No Stupid Questions

racism is an accepted reality in the US. racism is a denied reality in Europe.

I think someone can be culturally X, legally X, ethnically X, etc. for any country X. I have met people from European backgrounds who grew up solely in Japan and would consider themselves Japanese, though some often wrestle with issues, both internal and external, around that since they eyes of someone seeing them almost always see only "other" first. They hold Japanese nationality, are culturally Japanese, but not ethnically Japanese. Then again, ethnicity is its own thing as well.

It's a complicated topic and I'm certainly no expert on it. I'm a white guy of mixed western european ancestry who grew up in a town where that was the majority (and had no shortage of anti-Semites and racists, as I would find out as I got older). I've just been trying to learn along the way. I've been living in Japan for the past decade and see some of the small things that cause extra hurdles for those of foreign backgrounds (ignoring outright racism in that; just little things that only work for people whose names are <= 8 characters, require documentation only Japanese people can ever get, etc.) People who don't know me will often just use one of the words for foreigner or outsider and clarify with white person if that's ever necessary.

I guess I have a question: If you found a child with "darker skin shades" who was lost and you needed to create the most accurate description possible to the police over the phone to help them, what would you use to describe them (until the police would arrive and obviously see with their own eyes)? I think I would personally pick the closest colors for everything I could and not care about any sense of political correctness.

There have been attempts in the US (and probably elsewhere) to replace "black" with "African American" or other similar things. Ask an American Indian what they want to be called. Some would say "Native American" though others reject that because they are older than any conception of America and are not native to that nation. Others will be OK with "first peoples/nations" (often used in Canada, I think), "aboriginal", or just "Indian" since that is the term they grew up with.

A bit of humor to close off with: sometimes people from the US will travel to the UK or elsewhere and, rather than using black to describe just the skintone of the person, will say "African American"... to people who often have never set foot there and certainly aren't citizens.

I know that there was slavery and segregation in America based on exactly this in the past but this is over

It is not...

There's still a lot of racial bias in housing, even by name before the landlord/realtor meets the potential client.

its just not done with the explicit approval of the government, however that is unfortunately likely to change soon.

Even after the civil rights movement, all the Republicans and a lot of the Dems opposed integration. And we're still paying for it.

So, good for you, but the particular dynamics of being a colonial country that had a massive portion of its economy based on race-based slavery has resulted in an approach to diversity that has much deeper roots and has been wrestling with hard issues for much longer than Germany has, and Germany's own record with dealing with identifiable minorities in the last hundred years has, shall we say, not always been great.

Many European countries are only now hitting levels of diversity America had fifty years ago, and America has been made of statistically significant communities with distinctive origins for hundreds of years, and this in a colonizing country where there is no historically continuous monoculture. Historically, people tend to become dicks to the "Other" among them when faced with hardship, and much of American history reflects that sort of thing, but also its aftermath and attempts to heal.

Diverse and defiantly distinctive communities formed and persisted because that was how people got by and found support and could make their way, admittedly often because opportunities to assimilate, into whatever soup of dimly remembered pan-European customs that passes for a privileged culture here, were intentionally blocked. Yet even if the reasons for them are shameful, they are real and important, and the American dialogue on race simply cannot be color-blind even when well-meaning. Instead, it has to be a dance, where people of goodwill celebrate both differences and similarities and do not set groups above one another but also do not pretend they don't exist.

I wish more Americans would understand that our approach rarely translates well, and for fuck's sake I wish we had fewer people who were stuck in the bad old days where reconciliation and healing were very much not priorities. That said, I also wish that people from countries with a very different cultural and historical experience would not assume that their countries have shit figured out, when a lot of it simply boils down to "we don’t have many people with darker skin shades here."

TL;DR

its not the labels that cause the divide. it's the divide (the racism built into the economy and laws and communities) that causes the trauma that requires us to heal within our sub-communities. But the sub-communities are not originally homogenous; i.e. sometimes the only thing sub-communities have in common is the label/slur that "Whites" assigned us and the trauma that goes with that.

Also, for anyone who's actually lived in the US, you know we strenuously avoid using labels about someone when talking TO that person. There are very strict social rules for which labels to use when/where/with whom. Some people break those rules, then republicans elect them as president. FYI in case its not obvious, OVER HALF of US people hate Trump (and Elon). Why are they in power, you ask? Search "usa electoral system minority rule"

I appreciate you bringing this uncertainty to the community and open yourself for discussion. I understand how it can be upsetting or feel dissonant to see US people who sometimes/often brag of being the standard for freedom and equality, but still use divisive-sounding language. And worse yet, for the outward face of the US to become even more of an international symbol for fascism and oppression than ever.

many people outside the US, and even people inside the US, get confused by seeing us talk a lot about Black, White, Asian, Latinx (historically called 'Latino' or 'Hispanic'), Indigenous. They often think the labels themselves actually caused divides in US. I've heard this interpretation often from young people, mostly Gen Z. This also used to be a part of the "mainstream" (aka white liberals') mindset in the 1980s/1990s in the US. I'm not white nor black and I also believed that to some level back then.

