Is it me, or is America a tad more racist than the rest of us?

"The rest of us" is a pretty big bag. Africa is rife with ethnic conflicts, the Russia Federation is still dealing with a long history of activities that bordered on (and perhaps ran into) genocide in non-Russian republics, Austria periodically seems to produce politicians who gain wide support by appealing to a xenophobic base, there were riots in Sydney in Dec. 2005, the distribution of wealth in Mexico pretty much follows a contour of skin color...

...and, to echo a sentiment already brought up here, I'm curious how much political and social capital rests in the hands of the Maori in New Zealand or the Aboriginal peoples in Australia.

For my part, I'm an American, and I can honestly say I haven't talked to anybody for whom Obama's race was an issue, either. It's all about who you talk to. I do know that he won the presidency by the most convincing margin since 1988.

I'm not saying that we don't have a problem with race; far from it. But I'd caution you against underestimating the breadth and depth of bigoted sentiment in the rest of the world.

Don't you talk to me about understanding.

A starkly contrasted and refreshing change, no?

Good posts from dag and patiodog. Pdog made the observation I was going to make when I read the first post -- "people I've talked to" is often not a good barometer for this sort of thing. I'm another American who has talked to a whole lot of people who are very happy that Obama won. (I can only think of one who was even ambivalent, and he's a lefty's lefty who is concerned Obama's too centrist -- race wasn't part of it.)

"Americans" haven't cared for the past eight years, completely wiping out any diplomatic credibility we once had. Do you know how many American lives might have been saved in Iraq if Bush didn't have a John Wayne complex?

Also, thank you for not speaking for the rest of us.

Everything I know about New Zealand comes from the movie Utu.

But to answer your question, it's just you. We have our history just as you have yours, but right now we have our first black president, who also happens to have been the best candidate in the entire field and who won decisively. If we were more racist than "the rest of [you]" I don't think that would have happened.

Actually Garg, the death rate in Iraq was lower than that for troops stationed in the U.S.

But I'm sure that part doesn't help make your argument hold water, so you ignore it, which seems to be a liberal tactic of late.

While we don't have a Maori president, two significant minor parties are lead by Maoris. I haven't seen any Maoris running for PM in Labour or National, so that is probably why we haven't had a Maori PM. I am sure if one did there wouldn't be any objection to him or her leading because of skin colour, as there has been in America.

No objection at all? There are no bigots in New Zealand who would even make a comment, publicly or privately, about whether a darkie (or whatever the epithet of choice would be for this particular individual) would be fit to lead?

I find this very hard to believe.

But, then, I'm one of those far lefties for whom Obama was too much of a centrist to be the best candidate, so maybe my faith that human nature is lagely rotten is too great for me to fathom a nation completely free of racism.

I don't oppose any political views, but I do oppose political views swayed by racism. I'm not saying everyone should have voted Obama, I'm saying that no one should have not voted Obama because he's black.

Jeese, do you really have to go picking at me for small points relating to language? I meant that the vast majority of the public would not object. I thought that was kind of obvious. It's like if I said (ripe) tomatoes are red, would you tell me I'm wrong because of the tiny proportion of mutant, different-coloured tomatoes? And please don't say that some tomato species are different colours.

Fair enough; you have some substantial points there. Maybe we could narrow down "the rest of us" to the developed, Western world. That still leaves Sydney and Austria. Could you please provide some links to sources regrading these?

The Maori of New Zealand actually got a much better deal than, I think, any other native race of a country colonised by the West. The Aborigenes were removed from their families by the State and Church. The Africans, well, we all know about that. The Maori, however, got a treaty. It didn't exactly work out, but at least there was an attempt to treat them fairly. They are fairly well represented in parliament, as I have already mentioned, and they are treated well in general. Some Maori tribes are actually very wealthy (which brings up the question of why the other Maoris, in general, aren't).

I believe you, aperson.

This is a little off-topic but I once knew an American woman of African descent who told me of a South Seas cruise she had taken, which included stops in Australia and New Zealand. She said she had been a little apprehensive about getting off the ship and going ashore in New Zealand, having had some bad experiences in Australia where she had been mistaken for an Aborigine. She said she was very pleasantly surprised at how courteously the white Kiwis reacted to her, treating her like any other welcome tourist.

I trust you know better than to think that racist piece of **** speaks for Americans. There's a reason the pathetic coward has to hide behind a phony name and cower in the corner with his guns. The reason is that while the vast majority of Americans wouldn't cross a street to spit on him; more than few would like to slap the racism out of him if he were man enough to stand behind his demented hatred.

So are you narrowing the "rest of us" to New Zealand now?

Honestly, I don't want to imply in any way the the U.S. doesn't have problems with racism. We do. However, I've traveled a lot in the "developed, Western world," and I've encountered some pretty startling racist sentiment outside of my own nation's borders.

Thanks.

We do love our tourism! Its our largest pseudoindustry.

Not meaning to be rude, but try creating your own argument instead of picking at trivial points in mine.

I'm saying that New Zealand is less racist than America, and I asked the question of whether the same goes for other developed coutries. I'm actually trying to have an open-minded, relatively peaceful discussion here, not just another religionistic all-out bitch-off.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in my original post, but the point stays that I'm just asking a question, not defending my position with my life in an evolution debate.

I think you have to be really aware of who "the rest of us" are, and the complexities of racism.

I had thought Australia to be especially racist, until I was exposed to the outrageous racism of traditional Chines and Japanese (just as two examples) culture. Whooeeeeeee! They just have not had the same imperialistic and weapons success as the west to expose it.

In my experience, New Zealanders pride themselves on being more advanced than most of the rest of the world in matters of race.

