How Prevalent is Racism/Discrimination Where YOU Live?

[Cadai]

I'm a little unsure if this is appropriate for the MMO forums, and I hope it doesn't become troll-central, but I have seen some good discussions on other topics, and this is where I can personally reach the broadest international audience (being from the U.S.A myself).

I've been taking a college course on Cultural Psychology. Lots of discussions about race, sexuality, and basically anything else that makes people "different" from one another. I've found it really engaging, on a level that no other college course has, but I am curious what people outside Minnesota think about these topics.

One of the things that I personally feel is universal to time and location is that people will always find ways to discriminate between groups. Even if every human on earth was the same skin color, people would be grouped based on eye color, or hair color, or height, or any other number of qualities, and some minority group would always exist and be getting the short end of the stick.

I was reading an editorial in the local school newspaper from a Muslim student who accused the University of being intolerant of Islam. Her reasoning was that all of our school breaks, at this large public university, fall on Christian holidays. If I recall, Islam and Judaism both have high holidays that usually fall outside of standard vacation days for most U.S. schools, so this could have been written by any person of non-Christian faith I suppose.

What really piqued my interest in this story though, was the next day, another Muslim wrote in with a rebuttal. His argument was essentially: 1) Most professors are understanding in the matter, assuming you discuss your absence beforehand and do any missed work ahead of time, and 2) In any other part of the world, minority groups are much more oppressed than in the United States, especially in a relatively liberal state such as Minnesota.

That second point is what I am truly interested in. Is racism/prejudice/oppression really worse in other areas? I see what's going on in the Middle East, and obviously some places are notorious for their oppression, but I never hear anything about racism in England, or France, or other Western European countries. So is it more of the same, the subtle racism that permeates the United States, or is it more tangible and out in the open?

I'm not accusing the United States of being overtly racist, or that every citizen is somehow racist, but simply that if you ask most folks "Are there still forms of prejudice that exist here today?" most will answer "yes". It's mostly a systematic issue, as opposed to open acts of discrimination.

Edit:

I'm seeing a lot of varied responses so far. To the people on the extreme ends of the racism spectrum:

If you feel there is NO racism where you live, because there are so few minorities in your town, how do you think the 1 or 2 minorities that live there feel? They could feel isolated, outcast, or threatened by being surround by a different culture. If you don't think there is "real" racism, just an occasional silly joke that doesn't mean anything, would you tell this joke to the minority it victimizes?

To those who are embracing racism or complaining about their immigration problems, would you say what you wrote in here directly to a group of minorities? I run my mouth now and then about minorities, but I do so in private because I would be embarrassed if anyone heard me saying some of the things I do.

Overall the responses from European residents echo the sentiments we feel about immigration and minorities here in the U.S.

[cFortyfive]

I was reading an editorial in the local school newspaper from a Muslim student who accused the University of being intolerant of Islam. Her reasoning was that all of our school breaks, at this large public university, fall on Christian holidays. If I recall, Islam and Judaism both have high holidays that usually fall outside of standard vacation days for most U.S. schools, so this could have been written by any person of non-Christian faith I suppose.

That's really ridiculous - just saying.
Anyways maybe you have heard of Thilo Sarrazin. I guess his book being such a great success could be counted as some kind of discrimination.

[Maxpowr]

I have an international studies minor and the general motto with society is "favor the majority but respect the minorities". Secular schools in the US do allow students and teachers to take off for other religious holidays. Since the US is a predominately Christian nation, they give off the major Christian holidays. I don't see the big problem with that at all. There will always be prejudices based on stereotypes. It is human nature to judge based on appearances. Bigotry is an entirely different beast that is due to misinformation (or a superiority complex).

[Badpaladin]

It's pretty damn nice where I live. Can't say I've seen any serious racial bigotry going on here, my town's environment just seems to support a wide variety of cultures. We have a massive farmer's market each week, large businesses like Wal-Mart aren't allowed to build within the city limits so as to promote local businesses, where a lot of racial minorities can thrive by providing wide varieties of services, be it food or jewelry and everything in between. Lots of cultural variety if you go downtown.

People here are just very accepting in general. It's gonna be a sad day if I have to move away for a job.

[Cadai]

I have an international studies minor and the general motto with society is "favor the majority but respect the minorities". Secular schools in the US do allow students and teachers to take off for other religious holidays. Since the US is a predominately Christian nation, they give off the major Christian holidays. I don't see the big problem with that at all. There will always be prejudices based on stereotypes. It is human nature to judge based on appearances. Bigotry is an entirely different beast that is due to misinformation (or a superiority complex).