We still are always looking for new names/terms to unite with each other regardless of sub-groups. That's how we get terms like BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) which definitely is inconvenient without abbreviation.

Sociological research actually showed that US society was and still is divided even when we don't use the labels. Its actually our laws, our economic practices, and "certain" groups' superiority/inferiority mindset (psychological complex) that divide US people.

The laws, for example, sometimes create a lot of extra steps to register to vote. And when those extra steps are analyzed, it turns out it makes voting extra difficult for poor people (like that our voting days are on Tuesday, a work day, so poor people can't always get a day off, then can't vote). In many areas of US, the low income group is mostly one or two races, like Black and Latinx. So politicians who hate those groups can secretly make it hard for them to vote by creating voting obstacles that affect only poor people.

The economic system helps to keep people poor by creating barriers for getting house loans or starting businesses. The "Red Lining" system used to categorize land/houses in Black neighborhoods as unlikely to repay loans, so people from there (Black people) or people trying to buy homes there were not given loans. Even if banks wanted to loan to the person, the Gov't refused to give the bank insurance. But what actually determines the ability to repay a loan? Income or assets, right? But income was usually ignored and Black people were assumed to have no assets worth money.

As for the people, when I say "superiority/inferiority mindset", I mean that certain US pink-skin straight neurotypical people have become accustomed to feeling comfortable in a very specific way, and accustomed to not being criticized for that refusal to change, and refusal to bring other races into their lives and into their comfort zone. Research on this area found that when we don't discuss race openly with some type of labels, children would observe and absorb parents'/adults' implicit feelings of discomfort around other races, even if their parents were civil rights believers/activists. Then while growing up, the child believes themselves to be "non-racist" (because of the thinking "my parents/role-models were non-racist!") while still having this discomfort. If the person realized they had this subconscious conflict and discusses it with friends of other races and in a mindset of humbleness and desire to learn, they could usually manage the discomfort and be an anti-racist (different from non-racist) without conflicted identity. However, if the person doesn't recognize the internal conflict and eventually expresses their discomfort emotionally directed at people of other races, they would predictably face backlash. Then because they identify themselves as a non-racist, they believe the backlash was unfair and feel that they have become the victim of "political correctness" or "the woke agenda". This scenario is EXTREMELY common in the US and, I would bet, an analogous one is common in most western countries. Particularly regarding immigrants, refugees, Roma people, or Jews.

I call the group "certain US pink-skin straight neurotypical people (PSSNTP)" because those of us with other skin color (BIPoC), other neurotypes, other sexuality have not ever had the opportunity to become that level of comfortable in the context of the entire US society that includes "straight white" people. BIPoC and LGBTQ are able to be comfortable in sub-groups that share our uncomfortable experiences. We call those groups Black, Gay, Asian, Pacific Islander, Neurodivergent, etc because other terms are more awkward/inconvenient, but also due to having bad experiences being called by those names or called more malicious synonyms, and otherwise treated badly by the PSSNTP and those bad experiences unite us in our sub-groups. Yes, some non-white, non-straight, non-neurotypical have also oppressed others. They were never the majority of oppressors, and they were hoping to hide the non-majority aspects of their identity by "going with the flow". For what it's worth, Empathy is also a minority identity characteristic among USA straight males, when it reaches the level of choosing discomfort for oneself in order to improve life for others.

Lastly, about "White"ness. As you mentioned, there are no "races" in the human genome except the human race. As far as I know, the term "white" referring to caucasian people was first spread widely during North American (NA) slavery in order to unite poor caucasians (British & other Europeans in debt slavery as "indentured") in NA with rich caucasians (mostly british aristocratic slave-owners) in order to motivate the poor to report African slaves who had escaped. They also motivated the poor caucasians to side with rich by hiring them as a slave patrol unit, with higher salary etc. This is the origin of the entire concept of Police (for the whole Earth, as far as I know) as an enforcement unit under civilian authorities and separate from military.

• Southern Slave Patrols as a Transitional Police Type | Office of Justice Programs - ojp(dot)gov - https://archive.ph/OSLBv

• The Invention of the Police | The New Yorker - https://archive.ph/CkfpI

Even Police themselves admit it

• National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund - Slave Patrols: An Early Form of American Policing - https://archive.ph/5cXfv

America is still very much racist. The Trump regime is particularly racist. They seek to codify their unspoken biases.

It happened for so long, at all levels of society, that it is still affecting us today. It has shaped the cities we currently live in. It has shaped our language. It has shaped our laws.

The first girl Black girl to go to a school that was all white is only 71 years old. And that was barely the start of the end of segregation.

