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Every time I hear “America is racist” I remind people the world is far more racist - see story above. This is common practice everywhere. Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt.
That’s the culture in the region, imo it’s not “wrong”. People self-select and who am I to discriminate against their culture? They do it for their reasons.
I personally find it reprehensible, but that’s my cultural values. I’m proud of where I’m from (US), where we have spent generations working to mitigate any form of discrimination based on race, gender or creed. It’s not perfect, but we strive in the right direction.
Yup, minority here, and I wouldn't feel comfortable living anywhere except the US, Canada, the UK, and maybe ANZ. The Anglo-world in general is far more welcoming to people of color than anywhere else. I'm sure I could be comfortable wherever I am in the world, but it would be extremely difficult for me to thrive and see myself in a position of leadership (either in the private sector or the government) anywhere outside of those countries.
There's a famous quote (perhaps apocryphally) attributed to Reagan: "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American."
As a brown man, I feel this viscerally; I am not only deeply proud to be American, but I feel accepted as an American by my non-immigrant peers.
I think the nuanced way of putting it isn't so much that "America is not racist", it's that every country in the world deals with racism as a problem, but America is perhaps among the least racist.
I almost prefer overt racism to what happens in the USA.
My friend had gotten married was looking to buy a house, and his wife having a lot of trouble driving out to a location only to hear it was off the market. So he decided the he would take some of the burden from his wife, and visit places after work himself.
Fortubately, he didn't coordinate this well enough so he ended up going to some off the same places as her.
Guess what? In the morning, his Hispanic wife would be told the house was aleady sold or the seller was no longer offering it.
That same day in the afternoon, he the White husband would get a tour and be told he could buy anytime.
Racism is alive and well, if it weren't the color of my friends face he wouldn't have a house today. Funny enough his white neighbors spontaneously moved after he arrived with his Hispanic wife, and now the entire neighborhood is more multicultural.
I think people who immigrate from countries where they're the majority to countries where they're a minority encounter racism/ethnicism/colorism for the first time and assume their new country is racist. However, they overlook or underappreciate the racism in their original country because it rarely if ever impacted them. In several cases, they may even imply that racism in their country is okay, because it's their country of origin and want to maintain its "purity." But, I definitely agree that countries like the US, UK, or Canada are less racist than average, but seem more racist because it's overemphasized in media.
Also, as an aside mini-rant, I'm not keen on the concept of race, because it's a very fuzzy and nondescript concept compared to ethnicity or color. Race isn't a meaningful term and is mistakenly used to describe nationalities, religions, ethnicities, or other communities inappropriately.
> Europe, Asia, etc. they discriminate for different reasons and in different ways, but they all do it and it’s almost always overt.
As a Canadian living in Malaysia (just shy of being in the top 10 most racist countries[1]) this is definitely true (although not against me as a Caucasian). There have been several times where I am in a Grab and the casual conversation with the driver all of the sudden turns racist whether it's against Chinese, Bangladeshi, Indian etc. People over here are much less concerned about tact and racism is no exception.
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-raci...
It is a different kind of racism though. Every single country has racist people and they are hardly ever a minority.
However, being looked down upon or discriminated against is one thing. Having to fear for your life and safety because they will hurt you just because of what you look like biologically is a different issue.
Take the infamous Japan for example, if you live there long enough as any non-white minority you should expect to be treated badly based on your appearance alone.
Take a white area in any US state or night time at a sun-down small town. Bad things will happen to you and the cops will be in on it. Or take driving as a minority in certain parts of the US, there is a chance you might run into a cop who might decide to frame you for some crime and at best you will spend a few weeks in jail before being set free. That can happen outside the US in say Russia for example, the US isn't special but the type of racism where you don't get jobs or get called names in public is different than being afraid day in day out or have large portions of a political party advocate for race wars, genoicide,etc...
I mean can you think of any other country where a minorities are incarcerated at a similar rate per capita as the US?
I use to think like you as well but the US is a bit special as with many things in this regard. But racism like many other evils are default settings on humans.
