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Looking at the experience of black Britons through an American lens

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

#131

Post by fastball »

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…

> Aboriginal people just commit more crime.

Isn't that the same argument people use in the US to justify why more Black Americans are incarcerated / killed by cops?

If that is actually your stance, I'm confused as to how you see Australia as fundamentally different from the US.

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

#132

Post by krzyk »

esperent wrote: post #82
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…

> While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism like in the US Are you sure about that? I haven't spent much time in Poland, but I've spent quite a bit of time in the baltic states and systemic racism absolutely is a problem there. It's just (mostly) against Jews and Roma rather than black people. I fully expect this is the case in Poland too. EDIT: yes,as I thought. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik…

Well, the "problem" is that there are not many different races in Poland, so it is hard to judge how racist we are.

The most racist thing you can see here is people staring at blacks or Asians. Because it is quite unique thing to see.

Just like when I was in South Korea and my wife was asked to pose in a picture of young Korean girl.

Similar thing happened 50 years ago, when my mother-in-law asked a black fellow to pose in a picture with her.

But that is expected when someone is unique, intriguing.

When I was young I lived in the south of Poland where we had a Roma minority. And I as a kid was afraid of them, because they were different from me and most of the time I saw them begging on streets. But same thing happened when I saw non-Romas begging on streets, just because they were dressed in old, torn and smelly cloths.

I have personally not met any Jews that I know of, because here you don't have any visual clues, it just like meeting an Orthodox Catholic, one would need to introduce him/herself like one to be recognized. And that maybe would result in interesting conversation, but thats it.

There is another negative issue here with large south city in Poland and Jews - Cracow. There is a district there that was mostly Jewish before the WW II, and now there are a lot of visitors from Israel schools that come there to look at the old buildings and synagogues. And because those are children in a difficult age and look quite unsupervised (besides the bodyguards that act very aggressively towards Poles) and leave quite a mess in hotels where they stay.

And there are also Brits :), you can recognize them because most of them walk in T-shirts during winter and are quite loud and like to have stag parties in Cracow, and also leave quite a mess in pubs/restaurants/hotels.

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

#133

Post by transpostmeta »

jtbayly wrote: post #119
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 n…

It's not the same. There really IS footage of USA police shooting innocent black people. There exists no such footage in Switzerland. Swiss people protesting against Swiss police because of this footage from the USA makes no sense. US population protesting against US police because of this footage makes sense.

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

#134

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

WhyNott wrote: post #105
lucideer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While racism is a problem in Poland, it's not a systematic racism I absolutely agree that transplanting US talking points wholesale into non-US frames of reference is something that's often done blindly and never really applies. But the reason for this is that the issue is nuanced and has a lot of local context that needs consideration in its own right. It shouldn't be used as an excuse to dismiss the existence of…

There is a specific reason to say it: 98% of polish population belong to a single ethic group, and even of the remaining 2% the vast majority are what most people would consider to be "white". Non-white people tend to be very rare even in metropolitan areas (maybe to a lesser extent in Warsaw), and they are usually either students or high-income people moving to Poland for professional or relationship reasons. In gen…

Also "white" is typically not a category you speak of. Ethnicity is much more important and it's often lost on americans in my experience who tend to promptly dismiss differences between e.g. Ukrainians and Poles.

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

#135

Post by timruffles »

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.

A lot of Brits would like the British Museum to give the marbles back too! <3

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

#136

Post by matthewmacleod »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #96
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 British person with Caribbean family background, I found the reaction to this from the internet so strange. In Britain it's normal that the different cultures here mix. Shops selling Baltic bread, next to shops selling jerk chicken, across the road from a traditional English pub. People of all colours and backgrounds frequenting all of them. From an outside perspective, people in the USA seem very pre-occupied w…

Your perception that in the US "black and white people live different lives and mixing is frowned upon" seems like it's been heavily influenced by some less-than-honest talking points. The idea that the UK is an oasis of racial harmony versus a segregationist USA is pretty far from the truth.

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

#137

Post by matthewmacleod »

enriquto wrote: post #108
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…

> Cultural appropriation doesnt seem to be a problem anywhere else but the USA. It is not a problem anywhere, actually. Some people just want to make it into one.

I mean it sometimes is, and your categorical rejection of it is just weird.

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

#138

Post by fastball »

fiblye wrote: post #71
wesleywt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-1 for Australia. Its a pretty racists country. And you forget FoxNews is a transplant of the Rupert Murdoch's empire that he established in Australia. Thier propaganda in support of Trump is obvious and gross. But you as an Australia probably grew up with this type of media surrounding you.

I don’t think trying to argue against racism while lumping an entire country of tens of millions of people together is productive.

TFA is talking about racism as if it can be seen through the lens of how an entire nation feels about and handles racism, so that seems like a reasonable way of talking about it in this thread.

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

#139

Post by emXdem »

Tainnor wrote: post #22

There's a general sense in which all the social justice debates are always filtered through a US american lens, probably because of the media presence and because the people leading these debates are more active in global online communities. But it does feel to me that often we frame the discourse in a way that is not useful for the specific problems we have in a specific country/region. There was some of the ACAB se…

Totally different... in that firebombing and violence did not occur?

https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f388ec.html

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

#140

Post by remote_phone »

fiblye wrote: post #71
wesleywt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-1 for Australia. Its a pretty racists country. And you forget FoxNews is a transplant of the Rupert Murdoch's empire that he established in Australia. Thier propaganda in support of Trump is obvious and gross. But you as an Australia probably grew up with this type of media surrounding you.

I don’t think trying to argue against racism while lumping an entire country of tens of millions of people together is productive.

That’s what they’re doing with the US though.
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