Racism is everywhere, and often far more dramatic and in your face than what you are describing. What you are describing is still wrong! And was made illegal for a reason. But anyone coming from Asia, Africa, South America, and most of Europe is going to just shrug their shoulders at what you just described.
I have yet to see even the most progressive Western European country that didn’t have a huge hate against Roma/Travelers, or Indian community that didn’t have some serious Muslim/Hindu friction, or Chinese vs Non-Chinese, etc. And let’s not talk about Eastern Europe, or African tribal/clan warfare!
The issue here is that the more you talk about all the wrongs and specifics, the more you highlight finer granularities of identity, the more you base things on some small group, the more it splits everyone, the more different groups/factions end up getting created, the more finger pointing happens, etc.
The more people start thinking of us vs them, their identity and how they are different/split from everyone else, etc. and past grievances, the more they start thinking about retribution, control/exclusion, etc.
For an incredibly evolved version of this, check out a (brief summary of [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India].
It ends up in a nearly infinitely Balkanized hellscape where the more someone knows about someone else, the more likely they will end up enemies than friends. And eventually, nearly everyone is an enemy with their neighbors, and sometimes even themselves.
If we try to focus on what should happen, and the best common identity we can, and punish divergences from that instead, at least we can be mostly going in that, someone similar direction. And have at least some idea what common elements we can be friends on, and what we shouldn’t talk about lest we become (likely) enemies.
It is far from perfect, but at least it has some cohesive identity and direction, rather than infinite levels of infighting. Nothing is perfect.
Together, we can be strong. Alone, we are weak and easy to pick off.
The issue the US always has had, is that really the only common theme between all its different groups, is the desire to make money, and be left alone to do what they want.
But then when times get tough, inevitably some groups want to make everyone else do what they want and/or take everyone else’s money.
You don't even have to go this deep. Each and every friend of mine who's German of mixed heritage (Black, Asian) has struggled with people who can't imagine a German not being white. As in you, a German born in Germany, get addressed in English every now and then by strangers, because if you're not white, you have to be a tourist.
It’s like “Bangladesh.” Literally, “country of the Bengalis.” If you aren’t brown with vaguely southeast Asian features then you’ll always be considered a foreigner. That’s not “racism.” That’s the nature of nations that arise from being the homeland of specific ethnolinguistic groups.
Ethnocultural groups like germans and Bangladeshis have ancient shared history, language, and culture. When you say that people should assume that anyone who looks any way should be assumed to be German, that erases Germans as a distinct ethnocultural group. It’s completely different than saying the same thing in a country like America.
My family has been in Bangladesh since before anyone can remember, likely back before the language split from vernacular Sanskrit. My parent’s generation fought the Pakistanis to establish the country as a homeland. You cannot, out of a desire to avoid offending a small minority, erase that shared history and reduce being Bangladeshi (or German or Japanese) to a legal designation established with some paperwork.
Not sure why you find that surprising. Being German is not written on your face. Since most Germans are white, most people will make the correct assumption that if someone is not white, there is a stronger likelihood that they are not German. The same happens in Japan with mixed race kids who get treated like foreigners even though they were born and spent their whole life in Japan. That's just how brains work.
If you had no prior assumption you could assume that nobody is who they seem to be and that would make things very complicated for everyday life.
A bit of an aside but I find it very condescending by fellow Germans to address people immediately in English if they don’t speak perfect fluent German - give the people some chance to learn and practice the language for god sakes
I'm white and spend a lot of time in Korea. I can get around in Korean. Do I take offence when a Korean talks to me in English first? No, it wouldn't make sense. If they switch to English when they notice that my Korean is imperfect? Neither. I'd have unrealistic expectations about my fellow humans if I blamed people for easily explainable interactions. Better to presume good intentions than to take offence at the banality of such interactions.
If 9 times out of 10 English is actually the correct choice, then it probably makes less sense to do this.
