Is America unique in its racism toward black people?

Factual Questions
1

I was reading about the Muslim Chinese population being put in camps, and recalled a few years ago reading about race riots in China against African workers or it may have been Chinese workers in Africa.

The question occurred to me is specifically racism against black people an America or at least European only phenomenon?

Obviously there has been anti-
Black racism in England but I’ve also read about the island of Hispaniola and how the Dominicans are abusive towards Haitians and saw some videos of Pakistanis abusing what appeared to be African immigrants. Russia and Australians as well.

I guess what I’m getting at is an anti-black sentiment ubiquitous across the world, it certainly seems that way from some stuff I’ve read.

2

Let me answer this by saying

3

Xenophobia is unfortunately a fairly commonly encountered flaw in many human societies and individuals.

Racism in the United States has its own unique and horrific history, a story still being told, which cannot be ameliorated by comparing it to the problems that other societies have.

Bigots around the world will always fear and distrust those who are “other”. Those in your videos would be abusing anyone who they do not think “belongs” there. It just so happens that the videos and news that you chose to consume showed you a specific side of the story.

I would not say that “anti-black sentiment” is ubiquitous across the world, just that you can find assholes anywhere you look.

4

I’m not sure you can dice out the difference between xenophobia and racism, it’s largely a distinction without a difference in this case I think.

Interesting article I found and video:

You’d almost swear you were watching some type of minstrel show in America or something.

5

I didn’t even know there was a Wikipedia article for this until now:

The development of anti-Hatianism ideology can be attributed to the years of the Spanish racist mentality, racial stereotypes, and the historical propagation of dark-skinned people as the “inferior”.[5] Many Haitians have lost their lives as a result of this discrimination. The most notorious event that occurred was the massacres of Haitians in the Dominican Republic border region in 1937 under the order of former president, Rafael Trujillo. Approximately 10-20,000 men, women, children, babies and elderly, who were selected by their skin color, were massacred using machetes, guns or were thrown to sharks.[6] While many of the people who lost their lives were Haitians who immigrated to the Dominican Republic, some were Haitians born in the Dominican Republic and those of Haitian-Dominican descent.[7]

Holy Shit, I guess they learned it more from the Spanish.

Here is another one on Brazil:

6

Korea has had–and continues to have–issues with Black face by entertainers..

And China does not seem to understand what is and is not racist..

Both countries continue to be difficult places for non-white foreigners, especially Blacks and most especially Blacks from Africa, to get hired.

7

There is loads of racism against every conceivable target everywhere, so it should not surprise you that you do not have to leave Africa to experience anti-black racism in Sudan, South Africa, Mauritania, et c.

8

If anything, America is already better than many places.

I recall some diplomatic flap in Asia many years ago where African diplomats were angered because they were served food in some sort of paper bowls with caricature-ish depictions of black people on the outer surface and in which black people were apparently compared to octupi or something. There was/is also a very common brand of toothpaste called “Black People Toothpaste”. All sorts of things that would never even fly for one second in America. Jokes about black people exist there as well. Hines Ward (half-black, half-Korean former NFL athlete) suffered a considerable deal of racial bullying while growing up in South Korea. And if you think many white Americans are intolerant in how they don’t want their son or daughter marrying a black person, you haven’t seen how many Asian parents do or would go ballistic at the idea.

9

You are referring to Darkie toothpaste, now known in English as Darlie. The Chinese name remains 黑人牙膏 (Hēirén yágāo, “Black Person Toothpaste”).

10

This. There is racism, sexism, homophobia, sectarianism and all other flavors of bigotry and xenophobia wherever you go in the world. America’s particular blend is distinctly American, but that doesn’t mean that the same kind of shit doesn’t happen elsewhere in whatever the local style is.

People remain people, no matter where you go.

11

America’s not uniquely racist, but its racism could be considered unique. As far as I know, it’s the only country in the world that continues to use a constitution in which it explicitly refers to slaves (read black) as 3/5 of a person for the purposes of apportionment. Yes there have been amendments, but race has played an integral role in the formation of classes in American society in ways that may not exist in other countries.

Other countries in the colonial world, particularly the Americas, were racist as well, and they still are racist today but it plays itself out differently. Using Brazil as an example, I seem to recall that there were apparently a lot of non-whites who were on board with “Making Brazil Great Again” in the recent election that vaulted Bolsonaro to power, whereas in the U.S. that was overwhelmingly a white phenomenon.

12

In northern Ireland, and the Balkans, you can find racial animosity between groups of white people.

13

I recall being flabbergasted back in about 1990 when yakking with a 30-ish well educated Englishwoman from London.

Something came up about some random somebody else doing something dumb / low class and she snorted “Well that’s mighty Irish of them!” in a tone of upper-crust withering contempt that caught me utterly by surprise. Nothing in the scenario had any connection with specifically Irish people.

