Racism

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2018-07-20, 18:20

Prowler wrote:Seems to be a majority thing, so I'm guessing you can also talk about Japanese privilege in Japan, for example?

It's more complicated than that. I still retain a great deal of white privilege even when I'm in a country like Japan. I definitely don't get the same treatment in East Asia that a Black man with otherwise identical characteristics would.
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Re: Racism

Postby Prowler » 2018-07-20, 18:23

linguoboy wrote:
Prowler wrote:Seems to be a majority thing, so I'm guessing you can also talk about Japanese privilege in Japan, for example?

It's more complicated than that. I still retain a great deal of white privilege even when I'm in a country like Japan. I definitely don't get the same treatment in East Asia that a Black man with otherwise identical characteristics would.

Is that the type of thing that makes a lot of White guys have "yellow fever" and assume Asian women are gonna worship them as soon as they land in Asia? Because some seem to genuinely believe that.

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Re: Racism

Postby md0 » 2018-07-20, 18:25

In the rest of the world we have dominant-ethnicity privilege, and it can be easily identified.
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Re: Racism

Postby Prowler » 2018-07-20, 18:28

md0 wrote:In the rest of the world we have dominant-ethnicity privilege, and it can be easily identified.

I've only been to one non-European country: Tunisia. And that was in 2001 already, I think.

So no, I have no clue what it's like to be a European tourist in Africa or Asia. Could you give me examples?

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2018-07-20, 18:33

Prowler wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Prowler wrote:Seems to be a majority thing, so I'm guessing you can also talk about Japanese privilege in Japan, for example?

It's more complicated than that. I still retain a great deal of white privilege even when I'm in a country like Japan. I definitely don't get the same treatment in East Asia that a Black man with otherwise identical characteristics would.

Is that the type of thing that makes a lot of White guys have "yellow fever" and assume Asian women are gonna worship them as soon as they land in Asia? Because some seem to genuinely believe that.

There's a common stereotype here that Asian women are going to be more docile and accommodating. And, of course, when they do travel to these countries, most of the women they meet work in hospitality (hotels, resorts, bars, massage parlours, etc.) where sucking up to customers is a necessary part of the job, so that just plays into their biases.
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Re: Racism

Postby Prowler » 2018-07-20, 18:41

linguoboy wrote:
Prowler wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Prowler wrote:Seems to be a majority thing, so I'm guessing you can also talk about Japanese privilege in Japan, for example?

It's more complicated than that. I still retain a great deal of white privilege even when I'm in a country like Japan. I definitely don't get the same treatment in East Asia that a Black man with otherwise identical characteristics would.

Is that the type of thing that makes a lot of White guys have "yellow fever" and assume Asian women are gonna worship them as soon as they land in Asia? Because some seem to genuinely believe that.

There's a common stereotype here that Asian women are going to be more docile and accommodating. And, of course, when they do travel to these countries, most of the women they meet work in hospitality (hotels, resorts, bars, massage parlours, etc.) where sucking up to customers is a necessary part of the job, so that just plays into their biases.

It's funny because this reminds me of something... ever notice how when it comes to interracial couples black man and white woman is a lot more common than the other way around? Just like it seems to be the case for white man and asian woman being more common than the other way around. I have no stats to prove this, but I'm not the only one that has observed this.

Ok, obviously, two people of completely different ethnic backgrounds can love each other dearly, not arguing that nor am I doubting the people involved in such relationships love each other; but I wonder why this happens. I wonder if the media or biases and other factors might sub-consciously influence this

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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2018-07-20, 20:37

Prowler wrote:It's funny because this reminds me of something... ever notice how when it comes to interracial couples black man and white woman is a lot more common than the other way around? Just like it seems to be the case for white man and asian woman being more common than the other way around. I have no stats to prove this, but I'm not the only one that has observed this.

From the recent Pew Survey on race and marriage: "24% of recently married black men were intermarried, compared with 12% of newly married black women. There are also notable gender differences among Asian newlyweds: Just over one-third (36%) of newlywed Asian women were intermarried in 2015, compared with 21% of recently married Asian men."