In fact, in Finland the largest ethnic minority (Swedish) on average do much better than ethnic Finns. Sami minority got discriminated admittedly, but not violently persecuted.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/06/08/how-did-sweden-sterilise...
https://nordics.info/show/artikel/eugenics-in-the-nordic-cou...
Literally the Vikings [1].
> in Finland the largest ethnic minority (Swedish) on average do much better than ethnic Finn
Yes [2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Norwa...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish%E2%80%93Novgorodian_...
As you say addressing non-white people in English does not happen very often. Why would it? There are so many immigrants that 30% of interactions in department stores supermarkets etc. are with non-white people.
When you are stopped by a security guard in a store, he is invariably of Arab origin.
Why? Are we talking population or space? On population, 1900 US population was 75M, current Germany population is 85M.
If we are talking space - what does that have to do with it? And even in 1900, Americans were far more clustered in cities in the Northeast/Cali/etc, so probably not terrifically more area than current footprint of Germany.
Currently we are seeing countries in Europe go through a moral panic over immigration that is probably not terribly different than the US in 1900. I've seen some historical stats that something like 80% of US urban residents in 1900 were foreign born or 1st generation. NYC alone we've had immigrants as ~35-40% of our population from 1900 thru the tightening of immigration laws in 1920s, after which it dropped to 18% by 1970. The percent has rebounded since then and is back around 35-40% again.
So nothing that is going on in Europe is terribly different or unique, and not being a melting pot is a choice that most of Europe has made by being ethnostates.
Their globalist friends want more immigration to drive down wages and increase rents.
This is nothing at all like in the U.S. The U.S. is huge and I'm green with envy when I see YouTubers owning whole estates in Idaho to make their private aircraft videos. Such things are completely impossible in Germany.
Then there is the cultural aspect of course. The U.S. has been an immigration country from the start. Europe had diverse hand highly advanced cultures in music, paintings, literature etc. Frankly, since the Americanization following WW2 neither Europe nor the U.S. have produced anything comparable.
What you call ethnostate, which is a derogatory term, other people call culture.
If you want to see some European racists, go to a soccer/football match between national teams. Or ask a Northern European what they REALLY think about the south. Or even a Northern Italian about Southern Italians. Or ask almost any of them about Eastern Europe or especially Roma.
In many cases immigrants bring their own racism to the US that white Americans are completely unaware of. One of the only direct "racism in the workplace" complaints I've been party to in the workplace was Indian on Indian. Former team lead was fired and replacement was an Indian guy, from one particular caste/region I don't recall. Anyway he immediately tried to due-diligence the caste/region of the only Indian on the team. The rest of us had no idea what was going on until our Indian colleague rapidly found another job and accused him on the way out the door.
I've even seen some crazy resentment in the workplace between patriotic CCP PRC enjoyers vs Taiwanese coworkers "you aren't Taiwanese, it's not a real country".
It's not to excuse any past or present faults in the US, but only to raise the relative performance to other countries&group / how achievable the utopian Star Trek vision is. Our technology and living conditions have evolved rapidly, but HumanOS remains the same. We move ever forward, but its slow.
One issue that often escapes our attention when we focus on group identities and historical grievances is just how much we collaborate across groups. When a white woman (Katalin Karikó, Hungarian) worked on mRNA, the end results of that research were used by all groups and social identities. We collaborate across much more than we like to acknowledge.
But, I fail to see how your lengthy diatribe about modern day racism, most of what I agree with, disputes my comment about reparations. Those are totally different things and that's what I'm pointing out.
After all, there are practical problems of who is eligible, how long, and who gets to decide that.
Not only that, but at that point there is now strong financial incentives to be in specific groups. At least while the money flows.
Not everyone can be eligible, or it loses all meaning. Someone has to pay, or it can’t be funded.
Someone has to be officially the victim, and officially the offender, or such a program can’t actually exist. Etc.
