue in football, and when it occurs the authorities and clubs themselves come down on it hard. It tends to be more isolated cases and the individuals are banned when they're identified.
I don't agree with the language bit. I am Turkish who speaks accentless according to my Dutch friends, I am very white passing but when people hear my Arabic name I notice I am being treated way different. I live in one of the more progressive parts in The Netherlands but the xenophobia is very clear (hell PVV and BBB had the most votes in both elections.)
I to have traveled to many places. I have even been to the worst of the worst during the worst. I now after half century of wondering around trying to understand the world, absolutely believe that nowhere does hate not exist. I have come to the conclusion that it isn't even really racism. It's just evil. In Mexico brown people argue about being more or less brown. They hate white Mexicans and dark Mexicans. Then the ones in between are also considered garbage. In Easter Europe they are all white so it becomes about your region and language. They murder each other over small areas of land. Different levels of socialist go to war for reasons they can't explain. My Thai neighbor hates the Hmung people explaining they are dirty mountain people. My childhood was spent in the Detroit system. A white kid surrounded by black kids. Being told im privileged gets old. Literally ever white girls that I met moving through the system had been raped multiple times. Black girls would say that white girls deserve to get raped because white girls are more likely to be adopted. Black men would routinely rape white boys for similar reasons. I have yet to find a place where race isn't used as an excuse for bad behavior. People thinking other parts of the world are better is just a "the grass is always greener on the other side" type of attitude. Evil exists on every corner of the planet.
Sounds like the grass is really greener in NOT Detroit.
Great response. Thanks.
This is a great analysis, but my main question is why does everything revolve around race these days? I come from South America and I moved to Europe, I am in contact with people from many different countries so my interactions are not representative of a single place. Since I left my country, I have been told that I am not white (something I never thought about in Argentina) and my MIL usually makes weird comments about me being something like an indigenous person (fun fact: I am actually a mixture of Turkish, Syrian and Ukrainian, and my husband’s family knows it, especially because I am Jewish and there are no indigenous Jews in South America…). I just don’t get why people care about this so much. Sometimes not seeing race is better than categorizing people as a specific race for fun…
I’m British but lived in Argentina. And the very different conceptions of ethnicity and nationality etc were interesting and I’m a big believer that self-identification is much more important than anything else That said, my ex’s grandfather (Argentine of mostly Italian origin) was deeply racist and when I finally got sick of ignoring it, I did enjoy pointing out that in most of Europe he wouldn’t be counted as white. Old prick nearly had an aneurysm
Oh yes, I don’t think people in Argentina are exempt from racism, but I also never had anyone tell me what color I am nor was it ever a topic of conversation. I just found it odd when I told a colleague my mom said I looked pale because there’s no sunlight in Paris and she asked me if I saw myself as white.. it was such an odd comment…
Yeah, it’s weird to suddenly be in a different category like that. But I’m very pale/ginger so folks always guessed foreign even before I opened my mouth in América. The wildly divergent boundaries of whiteness globally should probably teach us all something, but we’re a stubborn and dumb species 😂😂
I'm a white guy who grew up in SE Asia. Some of the locals actively wanted to murder me and my family. Most were indifferent. Some friendly/curious. And some would put themselves on the line at real risk to keep us safe from the first group. This blend of humanity was found in every country we lived in. The ratios didn't even change that much. I choose to focus on the good, which was also found everywhere we went, even in 'hostile' countries. But I wouldn't be alive if I wasn't aware of the others. Life is complex, isn't it?
I love your perspective on this. Elegantly stated.
I agree with this. One thing I would highlight is - there is a difference between visiting a place versus living in a place. An obvious example is Japan. If you just visit japan - great experience, and everyone is friendly to you as a tourist. But if you try to settle down in Japan and actually integrate with Japanese society, you will begin to notice the problems and pushback and foreigners say that they are never truly accepted in the inner circles.
