Hi there, first I hope I don’t offend anyone since this is not meant to be a bash on anyone and it’s just reflecting my personal feelings. But I assume I will get attacked anyways.
So I’m a 21 year old from Germany and we don’t have many people with darker skin shades here but the few I know who also grew up here are just like any other German and talk/behave the exact same way as every other German and also seem to be perceived like a normal German. Maybe some people might naturally be kinda surprised by people having darker skin since it’s more rare but I feel like people just perceive the different skin shade the same way they perceive different hair and eye color.
But from America I noticed that many people constantly call them “black” or “white” people and make a big thing about it as if they were a different race (and of course we scientifically know that there’s only one human race). And it seems like many Americans identify with that so much that they separated and developed different cultures, behavior and way of talking solely based on their skin shade even though they’re born and raised in the same country.
I know that there was slavery and segregation in America based on exactly this in the past but this is over and we’re living in 2025 now which is why I wonder if this is still appropriate and contemporary.
Because to me personally this kinda feels like America is still stuck in those slavery/segregation times and it makes me feel very uncomfortable every time I hear this “black” and “white” stuff which is becoming constant since American media is everywhere. And I feel like this is also influencing people overseas like here where especially younger people in cities adopt this American mindset and I’ve even seen some using the N-Word etc.
When I grew up I never even had a concept of “different skin colors” because it just felt normal that people naturally look different and I still think like this about people and see it the same way as people having different hair and eye color but I can tell that these racist ideologies are doing something to me.
Americans are racist, and dumb. One plays into the other, and the politicians like it this way because its easy to manipulate.
Does America have racists and dumb people within its borders? Absolutely. What country doesn’t?
Is America the most racist country? Absolutely not. Is it the dumbest country? Also no.
Nowhere is perfect. Despite all its flaws America is still the number 1 immigration destination so clearly we must be doing something right.
Got a feeling that number 1 spot ain’t lasting much longer, bud. Look at who won. I’d say we’re plenty racist and stupid to let grifters pick our pockets when they promise to kick out all the brown people. Like I said, downvote me. It doesnt make it not true.
Number 2 spot is Germany. All of the immigrants they have ever had would need to double while not a single soul immigrated into the US for the next ~30 years.
That may be true but we are still going down because people wanted deportations and cheap eggs. Thats the truth, we chose fascism so we could deport immigrants.
*illegal immigrants.
We still have many immigrants coming into the country legally every day.
Just illegals? Are you sure about that? Really sure?
Yeah… Neither of those disprove my comment. The first article is about temporary legal status being given by a previous administration. Key word there being temporary. I’m not going to argue the morality or legality of that whole situation but those appear to be special exceptions.
Second article just proves that ICE is being racist and doing their jobs of checking peoples legal status. I did only skim the article but it didn’t appear to report that any of them actually got deported. Just detained and questioned.
Thank goodness Germany has resolved racism. I’m glad the AfD has thoroughly reformed itself. No wonder they’re getting more votes these days.
I can be downvoted to oblivion, doesnt make it not true. I didn’t say Germany was perfect. I said America wasn’t.
I know that there was slavery and segregation in America based on exactly this in the past but this is over
It is not…
There’s still a lot of racial bias in housing, even by name before the landlord/realtor meets the potential client.
its just not done with the explicit approval of the government, however that is unfortunately likely to change soon.
Even after the civil rights movement, all the Republicans and a lot of the Dems opposed integration. And we’re still paying for it.
America is still very much racist. The Trump regime is particularly racist. They seek to codify their unspoken biases.
Scientifically race does exist in the sense that humans with certain genotypes can present certain phenotypes but we are all the same species. I don’t think you can really quantify it at the individual human level though without ending up with all this old fashioned racist concepts coming into play, i.e. someone with 1/8 asian hertiage is “still asian” or whatever.
Race seems to be a bigger deal in the states because it is more politicised in terms of voting blocs. That’s not to say we are immune to it in Europe like people with south asian heritage often vote for particular candidates in the UK for example.