A bad example, because I'm only American, but anyone in the European Union could move anywhere in the European Union. Some places just have depressing weather, or are very isolated. But it would still take a great effort for the people who even want to move to actually move.

am I the only one.....

No, you never are.

Because to me personally this kinda feels like America is still stuck in those slavery/segregation times

Yes. American culture is very much based on social hierarchies, and slavery created a very easy, color-coded social hierarchy. So it's hard to get rid of because a lot of people are invested in it - whether they admit it or not.

Americans (except for the most liberal) tend to look at race as a biological reality and regard anyone saying race isn't science as woke extremism. Generally when science conflicts with common/traditional sense in America, common sense wins. The only reason quantum physics isn't banned from schools yet is because probably only about 10% of Americans know the first thing about quantum physics.

Americans also regard a wide variety of racial discrimination - such as in dating (including who you allow your kids to date), or where you live, or where you send your kids to school, as "not racist". This is considered not racist because the goal isn't to harm racial minorities, but rather you're just doing it to protect your place in the social hierarchy. The race-based social hierarchy. And if this harms minorities, well it's not like it's your fault right?

And if you dare try to suggest that the above is racist, people will get very angry at you and do things like elect Trump.

So yeah, racism is still very prevalent in the US.

Didn't you already post about this?

If you ever see little kids with different skin tones playing together, they are clearly not bothered by skin color, and it has no bearing on their play. The racism in America is completely learned. It is not natural. Sometimes consciously, but many times unconsciously.

Loosely similar is how men in most places are fine walking around alone at night. While women consciously try to move in groups, even during the daytime. Many men have no idea how different it is for many women.

Scientifically race does exist in the sense that humans with certain genotypes can present certain phenotypes but we are all the same species. I don't think you can really quantify it at the individual human level though without ending up with all this old fashioned racist concepts coming into play, i.e. someone with 1/8 asian hertiage is "still asian" or whatever.

Race seems to be a bigger deal in the states because it is more politicised in terms of voting blocs. That's not to say we are immune to it in Europe like people with south asian heritage often vote for particular candidates in the UK for example.

I think one major factor in perceived differences is that our larger cities in Europe tend to be more genuine melting pots with fewer segregated areas. There are probably other reasons like having a stronger sense of civil society too.

tl;dr: race is real in a fuzzy sense but not particularly important. Europe has a different culture to the USA in some key senses.

So I’m a 21 year old from Germany

When, as a people, or a nation do unprecedented crimes and evil, it rings out through history, carried by the parents and given to the children. Racism is still a topic for discussion because it's still a problem. I'm sure you understand.

It's a complicated issue in the United States because of the history. Lots of countries did slavery, but at the point the United States did it, science was starting to spark into its modern form and one idea that "seemed good at the time" was pursuing superior genes.

That ... went really really really sideways and basically became a justification for continued slavery on the premise that white people were just better and they were doing the inferior black people a favor. Basically while the rest of the world was going "maybe slavery isn't good" the US was like "slavery is the humane thing to do, because science!"

Even after shit like that gets disproven people still tend to believe some amount of it (look at the antivax movement). So, even after the slaves were freed, they and their children were looked down upon by the culture. Many black people remained uneducated, financially bankrupt, etc. The culture especially in the south fought really hard to keep it that way for a looonnngggggg time.

That kind of formed a counter culture of its own, the "gang" culture. Which isn't all that different from the counter culture you see that came from prohibition and the moonshiners and such ... basically outlaws fighting the man, looked down upon, etc

So basically there are several main US cultures, Northern East White, Midwestern White, West Coast White, Southern White, Black, and the Appalachian White/redneck culture that descends from a mix of the moonshine runners, rural farmers, coal miners, and white southern culture.

Black people of course have multiple cultures even within the US but it's all kind of lumped into this messy "black culture" thing. Some black people I've met love the black gangster with the gold chains imagery and hold it up as something great and the "true black culture", others see it as ridiculous and trashy.

Calling these other cultures white is also intellectually dishonest as the entire US is a melting pot and the cultures of those regions were not formed by a single skin color ... but I'm using "white" for the purposes of the contrast ...

Anyways, black people just kind of stand out so they're an easy target... and they have been targeted for a very long time fueled (at least in part) by that long ruled scientifically ridiculous idea that they're inferior.

Add in the extra spice that the Appalachian subculture is angry about being tied in with the other white cultures despite being screwed over by the government a lot (not to the extent black people were, but still badly) ... and you've basically got the mess that is America in 2025.

There's a mix of justifiably mad people on both sides, outright racists, and people that serve to benefit from the conflict never ending politically.

(Perspective of a white guy originally from Appalachia that has seen a fair bit of the country and world now ... and largely no longer agrees with the Appalachians politically ... but is trying his best to explain a very complicated and touchy subject without writing a novel or making a bunch of people angry ... your collective grace is appreciated)