America, the Scapegoat [Youth Correspondent Tryout]

I plan to visit France and other countries in the future. I have read the Graffiti Wall on Rick Steves.com and was both shocked (positively and negatively) and fascinated by the stories that were told on the Minority Travelers Forum. And I’ve spoken to other POC who have travelled or lived abroad and their stories pretty much said that, sure, there is racism in other countries, but America takes the cake.

Wow, this was a great post! It’s easy for them to rag on America, because then they don’t have to confront their own issues. In every place there’s racism, classism, sexism, etc…

 I went to England and then  when I was sixteen  and from my personal experience. England seems to a little more diversity.  When I went to France the majority were  White French with a small percent of people who were African and Middle eastern. While in England I was People of African, Asian( both eastern and South  western Asian)and I meet people of Jamaican descent.

So true.  The Netherlands could also be included in this list.  There are several laws being considered and debated at the present time regarding immigrants from North Africa.  MPs are trying to pass a ritual slaughter ban and definitions that make a third generation immigrant (allochtoon) non-native.   Home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner recently stated that a burka conflicts with good manners much like going nude.  I find that funny considering I live very near a nude beach in Holland.  

The Netherlands also has the awful Zwarte Piet tradition.  If you have not heard of this, look it up.  Piet  is Santa’s Moorish “helper”.  A white Dutch man or woman wears blackface and jester costume.  There are candies, cookies, cakes, and other objects that bear this image.  If you ask a Dutch native about this, he or she will tell you that it is a tradition and not racist in any way.  

It is tempting to treat Europe as a kind of utopia due to the more progressive social policies in some countries, but the reality is much more complicated.  There are over 40 countries in Europe.  Each one has a unique identity that may or may not include prejudice and discrimination toward certain groups.

Please don’t mistake my comments to seem that Europe is a racial utopia. I am very aware that some of the racism in Europe is similar to institutional racism in America. It kills me how the French and other Europeans are quick to criticize America for its racism without looking at their own racism.  I also know that Europe does not have the history of the Civil Rights Movement like we have. But even though we have laws against discrimination, racism is still, by and large, a serious problem in America, even if we do have a man of color in the White House.

Oh, we’re totally in agreement there.  But having gotten the opportunity to visit a LOT of countries in several continents, I can safely say that I’m glad that I’m a black woman in America, and not anywhere else.  I enjoy being abroad and have never been harmed, but I’ve been heckled, mocked, and harassed in ways that would not happen in this country.  (Or at least would only happen under the cover of night or in secret, and not in broad daylight as I walk down the street).
I think that very little that I’ve done would have been possible in those supposedly “less racist” countries.
Black Brazilians who have attempted to organize Civil Rights efforts are also hampered by the fact that many people don’t call themselves “black.”  Self-designation and the failure to politicize race (as in, no one was ever told by law where they could not sit or which bathrooms to use) was an inadvertenly BRILLIANT move in regards to hampering efforts to organize people to fight for their rights. 
The people claiming that Obama’s presence in the White House is proof that we are post-racial are almost never black.  The people who claim that they only see people and not color, are also rarely black.  It is truly a sign of privilege to be able to claim that you don’t see race-largely because race never negatively affects you although many see the fact that they now compete with minorities to be reverse racism.

‘The French in particular hide behind the idea that all one needs is to assimilate in order to be accepted into their society. ‘

I agree 100%. The French are all about the assimilation borg. The other things that strange about the racism here in the South of France (which also has the highest FN membership), is that so many of the people here don’t even ‘look white’ – everyone’s very Mediterranean, hues of Brown from centuries of mixing. It makes no sense to me.

Yeah, as someone with European friends and relatives who was raised in the US, it’s not that one place (to generalize across two whole continents) is better or worse when it comes to racism, but more that it is really different. (My family is from Northern Europe (Scandinavia) but we have lots of friends in France and Germany and I’ve spent time in those places and with people from there, and while there are differences there are also similarities in how race and ethnicity are viewed.) In some ways the European view is more problematic and in other ways the US view is. Being raised with both, I find it’s really hard to explain one to the other. (And certainly as a white person, I have lots of experiences of racist comments of the type white people might make to one another, but I don’t have any daily lived experience of being a POC in Europe or the US).

Also someone who spends a fair amount of time around Europeans (and now Australians) and who is not obviously pegged as an American, the whole “America is racist” conversation is annoying and kind of disturbing, not because the US isn’t racist, but it seems so often a technique to avoid and deflect the need to look at one’s own history or current problems. I once had a roommate from the UK who had never studied British colonialism, but had studied US slavery, and not as a “this started in a British colony” sort of way, but in a “the US is such an evil country” sort of way. It actually kind of made me really angry. 

