If you were to ask me what the number one problem with modern racial discourse is, I’d say it’s the failure of some people to consider how human nature works. The failure to recognise that if you call people racist simply because of the colour of their skin, or describe those who are trying to help as “colonisers”, or dismiss the discrimination that people face because you haven’t personally experienced it, you’re not likely to make much progress.
Hi, new reader here. Just wanted to say I really like your articles- they've definitely made me re-examine my own views on race, especially as a young Black person in America. I always kind of struggled engaging in discussion about social issues; although I do care about them and want to make positive changes on the world, I just feel like I'm lacking in a lot of ways and still have a lot to learn. I would define my own views as left-leaning and I probably fit a lot of the "woke/sjw" stereotypes, so seeing your criticisms on a lot of the popular mindsets on race has changed my thinking on the way I view myself and others. Although I try to avoid falling into echo chambers and just regurgitating whatever the most current views are in leftist spaces, I tend to get wrapped up in just discussing the same ideas and feeling like I was "educated" and never really had a lot of productive conversation or took real action. So yeah, just wanted to say that I find your work interesting and I hope to read more of it.
Hi Jay! Welcome! That's great to hear. Yes, race in particular is a difficult thing to talk about. And from what I see, especially difficult for young people to talk about. Entire friendships and social circles seem to depend on saying "the right thing".
I hope you find the thoughts here useful. There's a reasonably diverse range of thought and it will only get more so with time. Looking forward to hearing yours. You can speak freely here.
This is a bit of an aside but years ago while I was working in Brazil I went to a night club/restaurant and commented to my associate that in America this food would be called soul food. He relied, "Slave food. In Brazil we have a parallel history to America and had far more slaves." I didn't really get a chance to clearly observe the racial/racism situation. The people that I worked with were white people.
When comparing racism in America to other countries it might be informative to investigate it in Brazil there where trans-Atlantic slave trade was much larger but similar to America. It could shed light on influence of trans-Atlantic slave trade vs. the origins of the white people in those countries.
I worked in Saudi Arabia for several years. There were black people there as a result of trans-Saharan slavery. The Arabs that I worked with freely pointed out that a black Saudi in the shop was a descendent of slavery. As an outsider I couldn't see the magnitude of that issue. Most of their strife was Sunni-Shia (religious). Again, it is a place where slaves were taken from Africa but the slave holders were Arab, rather than of European origin..
Huh, I didn't know that about Brazil, though of course, slavery is far from a uniquely American institution. I think race is spoken about in a much more relaxed in Brazil from what I've know of it. There's far less (no?) hand-wringing about using the wrong term or causing offence.
But I think the root of America's problems with race are more to do with Jim Crow than with slavery. If freed slaves had been allowed to live their lives as equals and especially if they'd been given the reparations they were promised, I suspect that racial tensions would be a fraction of what they are if anything at all.
As is often pointed out, almost every country has slavery somewhere in its past. But Jim Crow (and apartheid in South Africa) are far more rare. And more importantly, far more recent. That's where the comparison with other countries falters.
You may well have already looked but I'll put a couple of links about race/racism in Brazil. The one from the UN notes that in the US the colonizers came as families while in Brazil they were single men which led to a higher amount of racial mixing.
I think you are correct about the persisting influence of Jim Crow. As recently as the early 1980s my wife and I were denied service in a fraternal lodge in Georgia because she failed the brown paper bag test. Mighty white of them to not mention their policy before they got my fifty bucks membership. Ironically, she talked me into joining. She played bingo, illegal at the time, in the lodge's "lady's bingo room" which allowed POC. They brought out food for sale from their restaurant and she wanted me to join so we could go eat there together.
Poor white and black people associated far more than the modern SJWs would have us believe back in the day. The moneyed found that dangerous and promoted institutionalized racism to build the divide to reduce opposition from the have nots. The effectiveness is stunning.
