Debate Topic

No correlation. My observation is that in some cases the opposite is true. Cultural mistakes (such as racism) have more to do with either poor education, parochialism, isolation, and/or traditional rigidly held socialized ingrained ignorance.

For example, as the film Crash (2004) showed us, a few stories happened in L.A. were related to racism, which is well-known as a famous international city with coloful multiracial culture. While in China, which used to have poor education, parochialism, isolation, and/or traditional rigidly held socialized ingrained ignorance, to some degree, one can hardly see the existence of racism.
Why?

I've found that it's a U shaped curve. Places with very few minorities have very few stereotypes about minorities to overcome. Places with lots of minorities have lots of examples to overcome stereotypes. Where you have problems is where you have a decent minority population but it is separated so the communities don't interact. The exception to that for me was Japan where the community is very monolithic, but I saw a lot of racial biases.

This question is meaningless unless you define what the term "racist" means. If we were going to do a scientific experiment, we would first have a way of measuring racism in a way that two countries could be compared.

What experiment would you do to show if people in China are less racist than the US?

Which country is less racist has a lot to do with how you measure what racism is. I have experienced this first hand by spending a lot of time in Mexico. People in Mexico have good arguments to show that people in the US are more racist in general. Yet, by my standards people in Mexico are more racist. It all depends on what things you consider to be racist.

What if the term "racist" here refers only to the narrow racist?
There should be a certain answer, which is based on facts instead of individual opinions.

How do you define "narrow racist"?

I will give you an example. In Mexico there is a phenomenon I call "happy smiling White people". When I was in Guadalajara, walking down the street there was a wide variety of skin colors averaging around light brown. When you look at Billboards for businesses (banks are the best example) all you see is smiling very white families. The advertisements don't look anything like people on the street. This is also true for the bank employees. The people working behind the counter are several shades paler than their customers.

To me (as a well inculcated American) this is a blatant sign of systemic racism. Mexicans will insist that this has nothing to do with racism. In fact, when they see the protests about race in the US, they are very happy that racism is much less of a problem in their country.

It is a matter of perspective... unless you have an objective way to measure it.

The 55 minorities in China are not seperated. Actually, people from different nationalities live together. In some provinces, the population of Han nationality is large, and in several povinces, that of minority is larged. It's very common to see minority people in Chinese colleges, workplaces, and so on. People interact with each other and don't even notice that someone is minority people, not to mention racial biases.

Different people have different understandings to a certain thing. But there is only one truth among them. Besides, whether some problems exist or not can't depend on whether people realize them or not.

Let's say, for the sake of argument I agree with this statement. Here is the important question.

You say that something is racist. Jose says that it is not racist. How do you know whether you have the truth or whether he does? And, how does he know?

If there is no objective way to know the truth, then the truth is meaningless.

Here is an interesting case from a current news story. American protesters recently prevented the Boston Museum of Fine Arts from allowing patrons to wear a Japanese Kimono as part of an exhibit. To Americans this is racist against Japanese culture.

Here is a Japanese perspective



Which view do you think is correct, the American view, or the Japanese one?

I remember reading in the past that only two countries completely assimilated the respective Jewish community in the past. That being China and India. The reasoning behind the phenomenon was that both countries displayed no anti-Semitism, and the Jewish community did not circle the wagons, so to speak, to deal with hostility. With time both communities just melded into the surrounding population. As I've also read, some American Rabbis think this can happen in the U.S. also, since marrying out is not the horror it once was, for both sides of the fence. In other words, it makes me think that a little anti-Semitism functions like a vaccine, making many immune to intermarriage. So, that could be an objective measure of racism in a society; that being the rate of intermarriage, since once there is intermarriage en masse, there is no one to be racist against for the majority group in the society.

Incorrect. The latent racism just hasn't been activated.

