Go to piavpn.com/felifromgermany to get 83% off Private Internet Access with 4 months free! ▸What are YOUR experiences and opinions on this topic? Have you ever experienced racism? Which of the two approaches do you agree with more? 🤔👇
I remember when I was first asked about my race, I was asking the same questions. I didn't understand why my friends needed to know my race. I felt like they were going to say something I didn't like afterward. It was only a few years ago.
All they got is estimates in the US too, Feli. because every city, every university, every state, everyone collects data differently. Like your surveys everybody uses different key words to describe often the same things. So conducting any kind of statistics across states, becomes pure guesswork.
I'm actually more surprised that you have never before been asked a Race question (although it makes sense why) than it being common in the USA. Even here in the UK on the census we are asked to select from the following categories & sub categories and these I have also seen elsewhere eg when registering at a Doctors Asian or Asian British (Indian, Pakastain,Bangladeshi, Chinese , Other Asian background) Black, Black British, Caribbean or African (Caribbean African, any other black background) Mixed or multiple ethnic groups (White& Black Caribbean, White & Black African, White & Asian, any other mixed or multiple ethnic background) White (English|Welsh|Scottish|Northern Irish|British , Irish , Gypsy or Irish Traveller, Roma, Any other white background) Other ethnic group (Arab,Any other ethnic group)
As someone who grew up in former Soviet union, I was extremely confused by the term "Caucasian" used in USA as a synonym to those of European race. In Russia and some other ex-Soviet countries this term is used to describe people native to Caucasus region, such as Georgians, Azeris, Armenians, Chechens, etc. In the 1990s there was a lot of prejudice against Caucasians in Russia (and there still is), they were stereotyped as criminals and terrorists, would be attacked by neonazis, profiled by police, face discrimination and were not considered white, some common racial slurs were based on their perceived "non-whiteness" (by USA standards majority of Caucasians would be considered white). Racial definitions can vary a lot in different regions based on various historical factors, and can make no sense outside those regions. So for someone outside USA American racial categories can look very strange and illogical, and so does American preoccupation with race and categorizing people based on it in general.
When I started watching TV shows in English I was confused by that term as well. "Caucasian? Huh? Why are all those people from the caucasus region? I don't understand...?" Took me quite some time to realise they meant "white".
I'm from Sweden, and I think in the US, race is often used as a veiled and lopsided way of talking about issues of class - because discussing straight in terms of class, the entitled vs the poor (even working poor) is seen as un-American.
I am an Egyptian who lived in Germany for many years. A few years ago, I moved to the US. When I first arrived, I didn't pay attention to people's skin color. I didn't even notice if the person I was talking to was white, Hispanic, or black. I didn't think it mattered. But over time, I started to notice and now I prefer the way things are done in Germany. I don't think constantly talking about race helps. I believe that if we stop making such a big deal out of skin color, racism will eventually fade away. Ultimately, people should be treated equally and hired based on their skills.
If you are speaking to someone, and actually paying attention to them, how do you not see the color of their skin? One would need to actually be blind to do so. Now, if you state you see them and who they are and their ethnicity/culture, but you accept them and appreciate them for who they are as an individual then that makes sense. We should all be seen for all the nuances of who we are, but accepted and treated with equality and respect anyway! In the US that is what many are trying to achieve. It is difficult, but we have to keep trying. One day I truly believe we can do that throughout the world. The world is a bigoted and prejudice place. This thread proves it.
@@jonok42 You don't need to keep trying, you need to stop talking about it... A person LOOKING like they belong to some culture because they have a certain skin color or features, now that sounds racist to me. You can't see culture, you are guessing based on experience, you are the bigot here. The problem in the US is that race, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, crippling childhood trauma, etc is being used to stand out and that doesn't help when you actually want to blend in...
@@jonok42 It's not that they don't see the color of their skin. They just don't draw any conclusions from it and don't force into a topic of discussion. You don't have to know their culture to accept them as a human being. As an American I find it mind boggling that I have to be aware of every single slur and stereotype a people have so that I can actively avoid using it. Why do I have to learn racism to be non-racist? A politician in Maryland used a word that he did not intend to be a slur and I would venture that the vast majority of Americans were unaware the word was a slur, but it cost him a primary election because he wasn't aware that so many of his constituents would take offense to the word that he used in a completely different context from how they understood it (David Trone in case you care enough to ask and no I won't repeat the word).