This is how I feel. It makes sense from a scheduling perspective to schedule breaks around the majority of students, whom are Christian.

I once heard someone say that (in their opinion I suppose) although the U.S.A is equally or more accepting of minority groups than any other nation, it will never be good enough as long as some discrimination still exists. I don't think that's the right way to look at it, perfection will never be attainable. I think this is starting to catch on a little more, differences should be celebrated, not ignored.

[Deleted]

Excessive affirmative action at the official level has lead to generally higher racism amongst normal people. It's ok if an immigrant rapes someone, I mean, I can't risk being considered a racist and convict him now can I?

I really wish they would take away all rights from "minorities" and instead consider everyone equal under law.

[Badpaladin]

Excessive affirmative action at the official level has lead to generally higher racism amongst normal people. It's ok if an immigrant rapes someone, I mean, I can't risk being considered a racist and convict him now can I?

I really wish they would take away all rights from "minorities" and instead consider everyone equal under law.

Affirmative action actually pisses me off a lot. My school is under heavy criticism for being "too white". Really?! I guess I'm just fucking weird or something, but I think schools should be criticized for their quality of education and how they handle their budget, not how many non-whites they can fit in their student body. And don't get me started on admissions. Even playing field, no matter where.

You don't deserve a "push" because of your skin color. If employers are racist, then mandate that race be not included in any kind of application of any sort. A job application should merely be your credentials and a well-written resume, not some complicated mess of your heritage. Fuck that. Let your workers find out where you're from when you're hired and they're getting to know you in the workplace. Etc.

Hurrr. Got me all riled up.

[ryoukthebloodelf]

Only racism is see is how my jewish friend always makes jewish jokes. For example he wrote an entire essay on bagels

[furtivegain]

I'm from Minnesota and I believe racism is alive here, and I think you really need to escape your Utopian shell.

Minnesota is just as quick as other parts of the US to jump on the racism bandwagon. We are the location of the largest mass execution in US history. We did happen to lynch a bunch of black people in Duluth based on accusations of rape in the early-mid twentieth century.

Currently there is a large trend of hate towards the Somali population (which is the largest outside of Somalia). I think you'll see a few things blowing up here pretty soon, especially with those flash robbing mobs that are popping up and showing up on camera.

We've been at the forefront of anti-racism to a degree, such as Humphrey's push and us being the first state to have AA type laws.

But I hardly see us as being a state with no racism, there's A LOT of closeted racism here.

*I would argue with you on a point you make.*

You say that discrimination would take place if everyone had the same skin color. That's probably true. But, very little to no discrimination takes place when a population is homogenous. Japan, and Scandinavia are shining examples (well, Scandinavia before their influx of immigrants). Japan really only kept ethnic Koreans and Chinese down (but that goes way back, thousands of years). I guess Norway/Sweden laid into the Sami pretty hard, but they were/are slightly Orient.

[Ms Andry]

Affirmative action actually pisses me off a lot. My school is under heavy criticism for being "too white". Really?! I guess I'm just fucking weird or something, but I think schools should be criticized for their quality of education and how they handle their budget, not how many non-whites they can fit in their student body. And don't get me started on admissions. Even playing field, no matter where.

You don't deserve a "push" because of your skin color. If employers are racist, then mandate that race be not included in any kind of application of any sort. A job application should merely be your credentials and a well-written resume, not some complicated mess of your heritage. Fuck that. Let your workers find out where you're from when you're hired and they're getting to know you in the workplace. Etc.

Hurrr. Got me all riled up.

I agree that that is pretty lame, but well.... my GF is able to use it because she's Peruvian even though she looks and talks as white as can be and it's really helping us get by.

It really is reverse racism or something (I'm not good at political things) but yeah, I can't really say it didn't help us out, even though I feel like they should help everyone out.

[Deleted]

I was reading an editorial in the local school newspaper from a Muslim student who accused the University of being intolerant of Islam. Her reasoning was that all of our school breaks, at this large public university, fall on Christian holidays. If I recall, Islam and Judaism both have high holidays that usually fall outside of standard vacation days for most U.S. schools, so this could have been written by any person of non-Christian faith I suppose.

Sometimes I think people are just looking for something to get offended over. <.<

[Badpaladin]

I agree that that is pretty lame, but well.... my GF is able to use it because she's Peruvian even though she looks and talks as white as can be and it's really helping us get by.

It really is reverse racism or something (I'm not good at political things) but yeah, I can't really say it didn't help us out, even though I feel like they should help everyone out.

I wouldn't really call it reverse racism. It's a good concept because, let's face it, given our history we've been some pretty messed up bastards.