I think one major factor in perceived differences is that our larger cities in Europe tend to be more genuine melting pots with fewer segregated areas. There are probably other reasons like having a stronger sense of civil society too.
tl;dr: race is real in a fuzzy sense but not particularly important. Europe has a different culture to the USA in some key senses.
There’s already a better word to describe genetic clusters - ethnicity/ethnic group, which is a real scientific concept defined by shared genealogy. Race has pretty much always been defined by someone’s sociopolitical relationship with the British upper class, and has changed over time to accommodate varying definitions of, ex. “white”.
I suppose my point was that phenotypes are real regardless of what you call them. Totally agree that the normative sense of the word “race” is a social construct.
racism is an accepted reality in the US. racism is a denied reality in Europe.
My balls, you fucking eurotard. Saying that Europe isn’t racist is like saying the sky is green.
Bro lacks reading comprehension 💀
I think you might need to read their comment again. They’re saying both places are racist, but Europeans tend to deny that racism exists.
Learn how to read
You’ve completely missed the point of the comment you’re replying to.
This is a major oversimplification.
Americans made a huge mistake tying race to identity so hard and it’s incredibly cringy from outsiders pov. Europe is taking more of a colorblind approach and while it still needs a lot of work it’s much more sustainable and really the only viable path forward. World where race == identity will never be sustainable.
Pretending to be colorblind doesn’t make one colorblind. Americans have largely adopted an ideology of anti-racism. That is, acknowledge that racial biases exist and keep the door open for healthy conversations. You may try to ignore the fact that racial biases exist but doing so only perpetuates them.
We can disagree here. I’m convicned that colorblindness is the only way to approach this and we can see in practice that American approach doesn’t work with your government throwing nazi salutes and banning words and constant race war looming over the entire country.
Maybe if you took the colorblind route you wouldn’t be where you are right now.
The colorblind route is how we got here. It has allowed white supremacists to operate under our noses while the people pretending to be colorblind give them the benefit of the doubt when they do their racist dog whistles. You see it even now with some of my countrymen trying to say Elon is just being autistic when he throws out a Nazi salute. We’ve been taking the colorblind route for decades and the only way we’ve been able to fight back is to listen to the minorities that are here and build our communities around celebration of our differences. I’m not going to treat everyone the same because the reality is that we are not all the same. Everyone has their own quirks and experiences and neuroses. I treat everyone how they want to be treated because that is how I respect their individuality. Everyone has the potential to teach me important things I don’t know.
the colorblind route js how we got here.
Umm big doubt on that my dude. US ties identity to race so hard that colorblindness is not even a term in your social dictionary and thats why you’re all so mad when people call you out cause you simple don’t even understand what a colorblind mentality is.
The definition of color blindness I’m using is ignoring race and treating everyone the same in spite of it. If you’re using a different definition, tell me what it is and I can engage you based on that. If you’re just going to be condescending to me, I might as well just not engage with you at all.
Thats fair, have a good day then 👋
go to one soccer (football) game.
“colorblind” lmfao, that’s rich
Way to cherry pick one variable and miss the point entirely lmfao
Some great videos on the subject:
Franz Fanon vs Identity Politics
I think someone can be culturally X, legally X, ethnically X, etc. for any country X. I have met people from European backgrounds who grew up solely in Japan and would consider themselves Japanese, though some often wrestle with issues, both internal and external, around that since they eyes of someone seeing them almost always see only “other” first. They hold Japanese nationality, are culturally Japanese, but not ethnically Japanese. Then again, ethnicity is its own thing as well.
It’s a complicated topic and I’m certainly no expert on it. I’m a white guy of mixed western european ancestry who grew up in a town where that was the majority (and had no shortage of anti-Semites and racists, as I would find out as I got older). I’ve just been trying to learn along the way. I’ve been living in Japan for the past decade and see some of the small things that cause extra hurdles for those of foreign backgrounds (ignoring outright racism in that; just little things that only work for people whose names are <= 8 characters, require documentation only Japanese people can ever get, etc.) People who don’t know me will often just use one of the words for foreigner or outsider and clarify with white person if that’s ever necessary.
