Hey there, I was wondering if I’m the only one who feels like this or not.
So I grew up thinking that we people all look different and never had a concept of something such as “white” and “black” people.
But especially in the last years I noticed more and more that a lot of people make such a big thing out of whether someone is “black” or “white” and what their ethnicity is.
It feels like it’s to the point where they make this define their core identity as if it’s very relevant how people look and how bright/dark their skin is as if this changes their personality.
It’s like so many of these people constantly bring this up to the point where it’s brainwashing and they literally even use racial slur as slang that was used in the past to devalue and enslave people based on their skin tone.
Since I experienced this it made me very uncomfortable since I never had this concept before and now I constantly have to obsessively think about it and feel like it’s manipulating me and these people still bring it up all the time.
I think this is driving me insane cause I never would think about humans so strongly because of their skin or something since it simply isn’t relevant and it just feels wrong but I can’t escape it since so many people continue to make such a big deal out of it.
Edit: To the people saying people have different advantages because of their skin, I’m fully aware of that and I wasn’t intending to debate that. My question was primarily about if other people have the same uncomfortable feeling that many people differentiate between people based on their skin and make such a big deal out of it (so more a personal feelings question than a generale debate about why it exists) because imo in a healthy society this shouldn’t be the case. But in my opinion the fact that we continue this behaviour instead of changing it is the exact reason we have racism and the issues of inequality based on someone’s skin in the first place. We need to start to change at some place and not just give up on it. If we continue to see people as “black” or “white” instead of just seeing them as “people” and only look at the past we will never end this issue. Ignorance is certainly not the solution. I found these videos where I think Elon Musk and Morgan Freeman are pretty much hitting the nail on the head.
The first half of your comment is an acknowledgement that you don’t understand American culture and the second half is you casting declarative judgement upon it.
I don’t know which one of your minds to respond to.
Why would you judge it as something good to separate people based on how their skin looks like?
Good? I don’t know that you have to judge it as good, but it’s easy to understand WHY and also that is serves a purpose in the US it may not serve other places.
People naturally separate into like groups as a matter of being fundamentally tribal, even though these are barriers we generally try to break down. The point though is that in the US there is often a cultural difference when splitting between white or black, just like there’s a cultural difference for “grows payot sideburns”, “dresses flamboyantly or effeminately as a man”, “speaks Spanish at home”, etc, etc. Sure, people are just people and we don’t need to point out differences maliciously, but we ARE different and those are often things we like to celebrate. At the root, we want our differences to be a positive not a negative, but by and large we aren’t changing our cultures anymore to blend into one big homogeneous, colorless group.
In most of Europe, black and white (or brown or purple or whatever) isn’t a meaningful cultural distinction. In the US it is. Now whether or not we should police language or even whether or not the situation is sometimes uncomfortable… those are different topics altogether.
I really thought you weren’t American, because of the way you see the situation. I’m looking at that dumpster fire from the outside, and can’t help but think about many of the same questions you seem to have. Sounds like you might have grown up in a multicultural environment, where modern hate media and polarization sounds completely alien to you.
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LOL. Sneaky move.
If you’re one color and you’re living in a culture where you’re surrounded by a majority of people of a different color who don’t treat you as one of them, then you’re going to identify more with the community of your own color.
There isn’t such thing as “one color” with human skin. We all have different shades and tones by nature. People naturally look different. Your skin even changes depending how much you’re in the sun and it doesn’t make them a different person. It’s the same with eye and hair color. Imo that’s what makes us humans beautiful that we look different and don’t all look the same. This is really not hard to see
Yeah but that’s not how the majority of racists see it. If you aren’t pure white they don’t like you. Period.
Yea and that’s the point I’m trying to make that this racism makes me feel bad. I thought I find some people that are also fed up with it like me
The victims feel worse.
You are arriving at the same conclusions as Critical Race Theory in America, just from a clearly outsider’s perspective.
Your uncomfortable feelings quite directly align with the truth that “race” is not a historical or natural human element, but rather an entirely subjective construct built and enforced by white supremacists
infollowing the 1500s and perpetuated through today.However, systemic issues as deeply embedded as white supremacy cannot be addressed without systemic solutions. One such solution is solidarity. People of color, especially in a system as deeply entrenched in racism as America’s, will often need to rely on one another in order to overcome racial barriers. Indigenous, Black, Asian, Latine, mixed, etc. folk do not have the same privilege as White folk do as individuals or as minority groups, and so they strategically find ways to create spaces and communities that prioritize the needs of themselves and their neighbors. It’s kind of like the queer community. If gay people had never been demonized, sure! There would be no need for careful interrogations of identity and sexuality. But the fact is that LGBTQ+ people and POC have both been abused and mistreated for centuries. The process of healing those wounds requires a huge degree of intentional community and commitment to understanding marginalized identities.
I am guessing that perhaps 80% of the “making a big thing” of race you see is this forging of community in solidarity. Now, racism is of course still a thing, so when you do see racial language that is centered around putting down, limiting, or otherwise devaluing lives based on race, feel free to call it the fuck out and feel as uncomfortable as you like. But! If you even see a glimmer of mutual aid, solidarity, and a recognition and redressing of historical denigration of non-white life, take a moment to pause and listen. For centuries race has been exclusively under the thumb of white individuals, so it might be time to let people of color have a moment at the reigns as we move towards healing.
You need to go further back than just 1500.
Western European thoughts on this were heavily influenced by the Ottoman and Byzantine empires.
Which were in turn based on the Roman empire.