I heard it said once, about how prevalent and deep racism runs in various societies, that
- Americans are racist
- Europeans wrote their thesis on racism
- Asians wrote the original sources on racism that the Europeans cite in their thesis
I agree that most of the world is worse (or different?), but America is still special because it has so much pure racism that isn't a blend with xenophobia.
Here in Germany for example, black skin Africans report wildly different amounts of discrimination: the lucky ones are those who, due to some inexplicable subtility, tend to get misidentified as African Americans. Suddenly they are on the other side of that strange line separating immigrants from expats, without even trying.
Brazilians in Portugal go through this all the time, in spite of most of them looking just like the fellow Portugueses.
So, it’s no a skin issue by no mean.
Speaking of "overt":
South African Racism vs. American Racism
Gist of his answer is south African Racism is "blacks can't live here", US Racism is "well you could live here, but your loan was denied, sorry"
The fact that the US has a continuous and often contentious dialogue about racism is why the US is less racist.
They don't talk about it much in places that are really racist because they don't give a damn.
This. Having lived in Switzerland for the past four years I am shocked by this revelation, people think America is a super racist place, it doesnt hold a flame to other parts of the world, in fact its the opposite.
As someone from around the region mentioned in the article. I find it reprehensible too. And at least, from my own bubble of the people I interact with I don't think anyone I know would find it not.
I like to think we're striving in the right direction too. Just at a different stage.
Just because other countries may have it worse doesn't mean that we're doing well. Look at our prison demographics -- black men are over-represented by a factor of two.
I find this post hilarious. You're trying to juggle an idea that is in itself paradoxical and illogical.
The idea that all forms of discrimination are bad. Hear me out.
All discrimination is bad including cultural discrimination. However if a culture discriminates against sex or race how do I reconcile this paradox? By respecting a culture must I respect a culture a discrimination? The parent post is a confused person trying to make sense of the paradox.
My suggestion is to get above all of it. You don't need to crystallize discrimination into a hard black and white rule where if you discriminate your evil and if you don't your good. Much of America has this attitude and they can't rise above it.
There are legitimate logical and mathematical correlations between race and certain traits, between sex and certain traits and between culture and certain traits. To judge a person for these traits based off of sex, culture and race can be very rational due to these very real correlations.
But instead America has embraced woke culture which takes these anti discrimination views to the extreme such that you get male athletes with sex changes competing with women in female sports. It's sort of insane. But I get it.
This wokenesses attitude arises from a past where Americans took discrimination to illogical levels and committed atrocities because of it. Now our country lives in the extremes. You are either racist/sexist or you are woke. Pick one, because there isn't really a word for a moderate viewpoint on this topic.
The hypocrisy is all around us. Don't discriminate against gender but we must segregate restrooms into male and female versions. Are you saying males are lecherous pervs and we must give females a safe space to piss, shit and do makeup? It's actually completely sexist to segregate restrooms when men and women practically share every other space.
> remind people the world is far more racist
> generations working to mitigate any form of discrimination
I would definitely agree that all humans have the capacity to be racist (other-ist) and that racism is not confined to the USA (obviously).
But it’s ridiculous to claim that somehow “it’s worse than the USA” and that the USA has mitigated it all, because that’s easily disproved by speaking to any minority person.
But, I suppose, an important question to ask is: which is worse? The overt in-your-face racism or the subtle more nuanced racism that avoid stating it directly? In a lot of ways, the candor is better, since at least you know what you are dealing with. A lot of the efforts in the U.S. have merely driven it underground, and the efforts to counter it have become sort of draconian in themselves (e.g. more "thought police").
This is one of the few instances that I've seen open discrimination agains white western people in Japan. In my journey for renting a place, after a couple of visits and getting a "no because he's a gaikokujin (foreigner)" I asked the agent to disclose it firstly.
He did, but tactfully: he is a foreigner who is learning Japanese and came to the university in Japan and is hired by traditional company X and blabla. Still somewhere like 25-50% straight up rejections, but at least those were 1-minute waste instead of 30-60 min waste of time. And I was looking in the "high market in Tokyo", which I guess is probably the least discriminatory in the whole Japan. I also cannot imagine what non-western foreigner suffer (who are normally discriminated against a lot more).