I guess I have a question: If you found a child with “darker skin shades” who was lost and you needed to create the most accurate description possible to the police over the phone to help them, what would you use to describe them (until the police would arrive and obviously see with their own eyes)? I think I would personally pick the closest colors for everything I could and not care about any sense of political correctness.
There have been attempts in the US (and probably elsewhere) to replace “black” with “African American” or other similar things. Ask an American Indian what they want to be called. Some would say “Native American” though others reject that because they are older than any conception of America and are not native to that nation. Others will be OK with “first peoples/nations” (often used in Canada, I think), “aboriginal”, or just “Indian” since that is the term they grew up with.
A bit of humor to close off with: sometimes people from the US will travel to the UK or elsewhere and, rather than using black to describe just the skintone of the person, will say “African American”… to people who often have never set foot there and certainly aren’t citizens.
So I’m a 21 year old from Germany
When, as a people, or a nation do unprecedented crimes and evil, it rings out through history, carried by the parents and given to the children. Racism is still a topic for discussion because it’s still a problem. I’m sure you understand.
I’m sure you understand
Idk I spent a few years in Europe and, to be honest, I don’t think so. You ask a European about gypsies or Muslim immigrants and all of a sudden they’re mask off. But “it’s different” so it’s okay
Because Americans conflate this with race when it’s not the skin color that causes pain for Europeans but the cultural aspects. Clearly Islam and gypsy cultures are much more than race right?
“okay we’re not racist, were just discriminate on other things”
Nah it’s perfectly fine to dislike some cultural traits and actions. That’s the key difference where Europeans try to control actions and Americans try to control the entire race as if it’s some homogeneous unit, as if black people in Louisiana are suffering the same issues black people in LA are. Its just stupid. Colorblind is the way.
TL;DR
its not the labels that cause the divide. it’s the divide (the racism built into the economy and laws and communities) that causes the trauma that requires us to heal within our sub-communities. But the sub-communities are not originally homogenous; i.e. sometimes the only thing sub-communities have in common is the label/slur that “Whites” assigned us and the trauma that goes with that.
Also, for anyone who’s actually lived in the US, you know we strenuously avoid using labels about someone when talking TO that person. There are very strict social rules for which labels to use when/where/with whom. Some people break those rules, then republicans elect them as president. FYI in case its not obvious, OVER HALF of US people hate Trump (and Elon). Why are they in power, you ask? Search “usa electoral system minority rule”
I appreciate you bringing this uncertainty to the community and open yourself for discussion. I understand how it can be upsetting or feel dissonant to see US people who sometimes/often brag of being the standard for freedom and equality, but still use divisive-sounding language. And worse yet, for the outward face of the US to become even more of an international symbol for fascism and oppression than ever.
many people outside the US, and even people inside the US, get confused by seeing us talk a lot about Black, White, Asian, Latinx (historically called ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic’), Indigenous. They often think the labels themselves actually caused divides in US. I’ve heard this interpretation often from young people, mostly Gen Z. This also used to be a part of the “mainstream” (aka white liberals’) mindset in the 1980s/1990s in the US. I’m not white nor black and I also believed that to some level back then.
We still are always looking for new names/terms to unite with each other regardless of sub-groups. That’s how we get terms like BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) which definitely is inconvenient without abbreviation.
Sociological research actually showed that US society was and still is divided even when we don’t use the labels. Its actually our laws, our economic practices, and “certain” groups’ superiority/inferiority mindset (psychological complex) that divide US people.
