# Is America unique in its racism toward black people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 28, 2020, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568 "2020-07-28T02:31:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2020, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/21 "2020-08-01T20:37:09Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > 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. I had originally written it with the less polite word. But then I asked my wife what she thought and she discouraged from using it. In the 1950s, the “Protestant” school board in at least one suburb of Montreal (Hampstead) was not “public”. The Shapiro twins, one of whom eventually became the president of Princeton and the other the principal (= president) of McGill were denied entry and forced to go to a Jewish school. So there was no actual public system. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/22 "2020-08-01T22:20:26Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > 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. While the spirit of your post is correct on racism, I’m not sure the chronology is correct. Per my understanding, Gandhi went to England from India. He didn’t go to Oxford but University College, London. After getting his law degree, he came back to India and unsuccessfully tried to setup his practice. Then he went to South Africa as the barrister of an Indian businessman. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2020, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/23 "2020-08-05T04:41:30Z")
Thanks. I stand corrected. I was under the impression that he had come from South Africa, but thinking about it, his total ignorance of racism there (which apparently got him tossed off a train) seems more logical thanks to what you mention. Yes, Europe as a whole historically does not seem to have the abject horror of being within eyeshot of a black person who is not the hired help, that seems to have been an American, and particularly southern American social trait, It was remarked at the time that Idi Amin was the first post-colonial Commonwealth African ruler not educated in a British university. Alexander Dumas, of “Three Musketeers” fame, was the grandson of a Haitian slave and aristocratic French grandfather. That did not stop his father (half African) from becoming a general in the French army nor him from becoming a well-known writer, also living for a time in Russia, Belgium and Italy; it is hard to imagine this sort of thing happening in the USA in the 1800’s. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/24 "2020-08-05T09:00:30Z")
Well put, but tribalism is not racism. There is no race/ethnic difference between the two tribes. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2020, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/25 "2020-08-05T10:52:05Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Alexander Dumas, of “Three Musketeers” fame, was the grandson of a Haitian slave and aristocratic French grandfather. That did not stop his father (half African) from becoming a general in the French army nor him from becoming a well-known writer, also living for a time in Russia, Belgium and Italy; it is hard to imagine this sort of thing happening in the USA in the 1800’s. See also: [Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges), son of a wealthy French landowner and a slave who went on to an illustrious career as a composer, virtuoso violinist and conductor, swordsman, and colonel during the French Revolution (in fact Dumas’ father Thomas served under St-George). France was hardly egalitarian in the 18th century (obviously) but what racism it had was not comparable to what was going on in America at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/26 "2020-08-05T14:39:39Z")
Yes. And let us also note that Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_ includes a bit where a Moorish prince comes to seek Portia’s hand in marriage (although he fails) and this seems as normal as any other foreign suitor. Not to mention _Othello_, where the main character, married to a white woman, is black but a general in the Venetian army. (Although it seems Desdemona’s father has a problem with her secret marriage to Othello). Then there’s _Titus Andronicus_ which has the original “married white woman gives birth to a black baby” joke. It seems that race had little do do with things in Europe, it was more a variant on xenophobia against any type of foreigner. English, for example, had disparaging views of all foreigners - Irish, French, Italian, Spanish, etc. Also, the Moors, Arabs, and Turks as known to Europe were essentially about the same level of technology and social development as much of Europe until well into the 1800’s, so the suggestion that they were somehow intellectually and morally inferior did not really work. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2020, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/27 "2020-08-05T14:45:20Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Well put, but tribalism is not racism. There is no race/ethnic difference between the two tribes. Skin-color based racism (which is more accurately described as “whiteness-based racism”) is just a type of tribalism. There’s no meaningful distinction between different kinds of group-based bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/28 "2020-08-05T17:38:14Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > But there has never been a party dedicated to racism and, in particular, to not allowing blacks to vote. There certainly have been Canadian political parties which have had deliberately racist policies against Native Canadians, however (such as separating children from their families in order to assimilate them into white culture). ---
**Author:** ![Bacon\_Cheeseburger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ebca7d/32.png) [@Bacon\_Cheeseburger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bacon_Cheeseburger)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568/29 "2020-08-09T22:17:22Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > > [@bob\_2](#): > > > > Well put, but tribalism is not racism. There is no race/ethnic difference between the two tribes. > > Skin-color based racism (which is more accurately described as “whiteness-based racism”) is just a type of tribalism. There’s no meaningful distinction between different kinds of group-based bigotry. Whatever make us us and them them hardly an important distinction in my opinion. race, religion, ethnic group, etc. And it exists throughout he world. But, sticking to the OP, i think it would be accurate to say that specific situation in the US with regards to black people is unique. A permanent sizeable underclass of imported “thems”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-unique-in-its-racism-toward-black-people/916568.md?page=1)