Here's the thing though...my generation grew up with civil rights. My generation is one where it's common to have women be the providers and fathers be stay-at-home. My generation wasn't taught from a young age to despise mexicans, blacks or asians. My generation wasn't raised to believe homosexuals should be drawn and quartered. Obviously the last one isn't related to affirmative action, but I think most people get the point. My generation grew up making friends without a racial barrier. In fact, kids that were racist were "the weird ones" and generally shunned by the rest of the community. I think that speaks volumes about how much we've grown.

Yet later in life, is it fair that racial minorities can get a step up because of their skin color? Hell no it's not. Not only is it utterly wrong, but it also is capable of brooding contempt. Poor white kid works his ass off in school, applies for a job and doesn't get hired because the employer only had a space for a racial minority? How the hell is the white guy supposed to respond to that?

"Oh, I'm sorry. You meet the qualifications, and we'd hire you if we were legally allowed to. Alas, we need to meet our government-mandated quota of X amount of non-whites so we don't look like we're racist."

And then people act surprised when a person who normally had no inclination toward racial bigotry all of a sudden has contempt for non-whites? It's wrong. Affirmative action acts as a good "we're sorry for all the utter shit we've done in the past", but its time is gone. We're no longer a naturally racist country anymore.

[Kaneiac]

I wouldn't really call it reverse racism. It's a good concept because, let's face it, given our history we've been some pretty messed up bastards.

Here's the thing though...my generation grew up with civil rights. My generation is one where it's common to have women be the providers and fathers be stay-at-home. My generation wasn't taught from a young age to despise mexicans, blacks or asians. My generation wasn't raised to believe homosexuals should be drawn and quartered. Obviously the last one isn't related to affirmative action, but I think most people get the point. My generation grew up making friends without a racial barrier. In fact, kids that were racist were "the weird ones" and generally shunned by the rest of the community. I think that speaks volumes about how much we've grown.

Yet later in life, is it fair that racial minorities can get a step up because of their skin color? Hell no it's not. Not only is it utterly wrong, but it also is capable of brooding contempt. Poor white kid works his ass off in school, applies for a job and doesn't get hired because the employer only had a space for a racial minority? How the hell is the white guy supposed to respond to that?

"Oh, I'm sorry. You meet the qualifications, and we'd hire you if we were legally allowed to. Alas, we need to meet our government-mandated quota of X amount of non-whites so we don't look like we're racist."

And then people act surprised when a person who normally had no inclination toward racial bigotry all of a sudden has contempt for non-whites? It's wrong. Affirmative action acts as a good "we're sorry for all the utter shit we've done in the past", but its time is gone. We're no longer a naturally racist country anymore.

Dear god, somebody that I actually agree 100% with.

I find affirmative action to be kinda innately racist in itself, it's special treatment, just not negative and as long as it remains, it's going to show people "hey, there's still a barrier between races!"

[Deleted]

Dear god, somebody that I actually agree 100% with.

I find affirmative action to be kinda innately racist in itself, it's special treatment, just not negative and as long as it remains, it's going to show people "hey, there's still a barrier between races!"

And all it results in is growing dislike for the other "race" under the surface.

I believe the law should be "race-neutral", same goes for gender neutrality.

[Deleted]

I live in Sweden and i never notice any discrimination in my private life at all.

[cFortyfive]

There's a problem with people called "gypsies" in the Czech Republic, but they're not really gypsies anymore. They were forbidden to live as nomads around the year 1920 so they settled down, but their culture isn't used to it, and it causes trouble. They barely send their kids to school so most of them are pretty stupid. They often beat up the others kids. BUT the biggest problem is they don't work. At all. They just abuse the social support system and steal. If anybody accuses them, they call out "racism racism omg" but the truth is they really are just a nuisance and their existence is completely pointless.

There's barely any trouble with racism though, people just ignore them. Of course there are some nazi and other groups that beat them up and stuff, but they are rare. The usual folk just complains about them at home and doesn't care about them, but in fact it's really frustrating, and there really is no humane solution to this problem.

I'm talking about 99% of them, of course there are exceptions.

Well you have those people everywhere. You can ask about everyone living in certain areas here what they think about the immigrants from lebanon here or the kurds but I don't think that they say this because of real racism. At least for those there would be a good solution - Switzerland already did it. I still think that following that model would make it so much easier for the rest of the immigrants.

I wouldn't really call it reverse racism. It's a good concept because, let's face it, given our history we've been some pretty messed up bastards.