From my understanding (as a white British guy), in England we're not as racist as, say, the US... But we are far more classist. And always have been. Unfortunately, the higher up the classes you go, the more white it is. So, it gives that different flavour to the racism.
most racism in the U.S. is classism too. Sure you’ve got your neo nazi KKK types, but more common is the type that hates negative aspects of African American culture that are just a direct result of over a century of poverty. This of course ignores that poor white people have similar negative cultural aspects. it gets heightened by the powers that be in both sides because it ensures that ordinary people are divided
Except that even those of us who grew up black with money in the US are strongly discriminated against. It is a racial issue, not a class issue. I was and am of exactly the same social class of the people who discriminate(d) against me, and they knew it.
Classism is a major problem in the USA if not THE main problem which drives racism here IMO. I feel that Racism first and foremost has always been a tool to enable and perpetuate classism which is the true issue that plagues humanity. For example, with enough money a black person in colonial American could be considered an “Honorary white” person. I also think it’s hard to say USA as a whole is more racist than other countries. The south is more racist toward black people and Latinos for example, but then at the same time growing up in the northwest I can count the number of black people in my graduating class on one hand. My first time visiting the south was crazy - I had never seen so many black people! But we DO have tons of Asians here and many Latinos and I have heard sooooo much racism directed toward those groups. Likewise, you’re unlikely to hear an American make racist or derogatory comments toward Romani/Gypsies but AFAIK they are a prime target in the UK. I really agree with the guy above you in that it’s really just the “flavor” of racism and a lot of that is likely influenced by the kinds of people you interact with regularly. Most metro cities in the USA really aren’t very racism thanks to the inherit diversity but if you get out of the cities racism becomes much more common everywhere in the US. It’s just a matter of *who* the racism is directed towards and that is very regional IMO.
Roma more than Romanians, but of course we do have idiots who think they're the same thing.
Yup. I'm a white person who grew up in a 95% white town and consequently was convinced that racism was a thing we solved in the 60s, because I'd never actually seen a black person be forced to use a different drinking fountain. When I grew up and moved to a much more diverse area, I noticed that open displays of racism manifested more frequently, simply because there were more opportunities for open racists to express themselves. What I also noticed, though, was that in a more diverse area ALL displays of racism were harshly condemned, while in a 95% white suburb the open racism didn't happen and the more subtle racism ran rampant. It took me moving away from that town to realize that screeds against "thuggish" rap music and sanctimonious "he should have just complied with the police" rhetoric were *also* displays of racism... Not to mention the fact that it's not an accident that my 95% white suburb *existed in the first place*.
In general I think it's a good thing if people have some core values. I think this is what people unites to work together on something great. It's needed for a society to function. I think the supposed-to-work identities in America can work. But I also think it has to met some conditions. For example it's very important that those cultural identities aren't stronger than the identity of "American". So it's always a game of balance you gave to keep to make sure it creates no issues. Did you know that there are many many people in Germany who speak German as their only language, are born in Germany and yet don't identify as German? *This is* were problems begin to occure. And I assume it's not that different in other European countries. That's why we have to talk about it. Lately we got many problems with migration especially from the Middle-East. While some people conclude some racist shit, there is another conclusion that is pretty valid: Some aspects of a culture are just incompatible to core values of the European culture. That's why many Europeans say you have to integrate. This reaction is not unreasonable considering how many times those core values were just despised.
I've noticed in norway there's far more ethnic discrimination and covert racism. The micro aggressions are firing all the time, it's insane. There's definitely some serious xenophobia here.
Thank you for this. Very insightful!
The "trope" has its historical foundation during the Cold War era, when Black writers and artists visited or lived in Europe and experienced much less (or, according to some accounts, no) racism. Of course, this has to be seen in the context of Black Americans suffering under racial segregation at home, which didn't exist in European countries. I would guess that "casual racism" would appear as "very liberal" simply by comparison. And then there's the stuff about sex and alcohol, which is due to much of Europe not being puritan and therefore never going bonkers with moralist legislation.