Clearly she thought of Irish about like US folks in the 1960s used “Polack” or those today use “redneck” or “Trumpist”. But with a lot more contempt and a lot less headshaking dismissal.

14

That’s about religion, not race (certainly in Northern Ireland).

15

Every country has a neighbour who is the butt of ‘dumb’ jokes. For the English, it has historically been the Irish. For the French, it’s Belgians. For Spain, it’s Portugal, and on and on. TBH, I haven’t heard anyone try to crack an Irish joke in decades. We’ve moved on. Doubt millennials would get the joke.

16

There was a very recent NPR story on anti-African racism in Lebanon.

17

When the British series that became “All In The Family” was adapted for American audiences, the Irish son-in-law became the Polish son-in-law. There was plenty of discrimination against the influx of Irish in north-eastern USA cities also, and they were characterized as drunken, stupid, and prone to drunken brawls. (A characteristic adopted almost as a point of pride as the Notre Dame U mascot). The fact that they were Catholic versus “real” Americans being protestant did not help. Same thing happened with the Italian influx around 1900.

But there’s that standard xenophobia and then there’s the treatment of blacks. To justify enslaving a race, Amricas (north and south) adopted the social view that Africans were less than human, and by taking them from heathen lands to Christianity was doing them a service. The kindest attitude was that they were simple and childlike, but generally the attitude was that they were wild and dangerous almost-animals, segregation and repression were necessary to ensure peace, order and good government.
The USA in particular has spend decades trying to rectify this attitude, with mixed results; so part of the North American attitude includes a feeling of guilt and a desire to amend this prejudice (with mixed results). Also, western society has seen the horrors of racial prejudice and what a dark hole it can lead to with the results of the Holocaust.

Other areas of the world have their own racial prejudices, but are not as touched by the guilt instilled by the Holocaust or the American civil rights movement, because this is not a prominent part of their culture. Muslim countries say horrible things about Jews. Hindus and Moslems fight in India. China has similar issues; but they don’t feel the collective guilt seen in America regarding black people, for example.

Europe, also, did not import large numbers of uneducated Africans to be a lower class. As a result, they did not develop a need to separate out people by colour. While most did not necessarily believe in the total equality of man, the best and brightest of Africa and Asia were welcome in European universities in a way blacks were not welcome at American Ivy league schools in the late 1800’s and first half of the 1900’s. Much of the ruling class of newly independent Africa got their education in British universities.

Gandhi for example, came from South Africa to be educated in Oxford as a lawyer, only to return to South Africa and find out shockingly that unlike Britain, South Africa with a huge non-white population used colour barriers to keep it’s white ruling class in power. He returned to India instead.

the current British racism, IIRC, is a result of the influx in the last half-century of large numbers of commonwealth people from Africa and the Caribbean. Similarly, France appear to have problems related to the number of Africans from former colonies who migrated there in the last half century. before that, separating race was not an obsession like in the USA.

18

There is racism in Canada for sure, but it is not as virulent as in the US. Also anti-French racism (yes that French is considered a race) outside of Quebec. Not for nothing was there a book titled, IIRC, Les Negres Blancs de L’Amérique du Nord (The White Negroes of North America).

But there has never been a party dedicated to racism and, in particular, to not allowing blacks to vote.

19

I seem to remember from the Quebec FLQ crisis that the title in English at the time used a much less polite word for Negro. Certainly the Quebecois were looked down on by the English ruling class and it took much of the mid-1900’s for them to assert their right to their homeland and culture. But - it’s instructive to look at the make-up of the Canadian constitution, which carries the attitude of the 1800’s. The defining characteristic to the English elite of the day was not language or culture but religion; those pesky Irish immigrants were lumped in with the French-Canadians since both were Catholic, and most provinces had and still have separate school systems for the protestants (the “public” system) and the Catholics (the “Separate School” system) each with their own school boards.

Canada’s attitude has often been described as “polite racism” (except maybe in Nova Scotia?). But then every society has a streak of xenophobia. When Italian immigrants flooded Toronto in the 1960’s, many working in construction jobs, I remember one Italian student when I was in university in the 70’s complaining that his guidance counselors in high school suggested he’d be better off going into construction. Canada never had a “whites only” immigration policy as strong as Australia’s, but it was definitely Euro-centric until the 70’s.

20

While religion certainly plays into it, Northern Ireland’s issues are a bit more complex than just religion. Most Protestants descend from Scottish immigrants (Ulster Scots or Scots-Irish) and self-identify as British, whereas most Catholics are primarily ethnic Irish and self-identify as either Irish or Northern Irish. With separate schools, housing estates, flags, political parties, and even sports teams, these two communities remain separate tribes, with religion only one aspect.