Yeah, my experience has been that a lot of countries whose residents tell me racism is an American problem and we should stop trying to project it onto other societies happen to live in countries with huge problems with it that just aren’t explicitly spoken about in the same terms.
I had a Brazilian friend tell me race is not all that important in Brazil and that he’s tired of Americans assuming it is. I periodically have to ask him, “Do you read Brazilian news, bro?” and send some links that make it blatantly obvious that racism is alive and well down there.
You also just get people who have bought into very pervasive attitudes in countries that justify/explain away racism when it’s encountered.
I had a Brazilian friend tell me race is not all that important in Brazil and that he’s tired of Americans assuming it is.
Are you sure this person is Brazilian? This is the country that abolished chattel slavery in 1888, a couple decades after America. They still have whiteness as a standard of attractiveness there, too.
Or Albanians, Romanians and other people with a history of migration (at least in Italy).
That said, the racist dynamics in Italy are still different from those of a country with a much different history, linked to slavery and colonialism (thankfully Italian empire was a ridiculously failed attempt), with a different racial distribution in population.
African migrants are for example a relatively new phenomenon. We are now at the 2nd generation give or take, and I have the feeling things will normalize ad they did for balcan people, as long as right-wing governments will not sabotage immigration on purpose to maintain it as a problem and gather votes…
Gypsies may be a counterexample, that’s true. African migrants are an example: America’s very fabric is (traditionally) about black vs. white, even moreso than the things it’s conventionally associated with. Europe, on the other hand, just thought of Africa as the colonies for a long time, and Africans arriving in great numbers is a new thing.
It’s not less racist, but it’s racist in a very different way.
I mean, they’re right. The European version of racism is much more inattention and inexperience-fueled. This is arguably an example.
That is not my experience in Italy.
Just ask a European about gypsies or African migrants. It will get very racist very quickly.
Yeah, my experience has been that a lot of countries whose residents tell me racism is an American problem and we should stop trying to project it onto other societies happen to live in countries with huge problems with it that just aren’t explicitly spoken about in the same terms.
I had a Brazilian friend tell me race is not all that important in Brazil and that he’s tired of Americans assuming it is. I periodically have to ask him, “Do you read Brazilian news, bro?” and send some links that make it blatantly obvious that racism is alive and well down there.
You also just get people who have bought into very pervasive attitudes in countries that justify/explain away racism when it’s encountered.
Are you sure this person is Brazilian? This is the country that abolished chattel slavery in 1888, a couple decades after America. They still have whiteness as a standard of attractiveness there, too.
Or Albanians, Romanians and other people with a history of migration (at least in Italy).
That said, the racist dynamics in Italy are still different from those of a country with a much different history, linked to slavery and colonialism (thankfully Italian empire was a ridiculously failed attempt), with a different racial distribution in population. African migrants are for example a relatively new phenomenon. We are now at the 2nd generation give or take, and I have the feeling things will normalize ad they did for balcan people, as long as right-wing governments will not sabotage immigration on purpose to maintain it as a problem and gather votes…
Gypsies may be a counterexample, that’s true. African migrants are an example: America’s very fabric is (traditionally) about black vs. white, even moreso than the things it’s conventionally associated with. Europe, on the other hand, just thought of Africa as the colonies for a long time, and Africans arriving in great numbers is a new thing.
It’s not less racist, but it’s racist in a very different way.