Quote (zarkadon @ 24 Jun 2022 22:54)
That's not what I meant. Of course there is racism everywhere, just like there are other forms of discrimination in every society. What I meant is that, while every country has some degree of a problem with racism, America has it's own problem based on its own social, economic, historical and cultural circumstances. The US' racism problem is not relatable to Europe, even if we too have our own issues with racial discrimination.
The US has a very different history of racism than Europe. Being a former colony, they've coexisted with slavery. They are a country that since its inception has been structured around being a multiethnic society controlled by, and desined to favour, WASPs. Not even 60 years ago, they still had essentially an apartheid regime were blacks couldn't vote or use the same buses and bathrooms than whites (in some states). They've advanced a lot in terms of equality, but the system still punishes blacks in many different ways, derived from this history and the inherently racist structure of the administration current americans have inherited from previous generations.
Furthermore, the whole American approach to combat racism is very different to the European way. Since the days of the Ancient Romans, we've gone for assimilation. There could be a melting pot of ethnicities between italics, gauls, nubians, assyrians, jews, germans, amazighs, greeks, etc... but citizenship was never a racial matter... they were culturally assimilated and became Roman, period. Meanwhile, in the US they promote ethnic pride and culture... anti-racism movements actively promote "african american identity" and the existence of holdays and months dedicated to celebrate their own history and culture.
Your own example of using football as an example of racism in Europe highlights my point regarding the strong differences in racism betwen both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, it would be unconcievable for there to be racist chants in their stadia (which in Italy, btw aren't just targeted at blacks, but also at italians from other regions... like for example, in the North they often chant against Napoli fans calling them dirty cholera bearing gypsies and wish on the Vesuvius to "clean them" with lava). However, the discrimination black people experience in the US by their administration, police, education system, etc.... is something alien to us. I'm not saying we are better or worse than them, but the situation is very different.
So yes, imo we shoudl completely stay away from BLM, kneeling and all that jazz. We should tackle our issues in our own way, and not pretend we have the same issues that Americans do, becuase that will not only not solve our problems, but make them worse.
That, to me is a disaster which we should not import. Let Americans deal with THEIR racism in THEIR own way, while we do it OUR way. Copying their gestures and their approach will lead us to copying their social unrest and problems, which is something we really don't need.
preventing solidarity (class / race / gender...) by artificially prying apart issues that are clearly related, insisting they are fundamentally different, and fear-mongering about the consequences of addressing them, is an old but successful tactic - one that i wholeheartedly reject though. just to be clear, i don't think you're doing it on purpose, but it's clear that you uncritically bought into that narrative which is so popular amongst those that simply don't want to address the issue at all.
that's highly disingenuous and also counter-productive (by design obviously). just because racism takes slightly different forms (we still have racial profiling and discrimination in europe) and is stronger in some areas than in others, doesn't mean it's not an important issue that can't or shouldn't be addressed united.
let me ask you a specific question about a central claim of yours: how exactly does adapting a gesture from the BLM movement make our racism issue worse?! that makes no sense to me. you're telling me that people become racists simply because they see players kneeling or what?
if by worse you simply mean it leads to more controversy regarding the topic, then yes - that's the whole point. i think the reality is that it makes people uncomfortable that we haven't addressed it honestly previously - i've read so many accounts of not just athletes, but also artists, politicians, and regular people talking about how their race affected their everyday lives - the comments and prejudices they have to bear on a daily basis, the scepticism, rejection, and doubts they encountered. personally, i think it's about fucking time we re-thought and tried to eliminate this shit - and sports, arts, and entertainment are great vehicles for it, because that's where our attention goes.
just trying to neatly divide that into sub-divisions of specific forms of racism, have each have their own tiny little voice of respectful protest that doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, won't change anything - which obviously is the desired intention. the only way to even hope to make society confront and solve these issues is a united protest that gets noticed, that ruffles some feathers, that shakes things up. so we definitely disagree regarding protests against racism, but tbf i figured as much when you told me that generally speaking you're ok with notorious human rights violator qatar hosting the world cup. i'd fully support the dfb boycotting it, but that's obviously nothing those spineless cowards would ever do - a few token objections to slave labour, and courses for our players regarding what they can and can't criticise is the best they could manage, lol...