Naturally, there are reasons for this rooted in racial stereotypes. In the same way that Asian women are stereotyped as being more subservient, Black women are depicted as being more belligerent (i.e. the "angry black woman" stereotype, part of a larger phenomenon known as misogynoir. This drives both white men's unwillingness to marry them and Black men's increased willingness to marry non-Black women.
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Re: Racism

Postby linguoboy » 2018-07-20, 23:14

BTW, did anyone follow the recent flap between Trevor Noah and the French ambassador? It illustrates several of the points made here.
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Re: Racism

Postby Aurinĭa » 2018-07-21, 1:38

linguoboy wrote:
Prowler wrote:A lot of things Americans consider racist Europeans do not really. Blackface for example.

What do Black Europeans think of blackface? I know that it's widely condemned in the UK, where Blacks make up 3% of the overall population.

It differs greatly. I assume you've heard of Zwarte Piet; there are those who love the traditional portrayal and those who hate it.

Prowler wrote:ever notice how when it comes to interracial couples black man and white woman is a lot more common than the other way around?

On a similar note, ever notice how in fictional media portrayals of black couples the woman is usually lighter-skinned than the man?

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Re: Racism

Postby md0 » 2018-07-21, 6:11

Prowler wrote:
md0 wrote:In the rest of the world we have dominant-ethnicity privilege, and it can be easily identified.

I've only been to one non-European country: Tunisia. And that was in 2001 already, I think.

So no, I have no clue what it's like to be a European tourist in Africa or Asia. Could you give me examples?


I wasn't thinking about tourists, and tourists rarely experience the true social dynamics of a country unless they go out of their way to do so.

My point about dominant ethnicities, instead of whiteness, is necessary if you want to understand how much whiter individuals, say Georgians, Bulgarians, and Romanians, than, say Cypriots, are exploited for their labour (often extracted by force) in ways that are harsher than the conditions even the most disadvantaged Cypriots face.
Cyprus, like the US, was (re)built by the labour of marginalised people, in the case of Cyprus, in the 80s-90s by Eastern Europeans and South-Eastern Asians. In the case of the US, by the enslavement of Black people regardless of their ethnicity.

Or how Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite being racially identity, are locked in an unequal power dynamic. Or how both consider themselves superior over Arab migrants, when again they are racially near-identical.

It's likely that race-based racism will be a useful analysis tool for countries like Cyprus in a decade, when we see second generation children of migrants enter the public sphere - when they are no longer temporary-residing labourers.
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Re: Racism

Postby Prowler » 2018-07-21, 19:05

md0 wrote:
Prowler wrote:
md0 wrote:In the rest of the world we have dominant-ethnicity privilege, and it can be easily identified.

I've only been to one non-European country: Tunisia. And that was in 2001 already, I think.

So no, I have no clue what it's like to be a European tourist in Africa or Asia. Could you give me examples?


I wasn't thinking about tourists, and tourists rarely experience the true social dynamics of a country unless they go out of their way to do so.

My point about dominant ethnicities, instead of whiteness, is necessary if you want to understand how much whiter individuals, say Georgians, Bulgarians, and Romanians, than, say Cypriots, are exploited for their labour (often extracted by force) in ways that are harsher than the conditions even the most disadvantaged Cypriots face.
Cyprus, like the US, was (re)built by the labour of marginalised people, in the case of Cyprus, in the 80s-90s by Eastern Europeans and South-Eastern Asians. In the case of the US, by the enslavement of Black people regardless of their ethnicity.

Or how Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, despite being racially identity, are locked in an unequal power dynamic. Or how both consider themselves superior over Arab migrants, when again they are racially near-identical.

It's likely that race-based racism will be a useful analysis tool for countries like Cyprus in a decade, when we see second generation children of migrants enter the public sphere - when they are no longer temporary-residing labourers.

