Yeah I figured as much. Hence racism.
It sure isn’t South Africa…
It’s nice to see some actual numbers being cited.
My gut feel would go with either Canada, the UK or one of the South American countries like Brazil, based on my personal experiences with people from those places vs Americans, Australians, Chinese, Indians and various Europeans - my rationale being that a racist country is more likely to turn out racist people. And Canada turns out nice, friendly people - even drilling crews, not normally known for being very PC people, very redneck, but not racist at all.
Well, I think people are inherently racist. It’s a herd/tribal instinct that’s ingrained and has to be unlearned. As such, people from countries with the maximum exposure to different races and the most experience in dealing with them should be less racist. Add to this the nature of the culture itself(high/low power distance, individual/collectivist), and it sort of follows that countries like Canada and the UK (and also the US to my mind, if not already then soon enough) will be less racist while countries like Japan, China etc. will be more.
A questionnaire? Of what neighbors some people might object to? Are you kidding?
I don’t think a self-reporting, of who one might consider is an undesirable neighbor, given the choice of “the same race” or “another race”, will give you a very good idea of the racism index (for want of a better term) of any country.
I’m being generous here. There is no data in that chart other than what people think of themselves.
I don’t believe there is a knowable answer to the OP’s question, but in my experience the US is not even a contender.
Well put. It’s like Churchill’s comment about democracy being the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Your post is sad and expresses a kind of truth…it is amazing and bizarre that humans are so inclined to this idiotic and harmful trait. But the very universality of the trait means that the EXCEPTIONS – i.e., examples of race-blindness – are all the more worthy of celebration. And I’m sure the US, for reasons of history, geography, and law, has more than its share of such examples. So, try not to despair too much.
Good work. Interracial marriage would make a pretty good proxy, though of course it doesn’t preclude a black/white couple from, say, hating Chinese. By this figure, it seems the US may not be the least racist country, but it may be one of the most improved ones, as another poster suggested.
And that short list of countries seems like as good an answer as we’re likely to get to the OP, given the wide-ranging definitions of “racist”, the inherent flaws in polls like these, and the rather arbitrary nature of “country” as the spatial-scale unit of measurement.
I would discard Singapore from that list… anyone living in a crowded, spatially tiny, multiracial city-state simply HAS to accept the idea of having other races as neighbors!
I disagree. It’s a social behaviour that has to be learned, albeit at a very young age.
Maybe it would better represent my thinking to say that the tribal instinct is ingrained in us at birth, and races make for an easily identifiable pattern along which tribal lines can be drawn by individuals, hence there’s an inherent bent towards racism in most people and places. These lines can probably be formed at any age, although as with most people, things learnt when you’re in your formative years probably leave more of an impact.
What measure would you suggest?
That’s a lot better formulation, but I’d still like some support for the notion that tribal behaviours are instinctive. Family behaviours, sure, I wouldn’t ask for a cite, but I’m not convinced tribal behaviour is instinctive. Sounds like one of those EvPsych Just-So stories.
According to the CIA World Factbook: “white 65.1%, mulatto and mestizo 24.8%, black 10.1% (2002 census)”. From this I suspect their definition of “black” is a lot stricter than the US’s, and by US standards (characterized by the “one drop rule”) Cuba is about 30-35% black.
I have heard (but don’t directly know, since I’ve never been there) that the Cubans who fled to Miami and keep lobbying for tighter sanctions against the Castro regime are overwhelmingly white, and that dark-skinned Cubans think Castro’s a saint for chasing them off the island, which keeps him and his brother in power even though the standard of living there is swirling in the bowl.
As someone who lost thousands of dollars because of severe bigotry from certain Chinese people. I think I’m qualified to say this: Chinese/Japanese people aren’t actually that racially bigoted, it is, in many ways easier over their if you are Western than if you are of Oriental descent. What appears as racism, is in most cases, uncomfortability with unfamiliar people in general(i.e. people you didn’t know since pre-school).
Identical to Pakis? congrats you have managed to unite the entire sub continent against yourself
say hello to Mr quotation mark " "
I find a lot of solace in how far we have come in this country to get over racism and general bigotry. We are definitely a lot better off now than we were 60 years ago, and 60 years ago we were a lot better off than 100 years before that. Progress is happening and I am happy about that. I know we’ve got a long way to go, so, I don’t worry too much. I try my best to help my friends and family see that racist attitudes and beliefs are not healthy, and do my part to stick up against bigotry whenever I can.
I just hope that there are other countries out there in the world where racism and bigotry are less common.
Afraid not, ‘Paki’ is a racial slur aimed at anyone from the indian subcontinent, used by people who don’t know and know care about the differences, and it has nothing to do with more recent tensions with muslims. It comes from the wave of immigration that happened from the 50s onwards and I remember it being commonly used at least into the early 80s (kids would habitually refer to the local corner shop as the ‘paki shop’, as so many immigrants from the Indian subcontinent ran them. I guess immigrants from Pakistan outnumbered those from other countries?) Anyway, it’s now a dated, highly offensive term akin to nigger which I nowadays only hear from the mouths of very old people or racist meatheads. Most British people would flinch at the word these days.
Seems fairly evident to me that people by and large feel there is a benefit in being, and thus often are, a part of communities/tribes. Modern examples of such tribes exist as well - religions, nationalists, sports fans, street gangs, political parties, committed teams and workers in businesses, and they’re all largely based on ‘irrational’ stereotypical thinking driven by the desire to seek similarity and band together. According to me, most of this ‘need to belong’ has a basis in nature. Sure there’s a social, nurture, component, but that largely decides what tribes you will belong to, not whether you will want to belong to a tribe or not. That part is instinct. We wouldn’t exist if as animals we didn’t have the instinct to band together as tribes based on shared characteristics.
Broadcast media tends to lean more left/right-on than the general populace so perhaps presents a slightly distorted view, but mixed relationships on TV really is no biggie any more.
There was a recent BBC documentary series called ‘Mixed Britain’ which charts the history of and attitudes towards mixed race relationships over the last 100 years which you may find interesting if you can get hold of a copy.
Eh? He’s right though. People from the subcontinent(especially the north/northwest) are essentially racially identical. Or at least a LOT closer to each other than people from other parts of the world.
So a survey based on face-to-face interviews of a quarter of a million participants from 81 countries (translated into their native language), spanning 3 decades, using rigorous data verification and supervised by academic researchers is not acceptable, but your silly anecdote is worth discussing?
:rolleyes:
Do you have more accurate data? Put up or shut up.