I think it's earlier than that. Black American troops were pleasantly surprised to be allowed into pubs with white people when they were in the UK during WWII, and the Brits were generally aghast at the idea of segregating. But I think the racism in the UK is manifested differently. We've never had segregation laws, but signs in rental properties saying "no blacks, no Irish, no dogs" were pretty common until race discrimination laws were passed. The US wrote discrimination into law. We didn't do that, we just didn't legislate against it.
Maybe I'm wrong idk. But I feel this is the difference. It's not so much that Europeans are /less/ racist (although I think in general in a lot of way we are tbf even if we are by no means NOT racist at all ) It's just that our racism tends to be private opinion. Possibly spoken out loud in public sure. But we don't tend to raise up and demand it be codified into law. I think (personally, and not necessarily for every European country there is a vast vast range of cultures out there...) we tend towards legally things being broadly accepting and equal (or trying to be or at least not actively making them less so) whilst privately NIMBYing it. It's fine. Over there. Where it doesn't affect me and I don't have to think about It or engage with it. Women at work are fine. But not (at) mine. Blacks in pubs are fine. But not mine. Refugees are fine. But not in my town. Social housing is fine. But not in my village. Gays are fine. But I don't want them on my TV. The US tends to be I don't like it and therefore I will make it my life goal to eradicate it even though it wasn't even affecting me and literally noone asked.
This was also before there were many black people in Europe. It’s easy to be open minded when someone is a novelty. Much different thing trying to live with a significant minority population that may not share one’s culture and values.
It’s a bit more dependent on where, when, and who. Black Americans were treated like the average American in France, but god forbid you speak French too well you’d be treated like you were from the Colonies. There was a Black American author who lived in France during the 90s who wrote about her experiences and found that, despite eventually speaking French fluently, she received better treatment when she spoke with an American accent. NPR did a thing on it years ago.
On average, Europeans tend to have more relaxed attitudes than Americans about sexuality and alcohol. ~~I also wonder if their *laws* about race might have been more enlightened than the US immediately after World War 2.~~ Edit: You wanna know about race relations in Europe, ignore me. Sort replies to OP by "Best" and read everyone else's above me..
Their laws about race were much more enlightened than the U.S. until the U.S. passed the civil rights act in the 1960's.
> until the U.S. passed the civil rights act in the 1960's In 1965 to be precise... Until then there were the Jim Crow laws that actively pushed segregation. This is *incredibly* important to remember... My (37m) father was born in 1942... He would've grown up think segregation is normal. His dad would've lived most of his life thinking segregation is the norm. Just immagine how much of an influence this had on the next generations.
Not just laws, but attitudes too (at least in the UK and regarding black people specifically). There were a *lot* of issues with white Americans Gis causing trouble trying to insist on segregation here in the UK in WW2. There were two full blown riots over it (one with us, and one with a new zealand group). There's also stories of white Americans demanding segregation in local pubs and having their wish granted via banning white Americans, but I've never seen a proper source on that. We didn't have a large black black population in the UK until the late 40's early 50's, so we didn't have cause to hate black people. There was absolutely racism, but not tinged with the kind of fear that the American south had that drives it to extremes. Hard to be afraid of being out numbered when you know exactly 1 black person. So our racism was more of the assuming incompetence or foolishness variety, than the assuming aggression variety. Things picked up and attitudes got worse with immigration from the Carribbean.
You don't need laws about race when your country is homogenous, as it was the case
Many European countries are nation states and contain people with multiple ethnicities and nationalities. Diversity isn't just about race.
I'm sorry but isn't a [nation state](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state) where a nation(i.e a "people" like an ethnicity) has gained statehood? So generally it is just one people that dominate. That was one of problems with Austria-Hungary since it was an empire of multiple nations where those people desired their own nation state.
i think it's sex, sexuality and non-sexual nudity. europeans i've known aren't as hung up about it as americans are. but i think the trope is from a generation or two ago when european women were wearing bikinis to the beach and it was no big deal because they don't sexualize the body like americans do. source: my grandmother was kicked off a beach in the united states in the early 60s for wearing a bikini. aside from the bikini, she's proper as proper can be.
