Rampant Racism in America

That one was actually good because of the cops’ sensible reaction...they told the racist she will go to jail if she continues to harrass him - normally NOT what happens, unfortunately...
 
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An article in the BBC that relates to the discussion on this thread. It's about racism in the US compared to elsewhere. The author, who is from US and lives in US but has also lived in London, says: "I've travelled a fair amount around the world, but America's racist status quo remains unique and alarmingly oppressive."

The below is the video that goes with the article. I can't see to link to the article. You can go to Home - BBC News and look on the right side after scrolling down quite a lot. Or copy and paste this text string into google: viewpoint racism worse europe us site:www.bbc.co.uk/news


The BBC is bound to choose someone to make the case that racism is worse in the US, because it is a pro-British establishment with in my opinion a slight tendency to subtly malign the morality of other countries while ignoring its own (UK) issues. I think there is an element of playing to its British audience and telling them, usually implicitly, what they want to hear. That being said, the article does make a reasonably convincing case.

It's possibly true that racism in the US is worse than racism in Europe but I'm not convinced yet one way or the other. You don't see or hear about these instances of racism in Europe on a daily basis as much, but they may still be happening and just not being recorded on smart phones as much or not being covered as much in the English speaking internet. Ethnic minorities in Europe don't find their way into top political or business or other positions of power hardly ever, and far right, anti-immigration, slightly racist parties often get a good chunk of minority support. So something is going on. So are Europeans less racist, or are they just better at knowing when to keep their mouth shut, or more subtle about their racism. Other possibility is that people of colour in the US are starting to defend themselves and draw attention to their situation better than other ethnic minorities in the world.

It's not really clear to me to what extent the US has a specific problem with racism and to what extent it is a global issue. If I had to guess I'd say both are true or to put it another way the US is worse, but only slightly.
 
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One important point, of course, is that there is simply a much higher percentage of people of colour in the US than in Europe. The possibility to encounter people of colour is much lower in Europe than in the US. My personal example - On a given day, in a medium-sized city (500 K inhabitants) in Germany, I meet about 10 Asian people and 5 black people, most of those at my international workplace. I also meet a number of French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Romanian, American, Slovak, English and other European people, but most of these would be considered "white".

There are, however, sometimes cases of xenophobia where people from other countries (e.g. Polish people in England) are maligned, but this typically happens by people from lower education levels, with whom I do not have as much contact in my daily life as with "professional" people. Also, on a whole, I would suspect that people in Europe are possibly more polite, fewer people would have the idea to insult other people for whatever reason.
 
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A GOP candidate in Texas, who also happens to be a former district judge, set up a trust for his family pursuant to which his children get disbursements when they marry, but only if they marry a white person of "the opposition sex" who is also Christian. Texas newspaper rescinds endorsement of GOP official over racial concerns

This man was a judge who oversaw criminal cases.
 
NFL has put patriotism above race relations in cracking down on taking a knee during the anthem. I would support the right of the players to take the knee, but I wonder if the NFL ought to have at least offered them an alternative way to protest - allowed them to have the microphone for 30 seconds before a game to speak against racism, or allowed them to have free advertising inside the stadium to speak against racism, or some anti racism logo to be added to the team's shirts. Something like that might be a compromise solution.
 
Jamie in Chile said:
NFL has put patriotism above race relations in cracking down on taking a knee during the anthem. I would support the right of the players to take the knee, but I wonder if the NFL ought to have at least offered them an alternative way to protest - allowed them to have the microphone for 30 seconds before a game to speak against racism, or allowed them to have free advertising inside the stadium to speak against racism, or some anti racism logo to be added to the team's shirts. Something like that might be a compromise solution.
Click to expand...

The NFL in all areas, from the owners to the players to the fans themselves tend to be very politically conservative. Having some players take a knee in support of a cause that many fans don’t like goes against this conservative image of professional football. That’s why the owners would rather punish the players who take a knee than come up with some kind of compromise or anything else that would accommodate these players.

For my part, I believe this ban is unconstitutional. The players have a right to free speech, and I feel that expressing their free speech even on the football field should be acceptable. What’s next, will these players be punished for supporting causes the owners don’t like while OFF the football field?
 
Amy SF said:
The NFL in all areas, from the owners to the players to the fans themselves tend to be very politically conservative. Having some players take a knee in support of a cause that many fans don’t like goes against this conservative image of professional football. That’s why the owners would rather punish the players who take a knee than come up with some kind of compromise or anything else that would accommodate these players.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that, but I kind of suspected. Maybe they just don't want to speak out against racism because they don't really think it's much of an issue, or that there are more important issues. It may simply be that attacking the players will make more $, and supporting them will make less $. It may be as simple as that. Although that may be correct for short term profits, it may be short sighted.
 
Amy SF said:
I doubt he would have detained white people speaking Spanish or any other language.
Click to expand...

Thus far I have not been willing to test that one out when crossing the border. There are enough questions about who I went to see, why I went to see them, what I brought back, what I left there, where I was born, why do I live in a different city now, why I have I been to so many countries, why have I been to so few countries this year by comparison, am I sure my friends are on a student visa, when do they graduate, when did they start.

Even if I just went to Windsor, Ontario, for an evening to eat dinner at a vegan place while in Detroit for a week, the litany of questions is so long. I don’t really need to add questions about the Sandinistas and the Sinaloa cartel to it. (No, I have no connection with either, for the record.)
 

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