Which were in turn based on the Classical Greeks, particularly those of Athens.
To exclusively blame western Europeans for this, when they were nearly wiped out by the Roman empire colonialism, is very short sighted.
I’m not doing blame at all, I am pointing out the general span in time at which our modern conception of “race” came to fruition, which happens to generally fall between the 1500s-1660, at which point “race” became near irreversibly and totally entangled with concepts of supremacy and the slave trade.
Thank you for understanding and please let this continue to be a space of transparency and kind discussion. We absolutely do not need to throw attacks of short sightedness and men of straw in this debate of already highly sensitive topics. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you have about my positions but I will not respond to further misrepresentations.
But you arent doing that.
You cannot do that fairly without pointing out, for example, the brutal and vicious racism where the British compared the Irish and the Scottish to Apes and to be different, inferior races.
These dehumanizing tactics used by the British to assert dominance occurred roundabouts the Irish Potato Famine (1845-52) which is very much in the window of 1660-present. So your narrative 100% corroborates my statement that the term “race” came to full fruition in circa 1660.
Europeans also do racism against other Europeans; I have no problem accepting this reality. Racism just has a really long and complicated history such that it’s impossible to list all its manifestations in a single comment. It’s weird and frankly annoying that you expect me to.
There are three distinct concepts I think you’re confusing:
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The idea of biological races. Yeah, any given culture’s definition of “race” is historically contingent and biologically incoherent. I think you get that and are assuming that’s all there is to it.
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Race as a correlative of ethnicity. There are some ethnicities whose members tend to have darker skin colors or other physical traits, and people conflate skin color and ethnicity. Ethnicity (as a set of cultural institutions) is meaningful to many people, and some of them interpret a disregard for “race” as a disregard for their ethnicity, or as an attempt to suppress ethnic identity.
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Race as a social construct. When the above ideas permeate a society, people with different skin colors experience systemically different treatment—even in the absence of actual biological or ethnic distinctions. So people with similar skin colors can be grouped on the basis of those shared experiences, and the different behaviors resulting from those experiences feed back into society’s conceptions of biological race and ethnicity. And it doesn’t suffice to counteract such social constructs by ignoring them—social behavior is taken for granted unless people make a conscious effort to reevaluate it.
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USAmericans have a heavy focus on heritage due to their history (wiping out nearly all of the local population). It is thus a great melting pot of people who left their own behind and had to start again from scratch. Going to another country where everybody’s from somewhere else led to them trying to find out how they’re unique and looks and heritage are the easiest to focus on. Combine that with a good chunk of their population being descendants of slaves (African, Asian, and European) and you will have a bunch of people focusing on that. Now factor in that blacks are the third biggest ethnic group.
The same didn’t happen elsewhere to the same degree as in the US because there are millennia of history and culture in other places or the population is more homogeneous. Go to Poland you’re surrounded by Polish people whose forefathers might’ve come from the very same region, spoken the same language, adhered to the same values and customs, suffered very similar fates, and shared the same traditions. They will try and stand out differently e.g through their accent, dialect, money, and so on instead of skin color and heritage.
It is a complex, multi-faceted issue, but those are my impressions of it. I agree that the focus is annoying, especially when copy-pasted abroad as if history doesn’t matter there, but I’m sure the more you read about US history, the more you’ll understand.
No, you’re not the only one. It makes me feel uncomfortable as well, especially if it’s white people making a huge deal about being white or others not being white. That’s creepy AF, as this has been used historically as a really bad reason/excuse to mistreat others.
Yes I agree. But why can’t we stop calling people “white people” in the first place? Why can’t we just acknowledge each other as people/human beings?
America is literally founded on racism. First white settlers came and gave smallpox to anyone who looked different than them. Then they imported dark skinned people and made them literal slaves. Then half the country waged a war against the other half over the right to keep them as slaves. There was even a period of time when Italians and Irish weren’t considered white as a means to discriminate.
There is a lot more context than just skin tone, and unfortunately white supremacy was never curb stomped out
True, many aspects about humans are really sad
gave smallpox to anyone who looked different than them
It’s not like they had a choice in who did/didn’t get it.
Nope. Sadly.
“We gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital,” Captain William Trent, a militia captain, wrote in his journal. “I hope it will have the desired effect.”
https://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/amherst/lord_jeff.html https://allthatsinteresting.com/smallpox-blankets
I agree 100%. The answer is that people are dumb and like tribalism so they keep it going. Anyone that thinks perpetuating division will result in progress is an idiot, and frankly identity politics are a distraction from real issues like poverty
Great that someone can relate and I’m not the only one thinking this!
I truly can’t tell if this is a perfect textbook nostupidquestion or someone being disingenuously obtuse.
You’re right. Identity politics is itself what fractures the civil polity, working against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization, and perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference.
Though not “black” and “white”, I know that some black people do not like being considered African American. There is a difference between someone who has family come over through slave trade, and someone who came to America willingly from Africa.
I can understand why they might feel that way, they had family sold into slavery by others in their countries. They’ve lived on unable to express themselves for generations, and are culturally different from people from their ancestors homelands.
So being black and calling them African American may not acknowledge what they see as clear differences between the two.
This reminds me of this interview of Elon Musk and Don Lemmon where I think Elon is hitting the nail on the head. And the irony being Elon is more African American than Don Lemon since Elon actually is African and Don just is American.
You should read up on the history of racism in the US. A lot of places it isn’t talked about, because we are the land of freedom. /irony
