I am not trying to create any false equivalence, but I think the similarities between racism in one country and another are hard to underestimate.Ben@Forest wrote: ↑26 Jul 2021, 3:51pm I can't say disagree with much of that, but it is again so loaded to the US experience. African slavery, though it evidently contributed to domestic wealth here, simply wasn't the huge pool of domestic labour it was in the US. Mainly white people built railways, dug crops, mined coal and operated power looms, often in appalling conditions and with a huge amount of child labour (and mainly without the vote.)
I'm not trying to equate the experience of the British working class to slavery, but at the same time our experience was not that of the slavery, the Jim Crow laws or the official segregation of the US. It is a false equivalence to make it so.
TBH, I though for years that the UK was a little better than the US, and Norway was better, yet. My work place is more diverse, despite a lower population of ethnic minorities, I didn't observe as much racism, and my children are taught about diversity and inclusion in school, not just as a matter of formal lessons, but integrated into the development of social relationships in the classroom, and a diverse body of teaching staff. But, more recently, I have heard and seen extreme racism, and as my children get older, I have learned that racist language, humour and stereotype jokes are common among teens. I've indirectly observed similar things in the UK.
My Black and POC friends report many similar experiences between the US, UK, and Norway, in difficulty finding work, being called derogatory and racist names, or simply experience the sort of subtle prejudice and microaggressions that can be difficult to pin down as racism, but a white person is less likely to experience.
There are some things unique about the US experience; one is simply that racists are more comfortable being open about their racism. And I think that this is what resulted in my observing less overt racism in the UK than the US and less in Norway than the UK (more about this in a bit). The other thing is that while Black and POC folks in the US have a higher probability of being impacted by systemic racism, the individual experience on a day-to-day basis is probably not as different as you might think. A Black American friend living in Norway said that there were more differences from one office to another in the US than between the US and Norway. That one company might have a diverse work force and reasonable social environment, and another is a day-to-day battle against anything from a barrage of microaggressions to overt hostility. She's only worked a couple of places in Norway, but has other friends here who work in a wider variety of situations.
Back to my observations... I recently realised that there are two problems with using what I observe to understand racism. The first is that being white, I will never observe the full extent. There are some parallels with sexism, but it isn't the same. I do experience less sexism in Norway, and I thought that had implications for racism, but I no longer think that. The second problem with using my observations is that when people are less overt about racism, they are also less likely to talk about it, or address the problems. It is much easier to pretend it isn't a problem, and IMO, this is especially true when the manifestations of systemic racism are more subtle (i.e. difficulty getting a job or a mortgage, rather than bias in the justice system). They've done some studies here, swapping names on CVs and what have you. A CV with a Norwegian name is the most likely to be selected for interview. The same CVs with clearly African or Islamic names are the least likely to be selected for interview.
Few countries are without any history of slavery. The specifics may differ. The UK has, to my knowledge never allowed ownership of people, as such, but servitude & forced labour have persisted into modern times, despite regulations and policing.
Of course what I write is partly anecdotal, but there is a case to be made by someone with more expertise that the lack of background of slavery and segregation make it more difficult for society to confront the racial power differential, rather than less. If the gap is smaller, the unwillingness to acknowledge it is disproportionately larger. And in the US, the government has legislated against discrimination, and used the power of the courts to back it up. In other other countries, the governments are complicit in racist practices. Even where they are not, refusing to acknowledge them, making proof burdensome, or not imposing significant penalties, makes it extremely difficult to fight against in any practical or legal manner.
Norway does some things well, but folks with far more expertise than I persistently criticise the Norwegian government for not taking the far right, extreme racism and Islamophobia seriously enough.
That's a lot of words to deny false equivalencies, but the heart of this issue is that racism from the victims perspective looks remarkably similar from one country to another. It doesn't really matter whether the N-word is said with a British or American accent, does it? It doesn't matter whether the football results or a BLM protest prompt a racist remark.