Do you think America is too obsessed with race?

[quote]My sister lived in Sweden for 5 years and something she told me is that Europeans don’t obsess over race and labeling people like Americans do.

Your sister is wrong.

Sweden is not the US. After decades of slavery, Jim Crow, etc. you really can't compare the US to a European country. The racial issues are NOT the same.

And I always think it's strange how Republicans complain about people calling themselves African-American but not Irish-American or Italian-American or whatever

It’s a completely different situation. The US has a history of indigenous genocide and slavery behind its race “obsession”. Neither situation has been accepted by the general population

OP = sender of these racist texts

[quote] Irish-American or Italian-American or whatever

Because it’s not done. Irish people in the US or Canada don’t say “I’m Irish American”. They just say “I’m Irish”. Chinese people don’t say “Chinese American”. They say “I’m Chinese”. So I guess they don’t complain about it because you never really hear it.

The constant never-ending talk of race does not reinforce differences or divide. Not talking about it does.

Let’s not talk about sexual orientation and homophobia will go away!

I’ll never understand why gays here can’t apply their experience as homosexuals and homophobia to race and racism.

R5 But the majority of black people say ”I’m Black”.

African-American actually isn’t a very popular term in the black community. I usually hear it on TV or by white people.

R5 And I’ll also add that Irish nor Chinese see those people as Irish or Chinese. They would look at them as Americans.

America was founded on genocide of the indigenous people and built on slavery. And slavery basically is still in place in the prison system. I think the left is just trying to acknowledge that.

Well one difference between America and Sweden is that we had a devastating war fighting each other that was based specifically on race and we've never recovered from that.

I should add that Germany teaches children about the Holocaust and has owned up to it without damaging their sense of nationhood and pride.

r11 America could never do that. Southerners and MAGAs are snowflakes.

R12 They say racism wasn’t that bad cause it was only a small group of white people that owned slaves.

But OP, in the US there was 250 years of slavery and then it took 100 years for black people to have full civil rights in the US after slavery.

We’re 60 years in from the civil rights era. Black people in the year 2064 will look back at this era as a shitty time for black people.

Every decade has been shitty. No one here can tell me a time when it was great to be black in the United States.

And to think we should stop talking about it and racism will go away makes no sense.

Europeans don;'t obsess over race?

That is such fucking bullshit I don't even know where to start.

Maybe with "That is such fucking bullshit",

Europe pretty much invented modern racism.

And within living memory (barely) they killed 30 million people worldwide to drive the point home.

[Quote] My sister lived in Sweden for 5 years and something she told me is that Europeans don’t obsess over race and labeling people like Americans do.

Oh the irony. Who colonized America, Martians? And who planted slavery in those colonies? Who had conflicts with the Indians that caused the constant state of hostilities with them?

All of this was done by Europeans.

Do us a favor — all we have to do is look at Europe itself, and its legacy of xenophobia and ethnic cleansing. Europeans helping themselves to the lands of native peoples wasn’t done because Europeans were totally chill with people of different races.

And even today, there’s a big show of being accepting of people of other races … for a while. But there’s an undercurrent of “you’re an other, you’re not really one of us.” Many European Muslims went to join the so-called “Islamic State” because they felt totally alienated from the native people in the countries where they lived. Virtually no American Muslims joined ISIS.

Need more evidence? What has been used by rightwing European political movements to gain power lately, and successfully so? Not the price of bread, it’s something else — something that resonates in the European mind.

White people are bad.

Your sister is wrong if you think all Swedes think of non-white Swedes as Swedish. They just don't say it. Many do - but many don't.

However, there is a massive cultural difference in Scandinavian society where Jante Law promotes egalitarian views.

And there are laws against hate speech.

On the surface it seems better - and probably is compared to other countries. But it's not the same - America has several hundred years of different races and cultures and the history of all that.

You just don't get over that quickly.

R3 R9: Every society, every country, every people in the history of humanity is built on a foundation of slavery and genocide.

Sweden included. You never heard of the Vikings?

R15 is right. Europeans started colonization, but America is blamed for it. Hypocrisy!!

Europeans didn’t always live in Europe nor were they always Europeans. Africans started colonization and slavery.

That is such bullshit R18

I’m embarrassed for you

My entire being is based on racism.

[quote]African-American actually isn’t a very popular term in the black community. I usually hear it on TV or by white people.

I remember some black people complaining circa late '80s/early '90s (when the term was being forced on the public by academia) that it made them sound less than American. They were like, "I'm American. That's it."

R18 That’s the same argument pedophiles make about pedophilia.

Who else wants to bet that the OP is Gen X?

Literally the entire world thinks like that. And whats worse is when they want to start racial shit in countries that don't gaf about that shit (ie articles in the LA Times questioning why Argentina has no black people in it's soccer team)

Dumb americans, not being obsessed with race or racist labels does is not the same thing as being racist or having a racist history.

[quote]White people are bad.

White men are bad.

FIFY, R16.

Americans invented the concept of race, in particular white people invented it to feel superior to black people. White created laws targeting each race/ethnicity to prevent them from gaining power.

