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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

#161

Post by bregma »

(1) Yes, Americal cultural hegemony is widespread, especially in the English-speaking world (second language or first).

(2) Yes, your country has racism, including systemic racism. Denial is one of the privileges that marks you as a member of the dominant group.

Your job is not to deny the racism, but to try to identify it an root it out.

The crux of the biscuit is that the American concept of 'race' is so very very nebulous. Since there is no hard definition of 'race', there is no way to definitively sort an individual into a 'race.' It's entirely subjective and relies on an individual's prejudice.

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

#162

Post by optimalsolver »

secondcoming wrote: post #115
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.

Not surprising. Just look at what they named themselves.

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

#163

Post by coldtea »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #137
enriquto wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, it really isn't. American I presume? You have full rights to use elements of our culture from this here part of Europe (not that you ever asked our permission, you use them anyway. But it's not like we care either...).

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

#164

Post by LockAndLol »

Yes, thank you for this opinion piece. I do believe however that we non-Americans are also to blame. We consume American media like there's no tomorrow and don't support our local media even barely enough.

The great advantage America has for spreading their culture is its single official language. It's able to echo within the country, gain a large following and then spread outside of its borders. Europe has done nothing like that.

Ever since the European Union was made, there has been no successful attempt to find a common language in order to unify the countries lingually. It's not a surprise due to the divisive history, but I strongly believe that Esperanto could've been that language. Of course, it's too late now and English (especially American English) has become the virtual lingua franca, but that means Europe (and other countries) should learn from the U.S.

What the U.S has is practically a large propaganda machine that blasts its views across the world. The entertainment industry (film, music, news) is large and the major window into American life. It's available everywhere at either no cost or when the demand is large, at a premium.

I'd say other countries should:

- subsidize their entertainment industry heavily

- expand their education to provide world-wide

- do away with geo-blocking and exclusivity

- have free national programs to help learn their language from anywhere in the world

and last, but definitely most importantly: educate their populace to think logically and to broaden their horizons to think out of the box.

Culture, tradition and language are in a product in today's capitalistic world. If you do not make your product attractive, appealing, and available, people will not buy it. The U.S has understood that and are doing a mighty fine job at exporting it.

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

#165

Post by temptemptemp111 »

Hilarious that people here are so brainwashed that they think the global media is "American..." Ya they're such hamburger-eating, gun-toting, tradition, church-going... Oh wait, no, they're from a tiny minority tribe with dual citizenship if things go south! And they curse you with the word "anti-semitic" (or similar) if you stray outside of the Overton window in really any direction.

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

#166

Post by viraptor »

yokaze wrote: post #99
viraptor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, Poland would be very different even just from daily experience. In 20 years of living there, I have not only not interacted, but not seen a single black person. And I expect that would be the same case for majority of people. Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic. (Not that it wouldn't exist completely)

> In 20 years of living there, I have not only not interacted, but not seen a single black person. And I expect that would be the same case for majority of people. Any racism would likely be more personal or based off silly stereotypes rather than systemic. I don't follow. How can you make such judgement, if you "not only not interacted, but not seed a single black person"? > Any racism would likely be more personal…

Because to have systemic racism, by definition you have to observe something happening on a large scale. There is no scale there. There are isolated interactions mostly. It could be widespread racism, or a small number of racist people. The n is too small to tell.

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

#167

Post by Vinnl »

gambiting wrote: post #93
esperent wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Again, the key word here is " it's not a systematic racism like in the US " - I'm not(obviously) trying to say that racism doesn't exist in Poland - it does and it's a problem. Just that the entire country isn't built on racist behaviour like US is/was, it's not systematic as in the country as it exists now(and largely how it existed in the post WW1 shape too) wasn't built with racist institutions and principles. Aga…

FYI, "systemic racism" is usually understood to be roughly "discriminatory treatment is embedded in the institutions". For example, if Roma get stopped by police more often, that's systemic racism.

I think you use it to mean "it played a major role in the founding of our country". Saying "there is no systemic racism in Poland" makes sense in that context, but probably not in the other, and that's why people are doubting you.

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

#168

Post by coldtea »

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.

Well, that's not "cultural appropreation" though (the marbles thing) it's downright stealing...

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

#169

Post by nottorp »

nathias wrote: post #7

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

In my experience americans (at least the limited sample that I know) have a need to find a subculture to identify themselves with, and quick.

I'm not even talking about race here, i'm thinking about the billions of independent christian churches, of soccer fans dressing like soccer players, gang colours etc.

And when they find their subculture, they get stuck in it and become unable to see the others' point of view.

American style racism may be a consequence of that.

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

#170

Post by morelisp »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #110
justinclift wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aboriginal people just commit more crime. That isn't racist. Er... that sounds incredibly racist?

I think was the OP was saying is that indigenous people are more likely to commit crimes because of the circumstances that are put upon them by the system, and that they also lack access to better legal representation for the same reason, and are therefore more likely to be convicted of crimes. Really, it's due to economic circumstance (I bet poor white people are convicted of more crimes than rich white people). It…

> circumstances that are put upon them by the system, and that they also lack access to better legal representation for the same reason, and are therefore more likely to be convicted of crimes.

If only we had a convenient word for this, "the confluence of negative formal and material circumstances put upon someone because of race"...

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