Did any of the people you spoke to object to being referred to by that word? You’d get chinned if you used it where I’m from.
In my experience there is far more segregation in the US. The black/white schism I’ve observed (in Texas, Connecticut and Tennessee) has been fairly shocking to me, someone who grew up in a mixed-race family in England, especially WRT all the bad race-related things that have happened to my (black) sister since she moved to the US. However, I found Chicago and New York to be slightly more integrated and chilled out about things.
I agree with Hemlock’s comment about inability to quantify this.
An answer I’m not qualified to give, since I never visited the US :
From many threads I read on travel message boards on this topic, it seems that quite a lot of american people, like jjim, think there’s less segregation (though not necessarily less racism) in Europe (refering essentially to London and Paris, which are the cities most likely to be visited by american people) than in the US
(and I can somewhat guess what they mean by the content of the discussions about racial issues I read on american boards, which are sometimes foreign to me and quite different from the debates about racial issues here…don’t know how to explain that…it seems like two different people grundingly sharing the same country, each standing on its side of the fence, and wanting to stay there, with many resulting tensions, and some very weird issues (am I a “real black” 
) even when seemingly cultured and open-minded people are discussing, while here it’s a much more basic issue, with the racist part of the population rejecting these “dirty foreigners”…I’m probably not very clear, sorry)
I also read several references to an apparent larger number of mixed couples (which makes me wonder about the US, since mixed couples aren’t that common in Paris or London), as another poster pointed out.
I don’t know about the UK, but I would point that in France, the minorities (blaks and “arabs” essentially) are more than obviously under-represented at the political level, and more generally in any position of power (private sector, for instance).
But of course there are many important differences : the US black population has been around for a very long time, and are completely americans, while the french black population is essentially first or second generation immigrant from Africa. Also, the french “integration model” is very different from the anglo-saxon “communautarist model”, and these things are deply ingrained in people mind. Even gathering datas about people ethnicity is an absolute no-no here, which is totally contradictory with the US affirmative action system.
So, I suspect that the cultural differences and the resulting different approachs of the racial issues make a direct comparison very difficult.
And once again, don’t quote me on this, since it’s only a mix of second hand infos and readings, and in no way a personnal experience.
I think that depends very much on where you are in the UK. The non-white population is very largely concentrated in the cities. In smaller towns and rural areas you will very rarely see a non-white person and unfortunately, because of the rarity, the population are unaccustomed to them and may react in a racist way, though this is often simply through lack of thought or imagination.
On the other hand in the inner cities, where the populationmay be evenly mixed, I’d say the races get along pretty well. I live in a borough in London where the “native” i.e. white English, population is in fact now a minority. I’m not aware of a great deal of racism, either against non-whites or against the minority whites.
Don’t know if it’s of any interest, but I just thought something, about to the “black identity” question. I think that the most closest question which appears to be quite often an issue for some people here is along the line “Am I a westerner/french or an arab/algerian or a westernized arab or an algerian french or a french muslim or what?”, with sometimes a feeling of not belonging to anywhere, especially for second generation immigrants, who feel they are rejected “here”, but have essentially nothing in common with “there”, either.
The same can pretty much be said about the United States, Sparrow.
One big difference in context for race between US and UK is that in the UK South Asians are a large if not the largest racial minority, and the legacy is of former imperialism. Whereas in the US people of African descent are the largest and most visible racial minority, and the legacy is of slavery.
That’s not to say that the US doesn’t have many other minorities; just as the UK also includes people of Afro-Caribbean descent. But for me, as a young visitor to the UK the first time I went there (as a college student in the 80s), what was different was that a “black” person could describe either a person of either S. Asian or African descent. And so I had to a learn a whole new context for the meaning of blackness–or try to.
Where in the US you had former slaves and their descendants trying to achieve equality since the 1870s or so and leading to a full-blown civil rights movement, in the UK you have large immigrant populations from former colonies moving to Britain for job opportunites in the wake of decolonization (c. the 1950s, 60s and 70s), which was already a kind of political movement. Among many other differences, that means that for S. Asians in Britain there are all kinds of language and cultural issues at play: meaning that relatively new arrivals face decisions about assimilation (or the lack of) that are quite different than those faced by African-Americans whose great grandparents were born here, however much they have a distinct culture of their own.
All of that said, it was my impression that there was less attention in Britain paid to race itself–by which I mean skin color–and more to cultural factors. On the whole that made me feel that racism was less stark than it can sometimes be in the US. But I’m not sure if that impression really does any justice to what, in the end, is a comparison between apples and oranges.
As a Brit living in the US, I see much more racism in the US. There again, I live in Georgia, which may not be exactly representative of the US as a whole (and I lived in rural England)!
The most noticeable difference is, as others have mentioned, massive voluntary segregation. Blacks and whites don’t mix. And where there is the beginnings of mixing, one group moves out. This is most commonly “white flight”. I read that white flight begins when the black percentage of a neighborhood gets to 8%
Blacks moving out occurs more frequently when an inner city area is gentrified and most of the original inhabitants can no longer afford to live there.