It seems useful to identify and separate the different expressions of racism. The uniqueness of American racism that promoted the BLM protests last summer was systemic racism. It is unique in the sense that US legislation and institutions are unique to this country. On the other hand we have individual behavior - this is the racism that Dr King called on in his "I have a dream" speech. That kind of racism which has a universal expression around the globe and may affect people of all colors of skins may nonetheless be express in different ways and with different degree of subtlety depending on the culture. Perhaps, the degree of the racist feeling depends on a perceived "threat". In a very homogenous country people may look with sympathy and positive prejudice (a form of racism, nonetheless) at (the exotic) people of a different race. This "benign" for of racism quickly changes to hostility as numbers increase. We observe this in Europe with the influx of immigrants, which ultimately resulted in Brexit, the demise of Angela Merkel in Germany and the increase in popularity of nationalistic parties in France, Italy and even the usually tolerant Scandinavian and Lower countries. In that context, I would say that yes, the US is less racist than Europe. And perhaps it is a matter of time until systemic racism emerges in that continent. (America and Europe are the only two continents where I have lived and worked, so I limit my comment to that)
"It seems useful to identify and separate the different expressions of racism"
Yep, I couldn't agree more. One of the many problems with racial discourse at the moment is the way that the word "racism" has been stretched to so many different uses that it's often difficult to know what's meant by it. If there's no difference between systemic racism and individual racism then what are we even talking about??
I have no idea what the end game of the people who try to pretend that these two things are the same might be. All it does is make racism harder to talk about.
That said though, I disagree that the US is less racist than Europe. Or maybe to be more precise, I think the US has more of an issue with race than Europe. James Baldwin spoke about that difference a lot after he decided to move to Europe and I think a lot of what he said still applies today.
The immigrant issue in the EU for example is more correctly described as xenophobia than racism. In England, people complained about the white immigrants from Poland and Albania just as much (if not more) as the darker skinned immigrants from Turkey and India. Brexit too was about employment and resources and a childish dream of a long dead Empire more than racism (and also the complacency of the politicians who thought a Leave vote could never happen).
For other countries like France the issue is more about religion (specifically Islam) which tends to select for a certain complexion but isn't necessarily related to it.
I'm not trying to claim that there isn't racism in Europe of course, or in most places in the world. One of my favourite places on Earth, Japan, has serious issues with racism *and* xenophobia. But as I was just saying to Dave, I think America's legalised racism, like that of South Africa, is what leads to the majority of the tension we see today.
"James Baldwin spoke about that difference a lot after he decided to move to Europe and I think a lot of what he said still applies today." I had James Baldwin and Josephine Baker, even Nina Simone, some 20/30 years later, in mind when I wrote about racism in Europe (the "sympathy" towards the "exotic") I agree that the US has more of an issue with race. That is a good way to put it. However, racism is not solely based on skin color. The Nazi theory of "pure blood" condemned slavs to be terminated and their territory to be used a "Lebensraum" for the aryans. I am partly slav - Russian father- and was called a "Mischling" by a Syrian well established cardiologist in Germany. I was offered, at no cost, a lecture about Assyrians being the original aryans (very different from semites, be they Arabs or Jews). It is true that throughout Europe racisms is mixed with nationalism and xenophobia and religious intolerance, which shows how deeply intolerance is seeded in that continent and how violence can explode rapidly setting neighbor against neighbor, as it did in the Balkans in the 90s. I can give you a few examples of systemic racism in Europe. It is not an issue there, as it is in the US, but still it exists, it is not recognized and it is not addressed. Ghettos are a natural and convenient cultural arrangement for different cultures to coexist. The idea of integration, in which people's comfort zone is affected asking diverse cultural groups to make adjustments, is not promoted. Perhaps the most integrated city I lived in Europe was Amsterdam, and it is no coincidence that New York was previously called New Amsterdam. I also agree that systemic racism in America legalized racism. Tradition in Europe is as strong or stronger than law -the aristocracy and connected members of the upper classes are hardly held accountable. Another factor in the complexity if European intolerance: class. It is possible that African Kings and Saudi sheik's will be given such "protection from the law" (read about the sagas of Saudi princesses escaping their sheik husbands or fathers and being kidnaped back into their countries.
I also agree with you assessment of Japan (I have not been in the county) Growing up my mother did some work for the Japanese consulate and I was friends with the kids of the various diplomats and technical staff. I remember how sensitive they were and how pleasant it was being in their company, no matter whatever qualm they may have had about our customs or race. Having "good manners" does give an opportunity to share and can eventually bring people together. Perhaps that is what James Baldwin experienced.
