Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens • Hacker News Board

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#111

Post by zimablue » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

Another key difference is that we don't have the right to own guns. Whether you're for or against gun rights you can't argue that they don't seem to incentivise more militarized police. Militarized police means that you get tragic and divisive police killings but I guess it also causes more general distance from and distrust of police.

We also I don't think have the American civil war history and Jim Crow stuff, so it's not as much of a political football and the history of oppression diminishes MUCH earlier.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#112

Post by romanoderoma » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #6

The problem exists elsewhere too, because of the extremely widespread proliferation of American media - I see the Polish media taking american talking points about race, sexuality, religion, and just transplanting them wholesale into the Polish frame of reference as if they were equally important here - more often than not, they simply aren't. While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in…

> That's simply not true

I would argue that not only it is false, it is also wrong.

There are many traits of the American culture that are not desirable, in general.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#113

Post by sergiotapia » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

nathias wrote: post #7

I never even heard of anyone being as racist as americans are when trying not to be.

Bolivian here, this has been my experience as well. People in the US need to teach their children to respect everybody, there's an entire generation of kids being brainwashed into us vs them. We won't see the effect of this until much later on. 20 years!

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#114

Post by dkdbejwi383 » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #21

doctor_eval wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because there are 10x more aboriginal people in prison, that's not racist policing, that's just natural, is that what you're saying? “There is a sadly high level of Indigenous incarceration, I think it’s about 30% compared to 3% of the population,” Mitchell said, while interviewing the prime minister on Thursday. “But black deaths in custody, I mean, that’s, that’s a furphy, isn’t it? I mean, since the royal c…

No, that isn't racist at all. Unfortunate, an injustice, a tragedy, a disaster, a systemic failure to integrate, yes. But racist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me. Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist. Thats a symptom of a problem that predates most of us sitting here in our armchairs. Talk about the real problem not the symptom, but whatever you do, don't start calling all whi…

> a systemic failure to integrate

You're talking about white Europeans failure to integrate with Indigenous Australian societies, right?

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#115

Post by secondcoming » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

vergessenmir wrote: post #18

I'm not sure that american views are being imposed on US (I'm in the UK). Rather they are being adopted by us without criticism. This makes conversation about race a confused jumbled incoherent mess. The bigger problem as I see it is more class-oriented than race centric. This should be a discussion on social mobility, which in my opinion is the best in the western world for minority communities. The race discourse i…

Adopted or pushed?

The BBC is fully on board with importing the US leftist narrative.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#116

Post by somerandobrit » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:25 AM UTC

You can illustrate this point by comparing prison systems.

In America is segregated by race, blacks, whites, Mexicans etc.

In the U.K all races mix, towns and counties may stick together more but that’s it.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#117

Post by secondcoming » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:25 AM UTC

I'd be interesting to compare snapshot of upvotes/downvotes in this thread from between now and when the US gets out of bed.

It'd a good measure of how much control the US has over other types of media.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#118

Post by dkdbejwi383 » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #98

drumhead wrote: post #62

Adele, the singer, was photographed at the Nottinghill Carnival (a massive Carribean street festival over the August bank holiday in London) with her hair in Bantu Knots and wearing a bikini top in the colours of the Jamaican flag. As soon as it was on twitter the you started getting tweets from Black Americans about cultural appropriation, but this was met in turn by fierce opposition from African and Carribean post…

As a Greek, I agree. Ancient Greek culture influences a lot of things, but I've never heard of any Greek being offended by any of it, we consider it homage/remixing. Except the Parthenon marbles, we want those back.

The world would be much poorer without Greek culture. Would life be worth living without gyros?

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#119

Post by jtbayly » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #6

The problem exists elsewhere too, because of the extremely widespread proliferation of American media - I see the Polish media taking american talking points about race, sexuality, religion, and just transplanting them wholesale into the Polish frame of reference as if they were equally important here - more often than not, they simply aren't. While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in…

> people watching American news and for instance adopting "all cops are bastards" attitude is just dumb in so many way

Now you know how many of us in the USA feel. Yet for some reason it seems you assume that it is correct in the US. Why? If the simple fact that this social phenomenon is happening here is what validates it, then why complain when it starts happening where you live? If, on the other hand, the we are not a paragon of virtue, perhaps consider that the news is causing just the same sort of inane, invalid response here as you are concerned about seeing where you live.

Re: Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

#120

Post by AndyMcConachie » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

Talking about bigotry in the UK without mentioning colonialism is a bit like talking about racism in the USA without mentioning slavery. Different history, different consequences, different present, different context.

A few weeks back historian John Dolan pointed out that all the iconoclasm recently occurring in Britain was targeting statues of people who had participated in the Atlantic slave trade. This is curious, because while some British were involved in the Atlantic slave trade it ranks pretty low on the list of Horrible Things the British Empire Did. The fact that Cecil Rhodes statues weren't getting dumped in rivers says about all you need to know on this subject.

Rhodes was a monster. Look him up. Yet his statue continues to stand at Oxford. There is a movement to get it and other statues to Rhodes torn down, check out #RhodesMustFall on Twitter for example. But by and large British society refuses to engage with their genocidal past.