But I am asking about examples of how White people "have dominant ethnicity privilege in the rest of the world, and it can easily be identified" as you said. As interesting as what you said about Cyprus is, that wasn't my question.

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Re: Racism

Postby md0 » 2018-07-22, 5:13

You misunderstood what I said then.
In the rest of the world we have dominant-ethnicity privilege, and it can be easily identified.

I said that outside the west, instead of white privilege, dominant ethnicity is what is is used to construct racial categories. Your interpretation doesn't make sense, because I am not white, so why would I say "we, whites, have..."?
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Re: Racism

Postby Prowler » 2018-07-22, 15:06

I thought you were White. Nevermind.

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Re: Racism

Postby md0 » 2018-07-22, 15:57

Yeah, it wouldn't make sense if that was the case, because my point was that there are no Whites outside the western sociocultural context.
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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-07-22, 17:06

So Anglo-Cypriots and Anglo-Indians aren't white?

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Re: Racism

Postby Antea » 2018-07-22, 17:10

What is being white? :hmm:

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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-07-22, 17:12

To me, in most contexts, it simply means being of European origin.

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Re: Racism

Postby md0 » 2018-07-22, 17:20

vijayjohn wrote:So Anglo-Cypriots and Anglo-Indians aren't white?

If Anglo-Cypriots are white, then they are a marginalised community in Cyprus (when they return to Cyprus that is, I don't know how they are perceived in the UK), so their white privilege doesn't buy them anything.

I don't know about India. Perhaps because of the more heavy-handed colonisation by the British, compared to Cyprus, race is constructed more in line with the western standards.

----
To generalise my point a bit: I believe that different societies pick different characteristics to construct racist hierarchies.
The west mostly went with "scientific racism". In this part of the world (from Balkans to Levant), it's religion and/or language.
Those things aren't immutable. I can see how, if Cyprus ever starts being more integrated with the EU (which currently doesn't happen, because we are too far away), maybe we will pick up the western type of racism.

Edit: I guess we can call our type of racism the Ottoman type.
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Re: Racism

Postby Saim » 2018-07-22, 18:00

vijayjohn wrote:To me, in most contexts, it simply means being of European origin.


According to that definition, I'm white. :P

(I'm not white).

The west mostly went with "scientific racism". In this part of the world (from Balkans to Levant), it's religion and/or language.


I'd say that traditionally different parts of the West also had somewhat different understandings of race, which has changed due to the US exporting a lot if its racial categories and stereotypes along with other aspects of its culture.

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Re: Racism

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-07-22, 18:20

md0 wrote:If Anglo-Cypriots are white, then they are a marginalised community in Cyprus (when they return to Cyprus that is, I don't know how they are perceived in the UK), so their white privilege doesn't buy them anything.

Interesting, that sounds like Vietnamese people of American descent.
I don't know about India. Perhaps because of the more heavy-handed colonisation by the British, compared to Cyprus, race is constructed more in line with the western standards.

In India, my understanding of the situation is as follows: "Anglo-Indian" in India is a broad cover term for anyone of European descent who was born in India, even if neither of their parents are of British descent at all. Many Anglo-Indians in India see themselves as British and/or are monolingual in English even if they otherwise don't differ significantly from the surrounding population and even though there are plenty of (non-Anglo-)Indians who are also monolingual in English. This, combined with the fact that their very existence is the direct result of British colonialism, has apparently resulted in them being sometimes unfairly discriminated against. However, at least some Anglo-Indians do publicly self-identify as Indian on some level and/or have had a much easier time surviving in Indian society (for example, some of this guy's literary works have been adapted into Hindi movies and a TV series and even made it into the school curriculum. His works are in English AFAICT, but he also speaks Hindi). Outside of India, however, they are more likely to be seen as Indian.
In this part of the world (from Balkans to Levant), it's religion and/or language.

Are you sure about that? These people speak Romanian and don't seem to identify with a religion different from the surrounding population, but they're not considered Romanian, and Romania is also part of the Balkans.


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