Here's the thing though...my generation grew up with civil rights. My generation is one where it's common to have women be the providers and fathers be stay-at-home. My generation wasn't taught from a young age to despise mexicans, blacks or asians. My generation wasn't raised to believe homosexuals should be drawn and quartered. Obviously the last one isn't related to affirmative action, but I think most people get the point. My generation grew up making friends without a racial barrier. In fact, kids that were racist were "the weird ones" and generally shunned by the rest of the community. I think that speaks volumes about how much we've grown.

Yet later in life, is it fair that racial minorities can get a step up because of their skin color? Hell no it's not. Not only is it utterly wrong, but it also is capable of brooding contempt. Poor white kid works his ass off in school, applies for a job and doesn't get hired because the employer only had a space for a racial minority? How the hell is the white guy supposed to respond to that?

"Oh, I'm sorry. You meet the qualifications, and we'd hire you if we were legally allowed to. Alas, we need to meet our government-mandated quota of X amount of non-whites so we don't look like we're racist."

And then people act surprised when a person who normally had no inclination toward racial bigotry all of a sudden has contempt for non-whites? It's wrong. Affirmative action acts as a good "we're sorry for all the utter shit we've done in the past", but its time is gone. We're no longer a naturally racist country anymore.

Well despite the fact I don't really buy that sun shining the latest generation is so world open thing the slightest bit I totally agree on the latter. Forcing such things upon people seems weird to me. Goes for minority quota as well as special treatment of females.

[furtivegain]

I live in Sweden and i never notice any discrimination in my private life at all, not even in school. (Except for "Fjortisar" they are a bit hated for their looks(same goes for Emos)

And it was all fine untill last years election. A group called "Sverigedemokraterna" (Sweden Democrats) got ~6% of the votes and got 20/349 votes in our government. What they stand for is pure racism. Of course they dont say that out loud but anyone with an IQ higer than 50 can easily see through thier "pretty words". For example, they want to stop the immigration.

I think its just horrible... I lost alot of respect for the people of Sweden that day...

The view on gays/bisexuals/transexuals on the other hand is accepted by many and more and more people are starting to accept this. We even have a big festival for people with different sexualites.
So im positive on this point atleast!

Why is it racist to want to stop immigration?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's stopping all immigration that is not racist. Now, if the focus becomes "deport all non XXXXXX effective immediately" then I'd see your point.

[Spitfyre]

I live in Puerto Rico but I was born in Israel, so I have been exposed to an abundance of cultural diversity. In Puerto Rico there is a little bit of racism against Caucasians, but that might have a little to do with what I feel is a need from the Puerto Rican people to separate themselves from the US (as Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the US.) I would be a fool to openly declare that I am myself completely racism-free, being from Israel I do feel some frustration towards Arabs in general and feel like it can get to me; however I have plenty of muslim and arab friends who I try not to involve in my political beliefs.

I am really happy btw with how, so far, this thread has remained troll free. It's refreshing to read without having to filter out the useless thoughts that burden these forums sometimes.

[Deleted]

Where I live in South Yorkshire (Northern England) there is definitely some racism and prejudice, but its not as bad as some people think. The only large minority group near where I live are the Poles, who are often accused of 'stealing work' from white Britons. Although frankly, unemployment is depressingly high partly because a lot of white people simply can't be arsed to work. These beliefs are not, I think, held by a majority nor are they acted upon. Other than that, there are not many immigrants or other minorities here (there's a large Asian community in nearby towns that isn't present where I live, partly because its a slightly less built up area) so racism is usually based on fear, misunderstanding or whipped up media frenzy rather than any personal experiences of beliefs.

In terms of sexism and homophobia, I assume that where I live levels of tolerance on both is slightly lagging behind what you would expect in modern England. Neither are particularly prevelant though. There was a Gay Pride thing in town a few months back, so tolerance is improving. Women are not strictly housewives, but particularly with the working class men are almost always the head of the household and earning the most money. Again, I've noticed gender divides have improved markedly in my generation.

So in summary its almost what you would expect from a medium sized town in Northern England, just toned down a little bit

I forgot to mention, BNP and UKIP (British National Party and UK Independence Party, 2 fairly right-wing parties and BNP is heavily against immigration) are together as popular as the Conservatives here and more popular individually than the Liberal Democrats. This sounds distressing (and it is) but it reflects ignorance and apathy as much as maliciousness. The constituency is a Labour (socialist) stronghold so the smaller parties will never take power, and only 1/3 of people actually voted.

[Deleted]

Why is it racist to want to stop immigration?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's stopping all immigration that is not racist. Now, if the focus becomes "deport all non XXXXXX effective immediately" then I'd see your point.

It was just an example. They have alot of bad stuff written in pretty words. People even go as far as to compare them to Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers Party. (those are a minority)

It would take some time to find info. But i could look it up if you want?