"The Nazi theory of "pure blood" condemned slavs to be terminated and their territory to be used a "Lebensraum" for the aryans"
Hmm, yes, true. And yes, the Balkans. I thought Bosnia as soon I read this. As well as the Tutsi and the Hutu for example. Here we see how completely arbitrary the concept of "race" can become. I tend to make the distinction between racism and xenophobia in these cases but I agree that that's also fairly arbitrary. The whole thing is just stupid.
I think we're entering a phase where the difference between institutionalised racism and classism is difficult to be precise about. Especially in countries with monarchies of which there are obviously many in Europe. European royalty, land owners and the upper class were exclusively white. So now the richest people are still white. Is that racism or classism? Well, it's difficult to say. I think that in almost all cases we'd be better off focusing on class.
As for Japan, yeah, it's a fascinating country. I absolutely fell in love with it as soon as I first visited and had been back many times. There's a big difference between being a visitor and trying to integrate though. And though anti-black racism is worse, that applies to *everybody* who isn't Japanese.
I found the Japanese people to be almost uniquely (internationally speaking) kind and warm to me as a visitor, and I do speak some very mediocre Japanese which goes down well. But as much as I love the country, I'm not even slightly tempted to try to live there, as I've heard--and seen--so many horror stories about how non-Japanese are always on the outside looking in.
" The whole thing is just stupid." I had to laugh because after writing the reply yesterday I too thought about the amalgamation of race with other prejudices concluding "how can you model, define such stupid behavior? How much of a percentage in a nasty reaction is due to xenophobia (hostility to strangers) and how much to racism? Racism is a frame of mind in which you view someone from another "race" as a stranger. I use " " because I belief "race" is a human construct. The differentiation, however, is necessary when we look at systemic racism. In that case there are observable characteristics that a key determinants of the outcomes in the social model. For example, higher sentences given to people of darker skin tone. Or assigning graduate students from LDC countries to inferior living facilities than their European counterparts that is a common form of systemic racism in many European Universities (some very prestigious).
Agree about Japan. I would like to visit, even work for a period there, but with a clearly defined exit visa. As a female I am wary of gender discrimination.
Yeah, I think it's a perfect example of the subconscious belief that America is "his" country, and everybody else should just be grateful they get to live in it.
Hi, new reader here. Just wanted to say I really like your articles- they've definitely made me re-examine my own views on race, especially as a young Black person in America. I always kind of struggled engaging in discussion about social issues; although I do care about them and want to make positive changes on the world, I just feel like I'm lacking in a lot of ways and still have a lot to learn. I would define my own views as left-leaning and I probably fit a lot of the "woke/sjw" stereotypes, so seeing your criticisms on a lot of the popular mindsets on race has changed my thinking on the way I view myself and others. Although I try to avoid falling into echo chambers and just regurgitating whatever the most current views are in leftist spaces, I tend to get wrapped up in just discussing the same ideas and feeling like I was "educated" and never really had a lot of productive conversation or took real action. So yeah, just wanted to say that I find your work interesting and I hope to read more of it.
Hi Jay! Welcome! That's great to hear. Yes, race in particular is a difficult thing to talk about. And from what I see, especially difficult for young people to talk about. Entire friendships and social circles seem to depend on saying "the right thing".
I hope you find the thoughts here useful. There's a reasonably diverse range of thought and it will only get more so with time. Looking forward to hearing yours. You can speak freely here.
This is a bit of an aside but years ago while I was working in Brazil I went to a night club/restaurant and commented to my associate that in America this food would be called soul food. He relied, "Slave food. In Brazil we have a parallel history to America and had far more slaves." I didn't really get a chance to clearly observe the racial/racism situation. The people that I worked with were white people.
When comparing racism in America to other countries it might be informative to investigate it in Brazil there where trans-Atlantic slave trade was much larger but similar to America. It could shed light on influence of trans-Atlantic slave trade vs. the origins of the white people in those countries.
I worked in Saudi Arabia for several years. There were black people there as a result of trans-Saharan slavery. The Arabs that I worked with freely pointed out that a black Saudi in the shop was a descendent of slavery. As an outsider I couldn't see the magnitude of that issue. Most of their strife was Sunni-Shia (religious). Again, it is a place where slaves were taken from Africa but the slave holders were Arab, rather than of European origin..
Huh, I didn't know that about Brazil, though of course, slavery is far from a uniquely American institution. I think race is spoken about in a much more relaxed in Brazil from what I've know of it. There's far less (no?) hand-wringing about using the wrong term or causing offence.
