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0 pointsthrowaway77831y ago0 comments

It should not make sense, but as long as discrimination is based on skin color, you will see efforts to address it also be based on skin color.

The only thing I advocate for is on economic basis. Nothing else should matter.

If one is "poor" (for a socially acceptable definition of poor), we as a society must help them.

Skin color, historical persecution, country of origin,gender, sexual orientation or any of the thousand things that can be "different" , shouldn't matter.

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xwolfi1y ago

I agree, but I think the constant division of people across vague color lines make people counter react in unproductive ways. Like (random example) talking about Obama as a black person hides so much nuances about who he truly is (and who his ancestors are) that it gives his opponents the impression that s all he is and his defenders not much else to defend him with.

I just find the american casual racism, both sides of the political spectrum, very ... american :D

In France we sort of pretend to ignore there s skin color. I d never describe someone as black, or no more than I d describe someone as blonde and I would almost never use a French word to describe it. It makes me nervous to reduce someone to this random attribute, when maybe his family came from Mali, or Martinique or the US and that's so much more interesting than the effect of the sun on his skin.

throwaway7783OP1y ago

Yes, it is not optimal. Like I said, I don't subscribe how its handled either.

I am not an American, and I'm brown. I don't take issue if someone says I'm brown because I am brown! Maybe I cannot empathize with other races who've been extremely discriminated because of their skin color, but as you said, it is an attribute describing me, among hundred others. I also agree, color of skin by itself is not interesting at all, just like being blonde is not interesting at all - but may play into personal preferences, again, just like any of the hundreds of physical, personality attributes.

Tainnor1y ago

I'm in Germany and I'm also puzzled by how Americans view race. To me, black, white, etc. are just phenotypes, no more important than e.g. being blonde (of course, I realise that some people discriminate based on skin colour). The idea that these skin-colour labels constitute separate "identities" is a bit weird to me.

And yes, of course many African-Americans have certain cultural traits, some heritage etc. that sets them apart, but I would describe that as "African-American" and not "black" because I don't think that a Nigerian or a Sri Lankan would share those traits.

When Donald Trump insisted that Kamala Harris wasn't really black that just made no sense to me.

ponow1y ago

Brevity informs diction.

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