[QUOTE=blinkingblinking]
There is an actual debate here. Not sure what protocol is but I thought I would start a new thread without all the lame humour and shite in the other thread.
My two nominations go to New Zealand and Australia.
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That would be the country with only one race.
[QUOTE=Acid Lamp]
(Let’s not confuse race and ethnicity here, both groups are Caucasians.)
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The problem is that while we might not confuse the two things, people do confuse them, and talk about Scandinavians, Slavic peoples, Japanese, and Native Americans, etc., as “races”. So for me, Chinese disciminating against Japanese, or Icelanders discriminating against Slavic people, is racism, even though no biologist would put the disciminators and the discriminees into separate races.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
That would be the country with only one race.
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A country that excludes all other races and refuses to do business with other races is the least racist in your opinion?
[QUOTE=Giles]
The problem is that while we might not confuse the two things, people do confuse them, and talk about Scandinavians, Slavic peoples, Japanese, and Native Americans, etc., as “races”. So for me, Chinese disciminating against Japanese, or Icelanders discriminating against Slavic people, is racism, even though no biologist would put the disciminators and the discriminees into separate races.
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Understood, but there IS an important difference there. Being ethnocentric or nationalist is based on cultural lines, not physical ones. The Icelanders aren’t being racist because they do not believe that Poles are criminal because of their biology; but rather their economic status and cultural traditions; not to mention their rather limited and not entirely positive experience with them recently. They are annoyed with them because of their unwillingness to assimilate, and not unfairly view them with a bit of suspicion. It’s important not to throw the racist card around lightly and inappropriately. It does disservice to those actually discriminated on basis of race.
My father is of Slavic descent. He and his family call themselves “Russian”. When they immigrated it WAS Russia. Now it’s Poland. Is he Polish or Russian? And is there any difference other than minor cultural ones?
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking]
I agree that many Australian people are racist concerning Aboriginal people. What people outside of Australia may not realise is that the chance of actually encountering an Aboriginal person in most of the cities is close to zero. When
I lived in Auckland one of my housemates was Aboriginal. In Melbourne I have seen Aboriginal people playing football and occasionally begging on Swanston Street. I went to Latrobe University for a year. I met the only Aboriginal guy who was attending the University while I was there. The university had about 20000 students at the time.
It is easy for people to be racist about a race of people that they only see begging or playing football.
It is not easy often to stop oneself being prejudice in many circumstances.
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I’m not sure what your point is here.
Australia has a problem with racism against its Aboriginal population to a degree that makes it very unlikely to be the least racist country in the world.
Whenever we do ad projects for Singapore, the one instruction we always get from the clients wrt models is “no blacks, no Indians.”
I will go along with the OP I think Australians, in general, display very little racism. Sure there are idiots here but they are a small minority.
Having lived in London for a couple of years I find it very amusing that the English have the hide to lecture anyone about racial tolerance, or tolerance of any kind.
I work in a small team. We have 1 lebanese, 1 syrian, 1 indian, 1 argentinian, 2 vietnamese and 7 WASPS. I hear the odd racist comment at work but it is never the WASPS making them.
It is almost a standing joke, in fact a staple of ethnic comics in Australia, that the most racially divisive people in Australia are the members of other ethnic groups.
It’s perhaps also misleading to talk about nations’ levels of racism, as though it’s equally spread throughout society.
There are areas of the UK where the is deep racism, but equally there are happily multicultural areas where we all rub along nicely.
Similarly, within a set geographic area different communities will display different attitudes.
The Aussie posters who’ve described their experiences here may not work with a fully representative cross-section of society?
[QUOTE=don’t ask]
Having lived in London for a couple of years I find it very amusing that the English have the hide to lecture anyone about racial tolerance, or tolerance of any kind.
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I’m not sure anyone is lecturing… just pointing out that Australia is not the epitome of racial harmony the OP suggests.
The only thing I am questioning is the claim that Australia is the least racist nation in the world… the fact that the UK is worse is neither here nor there. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=don’t ask]
It is almost a standing joke, in fact a staple of ethnic comics in Australia, that the most racially divisive people in Australia are the members of other ethnic groups.
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Which doesn’t mean that the nation is not racist… just that Whites ain’t the biggest culprits.
You seem to have undermined your own argument there?
[QUOTE=Wallenstein]
The countries with least racism will be those with the least racially diverse population - it’s hard to oppose something you’ve no experience of, which is why Iceland and Sweden are so harmonious.
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That would seem to be contradicted by everything I have ever heard about Japan regarding racism.
[QUOTE=FoieGrasIsEvil]
How so versus other countries at the time that also had slaves?
I always took that “peculiar institution” comment to mean that it was at odds with what America’s ideals as a nation were founded on and that people over time disagreed with it’s practice.
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The peculiar institution was that slavery and race were equated, directly. While other places imported Africans to use as slaves, nothing equated slavery and race. A slave who obtained freedom could move up in the world, (with some social constraints), but that person and his or her children were not considered slave material. In the U.S., a number of states, for example, passed laws that any black person who could not provide documents proving their freedom could be siezed as a presumed runaway slave and sold at auction. The de facto and even de jure presumption was that black skin indicated slavery.