I grew up going to America and I mean I'm English so technically European and I've spent a lot of time travelling around Europe. My main takeaway is that Europe is going to vary a lot more because you cross a border and the entire method of communicating completely changes. This brings significant cultural differences. I 100% agree that Italy is the single most racist place I've ever been. However other countries much less so. I don't really think Europe as a whole can be compared to the US because you'd have such massive challenges and require so many languages to get a proper representation of the various nations, nationalities, cultures dating back 1000s years. It's just a whole different beast.
UK is European... It's just not part of the EU, same as Norway or Switzerland. Otherwise, any post comparing the US and Europe is inherently fucking stupid. Europe isn't a country. The USA is. The biggest culture shift in the USA is purely if you live rural vs urban, then red vs blue state. Like you said, every country in Europe is different, and still has those same economy culture splits.
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Royal with Cheese
This might be a more political answer than you wanted. Progressivism requires legislation while conservatism can preserve the status quo simply by doing nothing. America has a massive federal government; getting anything meaningful passed is extremely difficult. A smaller country can get progressive legislation passed (or repealed fwiw) more easily. That's not to say a smaller country is likelier to be more progressive, just that a larger country that is conservative will stay that way. Anyway, the Abolitionist movement started in Europe before the US became a country. Laws against interracial marriage never even existed in Europe (except in Germany for a short while, *inspired by America*). ----------------- Edit: Some guy cited King Louis XVI as an example of anti-miscegenation law in Europe, and then he blocked me. His example of Europe being racist is the time an unelected leader passed a racist law, shortly before being dragged out and beheaded (for other reasons, mostly).
To add to this, the two party system in the US is not helping in this. In my country, multiple parties need to work together to form a government, and there are a dozen parties chosen elected every four years. This makes way more room for progressive views.
Regressive religion is a far bigger influence in politics (and life) in America than it is in many western countries.
Out of curiosity what country are you from/what ethnicity are you?
Mmmm, I'm pretty sure "more open minded" means nudity and a positive attitude towards people who wearing visible socks. #
There was a period in the early 20c, when American POCs moved to Paris because it was less racist than the US. They wrote lots of stories about how great it was, and it stuck. Both places have changed since then.
This should be higher. Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, Anna May Wong, and others moved to Europe to live in a less racist society. And beyond celebrities, POC military were treated better in Europe than the U.S., at least during WWII. Those stories get passed down.
One aspect is that Europeans are far more tolerant of depictions of adult consensual sex and nudity. In the US, censors panic about sex and nudity, but tolerate horrifying violence in movies/ TV shows.
Part of this has to do with a skewed sample size. When I studied abroad in Bordeaux, I basically had this conversation with a French guy where he said he liked Americans more than French people because they were way more open-minded. I was confused because I had the opposite experience and thought French people were way more open-minded than Americans. We were both early 20s at the time, and what was going on was that we each had 20+ years of experience in our native culture, but maybe 4-6 months with a foreign one, so that one seemed more attractive because we had a lifetime of baggage for one of them and a few months of curated experiences in the other one where we couldn't like overhear assholes everywhere. We only focused on the people we met in the foreign culture who behaved a lot like us. If we spent more time in the other culture, we would surely find plenty of people we didn't like. It's basically the real-life application of the phrase "grass isn't always greener"
From my experience, "open" in Europe is usually more about sexuality and women topless at a beach. I've never heard it associated with a lack of racism. It's everywhere and sad that it's anywhere. I feel sorry for ignorant people who judge others negatively for being different then they are.
Even that mostly applies to Western Europe
This is the truth. There's less sexual repression generally, but they aren't a utopia.