But I think the root of America's problems with race are more to do with Jim Crow than with slavery. If freed slaves had been allowed to live their lives as equals and especially if they'd been given the reparations they were promised, I suspect that racial tensions would be a fraction of what they are if anything at all.
As is often pointed out, almost every country has slavery somewhere in its past. But Jim Crow (and apartheid in South Africa) are far more rare. And more importantly, far more recent. That's where the comparison with other countries falters.
You may well have already looked but I'll put a couple of links about race/racism in Brazil. The one from the UN notes that in the US the colonizers came as families while in Brazil they were single men which led to a higher amount of racial mixing.
I think you are correct about the persisting influence of Jim Crow. As recently as the early 1980s my wife and I were denied service in a fraternal lodge in Georgia because she failed the brown paper bag test. Mighty white of them to not mention their policy before they got my fifty bucks membership. Ironically, she talked me into joining. She played bingo, illegal at the time, in the lodge's "lady's bingo room" which allowed POC. They brought out food for sale from their restaurant and she wanted me to join so we could go eat there together.
Poor white and black people associated far more than the modern SJWs would have us believe back in the day. The moneyed found that dangerous and promoted institutionalized racism to build the divide to reduce opposition from the have nots. The effectiveness is stunning.
https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/racial-discrimination-and-miscegenation-experience-brazil
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/mythology-of-racial-democracy-in-brazil/
God, stories like that make me so angry. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out.
It seems useful to identify and separate the different expressions of racism. The uniqueness of American racism that promoted the BLM protests last summer was systemic racism. It is unique in the sense that US legislation and institutions are unique to this country. On the other hand we have individual behavior - this is the racism that Dr King called on in his "I have a dream" speech. That kind of racism which has a universal expression around the globe and may affect people of all colors of skins may nonetheless be express in different ways and with different degree of subtlety depending on the culture. Perhaps, the degree of the racist feeling depends on a perceived "threat". In a very homogenous country people may look with sympathy and positive prejudice (a form of racism, nonetheless) at (the exotic) people of a different race. This "benign" for of racism quickly changes to hostility as numbers increase. We observe this in Europe with the influx of immigrants, which ultimately resulted in Brexit, the demise of Angela Merkel in Germany and the increase in popularity of nationalistic parties in France, Italy and even the usually tolerant Scandinavian and Lower countries. In that context, I would say that yes, the US is less racist than Europe. And perhaps it is a matter of time until systemic racism emerges in that continent. (America and Europe are the only two continents where I have lived and worked, so I limit my comment to that)
"It seems useful to identify and separate the different expressions of racism"
Yep, I couldn't agree more. One of the many problems with racial discourse at the moment is the way that the word "racism" has been stretched to so many different uses that it's often difficult to know what's meant by it. If there's no difference between systemic racism and individual racism then what are we even talking about??
I have no idea what the end game of the people who try to pretend that these two things are the same might be. All it does is make racism harder to talk about.
That said though, I disagree that the US is less racist than Europe. Or maybe to be more precise, I think the US has more of an issue with race than Europe. James Baldwin spoke about that difference a lot after he decided to move to Europe and I think a lot of what he said still applies today.
The immigrant issue in the EU for example is more correctly described as xenophobia than racism. In England, people complained about the white immigrants from Poland and Albania just as much (if not more) as the darker skinned immigrants from Turkey and India. Brexit too was about employment and resources and a childish dream of a long dead Empire more than racism (and also the complacency of the politicians who thought a Leave vote could never happen).
For other countries like France the issue is more about religion (specifically Islam) which tends to select for a certain complexion but isn't necessarily related to it.
I'm not trying to claim that there isn't racism in Europe of course, or in most places in the world. One of my favourite places on Earth, Japan, has serious issues with racism *and* xenophobia. But as I was just saying to Dave, I think America's legalised racism, like that of South Africa, is what leads to the majority of the tension we see today.