One thing though, give the honor based Japanese culture, what do you think are the rates of Japanese not paying their rent, vs foreigners not paying rents.
Might it be because of the additional legal requirements for a landlord in case of foreign tenants? Or it's really because they don't like non-Japanese?
Landlording is something that is likely to make a person more racist. A couple of bad experiences and you start preferring people similar to those that did not give trouble in the past.
It makes me biasless. The tenant I thought would be awesome in paper really screwed us over. Now I have no idea how to judge a good perspective tenant and it is a crapshoot. It wont be because of race though.
Yes did thorough DD.
It’s a reminder that your own stereotypes exist for a reason. You’ll never remove that from the human brain. It’s not always a bad thing (your brain takes in cues, combines them with experiences, and uses that to make decisions while spending less energy).
But we should be careful to not let our own biases be baked into systems and processes.
Too bad there isn't a service that could look into the historical background of prospective tenants to gain references, criminal, credit, job and salary information. Completely objective and mostly without inherent prejudices.
We may even call it something like "a background check".
Just spitballing ideas!
Was surprised to see “Singapore”, expected “Bay Area.”
When I left my last rental after buying a house, my elderly white landlord asked me to help him put the property on Craigslist. When I did so and mentioned the Cupertino school district, he asked me to remove that part because “it would attract too many Indian families with kids” to avoid the curry smell. He had no issue with other Asian ethnicities, the previous tenant was Chinese.
I did not remove it, but I don’t know anything about the next renter.
I’ve since heard the same comment from people at work who rent out property. The curry smell is always the issue.
This is, still, an extremely common practice here in Singapore. In my experience this is because of racism. I say this because I present as the majority race and I know Chinese landlords who have complained to me, in person, about "all those Indians taking over the neighbourhood", and many worse things that they think are funny and that I would laugh at because I present as the majority race.
The common reason given is that Indian cooking involves lots of spices that stain and remain in the kitchen, necessitating either a kitchen overhaul prior to renting to a new tenant, or renting to another Indian family. I understand and am sympathetic towards this reason, having frustratingly burnt-in a few permanent turmeric stains into my work surfaces. But just a little. To be a landlord in Singapore is to be of a financial status that most Singaporeans are not a part of.
And again, I also know it is simply a smoke screen, because these same landlords are also the ones complaining about "all of the Indians in the neighbourhood"! And making variations of the blinding smile joke, bobbing their heads mockingly, wrinkling their noses in disgust at the imagined smell of food or perfumes or incense, complaining about the noise they make, and advising you earnestly to never invest in property in known Indian enclaves.
Thank goodness not everyone is like this, and thank goodness for the enforced racial quotas of government housing.
Afaik Singaporean housing is based on a govt racial quota system - if you sell/lease your property it must match to the demarcated race for that area - there are numbers.
It seems that he is an outlier being a mixed race couple - dunno how that works in that case ????.
Also Singapore in the early days suffered from race riots between it's Chinese/Malay/Tamil (Indian) citizens and the founders did not want racial ghettos to form or a repeat of racial strife.
I think it is a good system in a multi-cultural society - here in South Africa we see what problems and issues arise out of this type of segregation.
It's so strange to see how racism and discrimination is carried out in other countries. Even more so when that country is a highly developed like Singapore. Being from the US where housing is highly protected, due mostly to decades of racial discrimination, I'm just thinking "holy shit they'd be eaten alive with the lawsuits coming their way for so blatantly putting it out there."
Also,
> 99.co is now tackling this by introducing an “all-races-welcome” indicator on its website. What this means is that agents and landlords can positively indicate that their properties can be rented by anyone regardless of ethnicity.
Kind of sad they would even need to do this. Maybe William Gibsons Wired article about 90s Singapore was exactly right.
For westerners in thread complaining about the smell of Indian food/curries, guess what, your food smells too (meat being cooked/bbq'ed smells yucky to vegetarians who have never experienced meat.) Even your bodies have a rotten cheesy odor. I am not being racist, I dont care what anyone cooks or eats. Its just a matter of perspective and I am providing a perspective that you have probably not heard about yourselves.
