Racing in Circles

For fifty years or more, the United States has dealt with issues of racism. Sure, racism goes back long before that, but dealing with the issue as racism has, it seems, been a more recent event.

In the 1970s, even as people tried to view the country in a color-blind fashion, there were challenges. For example, towards the start of the 1980s, rap (and then hip-hop) became popular, but generally serious listeners of rap were black. Even then, there were attempts of white rappers to cross over, most notably, The Beastie Boys. I knew folks who just couldn't stand rap or hip-hop. These were generally non-blacks.

However, non-blacks who grew up in the 90s have increasingly embraced the hip-hop sound. This is not to say that non-blacks listen to hip-hop exclusively, but that it is part of what they listen to.

The point? The point I'm making is that 50 years of dealing with the civil rights movement has shown increasing progress towards some kind of racial equality, or at least, a heightened sense of racism. Sure, you will always find people who are racist, and those who would brand others as racist often have issues too, playing the blame game, rather than dealing with their own form of "ism".

You would think a society, so sensitive to the racism label would, well, be rather racist. And, yet, because it's constantly in our face, the effect has caused us, for the most part, to be less racist.

I just read an article that was trying to discuss racism in France. In France, the government says that all French citizens are the same. They are French. Because they posit that everyone is French, they make no attempt to determine if there is racism. They collect no statistics. Even if people are being racist, and there is evidence to suggest they are, there's no way to document it, because the French government averts its eyes.

I'd guess, if you ask a French immigrant from North Africa, or a Turk living in Germany, would tell you that the "French", meaning the white "French" and the white "Germans" do not consider them French nor German. All the thoughts white Americans had about African Americans, in particular, are thoughts that run through Europeans for non-native Europeans.

Brazil is seen as one of those countries where blacks and whites often consider themselves equal. Intermarrying between blacks and whites is quite common. Yet, at the very highest levels of government and industry, whites are far more common. There's equality at the lower income levels.

Ultimately, it's not just race, it's culture. People group themselves to those that look and behave the same. I would imagine that, were blacks, whites, Asians, etc. thought alike, enjoyed the same songs, the same literature, and so forth, there would be far less difference, than the obvious skin tones. It's because there's a cultural difference on top of that, that people associate skin color with stereotypical traits.

That commonality, I think, would be bad, because it leads us to a stagnant way of looking at the world. Americans exclaim that no one would ever pay more in taxes than they receive, and yet the richest Swedes must pay exorbitant taxes. Ultimately, we're better off when we can challenge the way we look at the world, and this means everyone. Just because, say, one group is discriminated against, doesn't give them any more enlightenment than the next person.

To sum up, I find it fascinating that accusations of racism might lead to a less racist society than a society where the government claims no such thing occurs.