"James Baldwin spoke about that difference a lot after he decided to move to Europe and I think a lot of what he said still applies today." I had James Baldwin and Josephine Baker, even Nina Simone, some 20/30 years later, in mind when I wrote about racism in Europe (the "sympathy" towards the "exotic") I agree that the US has more of an issue with race. That is a good way to put it. However, racism is not solely based on skin color. The Nazi theory of "pure blood" condemned slavs to be terminated and their territory to be used a "Lebensraum" for the aryans. I am partly slav - Russian father- and was called a "Mischling" by a Syrian well established cardiologist in Germany. I was offered, at no cost, a lecture about Assyrians being the original aryans (very different from semites, be they Arabs or Jews). It is true that throughout Europe racisms is mixed with nationalism and xenophobia and religious intolerance, which shows how deeply intolerance is seeded in that continent and how violence can explode rapidly setting neighbor against neighbor, as it did in the Balkans in the 90s. I can give you a few examples of systemic racism in Europe. It is not an issue there, as it is in the US, but still it exists, it is not recognized and it is not addressed. Ghettos are a natural and convenient cultural arrangement for different cultures to coexist. The idea of integration, in which people's comfort zone is affected asking diverse cultural groups to make adjustments, is not promoted. Perhaps the most integrated city I lived in Europe was Amsterdam, and it is no coincidence that New York was previously called New Amsterdam. I also agree that systemic racism in America legalized racism. Tradition in Europe is as strong or stronger than law -the aristocracy and connected members of the upper classes are hardly held accountable. Another factor in the complexity if European intolerance: class. It is possible that African Kings and Saudi sheik's will be given such "protection from the law" (read about the sagas of Saudi princesses escaping their sheik husbands or fathers and being kidnaped back into their countries.
I also agree with you assessment of Japan (I have not been in the county) Growing up my mother did some work for the Japanese consulate and I was friends with the kids of the various diplomats and technical staff. I remember how sensitive they were and how pleasant it was being in their company, no matter whatever qualm they may have had about our customs or race. Having "good manners" does give an opportunity to share and can eventually bring people together. Perhaps that is what James Baldwin experienced.
"The Nazi theory of "pure blood" condemned slavs to be terminated and their territory to be used a "Lebensraum" for the aryans"
Hmm, yes, true. And yes, the Balkans. I thought Bosnia as soon I read this. As well as the Tutsi and the Hutu for example. Here we see how completely arbitrary the concept of "race" can become. I tend to make the distinction between racism and xenophobia in these cases but I agree that that's also fairly arbitrary. The whole thing is just stupid.
I think we're entering a phase where the difference between institutionalised racism and classism is difficult to be precise about. Especially in countries with monarchies of which there are obviously many in Europe. European royalty, land owners and the upper class were exclusively white. So now the richest people are still white. Is that racism or classism? Well, it's difficult to say. I think that in almost all cases we'd be better off focusing on class.
As for Japan, yeah, it's a fascinating country. I absolutely fell in love with it as soon as I first visited and had been back many times. There's a big difference between being a visitor and trying to integrate though. And though anti-black racism is worse, that applies to *everybody* who isn't Japanese.
I found the Japanese people to be almost uniquely (internationally speaking) kind and warm to me as a visitor, and I do speak some very mediocre Japanese which goes down well. But as much as I love the country, I'm not even slightly tempted to try to live there, as I've heard--and seen--so many horror stories about how non-Japanese are always on the outside looking in.
" The whole thing is just stupid." I had to laugh because after writing the reply yesterday I too thought about the amalgamation of race with other prejudices concluding "how can you model, define such stupid behavior? How much of a percentage in a nasty reaction is due to xenophobia (hostility to strangers) and how much to racism? Racism is a frame of mind in which you view someone from another "race" as a stranger. I use " " because I belief "race" is a human construct. The differentiation, however, is necessary when we look at systemic racism. In that case there are observable characteristics that a key determinants of the outcomes in the social model. For example, higher sentences given to people of darker skin tone. Or assigning graduate students from LDC countries to inferior living facilities than their European counterparts that is a common form of systemic racism in many European Universities (some very prestigious).
Agree about Japan. I would like to visit, even work for a period there, but with a clearly defined exit visa. As a female I am wary of gender discrimination.
Yet again, Steve! Still thinking on this one. Wanted to point to something You all might be interested in, by John McWhorter: https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/racist-antiracism-at-the-university?r=kvple&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy
I think You two are on equal par, Steve. :) = 😊😊
Yeah, I think it's a perfect example of the subconscious belief that America is "his" country, and everybody else should just be grateful they get to live in it.