Certainly, the Maoris (who seem to have been as aggressive and bloodthirsty as the invaders) fought the Brits to a standstill and enforced a treaty, which is unusual, except, as far as I can see, in North America......


I have listened to many New Zealanders say how much more enlightened they are in matters of race and cultural respect than, for example, Australians.


This seemed reasonable to me........until I began to notice stuff like that when we Australians visited New Zealand agencies that boasted of their proper cultural practices, we were, reasonably, expected to honour those practices, and, when New Zealanders visited us, we were also expected to honour New Zealand cultural practices......er....is there anything wrong with this picture?

When I mildly challenged this, major attempts were made to rip me apart....


Now...I am by no means unprepared to accept New Zillun superiority to Oz re these things (you're kind of like our Canada).....but no way will I accept that Oz, or the US, are more racist than, for example, China or Japan.


Racism is complex and common.

I think you need to be REALLY careful before claiming superiority.

Actually, unless you know a great deal more than you have demonstrated thus far, I think you rather foolish to do so.


Nonetheless, nice to see another Kiwi here...and welcome.


Edit: Be careful re big claims about Maori and the state.....we have a huge Maori population in Oz, and they ain't saying nice things re the New Zillun state treatment.

I accept that things couldn't be much worse re indigenous folk than the removals that happened in Oz, the US and Canada.....but are you SURE you can throw stones?

Yeah; THAT 's what 's important.
U may find historical delight in articulate, silver tounged,
charismatic European orators: presidents or leaders,
of the first half of the 1900s. Thay really commanded attention.

In case you haven't been able to gather it so far, my "argument" is that there is a lot of racism in the United States and throughout the rest of the world. I've seen instances of racist behavior in the United States, where I live, and throughout western Europe, where I've traveled, and in Mexico, which I've visited a couple of times. I see it throughout the recorded history of the human species, at all times and in all lands where I've cared to look -- and I think I've written enough on this thread for this opinion to be apparent.



Well, perhaps you are unaware then of the sneering superior sarcasm in the title of your post? "A tad" smacks of pointed understatement, and "the rest of us" gathers together an imaginary audience in a wide rhetorical embrace to cast stones at us unwashed heathens. Your original statement was not, "I think there is a statistically significantly larger proportion of racist individuals among the population of the United States, and, I suspect, the rest of the developed Western world*," though you've since tried to amend it to read as such.

*This is itself a patronizing notion. Why should non-Western, non-'developed' nations be held to a lower standard of collective behavior than those nations who had the fortune (good, ill, or mixed) to be colonized by Europeans? I'm assuming that this is what you mean by "Western," since the traditional western-eastern dichotomy is drawn from the orientation of Eurasia, and using this as a reference, New Zealand and Australia (who appear to be included in your set "Western") are, according to any reasonable view of geography with Eurasia as a reference point and the with the Pacific Ocean being the wide barrier that it is, definitively oriented (pun not intended, but acknowledged, and perhaps regrettable) to the east.

You've asked elsewhere for me to provide citations (or, rather, links) to support my suggestion that there is racism present in Austria and Australia. At the same time, you've provided none to establish the level and/or pervasiveness of racist thought and its effect on public life and the political process in the United States. In fact, you've even admitted that the basis of your claim is largely hearsay -- and that's fine, but don't try to hold me to a higher standard than you actually held when you started this thread.

The fact of the matter is that even within the United States, the political process is so rancorous that it frankly is difficult to establish to what degree Obama's racial background may actually have played in election. Certainly more individuals in pretty much every demographic were willing to vote for Obama than with quintessentially white guys Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004, so you might reasonably infer that the influence of Obama's race on the actual election outcome is negligible. So, then, the more meaningful question might be, "How many McCain voters would have changed their vote if McCain's and Obama's ethnic backgrounds were switched?" But I really don't think such a question can be answered.

Now, there was a lot of xenophobic noise with racial overtones during the election -- mostly associated with the notion that Obama somehow is really a Muslim, which notion is of course a real bugaboo among American racists, xenophobes, and other paranoiacs. This was definitely a view of a minority of voters, though, and the United States has hardly cornered the market on anti-Muslim/anti-Arab thought. For instance, there's this...



...or this...



...neither of which took more than 20 seconds to find.

Which is not to say that there aren't Americans (like our CJ here) who will spew racist filth when discussing Obama -- or anything else, for that matter. They don't represent the majority of the population any more than a group of skinheads stomping the pavements in south London represents the population Great Britain. And we certainly have problems regarding the distribution of wealth along racial lines in the United States. It would be remarkable, given our history, if we didn't, and this is part of the excitement over the election of Obama. How much of present inequity is the result of extant institutional racism vs. the product of a history of inequitable distribution of wealth is hard to say, and the United States is hardly unique in this regard. Certainly, though, it's almost impossible to argue that conditions for the African American community hasn't improved a great deal over the past 2 or 3 generations -- or dating back to the Holocaust in Europe, which is certainly evidence that at that time racially and ethnically motivated hatred was hardly a quality unique to or even perfected by the United States.

But, then, I'm sure you're well aware of the difficulty of present-day effects of historical racial inequality, given that, even after a decade of significant equalization on this front, the unemployment rate among Maori is more than twice as high as the national average for all ethnic groups, and that individuals of European/Maori extraction are significantly more likely to be employed than individuals of all-Maori extraction (source: http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/lmr/lmr-quick-facts-maori.asp. Or perhaps this stems from something aside from historical inequity -- but, then, I've never been to New Zealand, and am unfamiliar with the nuances of your cultures, politics, and history.

We could touch on anti-Latino racism as well, of course, but this is all bound up with feelings about immigration, and you've already noted that (in NZ, anyway) the problems of immigrants are attributable to immigration and employment policy, not to racism.