@@jonok42 As a non-American (Italian to be specific), I've always suspected that the reason Americans seem obsessed with race to us Europeans, is because in America there is a racial group that has its own dialect (AAVE, also known as Ebonics, spoken by blacks). It took me a long time to figure this out, but when you do, the difference between the old world and the US is striking. There is NOTHING like that over here in Italy. Immigrants speak with the accent of their home country, and their children who grow up here, INVARIABLY, speak the same as everyone else. Black Italians (or Asian Italian, or anyone else, as long as they grow up here) sound exactly like everyone else, they don't have an accent. I honestly think that explains all the problems with race the US has that Europe doesn't have. It's harder to treat a group the same as everyone else when they speak in a different way.
As a polish person this “race” stuff always seemed messed up to me Maybe because polish word rasa is used for dog breeds and is rarely used to refer to humans Even if someone used the word in this context around me I always felt weird because people aren’t dogs or cats
I once tried to say to an American that race is used for animals and that there aren't races for human but he just replied to me saying I was uneducated. I think most European would rather use "ethnicity" or don't even talk about that, it's just pigmentation why would that matter ?
The reason for this is probably things like making sure there is enough diversity within the company. As a white person this actually worked in my favor ONCE. I used to work at a Walgreens in Orlando and I was literally hired because I was white. I was the only white person that worked at the whole store. Not that I think there is anything discriminatory about this. I think its a good thing to have intentional diversity. Its just not usually something that benefits white people, because of white privilege.
They get every benefit and advantage in hiring, promotions, admissions, scholarships, grants, loans, layoffs, mortgages, down payments, dorms, federal contacts, and relief aid.
It's an attempt to try to make up for the discrimination of the past by making sure that employers do not have a pattern of only hiring certain ethnic groups
I was on vacation in NYC in 2019, we were in the metrostation when a man next to us had an epileptic seizure and fell on his head. Blood started to flow out of his head so we went to the nearest emergency pole and called 911. My brother explained what happened and the first question that the dispatcher asked was ‘is he white, black or hispanic?’. The man looked Latino, so my brother said hispanic. (We’re dutch, btw) At first we thought it was for identification, but soon realised that the metrostation was nearly empty (it was late in the evening) so there’s no way they wouldn’t have seen the guy laying on the ground with a pool of blood around him. When they finally arrived 15 minutes (!!) later they only brought a first aid kit and walked over to the man in the slowest pace ever. That was not to ‘eliminate’ racism, that very much was racism. If your first question is what is the persons ‘race’ and not for example ‘how long ago did it happen?’ or ‘how much blood did he lose?’ or anything like that then it really sounds like racism to me.
911 dispatchers are trained to ask for race for identification purposes. They don't know who will be present or how confusing the scene may be when help arrives. I can't speak for the slow response of the EMTs in this case, but the question from the dispatcher was for identification.
As a polish guy in Berlin, when I was in school our class was naturally very diverse and no one said anything about it. We had black, asian, slavic, native american and arabic people there but “race” was never an issue or even a topic of discussion. It was way more important which country you’re from or grew up in. Like I remember having conversations with classmates where they were from and they proudly identified themselves being from a certain country (e.g. Ireland, Cameroon, South Korea, Russia etc.) but never their “race”. I never really thought about that either. Concepts like White/Caucasian and Asian are therefore pretty confusing to me bc they’re so wide in their scope and definition. I always thought more in terms of country of origin, rather than race or ethnicity
Yes the country of origin affects behavior and culture more directly than race does. I think conserving race data allows for discrimination but people can conserve "racism" if they want to because people intrinsically are interested in history. We seem obsessed with where a person "grew up" in the US.
@@jamesmedina2062I disagree, you care about the colour of their skin, otherwise you wouldn’t ask about it. For example Elon musk, an actual African immigrant, faces far less racism than an African-American whose family has been in the US for generations. That’s because you do not care where they “grew up”. If I see a black guy in Germany it matters a great deal whether he is from central Africa or the US. With the American, as we would refer to a black US citizen, I know that I will most likely have all the important values in common. I know there will be no language barrier and that he in all likelihood won’t be a criminal. For the African man there would be a lot more prejudice to overcome. Skin colour tells you absolutely nothing about a person. Country of origin and how someone got to where he is now on the other hand … it’s not even racism. Just being wary of strangers, and people from the US are less strange than people from a wholly different culture you can’t even properly communicate with.