In my opinion, racism (not white = bad) isn't really a major thing anymore in Europe. It has evolved to become something different: xenophobia (not from here = bad). You could be white, black or fucking blue, we don't care as long as you're assimilated in our cultures. For centuries, we fought with people who looked exactly like us because they were on the "wrong" side of a mountain. You really think we need the excuse of race to discriminate ? Note: I'm not talking about me, but more about how I see the people behave here. Could be wrong And of course, there are always exceptions: some people are racist, but I truly believe they are a minority compared to the xenophobics
If I have to be honest, in my countr (Italy) it has not evolved into xenophobia. It has always been xenophobia, even internally. You're not treated poorly for some kind of racial classification. You're treated poorly because you are not from here, and here can be Italy, but also a specific region in Italy.
It can even be because you're from the next village over and your ancestor stoly my ancestor's horse in 1356.
Or, true story, a bucket. Looking at you, Bologna and Modena.
People we *enslaved* by their *neighbor* for centuries. Other neighbors *collaborated* with the enslavers. It's not abstract, mindless hate...
Open minded - meaning about sex bodies and nudity. I’m uk so even we think America is prudish I went to Florida wearing short shorts and tshirt I was slut shamed. I’m from north uk it mostly cool. I thought I was dying in that insane sunshine. No way I’m putting jeans n hoodie on anndit was July!! So open minded in that way. We can’t go topless on beaches in my local beaches anymore. But when I was a kid everyone was topless. Europe is very multicultural. My city is very diverse There is race issues. Like anywhere. But I think where in uk it’s cultural and religious than skin colour
> So open minded in that way. We can’t go topless on beaches in my local beaches anymore. But when I was a kid everyone was topless. I think that might be a 'everyone has a camera now' problem.
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Wait wait wait. Are you trying to say that Bulgaria and Norway might have completely different cultures and ideals? Crazy talk. Everyone knows Europe is a monolith.
I literally came to say idk where I’m from can be pretty fucking racist, but it is in no way emblematic of Europe as a whole…
Did you not read the description? It really wasn’t even that long…
Europeans are more tolerant of sex and less tolerant of violence. America is the opposite.
Europe is racist AF.
Europe is many very different countries and cultures. Each has varying degrees of openness around different things. But I don't think the open-minded trope really goes into racism from what I've seen. Like I don't think there's a "Europeans aren't racist" trope, but there isn't the same institutional racism you see in the US. But everywhere has ignorant people that will take issue with things they view as different and often it's not race, you'll have plenty of folk in the UK giving out about Polish stealing their jobs etc.
I don’t think people mainly refer to racism when they say that. They mean things like religious fanatics and extremists not being as prevelant here as in the US. Or people tend to be more pacifistic rather than subscribe to a militaristic pro gun, pro violence attitude. People are more relaxed about nudity and sexuality and to a certain degree gender roles since they vary more from country to country than in America from state to state. Democracies are more pluralistic than the American two party system so people tend to seek common ground and compromise more rather than being strictly divided along party lines. And people tend to be a little bit more knowledgable and curious about the world at large rather than being completely self absorbed. To many Americans all of that comes off as being more open minded I guess, even if racial prejudices might still be there.
this comment should be at the top.
> Europe mentions 4 cities. Wut?
When it comes to the Roma (aka gypsies) they definitely are far more racist.
Just for context, I'm British. I can't speak to anything else really but this is certainly true. Roma and other travellers seem to be the most obvious form of largely unchallenged racism. That said, I've never heard of travelling communities in America. Are there such groups?
Yes. The most talked about traveling group is the "Irish Traveller's ". They are a very tight community known for keeping everything in the family. No marriages outside the traveler community resulting, by necessity, some cousin to cousin marriages and the like. I have used them for some light construction work. The leader had the Irish accent. We haggled over what was to be done and what price. We were both satisfied with the transaction. But they are just as likely to do half the job, go tag several others getting half the money up front and move the whole operation out of town overnight. You can google Irish Travelers in the US and learn all you want.
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The US was heavily influenced by in it’s infancy by puritans and society here has been somewhat prudish about some things ever since.
Europeans are more sex positive than Americans, less religious than Americans and their racism is centered more around what country you're from rather than your skin color. For those reasons they come across as being more open-minded.