Sadly common in Singapore. The usual excuse trotted out is that Indian cooking, particularly the use of ghee, leaves a strong smell in the kitchen that requires either extensive renovation to get rid of, or another Indian tenant.
Singapore has a significant local Indian minority and many mainland Indian expats, but while public housing is forcibly desegregated with racial quotas, in the private market this means there are many condo developments like Tanjong Rhu that are majority-Indian (plus expats who are unaware or don't care).
Having been on the end of rental discrimination It's very frustrating. But I still find this 'no asians/agents' real-estate ad clip funny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lyex2tSUyA
A similar thing happened to me and my partner in the US, in a fairly liberal part, so I'm not entirely surprised that it's happening in SEA. People wouldn't rent to us because we told them we cook at home and these white folks were like "but Indian food smells!"
Brings to mind those poor african textile traders that were force evicted during the whole "covid was brought in by foreigners" hysteria in china. Which is tolerated and encouraged by the censors.
Yes the world is a horrifying racist place with only america and europe discussing and fighting it openly.
Shame based cultures seem to be more prone to sweaping such problems under the rug instead of solving them.
Yup, common occurrence also here in Tokyo. If you are not Japanese you can expect quite a few rejections, as well as having to pay extra "guarantor" fees, and in general higher than average rent.
And, mind you, I'm probably among the lucky ones... if you're from other Asian countries you can probably expect even worse.
A lot of people have misconception that all Indian food is oily and strong in smell but that's far from true. That is the primary reason given for excluding Indian tenants everywhere.
For some reason, north Indian food is over represented by a significant margin. On top of it, people expect restaurant style food to be cooked at home except nobody does that. Most young people do not use strong ghee or spices. With proper ventilation, it is not a problem at all.
Hotels in my city refuse Indian guests. They had to renovate rooms all the time after their visits. It was not worth it anymore. (Central Europe)
In many parts of Canada, you have reverse racism where the - nationally speaking - minorities in certain cities (Richmond and Brampton especially) own the majority of properties. It's not uncommon to see Craigslist or Kijiji rental ads stating "Indian only" or "Chinese only" and refusing rentals to other races.
We have this in Germany too. A study found that Germans/migrants with a Turkish background would end up paying more for the same quality or space. This leads to segregation and reinforces an ethnic class divide.
I faced same problem in Canada. Vietnamese owner refused to rent me a place citing he does not allow Indian tenants because they are smelly.
As another anecdote. It is common for apartment ads in Netherlands to explicitly say “no foreigners!” in their ads. Which was a shock to me when first seeing them on Facebook by 18-22 year old Dutch university students offering rooms.
Extremely offensive if this ad would show up in usa or other new world countries.
Is this a Singapore thing ?
There was a video trending on Reddit where a Korean streamer going around SG in normal summer dress was accosted by some rando woman telling her to cover up, else the "indians will rape you".
Quite frankly, reading the propaganda coming out of Western outlets over the course of my whole life (and for 400+ years of occidental "anti-pagan" hate and lies), I'm so tired as to be not even elicit a reaction.
> 99.co is now tackling this by introducing an “all-races-welcome” indicator on its website.
Despite all the patting themselves on the back, when they implemented this they only added an "all-races-welcome" tag to listings that allowed all races. Landlords who discriminated against others based on race were still very much welcome on the platform.
From 2016.
I understand from friends that things have changed due to laws.
Because of that day to day racism I'm often very angry even if I'm not affected by that.
Racism is a big evil.
I have experienced similar discrimination while ago. It clearly shows some streotypes against certain nationalities. If it is not a quota issue then first thing comes to mind is food. I know it sucks but in an open market, as a property owner the landlord is free to choose the tenant and needs to be respected.
This is among the strangest advertisements I've read. "Are you strongly against discrimination? Then rent from us!"
This is a very good startup opportunity in this. If anyone can solve this, they can capture a decent market for global workers.
Wow thats crazy and would exclude a sizeable market in countries like the UK.