This is a really balanced and thoughtful take on the topic. I must say though, that checking boxes for race on a form is not where or when American children learn what race they are or are perceived to be. Maybe if you're white but generally, if you're a POC then as a kid you learned what race you are not from checking boxes but from your family, friends, strangers, etc. Sometimes it's a gentle awareness learned from people that love you but just as often you find out from racists saying racist crap to you and you not understanding what it even means but feeling hurt regardless. Then your loved ones have to explain what happened and why. If you're mixed race, then the box checking could have been a source of stress b/c until a couple decades ago, you couldn't check more than one box and that forced people to choose just one which isn't accurate and basically seems like a denial of part of their heritage. Then they added the "other" box so multiracial people could use that if they didn't want to choose one race. Then they added the mixed race or multiracial option as well as letting you check more than one box. So, it's something that evolves over time. So yeah, I can see how older kids and adults coming to this country for the 1st time would be shocked at the race question on forms and I can see how that could be the catalyst for them starting to see the world, themselves, and other people through a racial lens that they previously did not. But that generally isn't what happens to kids born here; obviously there's always exceptions. Racial data collecting is not the cause of racism in this country. It's always been here since the colonizers landed. The data can be used for evil or for good, but the data is just data it is neither good nor bad, it's data.
Article 1 Dutch Constitution “All those in the Netherlands are treated equally in equal cases. Discrimination on grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or on any other grounds is not permitted.”
They wrote the same thing in the American constitution eg. "all men are created equal ...". However the guy who first said it kept more than 100 slaves in his Virgina family farm His name was Washington.. They ask people about their racial origins because they classify them and put those who are of the same skin colours together whether it's about housing, theater seats, work place, schooling seats in classrooms etc ...
US Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 14th Amendment Section 1: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." 15th Amendment: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Among the civil rights acts and many other laws
I visited US a few years ago and I only stayed for 2 weeks. Within those 2 weeks, I was asked EXTENSIVELY where I'm from multiple times. When I said, I'm from Australia, and then they started asking where my parents are from until where's my great grandparents are from. Seriously, I'm a native Australian and I really don't know any further than where's my grandpa is from.
It's because Americans deep inside are keenly aware of their colonial history which goes back just a few generations, and they don't have deep roots in their own country, and thus feel a need to establish their identity as descendants of immigrants of every corner of Europe (unless they're black) then hang on to their particular ancient heritage to set themselves apart from other groups.
@@residentzero You know what I find funny about that? It never comes up in movies, especially not wester movies. I mean it usually takes two or three generations until the original culture starts to vanish. Even traces from the parent's or grandparent's culture could give a character interesting quirks. Though I have missed the same in pirate movies. It's not like they were born as pirates or came from the same country. Even the fighting styles from Spain and France would be different at the time.
I think it's a double-edged sword. Its often a gear thing that stimulates talk and curiosity about our origins. Other times it can pigeon-hole you and people will undoubtedly discriminate towards you. I find when parents are adamant about continuing norms they will teach their kids to be judgemental and to conserve the norms taught being taught to them. So often this cultural pride ends up being quite a bit discriminatory toward others. At the same time it is good to cherish you ancestors and history. So its complicated
@@residentzero which is truly sad because everywhere else You (not OP, but persons in 1st comment) are nothing more, nothing less - an American. With white teeth, white sneakers and loud voice. I feel bad breaking it for immigrant Americans to, for example, Germany being proud "for coming back home". No, honey, no... Also quit the whole expat thing, we all know emmigrant goes away, immigrant arrives. It's not a slur, no need to feel embarrassed.