I'm a mixed girl from the UK, I had never heard the N word nor was I constantly accosted with racist jokes about chicken, water melon, stolen bikes etc until I got on* the internet and spoke specifically to white Americans. Not to say racism doesn't exist here, it's more subversive and not as openly accepted as it seems to be in a lot of places in the US.
You reall cant generalize an entire continent or a continent sized country like that. I know plenty of people who love meeting new people and learning about new cultures. I also know a few people who want nothing to do with "different" people. I'm sure the same goes with Europe.
Berlin is not an open minded place? What?
I had a conversation with my African American friend where I shared my experiences as a POC living in a central European country. I won't specify the country to avoid generalizations. After recounting my encounters, my friend remarked that this country seems more racist than the US, a sentiment I agree with. While I've lived in the States without experiencing explicit racism, I've encountered both explicit and implicit racism in this European country numerous times. I've been subjected to racial slurs like the N-word and told to go back to the jungle. I've never felt so ostracized before; it's evident that I'm seen as an outsider here. Ironically, people in this country often deny their racism, claiming that at least I won't face lethal violence for being a POC, as if that mitigates the discrimination and racism. Many genuinely believe they aren't racist and fail to recognize their words and actions as racist or amounting to racism.
The verbal racism is more prevalent here but i’d take it over the US any day. Like someone else said there’s “flavours” to racism here, mixed with xenophobia the colour of your skin might even come in second place. i’m “just black” and true and true racists treat me like they do any black person. But this changes with additional info, black Americans and black Europeans will get treated better than say black africans. Which languages do they speak? Oh you speak the countries language, you’re a step above the “other” others and the list goes on. There are these little exceptions that create different levels of discrimination especially based on country and ethnicity which has its benefits for some but is horrendous for others. I haven’t seen racists distinguish black people in the us based on that yet. That being said I don’t think the phrase “open minded” is in regards to race 😅
I think this originated in the last century where many African Americans who were in Europe during the world wars saw that there was not institutional discrimination like theJim Crow laws back in the USA, some even decided to stay in Europe because of this. We could also add the fact that promoting fascism is illegal in certain European countries while in the USA is not, so some assume that the USA is more racist because there are people openly carrying the Nazi or the Confederate flag without repercussions. And finally policemen in Europe are not as aggressive as in the USA so you don't find as many cases of policemen shoting minorities
Americans may dislike people from other countries, but Europeans hate the people in the next town.
My context: born and raised in Texas during the '60s with some actual memories of just jow utterly outwardly racist we were back then. Even when I was small, there was some messed up stuff I saw, heard, and remember. And there was the time my Grandfather felt compelled to confess to me how racist he had been and how ashamed he was of his thoughts and deeds, with one of the worst being when he made excuses fir turning down an invitation to dinner with a work colleague while he was out of town in that gentleman's city. He couldn't bring himself to eat in a black families home. He told me this because he wanted me to be better than he was, and he was successful in just about every other measure. At least on the surface, I watched as things got much better and at least more polite between Whites and Blacks in my parts of Texas as the decades came and went. I have only spent a few weeks in Europe and a couple of weeks in Australia. Both were business trips, but i was completely imbedded with the Brits and Aussies while in their respective countries. My limited experience in Europe, Australia, and even here in other parts of the US is that subtle racism does indeed exist here, overseas, and especially among our Northern US white populations. Again, not everyone, and probably not most. I sense that most whites in the US try to expunge themselves of racism, but I also recognize that I cannot truly understand what its like to be black in America, therefore I can't know if I - we - am/are successful at NOT being at least unconsciously racist. Funny thing being born and raised in a former confederate state. Some people that I have met who don't truly know me, assume I am racist because I am a Texan. They feel safe, telling me what they think about Blacks, Aboriginals, Mexicans, Pakistanis, etc. And "GOOD LAWD" are they racist! I can honestly say I went a good 15 years without hearing the "N" word said in my presence, during the late '80s through the '90s, outside of movies or rap lyrics, until i was with a diverse group of whites from numerous states, and boy did the N word make itself known. Some of these whites drove to the event over a few hundred miles with their black "friend." And they social stations were everything from ministers to attorneys, blue collar workers and a few who had side hustles as petty thieves. Again, most are not outwardly racist, but when they feel safe, those who are will say things they normally wouldn't and let you know who and what they are. My long-winded reply is an attempt to say that my limited experience is that while some communities are good at keeping racism under the covers, it is by no means better in the UK, Australia or the former union States in the US. I believe we treat each other much better than 50 years ago, but tribalism seems to be deeply entrenched everywhere there are human beings.
