Racism ? in other countries.

Egyptians had slaves, the Dutch colonized South Africa and enslaved the natives, they are still working on major issues. There are numerous tribes in Africa who capture and enslaves members of other tribes, many times young girls!

It's a major "talk point" with African-Americans because for so many of them their origins are from slavery in this country. (I say "for many of them" because we do of course have African immigrants also). 

But as others have said, slavery in some for or another has existed forever. In fact, American slave holders often used the bible to justify owning slaves, and they would quote verses such as Ephesians 6:5 that says "slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear" to remind their slaves to be content with their life. This was one reason the slave owners usually didn't want slaves to learn to read, because once you learn to read you learn all sorts of things. There's a whole section in the Old Testament about how to treat slaves, including that you have to set them free after a certain amount of time. American slave owners didn't want anyone getting those ideas.   

The US racism is different from the one experienced in my nook of Europe. I witnessed an African-American person arguing with a black French person and they could not see eye to eye on the experience of racism although they both had been victims of it and found that it affected their life. As a white person, I can't fully understand or relate those differences but the conversation got heated at one point because it seemed unbbelievable (literally) to the African-American participant that the French could not directly relate to some of the systemic racism in the US. I wish I'd remember it better... I do recall that the French black person absolutely refuted the notion of being African-French and that was one of the major identitary differences between them.

Racism, xenophobia, people being targeted because of ethnicity, this all exists worldwide. However, the actual experience of minorities who are victimised isn't necessarily the same and the way racism is systemic also isn't expressed in a similar manner through countries and cultures. Reminder that how your police forces are set up also greatly influence the systemic abuse and mistreatment of minorities. The US have a very, very specific police force system that is difficult to understand and fully comprehend to foreigners. Most of my friends weren't even aware that sheriffs were politically elected. All of this affects the way racism is expressed on a daily basis.

Race generally speaking is far more discussed in the US than in Western Europe. Xenophobia is definitely very present here. But race is more of a taboo topic. In France, it is legally forbidden to ask someone to tick their race/ethnicity for official documents. There is no such thing as a little box for Caucasion/African-American/Hispanic/etc. I know this may come as a shock to Americans but that's the way it is.

Found this video of African-American women discussing their experience of being black in France:

My daughter's boyfriend is Indian.  They have been dating over 3 yrs., but his parents still don't know about her (but I think they may know more than she thinks).  She is white and they would not accept her (according to her boyfriend).  They are both 22 yrs. old.

For sure there are racism issues throughout the world.

I can speak to the racism in the city where I live. The neighboring town of Sale (which used to be a pirate city back in the day) is looked down upon by those people living in Rabat. They have been socio-economically oppressed over the years. The people of Rabat see themselves as better educated and more cultured than people of Sale.

There is even racism here against sub-Saharan Africans trying to make their way up into Europe.

Don't even get me started on modern day slavery. You might want to fact check me, but I am pretty sure that Mauritania still has a big problem with slavery. Even here, some young girls are "pimped" out by their families as maids. The employer PAYS the family, not the girl. Thankfully, the tide is changing and they are beginning to have more laws to protect maids.

I think we could have a whole discussion about the dark world of "maids" throughout the Middle East and Asia.

There's definitely racism in Australia, but it is different in how it is in the USA.
We never imported slaves, so that element doesn't apply to us.
But white people colonized Australia and their first act was to dehumanize/nullify the indigenous population...we had native aboriginal people living here, but because they were seen as nomadic and did not appear to settle in one place the European explorer declared Australia "terra nullius" which mean unoccupied or uninhabited.
Then followed the usual white man invasion and decimation of the native inhabitants. They took their land, they stole their children, they gave them diseases etc etc That racism is less about the different skin colour and more about the total disregard of the value of an entire race and that issue still pervades today.
That is more similar to the USA's Native American issues than it is to African American issues.