The laws, for example, sometimes create a lot of extra steps to register to vote. And when those extra steps are analyzed, it turns out it makes voting extra difficult for poor people (like that our voting days are on Tuesday, a work day, so poor people can’t always get a day off, then can’t vote). In many areas of US, the low income group is mostly one or two races, like Black and Latinx. So politicians who hate those groups can secretly make it hard for them to vote by creating voting obstacles that affect only poor people.
The economic system helps to keep people poor by creating barriers for getting house loans or starting businesses. The “Red Lining” system used to categorize land/houses in Black neighborhoods as unlikely to repay loans, so people from there (Black people) or people trying to buy homes there were not given loans. Even if banks wanted to loan to the person, the Gov’t refused to give the bank insurance. But what actually determines the ability to repay a loan? Income or assets, right? But income was usually ignored and Black people were assumed to have no assets worth money.
As for the people, when I say “superiority/inferiority mindset”, I mean that certain US pink-skin straight neurotypical people have become accustomed to feeling comfortable in a very specific way, and accustomed to not being criticized for that refusal to change, and refusal to bring other races into their lives and into their comfort zone. Research on this area found that when we don’t discuss race openly with some type of labels, children would observe and absorb parents’/adults’ implicit feelings of discomfort around other races, even if their parents were civil rights believers/activists. Then while growing up, the child believes themselves to be “non-racist” (because of the thinking “my parents/role-models were non-racist!”) while still having this discomfort. If the person realized they had this subconscious conflict and discusses it with friends of other races and in a mindset of humbleness and desire to learn, they could usually manage the discomfort and be an anti-racist (different from non-racist) without conflicted identity. However, if the person doesn’t recognize the internal conflict and eventually expresses their discomfort emotionally directed at people of other races, they would predictably face backlash. Then because they identify themselves as a non-racist, they believe the backlash was unfair and feel that they have become the victim of “political correctness” or “the woke agenda”. This scenario is EXTREMELY common in the US and, I would bet, an analogous one is common in most western countries. Particularly regarding immigrants, refugees, Roma people, or Jews.
I call the group “certain US pink-skin straight neurotypical people (PSSNTP)” because those of us with other skin color (BIPoC), other neurotypes, other sexuality have not ever had the opportunity to become that level of comfortable in the context of the entire US society that includes “straight white” people. BIPoC and LGBTQ are able to be comfortable in sub-groups that share our uncomfortable experiences. We call those groups Black, Gay, Asian, Pacific Islander, Neurodivergent, etc because other terms are more awkward/inconvenient, but also due to having bad experiences being called by those names or called more malicious synonyms, and otherwise treated badly by the PSSNTP and those bad experiences unite us in our sub-groups. Yes, some non-white, non-straight, non-neurotypical have also oppressed others. They were never the majority of oppressors, and they were hoping to hide the non-majority aspects of their identity by “going with the flow”. For what it’s worth, Empathy is also a minority identity characteristic among USA straight males, when it reaches the level of choosing discomfort for oneself in order to improve life for others.
Lastly, about "White"ness. As you mentioned, there are no “races” in the human genome except the human race. As far as I know, the term “white” referring to caucasian people was first spread widely during North American (NA) slavery in order to unite poor caucasians (British & other Europeans in debt slavery as “indentured”) in NA with rich caucasians (mostly british aristocratic slave-owners) in order to motivate the poor to report African slaves who had escaped. They also motivated the poor caucasians to side with rich by hiring them as a slave patrol unit, with higher salary etc. This is the origin of the entire concept of Police (for the whole Earth, as far as I know) as an enforcement unit under civilian authorities and separate from military.