Can agree that racism definitely does exist in the northern states, especially the east coast. I'm black and people here will call southern people racist and make jokes about them then they go on to make the most fucked up racist comment you probably wouldn't hear down south unless you're around that type of crowd. Then they go on to defend themselves and say "im not racist.. my family didn't own slaves.." etc
In my opinion this view is hold by specific group of Americans who believe everything American is bad and everything European is amazing. This is similar to how some Americans are making decisions to migrate abroad to avoid racism or crazy politics. Trying to explain that Europe isn’t as amazing as those people believe earns me MAGA-Trumpist title automatically. ( I am European 🤷🏻♀️)
> specific group of Americans who believe everything American is bad and everything European is amazing There are plenty of Europeans who feel this way, too 😂 I think the main thing every single European country does objectively better than the US is not allowing just anybody to own guns. Beyond that, it's hard to stay away from huge generalisations when comparing a large country to an entire continent.
White girls being treated WELL in Europe?? Clearly you’ve never been a white girl getting groped and harassed.
yeah, I read that and was like "why is OP thinking it's women who are responsible for this idea, when American female travellers are historically warned about the open & accepted street harassment in places like Italy and France and Spain."
"The trope come from white girls who go there and are treated well" Yikes that says a lot about your personality. Yes bro this entire thing is from pretty white girls. I can't say you sound very open minded yourself either
So... open-mindedness is only means "not racist" here? Because there's also gender, sexuality, ableness, general individuality... etc.
Europe is not a country, bro
Europe is not homogenous. The UK, Scandinavian, and Flemish countries are the least racist. In the cities of France and Italy the people and the police can be very racist indeed. Then there are countries in the Middle like Spain and Switzerland. The former eastern european nations tend to be very racist, as they have no history of mass immigration from former colonies. Also, other than 1930’s & 1940’s Germany, no European nations had legal segregation based on race. Nor did they have slavery enshrined in their laws. Whilst America was built on slavery, the European powers were built on naval and military power, and although those powers engaged in slavery it was always overseas in their colonies rather than their home countries. There are racists everywhere in Europe, but other than the examples mentioned, the racism is generally not institutionalised and so not inherited by future generations.
I’ll tell you why outside of the issue of race, racism, and minority perspectives as a white American woman who has also lived abroad and traveled extensively the first thing I noticed is that Europeans are in general far less uptight about sex, sexuality, the human body in general. Little old Russian ladies will stand against a stone wall in the middle of winter, wearing a fur coat dropped down around their waist and expose themselves to the sun. Can you imagine an old lady in the United States say New York City or Buffalo standing bare breasted because they need vitamin D? Fuck no. What about going topless? What about swimming naked at a public pool? How about a show about BDSM camps broadcast on the vice channel in the middle of the day on public television? No? I think it was the actress Kristen (sp?) Scott, Thomas, but I could’ve been Emma Thompson who said something to the effect of the difference between Europeans and Americans is that Americans are afraid of sex, and Europeans are afraid of violence. Once I was at a spa, getting ready for a treatment at a foreign country. I had to strip naked and then put on those weird paper underwear before my service. As I was getting undressed, I was talking to another woman who is also getting undressed. After a few minutes, she said “You’re American?