From the Ska/Two Tone scene of the late '70s onwards there have been numerous musical acts in the UK with ethnically mixed line-ups.
I often hear them recounting stories their record labels have told them about how that fact might give them marketing problems in the USA. Can anybody say how realistic such fears are, or how common mixed black/white bands are in the USA generally?
Britain (I’m presuming this stat miss out Northern Ireland) is claimed by one source to have the highest number of black/white couples in the world, while the BBC says Britain has the fastest-growing proportion of mixed-race relationships in the world.
Recently much reported in music press here:
Craig David, r&b etc. black british artist is trying to get exposure in the urban music scene in the US. They are trying to force him to drop his white guitarist.
Apparently a big issue in the US, but no problem in the UK.
It makes you wonder where they got that first stat (I’d have thought Brazil might be a contender), but the BBC’s site has some interesting points to make if you step back into it. You’ll need to chip a few characters off the beginning of the URL, btw.
People in america, please tell me why the situation is different in the US than in the UK?
I watch American tv shows, and no offence intended, but a lot of the shows are ‘voluntary segrigated’ why is this, you know for example say dawsons creek compared to sister sister. Do americans think this has been happening recently?
Em, do americans think that there alot of shows representing a proportion of mixed raced couples?
Actually, at least two of the friends I’m referring to did say the racism they encountered was in London. And central London, too, not some lilywhite suburb. FWIW both of these two were of Asian descent (Korean and Thai to be specific) - can’t actually remember hearing any black friends say they had particular problems in London.
Here in the US, we have a small number of prominent individuals that seems dedicated to keeping race relations from ever improving - Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton being the two biggest. They foster the notion that evil white men will stop at nothing to keep the black man down, and openly call those who disagree with them racists (if white), or self-loathing Uncle Toms (if black). Jesse Jackson, in particular, is reknowned for blackmailing companies with charges of racism unless they donate money to his charity. I think they, and those like them, are a big part of the reason why race is such a huge issue here. Certainly, they have much to do with why political contests in certain areas have the candidates rushing to prove that they’re “blacker” than their opponents.
I don’t know about the situation in the UK or Europe. Are there prominent individuals there that are dedicated to fostering resentment between the races? If there aren’t, that could explain the perceived discrepancy between the way our respective nations view race.
Jeff
In my observation, there certainly isn’t that sort of prominence. But on the other hand, we don’t have the Klan either, though I acknowledge they’re not nearly as high profile as Jackson or Sharpton. We have the BNP, who claim they’re not racist :rolleyes:, but they’re really weak.
I think ruadh has a point: when racism occurs in London, it is more outright vivious and nasty than perhaps it is when it occurs in the US. My feeling, however, is that UK society as a whole tends more towards integration. Certainly my sister, when growing up in a rural area of England, encountered only one act of racism in 14 years (a family in our village wouldn’t let her into their house).
Jeffe, FWIW, I think it’s pretty absurd for you to allege that either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton is “dedicated to keeping race relations from ever improving.” You may not agree with either the tactics or the opinions of either man. But, particularly in the case of Jackson, characterizing him as being “dedicated” to worsening race relations and “fostering resentment” is bordering on trolldom.
One issue that could begin to explain the difference between the US and UK is the political and social dormancy of the other minorities such as the Asian/African communities in the US relative to the UK? AFAIK, they form similar percentages of the population and have recently immigrated into both countries. I am not sure if the fact that UK had colonial ties with most of these peoples is that overwhelming a reason.
I live in the UK, but I have travelled some in America and lived in New Jersey for six months. My wife is of Indian-Caribbean descent and we have a mixed race child. We live in the suburbs some 40 miles from the centre of London.
I’d say the figure given by the BBC or some 30% of married non-whites in the UK haveing a white partner is about right (I am averaging over all races). We have friends of several different races and some of these are in mixed race relationships. If it were not for constant immigration, we might expect all racial distinctions in the UK to disappear within a few generations.
For the most part I would say that there is now very little open racism in the UK. Racist attitudes are generally limited to a few old folk who seem unable to adapt or to the disafected youth of urban areas with a high proportion of non-white residents.
From my contact with children of school age, I’d say that expressing a racist sentiment is regarded as exteemly un-cool.
In America, I was surprised at the level of segregation that I perceived. Presumably, this segregation is volentary, it seems that in the US people of different race choose to live apart.
All my no white friends in the UK live in the suburbs side-by-side with everybody else. The only difference I have been able to detect is that my non-white friends do not share that oh-so-English yearning for a little place in the country.
In the UK, recent imigrants do tend to be concentrated in various urban areas some of which have a long history of providing a home for the first few generations of each wave of imigrants. I guess that the reason is that these areas have cheap housing for people who have few highly valued skills when they arrive. Of course a settle immigrant community later provides a familiar cultural centre too.
There is very little segration on UK TV. I think there is an Asian new channel available on cable and that is about it.
All-in-all I’d have to say that my perception is that the UK is way ahead of the USA in terms of racial intergration.