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Southern Slave Patrols as a Transitional Police Type | Office of Justice Programs - ojp(dot)gov - https://archive.ph/OSLBv
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The Invention of the Police | The New Yorker - https://archive.ph/CkfpI
Even Police themselves admit it
- National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund - Slave Patrols: An Early Form of American Policing - https://archive.ph/5cXfv
Love how your reply is both respectful/compassionate and informative. Well done.
thank you very much!
ima say this, I never really liked all of the “politically correct ways” to refer to race. It always urked me when people would refer to me as “A person of color” or Bipoc. Like honey just call me Black, cus thats what I am. 😭
I feel like theres this weird fear amongst some white people that if they say the wrong thing while a black person is present, that they’re life will be RUINED. Shit I even had a piano teacher express to me what was basically White guilt one time. She felt ashamed of herself for just being born white, and I remember just feeling absolutely awful that whatever the hell was happening in the media right now made her feel that way. I dont care about reparations or idk- whatever tf BLM the organization is babbling about (Bad organization btw, they’re shady. DO NOT give them your money.) I just want people to treat me like a person :/
I dont want my white friends to “fear” for me or any of that shit (all I have is white friends lmao) Race is only relevant once I start cracking jokes about myself. I hate that in this day and age, there is this expectation that just because I’m black, that I MUST care about certain things. We tried moving away from pigeon-holing ourselves and only made it astronomically worse. You ever hear jokes about “Oh- White people always do this-” or “Black people don’t do that”? THAT WAS THE GATEWAY to segregating ourselves all over again, and we perpetuated it! We AS BLACK PEOPLE, saw ourselves as certain way and made it so that its an expectation TO be that certain way. Do you have any idea how many weird looks I get when I tell another black person I’m Agnostic? The response is almost always “Nah what?? Your black and you don’t go to church or any of that? Thats crazy…”
TBH a lot of the bullying I got through my entire life was by other black people, and that was when I realized that even we have prejudice against our own people. Dude- WE STEREOTYPE OURSELVES!! All the time! So much so I got a whole ass list of things Black people arent supposed to do ENTIERLY CURATED from comments I got by other black people.
Black people dont:
-dress goth
-dress emo
-obsessed over horror
-talk about bugs or etomology
-Wear Japanese Kawaii fashion
-wear hoop skirts(?)
-Talk “white”
-research about mental health
-TALK about mental health
-tell others they have mental health issues
-Engage in “Heathenism”
-talk about shakra’s or Astrology (even though a massive portion of that community tends to be black chicks but whatever)
-Wear cat ears
-wear furry tails
-become furries/wear fursuits
-listen to Hyperpop/Vaporwave/1930’s music/noise music/ anything that has to do with new-age alternative/experimental -music
idk, I hope me going off about this wasn’t offensive or some shit, but what I’m basically trynna say is white people aint the bad guys a lotta the time, deadass we can become our own enemy, and that goes to any Gay, Trans, Black, Mexican, etc etc. But the only people to experience that typa shit would have to be people in those communities, and a lot of the time, we get scared to actually speak out about that stuff out of fear of being ostracized by own own people simply cus we don’t fit some sort of Behavioral quota.
if there was anyone or anything I could 100% point to as being an enemy or crooked, its the rich 1% People wanna always be like “oh the rich old white men…” Honey, theres black people there doing the same thing. Like be real with me, do yall got any fuckin clue how many Rappers just blow up and become stupid rich. And then what do they do with all that wealth?? Spend it on dumb shit the same way a privileged white boy would, and not a single fuckin bit goes back into donating to the black community let alone bettering the already shitty conditions we live in. If anything most of em make the stereotyping WORSE being acting as some kind of figurehead for the Hood. If a black person gets stupid rich stupid quick, 9/10 they’re going to become a terrible person and not give a rats ass about poor people. They’re rich, why would they need to?
I used to be so scared of the hood growing up, I live in a mostly white neighborhood full of friendly old white ladies. But the music- Oh my god it made it seem like if I breathed wrong, I was gonna get shot or gangr8pd INSTANTLY. Bro, the hood is full of so many friendly communities. People will walk over to each others houses n shit ALL THE TIME and have cookouts and little community gatherings. So much so its a meme about the shit we do at cookouts. I still sometimes face prejudice now, but its mostly from younger black kids who are just naive asf. But fr, the Hiphop industry and the shit they churn out DOES NOT HELP, it just worsens the idea that we black folks gotta act hard and be hard and shoot a mofucker if they look at you sideways and ALLLLLLLLLL that. Female rap is even worse. More likely than not though, the reason the music is like that is cus of the industry doing that shit on purpose, how tf else did Sexxy Red or Ice Spice get as popular as they did?