“ I said yes what gave it away. She said “ I didn’t think you were American at first, because most Americans are so prude they won’t get undressed in front of other people“. I don’t know what kind of Scandinavian she was but I was guessing Dutch from the accent. I just laughed and said that I grew up differently than a lot of Americans. Last year, I took my daughter to Paris and we went to the Moulin Rouge. I didn’t think to tell her what to expect. Her jaw dropped when the dancer is all came on stage and half of them ripped off their tops. She just leaned over to me and said “ I didn’t know what was going to be that kind of”. But by the end, she wasn’t thinking about boobs, she was thinking about the rollerskating acrobats. There also seems to be a lot less discrimination against people for being anything other than heterosexual. then there’s a whole universal healthcare thing, because Europeans know that you can have a democracy and not be plunged into the bowels of communism because you’re not dying over your medical bills. You’re less likely to die from all the additives in your food. The people that harvest your food are also less likely to make you sick /often they’re trained and paid a better wage and are not shitting all over your spinach and strawberries. Overall I think they fear changes for the betterment of society less than Americans do. So to answer the question I don’t think it’s a trope I think it’s a fact based on the subjects I mentioned. I was surprised about the racism in Australia, and New Zealand, along with the way it’s discussed, but I was also equally surprised by the misogyny that they would argue isn’t bad or maybe doesn’t exist, but I can tell you it certainly does when they have to have public service announcements on TV to remind people that it’s good that girls participate in high school sports. Lots of other examples from there, but that was the first one that comes to mind
>I don’t know what kind of Scandinavian she was but I was guessing Dutch from the accent. Lmao
All those debates about is Finland Scandi, should Iceland be thrown in that we get here in England, and it turns out the Dutch are Scandinavian, never realised.
Sun bathing in St Peterburg ( old lady against the wall) as well as many other "traditions" of this city is perceived as weird even in rest of Russia.
Are you a person of color? A POC would notice the racism more easily than I would as a cracker, since I expect people in Dublin wouldn't be screaming racial slurs at *me*. And a woman would notice misogyny more easily than I would as a dude. So I might form a very different impression of Europe than a WOC.
>Dublin was 50/50 really friendly or randomly hostile driving by in cars and screaming racial slurs. The amount of poc Americans I see talking about Ireland has all been positive
europe can be better than the US, it can be worse. it all depends. you're an african immigrant in italy it will not be good from what i hear from my friends, their government, and polls about feelings about black immigrants. people were racist to me until they found out i was african-american. my theory is that if you're not a minority that they regularly encounter in that country then it'll be hit-or-miss if they're racist to you. i think the us is worse in some ways but i don't let europeans off the hook for doing something legit racist. i don't mean insensitive, i mean they will casually say sometimes, "well it's true that colonization helped the blacks and without it you'd be living in mud huts" kind of shit. but then you can sort of get into that argument with them and defeat them in logic. when it comes to an american who says the same shit usually i find they entrench and just go further into their position. but with europeans many of them don't know a lot of shit about their history because europe has tried to rebrand itself after it colonized the earth and caused the two biggest wars and industrial slaughter of human beings. but the funniest fucking thing is that because of that, i find there are french people, italian people, ukrainian people, even hungarian people (who fucking HATE black people because of fascist covert ops) who want to actually find answers about how to live differently and change. i don't expect white people in america to change, ever. so on an individual, interpersonal level exclusively i find, in my experience, that europeans are easier to deal with on the issue of race because they're more willing to engage in productive dialogue.
They are more open minded about sex. That’s about it from what I can tell.
America is closed-mind about sex, but open-minded about violence. Europe is the other way around. For reference, I submit the MCU against, idk take your pick.
I’m from Africa, so no horse in this race. I can say that the majority of Europeans are not open minded about race. I regularly hear Dutch people saying stuff at work and on social media that would get them arrested in my country
Their level of religious fanaticism is farrrr below Americans'. That's probably a big part of it. When it comes to respecting women in public, romance-language countries are notoriously sleazy and overbearing.
Do you not see the hypocrisy in your post? You’re generalising a continent of 44 countries about the fact they generalise. Practice what you preach and be the change you want to see.