Basically, the US obsessing about race but refusing to face it’s history with blanket word bans that are frowned upon no matter the context.
The US is clearly not facing their slavery past and instead avoiding the difficult and deeply disturbing vocabulary associated with it.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with the N word used in an history lesson. On the contrary, I think it’s especially important to show younger generations how evil some our ancestors were.
And I say that as a french guy living in a city that was extremely important during the slave trade. We know what our ancestors did, we are not proud of it, we don’t feel responsible for it but we do make sure it’s not forgotten.
The US is clearly not facing their slavery past and instead avoiding the difficult and deeply disturbing vocabulary associated with it.
Certain individuals and organizations are doing this, sure, but then you have the monumental amount of academic research in the humanities into slavery, you have publicly and privately owned historical sites and museums that explicitly teach about the history of slavery in the United States, and you have a non-trivial amount of media depicting the horrors of slavery. It’s not a monolithic cultural rejection in the same way that a nation like Japan has attempted to totally erase any record of its wrongdoings in the first half of the twentieth century.
I think any view that tries to paint the whole US as obsessing over something is extremely incomplete. So extremely incomplete as to be basically pointless. It’s just a lot more complicated than that, with different groups thinking different things are important.
That being said, I really have never visited a country where race is mentioned as frequently as in the US.
In many European countries I have visited it just didn’t seem relevant.
Sometimes it’s not just a cliché or a prejudice against a nation, it’s just how it is.
I have no doubt at least that the peculiar history of the US has shaped the way racial discourse is prevalent or not in that society.
Would you agree that race is more commonly talked about in the US than in the rest of the world?
I think it’s pointless to ask on Lemmy for an accurate depiction of the importance of race in the american society. You may say it’s too reductive but I think it’s a more productive conversation than your comment. I would much rather have someone politely argue and explain that I’m wrong rather than calling my comment “almost pointless” and basically presenting it as some outlandish and prejudiced caricature of the US.
The “your comment is too reductive and therefore is pointless” could probably be applied to every posts in there. Just saying.
I think the anti immigration right wing rise across several European countries rn shows that they’ve just never had the dialogue that the US does about race from being such a melting pot, and as such have ignored racial issues and racism in their societies bc they haven’t had as terrible of a racist past as the US (Jim Crow laws, neoslavery, etc) that they have to confront. Now that the globalized world is causing more demographic change in Europe there’s a loooot more anti-immigration and racist rhetoric. That’s not a coincidence.
bc they haven’t had as terrible of a racist past as the US
You do know the Holocaust happened in Europe right?
Other than that, I do agree with you. Europe is still very racist but we like to think we’re not. Just because it’s less talked about, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Basically, the US obsessing about race but refusing to face it’s history with blanket word bans that are frowned upon no matter the context.
The US is clearly not facing their slavery past and instead avoiding the difficult and deeply disturbing vocabulary associated with it.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with the N word used in an history lesson. On the contrary, I think it’s especially important to show younger generations how evil some our ancestors were.
And I say that as a french guy living in a city that was extremely important during the slave trade. We know what our ancestors did, we are not proud of it, we don’t feel responsible for it but we do make sure it’s not forgotten.
Certain individuals and organizations are doing this, sure, but then you have the monumental amount of academic research in the humanities into slavery, you have publicly and privately owned historical sites and museums that explicitly teach about the history of slavery in the United States, and you have a non-trivial amount of media depicting the horrors of slavery. It’s not a monolithic cultural rejection in the same way that a nation like Japan has attempted to totally erase any record of its wrongdoings in the first half of the twentieth century.
I think any view that tries to paint the whole US as obsessing over something is extremely incomplete. So extremely incomplete as to be basically pointless. It’s just a lot more complicated than that, with different groups thinking different things are important.
I understand that critic.
That being said, I really have never visited a country where race is mentioned as frequently as in the US.
In many European countries I have visited it just didn’t seem relevant.
Sometimes it’s not just a cliché or a prejudice against a nation, it’s just how it is.
I have no doubt at least that the peculiar history of the US has shaped the way racial discourse is prevalent or not in that society.
Would you agree that race is more commonly talked about in the US than in the rest of the world?
I think it’s pointless to ask on Lemmy for an accurate depiction of the importance of race in the american society. You may say it’s too reductive but I think it’s a more productive conversation than your comment. I would much rather have someone politely argue and explain that I’m wrong rather than calling my comment “almost pointless” and basically presenting it as some outlandish and prejudiced caricature of the US.
The “your comment is too reductive and therefore is pointless” could probably be applied to every posts in there. Just saying.
I think the anti immigration right wing rise across several European countries rn shows that they’ve just never had the dialogue that the US does about race from being such a melting pot, and as such have ignored racial issues and racism in their societies bc they haven’t had as terrible of a racist past as the US (Jim Crow laws, neoslavery, etc) that they have to confront. Now that the globalized world is causing more demographic change in Europe there’s a loooot more anti-immigration and racist rhetoric. That’s not a coincidence.
You do know the Holocaust happened in Europe right?
Other than that, I do agree with you. Europe is still very racist but we like to think we’re not. Just because it’s less talked about, doesn’t mean it’s not there.