Alright thanks for coming to my TEDtalk, there was refreshments in the back but I ate all the biscuits n gravy, mah bad.
I’m a white guy, but I know a decent amount of people either born in, or ethnically from, Latin American countries. I don’t know a single one of them who doesn’t despise “Latinx” haha
I dont despise it? Its just like- “Ehhhhhhhhhhhh” for me… myehhh
I totally agree that the root problem exists not only with the rich old white men. They are simply one of the urgent external threats, mainly because rich people’s money gives the ability to oppress all the groups at once.
But yeah, we definitely oppress each other.
My Dad used to be a local leader in our community and he would organize parties once in a while, sometimes for a holiday, sometimes for an election, etc. It’s the type of community where everyone is considered a relative, regardless of family ties. Every single time I attended those parties, some slobbering drunk old guy would come up to me and say “Why are you still fat? You need to exercise, kid.” I was in elementary school! And the old guy had fucking fat beer belly too!
…I can’t even bring myself to talk about the shit my own Dad said to me.
Across the world, the more colonized or enveloped in majority control that the country/community is, the worse the internal oppression and othering seems to be in sub-communities.
I hate it.
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If you ever see little kids with different skin tones playing together, they are clearly not bothered by skin color, and it has no bearing on their play. The racism in America is completely learned. It is not natural. Sometimes consciously, but many times unconsciously.
Loosely similar is how men in most places are fine walking around alone at night. While women consciously try to move in groups, even during the daytime. Many men have no idea how different it is for many women.
They aren’t bothered by it. But they’ll also still say “the dark girl”, with no malice of course.
Skin color, hair color, height, weight. These are all easy to see and use to identify people when we don’t know names.
There’s nothing wrong with saying “the black guy” if you don’t know Steve yet. I guess you could also say “the darker hair individual, maybe a 4c”.
Because to me personally this kinda feels like America is still stuck in those slavery/segregation times
Yes. American culture is very much based on social hierarchies, and slavery created a very easy, color-coded social hierarchy. So it’s hard to get rid of because a lot of people are invested in it - whether they admit it or not.
Americans (except for the most liberal) tend to look at race as a biological reality and regard anyone saying race isn’t science as woke extremism. Generally when science conflicts with common/traditional sense in America, common sense wins. The only reason quantum physics isn’t banned from schools yet is because probably only about 10% of Americans know the first thing about quantum physics.
Americans also regard a wide variety of racial discrimination - such as in dating (including who you allow your kids to date), or where you live, or where you send your kids to school, as “not racist”. This is considered not racist because the goal isn’t to harm racial minorities, but rather you’re just doing it to protect your place in the social hierarchy. The race-based social hierarchy. And if this harms minorities, well it’s not like it’s your fault right?
And if you dare try to suggest that the above is racist, people will get very angry at you and do things like elect Trump.
So yeah, racism is still very prevalent in the US.
White Americans feel about black people and other minorities roughly how Germans feel about Muslims. And I have to say, Germans do not like Muslims.
I guess Germans feel about Muslims the same way that Muslims feel about homosexuals or atheists.
*Extremist Muslims.
Yanno, like extremist Christians.
In how many Christian countries can you get executed for being gay?
Uganda.
There are 6 Muslim countries that have clear laws that state gay men should be executed, but only 3 have actually done so (including Saudi Arabia, of course, because fuck Saudi Arabia in general).
The Germans refuse to admit they’re treating Muslims the way they used to treat the Jews.
Unfortunately many Germans do have problems with migrants/Muslims which I don’t understand. I have nothing against Islam being the biggest religion here.