Like not identifying as a black American. I bet your skin colour isn't even black, but rather dark brown or caramel. Nor does it matter unless we artificially make it matter.
what is always confusing with the word "caucasian" is that this region " the caucasus" is not even european^^ its located between the northeastern border of turkey, near russias south border where armenia, aserbaidjan and Georgia (not to confuse with the US State) are located. :D
It is on border of Europe, but people there don't look like you mostly imagine a typical "white person" so it was always weird even for me why they call it like that. I don't think we learned about some "caucasian" race in Czech schools, but there were still things that could be considered racist in these days when I was visiting elementary schools. But funny is that even people from India are part of "europoid" race by our teachbooks even when they are obviously not white, so everything they teach in USA is just weird for us, like they have some "latino" race etc....bizzare stuff.
technically they are both i mean all of europe and asia except for india is a single continental plate, only difference is that someone set a border there once and though yeah thats it georgians identify as european, armenia considers itself asian and azerbaidjan identifies as arab wich technically should also be considered its own continent if we devide eurasia by cultures because arabs are far from japanese or chinese people culturally
The classification comes from an old racist classification of people in caucasian mongoloid and negro. Caucasian being everything from white to Indian. It doesnt make a lot of sense and is a good reason to toss out the word caucasian aswell as we have the other two. Edit from Wikipedias Page about Caucasian Race : "Introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history,[b] the term denoted one of three purported major races of humankind (those three being Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid)."
I was once told that this is because, in terms of evolution over the past 28,000 years, it is thought that light skin evolved first in the Caucasus mountains.
As someone who is mixed race and white passing I've found these questions nothing but confusion and pain. I always try to put "decline to state" but then an employee will return the form to me and demand I pick something else. No matter what I select I feel like I'm lying and betraying a part of myself. Do I put "white" and deny my Mexican heritage? If I put "hispanic" am I denying the white priveledge I have as a white passing person? And then there's the obnoxious time-wasting questions from strangers if they can't put you into a box. "Where are you from?" "California." "No . . . where are you FROM?" "California." "OK, where are your parents from?" "CALIFORNIA. Will you please take my fare and let me on this damn bus!?" (actual interaction I had when I was a teenager)
This happened to me too. I'm born and raised and have lived in Pittsburgh my entire life. I've had people argue with me about where I was born because I'm Jewish.
Understandable. Put your "white privilege" to good use, and keep fighting these stupid racist questionnaires by declining to answer. We should not tolerate nor submit to racism. We need to treat people as equals, no matter where we are from.
Mexicans are also white usually, I mean weren't the Spanish one of the peoples that invented this categorization for their very mixed colonies? The initial white/black/Asian/native question + a separate question for Hispanic heritage is what usually see on forms.
I was very surprised by the meaning of the term "Caucasian" in the USA. I come from Russia, my ethnic group is Ossetians. Ossetians are a small Indo-Iranian people who live in Russia in the Caucasus region. In Russia, "Caucasians" are people who live in the Caucasus Mountains (Ossetians, Circassians, Chechens, etc.). Very often people from the central regions of the country call us "black" people. They say this not because of our skin color, but because of our eye and hair color. Unlike Slavs, who are mostly blond with light eyes, Caucasians have black hair and dark eyes. We Caucasians often face prejudice and labels in our country. Stereotypically, we are considered stupid (because we often speak Russian with an accent), aggressive and dangerous. Although there are many creative people among Caucasians, famous writers, composers, artists, conductors, dancers, athletes.
Yea it's odd it's because the theory was the Aryans came from there 😂 but if you look at Armenians some.of them as dark as iraquis😂 imo east Europeans Slavic are the whitess! And not the Caucasus people 😮 especially armenians who are light brown skinned 😂
@@jamesclarkmaxwell-v2n Persians turkics Caucasics non Semitic but they aren't white they look distinct the only ones who look white. Are part slavic east euro! I seen armenians who look almost pakistani
Im from Spain, and that adds a whole new layer when you need to fill the survey. I am very "white looking" im blond, tall, green eyes, blond beard etc so I am confused as German or Anglo. Since I am Spanish I was born in Europe. Thus on the census It's always confusing if I should mark Caucasian White, White Latino etc... according to the Census you are Latino (which also includes Brazil) or Hispanic only if you are born in Spanish Speaking America but if you are born in Europe you have to write Caucasian White. So Spain's position is very odd in the census and in reality you can mark what you like since it contradicts itself, at least in the case of Spain. It doesnt help I am Basque which we do not speak a romance language or are necessarily Latin culturally.
@@josemanueld5413 yes, most of them are not white, but brown. Except in northern Italy, where some German minorities live and Israil has many Russian like people.