And suddenly you feel we’re too obsessed with it? Know your history.

[Quote] Europeans don;'t obsess over race?

Europeans obsess over class

R25 Argentina had slavery.

The big difference between North and South America and what a lot of anti-black people don’t want to talk about is that the extension of Jim Crow laws post-slavery is the major factor of todays society, not just slavery.

People from the Jim Crow era are still alive and their kids are still alive and in their 50s-60s.

We have not moved away from Jim Crow as other countries moved away from slavery 150 years ago.

MAGA America is.

Yes and no. Europeans exist like it is and never was an issue, yet it is. The Japanese flat out discriminate against foreigners and it deemed okay. America is somewhere else

The US is actually becoming a country where race matters less. Black Americans and Latino Americans share many beliefs with white MAGA types, especially on immigration. Failure to understand that is one reason Trump won.

R30 of course, all american countries did, but way less so than the U.S and Brazil (and Brazil is not race obsessed either) and it outlawed slavery in 1813.

Yes. Talk politics to anyone in Europe, Asia, Australia, etc. and they will bring up America's obsession with race.

An Australian friend got a good laugh out of the freak out over the snowflake candle from bath and body works where they stopped selling it because someo fools thought it looked like KKK hoods. That kind of thing makes us foolish to everyone else.

I have two black friends who worked in Europe for a while. Both say it was refreshing to be treated so much better in Europe and that race was never a topic to discuss

R35 in Latin America they think the same.

OP, only the white people.

Can we talk about the far left whites' insistence on forcing the term " Latinx" upon the Latin community?

To be fair, a few well to do progresive university latinos in the US had a hand in that. They coined it. But of course rich white university students flocked to the word to be able to pat themselves in the back to use it

Entire books have been written about this, some of them good. You really can't reduce it all -- our nation's racial history and current makeup, the lingering post Civil War feelings, the overlap of race and class, the civil rights era, and now the MAGA backlash - can't reduce it to a Datalounge thread. But a large part of why America is "too obsessed" with race is that the history is painful, its effects resonate and perpetuate, and non-white people live here in such numbers that they can and will stand up for themselves.

Jim Crowe definitely has much more to do with America's race obsession than slavery. Most american countries had slavery to higher or lesser extent. But there weren't separate water fountains for blacks and whites a mere 60 years ago like there was in the U.S.

White people are utterly obsessed about their power. THEY are the ones dividing us by race

[quote]Because it’s not done. Irish people in the US or Canada don’t say “I’m Irish American”. They just say “I’m Irish”.

I'm not R2 but this is absolutely untrue R5. Americans talk [bold]constantly[/bold] about being Italian Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, French Americans etc. There are SCREEDS of threads on DL discussing these exact topics. Pull the other one.

We are a nation of immigrants so it’s natural that we cling to some mythical place of origin

It’s almost always members of the dominant culture who believe race shouldn’t be discussed, isn’t an issue, etc.

It’s similar to the way many straights discount homophobia and want gays to stay invisible.

A black friend of mine lived in Sweden for several years. I'm not sure of his experience with racism, but he said non-Swedes were heavily discriminated against in the job market and it wasn't uncommon to see highly educated foreigners driving taxis, working retail, waiting tables, etc. He finally came back after not being able to find gainful employment in Sweden. In the last few years, the far right in Sweden has also taken off, mostly off of the back of anti-immigrant sentiment. I'm assuming there's a good bit of racism baked in there along with the xenophobia so I wouldn't look to Sweden as a model of tolerance, unfortunately.

[quote] An Australian friend got a good laugh out of the freak out over the snowflake candle from bath and body works

I wouldn't go by what the Australians think either. Look at their treatment of the Aborigines for starters. Or look at that racist, sexist, homophobic piece of shit Mel Gibson. I've also had a personal experience with a highly educated Australian visiting the US and making some really backward comments about blacks and Asians.

The far left is obsessed with identity politics and the hierarchy of oppression.

R46 discussed when necessary and obsessed with ain't the same.

R48 actually alot on the far left are sick of i.d politics and claim they distract people from the discussion of class (which I wholeheartedly agree with). It's the center left/establishment democrats that are obsessed with that shit. I hang out in a subreddit with outright marxists who love trashing libs more than they love trashing republicans.

[quote]Or look at that racist, sexist, homophobic piece of shit Mel Gibson.

Gibson ISN'T Australian R47. He lived in Australia for a period of about 10 years because his family moved there when he was 12 for financial reasons and to dodge the Vietnam draft for one of his brothers. He is American by birth and returned to live in the US in his early twenties. He does not have Australian citizenship and has never had Australian citizenship.

He most definitely is a racist, sexist, homophobic sack of shit as you say but he's an AMERICAN racist, sexist, homophobic sack of shit.

Race is inevitably one of the central themes of American history, culture and politics.

It’s stupid to talk about how people in a fundamentally homogeneous society are not obsessed with race. Why would they be?

Only a truly multiracial nation with a similar history is in a position to judge: South Africans, Jamaicans, Australians, Brazilians and a few others.

European nations with a few decades of genuine cultural diversity may think they can understand an opinion, but without the history it is impossible to.