Great essay and I loved alot of the comments left under it. Right now Western Europeans can remain in denial about the existence of racism in their countries because alot of these countries are still racially homogenous. But as more immigrants keep arriving to Europe that’s when racism will really rear its ugly head. We see it already starting with all the Islamophobic legislation everywhere and with one core aspect of the EU almost being dismantled (the visa free travel between countries).  France and Italy got into a big tiff about the visa free travel legislation because France refused to allow African refugees/migrants fleeing the unrest in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt from travelling freely to France from Italy. Unfortunately I think things will only get worse for immigrants to Europe because of the global economic crisis, population shrinkage of white Europeans, and inevitable change in the cultural/linguistic/religious  fabric of European society. 

I think if you are an African or Arab from one of their former colonies the reaction will be very different than if you are from North or South America.  There is a lot of African literature and experience that shows people of colour are not really respected by lots of Caucasian Europeans.   Of course there are lots of wonderful people there who will try and treat everyone as a full human being.

In that its no different than any other part of the world.

Ooooooh what a post! Thank you!
I am a black woman born and bred in the caribbean but who also had the privilege of receiving all of my higher edication in the United States (a good 11 years in total), and recently moved to the Netherlands as my partner is dutch and for the moment this arrangement makes the most sense for us.  But wow! the Netherlands is quite a country. 
I have experienced first hand in conversation with my in-laws and friends of my partner exactly what Sonita discusses in the article: “We’re not half as racist as in the the US” and while it’s true, even though I live in the East of Holland where black people are few and far between, I’ve rarely felt uncomfortable. In the beginning maybe, but now I think they’re getting used to seeing me at the C1000 or biking by on my way from work.  
Three things stand out to me with the Dutch, in my opinion. Firstly, these people have to sense of the significant role they played in the slave trade. It is news to them that the slave trade multiplied exponentially while they were in control. My father-in-law in one conversation basically said to me: the Dutch were not really involved with slavery, all they  did was build ships. In my best Scooby Doo voice “Burrrr??!!” And why, because they don’t teach this stuff in school, but what they will teach is how the Dutch were so brave in WWII, how they hid Jews and fought Germans soldiers. Ya….ok, that’s nice.
Secondly, I don’t know what is their problem with Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese people….Jeez! The racial stereotyping when it comes to those groups is so ridiculous. I confess, I still don’t know all the dynamics involved to make a strong argument, but what I see with my own eyes suggests to me that these groups are often unfairly marginalized.
And finally, don’t even get me started on Zwarte Piet. Last Christmas I spent a good few weeks mortified and angered by white people in black face. I was unfortunate to be out and about on the day it was celebrated in my town and if one more little white child had stared at me again with that look, I was going to scream. Every Zwarte Piet got a stank look from me. Sorry but Im not interested in this Dutch tradition because it is VERY racist. What is even more angering is the general nonchalance over how Zwarte Piet is perceived. Its their tradition, they’re not harming anyone and they certainly are not making fun of dark people…….Burrrrr????!!! No way my kids will EVER participate in this rubbish.

So I say all of that to say that while they may not think they’re as bad as America, I personally think its no better.  The US is damn racist but people get called on it, and it is talked about, certainly gnificantly more than here.

Regarding the French account of slavery, it is such a gross exaggeration. In principle, I believe it is true that slavery has existed since rock of ages was a pebble and I also believe that it had to be natives that led Europeans to villages to capture slaves and they even participated in the capturing of their own kind, but to suggest that all Europeans did was make the “product” mainstram is ridiculous. They manipulated their “helpers” and took advantage of their weaknesses for their own benefit. Perfect example are the slave castles in Ghana. The Dutch won control of the largest by promising the natives to stop the trade if they helped them dethrone the Portuguese. The natives helped and the Dutch instead trippled the slave trade. Only built ships my a$$!

I love Holland, and I love Europe, but Europe is in denial and as I have said to my partner, there will come a breaking point. The cup is almost full and there will come that drop that will cause the floodgates to open. Me personally, i’d prefer not to be here when that happens.

Sorry for the long post.

One thing you are not mentioning with regard to the situation in Germany is that the young man – though born and raised in Germany – had never applied for German citizenship. Therefore by becoming a repeat offender, he was officially an “undesirable alien”. If he had done applied for citizenship, it would not have been possible to deport him.

The discussion of whether or not and it is attractive for non-ethnic Germans to apply for German citizenship is another story.