The next wave of racism was/is against Asian immigrants, initially the Chinese, then more commonly people from other Asian countries as Japan, Vietnam, Korea etc.
From early 1900 to the med 1960's we had an official "white Australia policy" which excluded pretty much everyone of non European origin, but was primarily aimed at Asian countries.
That's probably our biggest racist issue still and we have some very vocal politicians currently that are anti-Asian, with the idea that "they take all our jobs, come in illegally" etc. In USA terms the issues are more similar to "illegal Mexican immigrants" then to the African American situation.

So yes we definitely have racism, but it is different, it isn't based on the slavery issue that is at the core of the USA racism, and we don't have guns in the population, so we don't have the gun violence that feeds into the American version as well. Our police have guns, but because in general the population does not, the police aren't as trigger happy. Police shooting account for only 4-5 deaths per year. In fact of the few police shooting we have, the only ones I can think of where white males...often with a mental illness. Therefore our racism issues are not as "explosive" as in the USA and don't lead to the same type of rioting behaviour.

I can only think of one race related riot in recent memory in 2005 in Sydney and it was between Middle Eastern/Lebanese & Anglo-Australians.

This is incorrect. There is a large population of Australians with ancestors who were bought here as slaves. Articles below:



www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754



www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-22/australian-south-sea-islanders-blackbirding/9270734



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbirding



theconversation.com/australias-hidden-history-of-slavery-the-government-divides-to-conquer-86140



humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/publications/australian-south-sea-islanders-century-race



www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/islander-labourers




It is also happening still under the guise of government programs supposed to help:



www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/03/hungry-poor-exploited-alarm-over-australias-import-of-farm-workers



www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/pacific-islands-australian-seasonal-workers-program-fruitpicking/9807894



www.smh.com.au/national/slavery-claims-as-seasonal-workers-from-vanuatu-paid-nothing-for-months-work-20170327-gv7k99.html

Wha-what?? I live in Australia. Born here, always have lived here, and always will as it's an amazing country BUT you're still incorrect with your statement about slaves not being bought here.

Any tiny article - ABC is tiny?  I also included two government websites, including the Australian Human Rights Commission. I see from your post that you'd rather stay ignorant which is ok, because everyone else can read the links themselves and see what you said was incorrect....and that you didn't accept it when it was pointed out to you because it's apparently rhetoric. I wish I could say I was gobsmacked.

I’m surprised because I know quite a few Koreans that (acknowledging the Korean-Japanese racism in Korea) went to lengths to advise me how to know the difference between Japanese (and Hawaiian) and.. this white girl (me) can easily tell. A name change isn’t going to help. Japanese and Korean in our lifetime are two of the most (proudly) homogenous gene pools on the Earth.

My friend’s goddaughter lives somewhere near London. I am not sure why she stays there. The stories she tells.

We definitely have racism in Australia. We have several cases of deaths of aboriginal people in custody. It's largely swept under the carpet. We also have Islamophobia and racism against Asians. I'd like to think it's not as bad as in the US, but that's probably my white, middle-class life experience.

I don't think though that our police would ever feel able to openly murder someone while being videoed.  They might do it in a lock-up, but not where there were witnesses, and I'm FAIRLY certain if it did happen the recriminations and repercussions from the police hierarchy and government would be swift.  That's what especially blew me away with this one.  They felt so enabled that they didn't care that it was being videoed.  They were so confident there would be no consequences, that it was fine to do it.  I can't, no matter how hard I try, wrap my head around that.

And whilst I don't think it was officially recognised as slavery, we did have slavery in Australia with the South Sea Islanders being stolen from their homes and used on the sugar plantations. Many aboriginal people were effectively slaves in that they worked for food only and were treated appallingly. But no official "ownership" so most Australians would deny that it was slavery.

People in other countries are also shaking their heads at the way the USA is handling gun issues, refugee issues, immigrant issues, environmental issues, pandemic issues, etc. Obviously other countries have their fair share of poorly managed issues and leadership too. But since 45 took office the country seems to be spiralling out of control and for a nation that was once respected by many others, it’s a very sad thing to see.

I live in the middle east and the racism is bad here. Different than in the USA but very ingrained about certain races and religions. My kids are minorities here (we are caucasian) so that has been interesting for them but they are mostly treated well. People from the Philippines, India and Bangladesh suffer from the worst of the racism here.