Of course, the Japanese one.
People wear Kimono most probably because they are interested in it and interested in Japanese culture. Since Kimono is a symbol of Japanese culture and people always enjoy sharing their culture with foreigners, it's quite simple to understand Japanese would be happy if they see foreigners having fun trying Kimono and won't feel offended even if foreigners wear it incorrectly. In other word, foreigners wear Kimono has nothing to do with racism. I guess that maybe America is too sensitive to racial issues and wants to stress racial equality. So, some protesters hold that view. I also tend to believe that people from their own culture have more rights to make themselves heard over this case.

Well, that seems possible.

Ha ha, intermarriage sounds like a good idea.

Here's what I noticed.

I was born and raised in the south where people of different races live in close proximity. You can see every spot on the continuum: virulent racism through moderate, polite social, to people knocking themselves out to be part of the solution. But in close proximity, you are in the petrie dish: you will see something.

When I moved to CA, I walked around wondering what was odd for a couple of days, and i finally smacked my forehead. No brothers. The upscale town I'd moved to was devoid of black people. It was explained to me that most blacks lived in enclaves like Oakland etc - and through hopping around the Bay Area, I noticed this was largely true.

Let me ASSURE you, a quite sturdy racism exists in California. You don't see it or hear about it much because people don't have to deal with one another.

I saw a funny bit - I think it was Tom Segura - about the racism of Japanese people. I was somehow raised believing Japanese people were above things like racism and goofy ridiculous behavior. LOL, I think I bought in really heavily to the cultural meditation practices and all the old movies showing some elderly Japanese dude exhibiting remarkable personal restraint. Japan seemed like a bastion of mature Zen masters...

Anyway, no. I was wrong. Japanese people are people too.

There are at least three different ways that I think you are wrong. I don't know where to start.

1) First of all, China is very diverse place. Just from Wikipedia there are Zhuang (16.9 million), Uyghur (11.5 million), Hui (10.5 million), Manchu (10.3 million), Miao (9.4 million), Yi (8.7 million), Tujia (8.3 million), Tibetan (6.2 million), Mongol (5.9 million), Dong (2.8 million), Buyei (2.8 million), Yao (2.7 million), Bai (1.9 million)...

Several of these ethnicities, notably the Uyghurs, face considerable persecution.

2) There is no Universal truth. And if there were, the belief that you (as an modern day Westerner) have the Truth and every other culture is wrong is a little problematic (and cliche). If you believe that you have the Universal Truth... then you have to explain why you think that your culture is correct and all other cultures are wrong.

3) There is a discussion about racism in homogeneous societies (for example Japan). These countries tend to have right wing groups, policies and business practices that exclude minority groups. Again... whether you count this as racism depends on how you define the word.

Which of these should we discuss first?

Please allow me to make it more clear.
1.It is true that several ethnicities used to suffer persecution in ancient China. But, that only happened long long ago, not now in the People's Republic of China. I hear about China has already enforced a series of policies, for example, Regional Autonomy for ethnic minorities, to handle multi- ethnie relations. And ethnic minorities in China even enjoy perquisite given by policies. The chances are that few if there is ethnic discrimination in China in recent decades.
2.I'm not saying that i have Universal Truth while people from other culture are totally wrong. I didn't say that and probably will never say that.
3.Here my question just refers to"racial" discrimination rather than "ethnic" discrimination.

The problem I have in your analysis is that without the outgroup present, there can be no "overt" hostility. Israeli Zionism is based on this thinking, in my opinion. Meaning, without anti-Semitic Europeans in Israel, Jews have no concerns about another pogrom, etc. Naturally, Israel has not escaped anti-Semitism, but there are no pogroms or Kristallnachts. So, if you are defining racism as an abstract concept, fine, but it is really a concept that has always functioned like a degree "in applied science," not theoretical science.

In your upscale area, where there were no Blacks, were any Jews their poor Jews. I don't think so. White upper class Gentiles only accept wealthier Jews amongst themselves, in my opinion, or they lose face. No anti-Semitism, just the social consciousness of white Gentile America. That's the norm. You have taken courses in sociology?