Yes, but in THIS country, children born here do not have to apply for amnesty or citizenship, and the children of legal aliens can be included in their parents process up until age 20 or so (I have friends who dropped out of college in other countries and started completely over to join their parents because of this).
You do not give citizenship to “non-Germans” who are born on your soil.  We do.  We would not have deported a child born on in the U.S. as an “undesirable alien.”  He would have been a U.S. citizen and treated like any other juvenile delinquent. 

And that is a HUGE difference that I think very much illustrates that way that Germans, French, and Dutch for example view who is  an “alien” and who is not.  A great deal of emphasis is placed on the false premise that one who assimilates culturally and linguistically will be socially acceptable, and that is simply not true.  Visible minorities remain noticeably marginalized in Europe and treated as “other” and “less than” everyone else.   Then they have a difficult situation where they have only loose ties to their ancestors’ home countries and are forever treated like foreigners in their own.  To claim otherwise is patently false.  I might have a different experience in this country because of the color of my skin, but at no point am I treated as a foreigner.

And the very fact that I could sit in a German company and have to listen to a racist joke about Turkish people speaks volumes. Most racists in this country would not make racist jokes in front of people who are from that group (there of the people in the audience were Turkish or Turkish American). 

I’m not sure if you used the term “attractive” because English is your second language, but again, speaking in those terms is rather unpalatable to my American ear.  i hope that we don’t find any people “unattractive” candidates for U.S. citizenship. 

Actually, the American definitions have not always been as simple as black and white either.  Various immigrant groups had to go through decades of assimilation and had to achieve political and economic power in order to be considered “white.” 

When the Irish can to the U.S. en mass during the Great Potato Famine, they were not “white.”  When the Italians came in the late 19th century, they were not “white” either.  People still debate whether or not Jewish people are really “white.”

You should read the book “How the Irish Became White” to understand just a TINY piece of the evolution of race in this country.
And just because race is not discussed does not mean that racism does not exist.  As the numbers of visible minorities in Western Europe has grown, so has the popularity of right wing political groups who trumpet the protection of local “culture.”  Hate crimes against visible minority immigrants has been an increasing problem ALL OVER Europe.

I do think that Europeans beg off having the discussions over race and think that it somehow absolves them of otherwise racist behavior towards immigrants and people of color. Race matters.  It is an elephant in any room whether you acknowledge it or not.

Whether you discuss it or not, people who do not look  like the locals have a different experience from you. 

One of the reasons we have been able to make any progress in this country is because we had watershed moments in which the white majority could not continue to stick their heads in the stand regarding the treatment of blacks in this country. 

Emmett Till’s mother let his mutilated body be photographed and it appeared in papers all over the U.S.  Other journalists documented children protesting Jim Crow and segregation getting bitten by police dogs and sprayed with firehoses so powerful that they took the skin off.

Until “native” Europeans acknowledge that people come in different colors, people will continue to be marginalized because they are “different.”  You can’t fix a problem that you refuse to admit exists.

I don’t disagree, and am certainly very aware of the development of the idea of “race” as it pertains to the USA – and how it is in some ways similar – but in some ways quite different – in Europe.

We forget, though, that this development in the US took two important things: time and critical mass.

Most European countries were fairly homogeneous till very recently. That’s not to say that there weren’t scapegoats and “othering”. The diverse Pogroms automatically come to mind, but even the influx of Poles to the Ruhr area of Germany after WWII endured their fair share of discrimination.

“Homegrown” Europeans also realize full well that people come in different colors. If nothing else, their history of colonialism taught them that. What they are wrestling with, however, is the notion that (and the question to what extent) those folks of different colors have a right to live in Europe on the same legal basis as local nationals.

And this is a relatively new problem in Europe, only dating back to the ’50s in some cases (see = time). And unlike American blacks who (soon) had no other conscious history than the one they shared in America, this influx in Europe is very diverse (see = critical mass).

This doesn’t mean I don’t take Europe or the Europeans to task for their racism, I’m just aware that they can’t do in 60-odd years what it’s taken the US more than 150 years to achieve.  

America is a country built on immigration; European countries traditionally were not.

Maybe my age is showing, but it’s not been so very long since ago that this situation could have played out in an American company as well. Now there is legal recourse. That wasn’t always so.

Btw: If you read my statement again you’ll see I wasn’t speaking about a person being un/attractive as a candidate for citizenship. I was referring to whether or not the person found exchanging their own citizenship for – in this case – German citizenship to be an attractive proposition for them. As an American citizen myself, I’ve never contemplated making the switch.

What happened in Oslo.  An example.