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uncdan hat auf deinen Eintrag geantwortet: uncdan hat auf deinen Eintrag geantwortet: uncdan…

It’s true though. Racism in Europe manifests quite differently from in America, and the approach to racism is also different.

Interesting!  Would you mind going into more detail about this?  People ask me a lot about racism in Europe today, I only know how it is in Russia because I did my thesis on that.  I would like to know more about this.

Well, I haven’t done a thesis on this, so I’m going from mostly observation, reports and speculation, so, you know, pinch of salt. 

But one of the differences is that there are real, legal neo-nazis in Europe. And they have political parties. They just don’t call themselves nazis. 

Red Light Politics here on Tumblr focuses mostly on racism in Europe, especially where she’s based in the Netherlands. And it’s quite shocking. It is legal to go blackface in the Netherlands, complete with a comical “ethnic/colonial” costume. The argument is that racists are allowed free speech too, which, okay, is technically true, but in practice hands a carte blanche to them. She is a white immigrant to the Netherlands and still has trouble being accepted by the locals, so you can imagine their feelings on others. Officially it’s a very free and progressive country, but the trends are worrying. 

Basically, it just seems like racism is a lot more direct here in Europe than it is in America. One way or another, activists against racism in America have at the very least made everyone politically correct, or at least try to hide it better. You know how in America it’s fringe nuts or offhand comments and we hint that certain people think certain races should be booted back to where they came from? In Europe there are political parties specifically geared to that stance. 

In a way this isn’t completely a bad thing. It’s a little more honest, even though it’s terrible. And it puts the issue directly on the table: “I am against immigration and think that multiculturalism has failed.” 

Hell, there’s a frighteningly popular book in Germany about how Turkish people are eventually going to take over Germany because they fuck more and birth more Turkish kids than Germans do. This kind of book would never fly very far in America, even though there are people who think along similar lines there about whatever race it is they don’t like. 

Berlusconi came into power and held onto it for as long as he did for being popular on the anti-crime stance. For most Italians who were his supporters, that directly meant to them “All the African immigrants are causing so much crime and he’s against them.” Crime in Italy was so bad that there were volunteer citizen militias. They didn’t do much other than walk around with mobiles, but some took it more seriously than others. Some were specifically right-wing, targeting African immigratns, and even had fascist salutes. 

Even here in peaceful Switzerland we get our share of anti-immigration politics. I posted a long time ago about this. The Schweizer Volks Partei is the local right-wing anti-immigrant party. And it has risen to popularity in the last several years on that note. If you follow the link, check out the very obvious “white sheep kicking out black sheep” poster. 

There were protests against it of course, but the fact that it happened from an official, and disturbingly popular, political party, is something that would never happen in America. 

I have a Polish friend who was pretty well travelled. She has had boyfriends from Turkey, India, Lebanon, and so on. But she carries a frighteningly common opinion that, although she likes Muslims just fine, she thinks they’re dangerous and will take over Europe and are bad about women’s rights. The irony is quite lost on her. 

But like I said, there’s institutional racism in America. Racism activists there spend most of their time trying to prove that it exists and happens. In Europe, there’s little attempt to hide it. It’s a more honest debate, but it’s also a more disturbing one.

I mean this in the sense that there are real debates with people’s honest racial opinions. I don’t like it, BUT by having these anti-immigration parties, they actually talk about saying that the crime rate has increased with immigration. They don’t hide it, the way American politicians do when they try to hide their racism for votes.