Serious question from someone in the UK. Is America really that racist or is it exaggerated on the internet? We do have racist pricks but I’ve never seen anything close to a ‘white supremacist’ here, unless I’m just lucky.
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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It can be in pockets, and the problem is when they get organized, they get emboldened enough to make their thoughts known. Especially in rural areas, people will have latent racists tendencies and go their whole lives without acting on it or mentioning it other than with other racist assholes. You can spend your whole life with Uncle Ricky around, and then one day when you're 30, you find out Uncle Ricky has stored every racist idea ever put online in his head as "facts," and is 100% in agreement with it all. But he would likely never go the extra step and join a KKK rally or get a swastika tattoo unless a small group of peers really pushed him to do that. White supremacist ideology doesn't require you to have joined your local KKK chapter or biker gang unless you're already predisposed to being an active asshole in life already, and that's the specific way you decide to spend your time. Some people simply do crossfit.
A lot of it is simply tribalism in action, prodded along by fear and polarizing stuff online, and a lack of exposure to external ideas during formative years.
I've never met a white supremacist who was tribalist. All the white supremacists I know are civilisationalists. And by that I mean, they uncritically accept the western idea of civilisation as consisting of domination and exploitation of the natural world and one's fellow human beings. Everyone I know who subscribes to tribal knowledge systems is very anti-racist, so I have a very positive view of tribalism.
Yes, but "civilizationist" is a form of tribalism, isn't it? It's about ethnically similar people promoting or only tolerating their narrow definition of culture. Sure, once you add the cultural history of slavery and Jim Crow, then you get historical context they lean on to say "see? it worked, didn't it?!" My racist family member would fall into this category, and while he thinks he knows what "Western Civilization" means, it's his delusional imagined version.
Honest question, is this a subjective dividing line between us that is opinion? Or is there research or something that defines the two in a way where it's a clear differentiation? If there is, I'm happy to be educated on the nuance and not keep being wrong.
A lot of America is truly that racist. Sometimes overt, but often subtle (e.g. "I don't hate black people, but crime rates don't lie).
There are pockets that are generally decent, but these are increasingly imperiled by growing external threats from the national government and bigots that feel empowered to act on its behalf.
American here. Please don't visit.
I say that out of love and care for you, not hate. It's bad here. We're a dumpster fire.
So sad to hear