These aren’t modern problems either, and this isn’t ‘modern’ racism, whatever that is. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Alcatraz]
Tying it back together, though, this is why I'm disappointed that there is so much backlash about DEI programs. I know first hand from my time at a Fortune 50 company that the lack of black people employed there was partially due to the fact that they had never recruited at any historical black college ever. When they hired a Chief Diversity Officer, we did (I went there). And there were good candidates.
I successfully recommended for hire the first black employee at the satellite office for that company. That (candidates being pushed that don't look like the current workforce) just simply doesn't happen when it is all white guys. We generally find other people that look like we do to recommend and hire, especially when we aren't aware of it. I'm sure Asian men suffer from the same myopia as I do. It doesn't stop unless I really think about my default behaviors.
That feels like the right way to do reparations. That's the best way, IMHO, to build generational wealth.
But, it's falling apart because angry white men like me are complaining that they are cut out of opportunities. I can understand, as a 51 year old white male I've seen how hard it is to find work the last few years. It's brutal. But I've always gotten most of my jobs through my personal network of other mostly white men that worked in tech. If you don't have that network because you aren't in a group heavily represented in tech, then your chances are slim even if it truly is a meritocracy.
At some point (when growth is not infinite), there are a limited number of positions after all.
Or did everyone evaluate the candidate without awareness of their color, and come to the decision?
Same as someone who was black, but otherwise qualified, would have if someone discriminated against them, yes? Like the folks who never got considered because they went to the wrong college. (Though notably, you apparently did get hired despite going to that college correct?)
Why shouldn’t those ‘angry white dudes’ be angry? Really?
Anymore than a black dude be angry when the same happens to him?
Because they ‘already had enough’? When should they stop being angry then? When they no longer have enough? Who decides that? And why should they let someone decide that for them?
I’m not saying either choice is good - I’m saying this is why making those choices this way fundamentally causes the problems it does.
But I’m also under no illusions that will change anytime soon.
The strong do what they will while they are strong, and it’s a fool that lets someone make them weak enough they are no longer strong eh?
And the weak will do what they can to be strong, and it’s a fool who lets themselves get talked out of that too.
The difference is if ‘us’ means people with a common nation, or a common color, or gender, or sex, or religion.
In your personal situation, how long would it take of not actually having opportunities before you’re willing to get angry enough to do something? Or lost potential income due to better opportunities you could have had, but didn’t.
Some people are less patient, and more violent than you likely are. And apparently, they just won the elections.
Frankly, they often do.
If you are a white or Asian boy who likes computers, and have been playing with code ever since you were little, you get rejected at college admission with a higher score than a black kid. Why has anything to do with skin color, programming doesn't get any easier if you are white. Math problems are just as hard no matter how rich are your parents. If you achieve some level of understanding, it should not be wiped away by skin color, especially to redress a wrong that was made generations ago and not your fault.
I hope we can build some common identity as “world citizens” or whatever- but the trend seems to go towards _more_ balkanisation and more division along class/wealth/privilege.
The ‘black community’, ‘Irish community’, ‘catholic community’. And those do often work - frankly, it’s often the only thing that works when that community does have some specific interest.
It’s for lobbying and other pressure tactics, yes?
Civil rights is a specific example of a universal interest: equality before the law. The rise of the Nazi party is an example of people forsaking their own interests for a facade of collective interest that covered over the personal interest of a few leaders - Nazi Germany was extraordinarily corrupt, and of course ruined the lives of and killed most of the people who it claimed to exist for the interest of.
It is interesting that you bring up "Catholic interests," because the Church is naturally opposed to concepts like "Irish interests." The Church doesn't want its members to divide themselves along ethnic or other lines because that would detract from their Catholicism. It is no accident that the Nazis - the most famous example of an "ethnic interest group" - had to destroy or subsume every other kind of organization to exist.
> Humans are tribal. [...], I don’t think just pretending we’re all one [tribe] will work. [...] I hope we can build [a] common [tribe].
