Americans: Stop Pushing Your Views of Race on the World

Let me start by saying that the situation faced by minorities in the USA is appalling. Police brutality, generational poverty and systematic oppression are rampant and particularly effect the black community. Race relations in America are shockingly simple in a way that is usually characteristic of authoritarian regimes such as Apartheid, where skin colour is the defining trait of race and identity. But race relations in the rest of the world are far more complex, and too often Americans assume the their experience is matched in other parts of the world, a symptom of a greater problem where Americans can remain comfortably ignorant of anything that happens outside of their borders. Unfortunately even the most progressive and left-wing Americans are guilty of pushing American values and views onto other nations when it isn’t appropriate.

In general, the US separates individuals into five different racial categories. All of these are problematic for different reasons:

Firstly, at the very top of the hierarchy we have white people. Whiteness as a concept is a relic leftover from the days of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and it became important as it protected you from being enslaved. There’s a common misconception that slavery was a product of racism, while in actual fact the reverse is true, with anti-black racism being created to justify slavery. In order to placate citizens of the European empires, and convince them that they were not at risk of being enslaved themselves, distance needed to be created between these citizens and those who could be considered foe enslavement. Skin colour worked very well for this, as if you weren’t black you had no need to worry. Whiteness became an important legal concept and many court cases took place to determine who was or wasn’t white

Secondly, there are black people, those of African origins. From an American perspective these are “the guys we enslaved”. You may notice a theme developing in which these racial characteristics group incredibly varied and diverse peoples together, thereby erasing the culture and background of so many, all for the sake of convenience. Where white people groups the likes of Irish, English, Germans, French, Polish, Russians and even some of those in the Middle East and North Africa, all incredibly different peoples, black groups from all over Africa together with no regard where these people came from or their culture. They are considered as one homogenous monolith.

Thirdly we have Asians. As a racial group this probably makes the least sense, as more than half the world’s population are Asian and includes cultures as diverse as the Turkish, Arabs, Iranians, Kazakhs, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Mongolians. Asian, as a race, gives almost no information on the identity of someone. Recently the LA Times attacked the lack of diversity in popular Netflix show “Cobra Kai”. The show is based in the “Karate Kid” universe and the main characters are a now adult Daniel LeRusso and his rival, Johnny Lawrence. While challenging a lack of diversity is of course of utmost importance, the way it is done in America is often counter-productive. The LA Times bemoaned the fact that the show had not cast an “Asian” lead, the implication being that because karate is an Asian martial arts form, it is appropriation to use it without any Asians taking part. Now while there is a good point buried somewhere beneath the Amerocentricism, I think the way it was articulated is absurd and offensive. An “Asian” lead? Would a Turkish lead do the trick? Maybe an Afghan? Perhaps a Korean or a someone of Chinese origin? You see the issue? Karate is seen as being something from “over there”. It doesn’t matter if it was invented in Japan, as it was, or in any other part of Asia and any Asian is perfectly fine in representing Asia as a whole. Because for America races are huge homogenous groups, created for convenience.

Fourthly we have Latinos/Latinas. I refuse to use the term Latinx as it is a creation of American English speakers imposed upon those that speak Spanish. This is of course another example of ridiculous Americentricism which these racial categories are also a part of. In Spanish, Latinos works as both a masculine and gender neutral noun. Latinos generally refer to those in the US who speak Spanish or Portuguese. However, there are black Latinos and white Latinos and whether it is a racial category of its own isn’t really clear.

Finally, we have indigenous. I take particular umbrage to this category because it is Americentric in the extreme and inherently assumes a view of the coloniser. In regular use indigenous usually means someone who is native to a particular region, and so could apply to the majority of the worlds population. However, in the sense of a race it refers to those who are native but who were also displaced by settler empires. In this usage it is applied to Native American tribes in the plains, the pre-Columbian peoples of South and Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the Maori in New Zealand and the Aborigines in Australia. However, why do we not consider the Kurds to be indigenous? Or Armenians, Irish, Basques or Palestinians? All of these people also had their culture upended by colonisers and their land stolen. The reason is that, unlike the Maori or Aborigines, these peoples had quite a different experience to the indigenous in America. Indigenous as a racial category is a convenient way for Americans to group those that they stole land from, and those outside of America who have a very similar experience. Why bother trying to take a deeper look at these people and see their individual characteristics? These aren’t important to America, which is why it is comfortable with grouping peoples as diverse as the Mayans, Cherokee and Maori together and erasing their individuality. In a way, this is the ultimate expression of colonialism, reducing these people to their relation to the empires of western Europe.

Now while these categories have their own internal problems, a second issue arises in that Americans are enforcing their view of race on the rest of the world. The concept of white privilege is often used to talk about race relations. In America this makes sense, with white people being dominant and people of colour being oppressed. But crucially the American experience is not universal! Efforts to push white privilege as a universal experience, well-intentioned though they may be, are incredibly dangerous. The white versus POC race dynamic is not present throughout all parts of the world. What use is the concept of white privilege to the Tamil people, who’s oppressors were not white? Or to the Greeks, Syrians and Armenians who were massacred in their thousands by Turks? Throughout the world there are, unfortunately, dominant races/ethnic groups and those who are oppressed. White people are sometimes the oppressor, sometimes the oppressed. In some cases neither the oppressor nor the oppressed group are white. The main point is that viewing race relations through an American lens will inevitably lead to incorrect conclusions and misunderstanding of these situations.

To show why this matters let me give a personal anecdote. I am Irish and luckily for me Irish people are no longer an oppressed group in Ireland, at least not in the Republic. However, in the North and in mainland Britain Irish people still face discrimination. Taig is the N-word equivalent for Irish people used by those in Northern Ireland, and KAT, standing for Kill All Taigs is often seen on bonfires burning Irish flags or sprayed as graffiti on walls. Only now is the Irish language getting recognised in the North and Scottish football fans often sing “The Famine Song” asking why Irish immigrants don’t “go home” and mocking the Great Famine which took the lives of over 1 million people. Irish immigrants are still discriminated against in Britain. On a post about how badly immigrants are treated in the UK, I replied about the discrimination Irish people still face. Another poster told me that because Irish people are white, this discrimination isn’t really bad and that I was “taking up space”.

It’s unfortunate that the American view of race relations, as toxic as it is, has been pushed on the rest of us out of sheer laziness. Efforts need to be taken by Americans to attempt to understand the complexity of race relations in the rest of the world, and when you don’t have the information, keep quiet, listen, and learn. American views of race are based on convenience and laziness, grouping diverse groups together and pretending they are homogenous. This needs to change.