But my question was particularly referring to that divide based on pure ethnicity because who you call “black people” are exactly as American as who you call “white people” with the only difference being having a different darkness of skin that doesn’t even have a determined line at which point someone is considered “white” and at what point someone is considered “black”.
The German equivalent would be if we divided Germans on whether they had bright blond or darker blond hair.
It’s not quite the same as being a migrant group that brought a different culture from a different country. I guess the American equivalent was if they didn’t want Mexican migrants because they’re Muslim.
But my question was particularly referring to that divide based on pure ethnicity because who you call “black people” are exactly as American as who you call “white people” with the only difference being having a different darkness of skin that doesn’t even have a determined line at which point someone is considered “white” and at what point someone is considered “black”.
So the short of it is that the wealthy classes in colonial North America created this divide to make white people feel better about keeping slaves from Africa even though they converted to Christianity. That’s it, it’s all a ruse by the ultra rich. However, the ruse has continued for so long that even after racism “ended” (it absolutely hasn’t) the system is very much racist, and that aside it’s just baked into the North American consciousness now. Being black or white or Hispanic is part of one’s identity and in many cases community.
It’s not quite the same as being a migrant group that brought a different culture from a different country.
Many minority groups in America do have different cultures than the white majority, though it’s not quite as big as the difference between Germans and Muslims. For example there are many Hispanic people whose main language is Spanish rather than English, and some blakc people have their own dialect.
Finally I want to add that despite all these details the crux of the issue is xenophobia. That’s why the things Americans say about minorities in general are very similar to the things Germans say about Muslims. Fundamentally it’s the same thing, and Germans and other Europeas will have to deal with many of the same issues America is dealing with now (to a lesser extent though, because of the lack of slavery)
No, the German equivalent would be if you divided Germans on whether they have light skin or dark skin. Are your Middle-Eastern immigrants not German? Your Romani? If they’re citizens of your country now, they are your countrymen, fullstop.
I feel like you’re very close to understanding America in your last paragraph though. For us, nearly every American is from a migrant group that brought a different culture from a different country. There’s only like 1% of the continent’s native population left. A Black American’s experiences are fundamentally different to a White American, or a Latino American, or an Eastern European American, because they all grew up with a different culture to one another. There is no real “baseline” American culture, as much as some angry White Americans would have you believe.
Mention of religion is also very uncommon in Germany. If someone isn’t wearing something like a cross chain, a kippa or a hijab, their religion often goes completely unnoticed in daily German life. It’s mostly irrelevant and ppl only discover it, if someone asks for halal/kosher options at a restaurant or so.
Are you sure? Because to my knowledge most Muslims in Germany are Middle Eastern and therefore quite easy to distinguish from the white Germans around them.
FWIW, there’s plenty of people with a similar colour skin who aren’t Muslim. India, for example, has a population of nearly 1.5 billion.
Unless someone tells you, or has some obvious sign, it’s bad form to assume someone’s religion from how they look.
Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and people from Afghanistan look the same as many Indians and most are absolutely Muslim.
That’s my point - you can’t tell someone’s religion just by skin colour.
Indians don’t look Middle Eastern, though; they look Indian. They’re a very different kind of brown. And either way do racist Germans really care enough to make that distinction? For all they know Muslims are brown people from the Middle East no?
I watched a TV show called ‘Justified: City Primeval’ - it’s not very good, but something I found weird was how often the characters mentioned each other’s race I’m from the UK, so maybe it was just badly written, or maybe Americans do actually talk like that.
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It happened for so long, at all levels of society, that it is still affecting us today. It has shaped the cities we currently live in. It has shaped our language. It has shaped our laws.
The first girl Black girl to go to a school that was all white is only 71 years old. And that was barely the start of the end of segregation.
A bad example, because I’m only American, but anyone in the European Union could move anywhere in the European Union. Some places just have depressing weather, or are very isolated. But it would still take a great effort for the people who even want to move to actually move.