I find it interesting that those qualifiers exclude so many details as well... For example, I'm latina, but I'm a white Latina, there are native Latinos, black latinos, even Asian latinos, but then it feels like when you say latino you only think about a certain group and it excludes all other things that makes us different. A Gaucho will have 100% different life experiences from a Native from the US, same as a black person from Colombia, so I find it all a bit confusing and innacurate.
I used to be confused by this until I realized that ethnicity and race being separated meant that I could represent my indigenous and African ancestry by checking all relevant boxes. Could someone looking at my paperwork confuse me for a more traditional biracial person? Sure, but as a Puerto Rican, that’s still technically what I am.
Black woman, born and raised in the US. Can confirm I didn’t learn I was black from watching my mom fill out forms. I was told I spoke well for a black child when I was really young. Additionally wasn’t invited to a sleepover because, you guessed it, black. I had to hang my head in shame. I would have preferred seeing her check a box and proudly explain what it means to be a black person without the humiliation of finding out through racism first.
Are you sure its related to racism? Cause what you may perceive as racism is sometimes simply not so. I mean many blacks speak sadly with a peculiar accent or badly due to socio-economic reasons, so it's ignorant to say/tell someone that, but I do understand why they might want to be polite and tell you that. Not inviting you to a sleep over doesnt necessarily mean its done because of racism, maybe those girls didnt like you for whatever reasons. Something I see a lot in the US is that any little rift they have with someone they automatically blame it on their race and racism which is not really the case a lot of the time. When you see through the lense of race you perceive everything as racism. That's something I really see in the US compared to other places.
As an asian grown up in Germany, I wish that there were some more awareness regarding racism. In school, I was mobbed because of my asian looks and if I were trying to search for help, teachers didn't really do much and didn't even clarify why the mobbing kids are wrong or should not say the things they did (or even think in this way, but that's hard to change if you were grown up in such an environment, but the more it is important to teach students beginning from a young age on). The only thing I was told everytime was "he/she did not mean it maliciously" or "don't take it too seriously" and I was sent away sometimes without even talking to the mobber (I mean, sometimes there were teachers who were also racists and that was a horrendous time..., but also the non-racists were like that because they didn't experienced mobbing or don't know how it would feel like missing kind of an empathy as a social educated teacher). These early days shaped me so drastically in a bad way, and the worst part is that those (former) mobbers and teachers or any other people related to this do not recognize it...
ich glaube dir sofort! so sorry, you had to go through that! racism/xenophobia is very much pervasive in germany, from my experience especially in smaller places. i was also a migrant child but look "white", so blend in quite easily. that was and is a huge advantage. i just felt like a foreigner in the very small village i grew up in. people there didn't make much more of a distinction between "foreign as not from this village" and "foreign as not from germany" 😅 (mostly, at least). my mom experienced quite a bit of xenophobia though (even though she, too, looked "white"). but right next village over there was a huge neo-nazi problem with mass brawls between them and groups of russian immigrants or turkish immigrants at almost every bigger event (Kirmes). and between russian immigrants and turkish immigrants. ... geze, i forgot how much shit was going on there, i'm so happy to live where i live now. ok, i'm losing my train of thought and am gonna end this comment on this 😅
That is a problem of Europe in general - we are so righteous, that we are not able to say anything. As highest peak can be used something like "immigrant" or "other ethnicity". And while we do not handle this kind of topics, people are rose with wild handling manners. Plus as cherry on the top, media (of particular kind) make this much worse. friend of mine is full of bu..sh.t and hates immigrants and liberals and so ... He is living abroad (other EU country) and in fact, he is immigrant there (respond is always - "that is different thing") - and of course, while he want to be handled equally there - he is liberal too. We hate each other more and more day by day. It is crazy how political correctness does not allow even talking about these topics, nor educate people and same political correctness allows content creators (individuals, or print media or .... any type of media) to speak freely lies (desinformation) or share and spread rumors (misinformation) and of course if here is no education so people cant critically review content they later adapt. All is wrong. My cousin's neigbour is Pakistani, my tenant is Palestinian, My coworkers are Ukrainians and one is Tunisian, one welder is Vietnamese I buy my loved Kebap from Turkish and we have here a lot of Koreans and Chinese (KIA factory is here and a lot of their suppliers) and so on. How that matter, yes if here is some census, ok. Everybody can pronounce their cultural backgrounds, but other way this social construct has to be deconstructed. Again, we have here lack of education and people take same way social and biological definition. Most times it is - it is proven, races are here, look at dogs. I am looking and looking and in same breed dogs can have different colour of fur, but never seen human race wit different heads (so different, that should to matter), different sizes or differently shaped body parts. Maybe I am wrong, but I agree, that for governing purposes is good to know that here is criminality caused by people from there or there (standard russian mafias in 90's) and law enforcement needs to put an eye on some more likely risky groups/areas, but it is more like opinion groups than ethnicity/race (religion, nazis, xenofobic, chauvinistic ....) and individual idiocy. I am trying hard to not put people into bags, but think on individual bases and I always say that somebody is idiot because he is idiot, not because he speaks other language, worship different god or was born beyond virtual line on the map. Of course same can be applied for "they". Here exist people moving to Europe thinking that "we" are weak, will do nothing to "them", will feed them and "they" take our women, but it is minimum. Stereotypes are dangerous. Here, most of population, see gypsies as poor,crazy, dirty, irresponsible lifestyle living group, but in fact only 13% of Gypsies are living that way and other gypsies are ashamed by behaviour of those people. I had gypsy friends on university, in previous work I have colleague with university degree education and worked with gypsies a lot, yes some are not educated well, but they work hard (it is for sure some systematic problem with higher rates of well educated people of this group - they are "African Americans" of our country). We still trying (country I live in and people I meet time to time) to find differences. We are use it as excuses for saying we are better. We are lazy to think in details and simplifications can cause disaster on the end of the day. Yes, this guy broke rules he will go to jail or be bannished - how it matters if he is Caucasian white from Crimea or coal black from Zambia or Light brown from Somalia (or other different local african ethnicities - include egyptians, north africans and pale south africans+bambjillion other ethnic and religious group around the globe)? That guy is an idiot breaking rules we are used to (and made our law by such norms). For all people on both sides of this barricade - Hey, we are all people and we have this civilization because of cooperation, wake up!
Was this in the former East Germany? Because the Soviet Era brought a lot of problems with it, and less then 35 years is not enough time to heal the society there. Also nowdays children somehow are so satisfied with everything, so some become arrogant and have lack of empathy... New culture and new generation. I wouldn't blame the German system. If they try to pay attention to everyone according to their skin color or country of origin, other kids will notice and the distance between them will grow immediately because someone has a different treatment. So, maybe the solution is to just help them understand in the program how others might feel, and to teach them more sympathy in general ...
My childhood in Norway was also full of bullying, but racism was not a part of it. They didn't do much either. You have to separate between race and racism. Race is non-existing, but racism or discrimination exists and has to be fixed each time.
There is progress but there's still a long way to go. Every major institution in America still has a large overrepresentation of white people controlling it. So either 1) Racist theories are correct and people of color really are inferior or 2) Systematic racism still exists in America.
There are plenty of bigots out there. We did not get past it. Many just got quieter about it. In the past 8 years, many have proudly come out with their bigotry.
In Canada, asking about race or ethnicity in a job interview is highly discouraged and can be seen as discriminatory. The Canadian Human Rights Act and provincial laws prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and other grounds. Focus interview questions on qualifications, skills, and experience, not personal characteristics. If race or ethnicity information is needed for diversity purposes, it should be collected separately and voluntarily, not during the interview. Candidates can file complaints with human rights commissions if they feel discriminated against.
Yes, in the US race or ethnicity information must be collected only after the job offer has been made, and is usually done when completing the forms required to connect your pay to taxing and social security processes.
The "Canadian Human Rights Act" etc may be designed to prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc ... But in practice, every government office strives to have "one of everybody" on staff to maximize their diversity. While this may seem to be creating opportunities, it is doing so by taking them away from others - it is in fact a form of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc.
It is also illegal to ask about Race or Ethnicity in the US in an interview as it is a protective class. Not sure where you are getting your assumptions from.
As an Asian kid growing up in a predominantly white community in the US, it wasn't my parents or teachers who it in my head that I was racially different from everyone else. It was actually white kids in my own school who were parroting racist sentiments they heard from their siblings or parents who told me that I was Chinese or Japanese, as they were making fun of me for my "slanted eyes". No labeling of my race could have contributed to the racism I experienced in elementary school. If your society already has people who harbor racist attitudes that manifest themselves as actual poorer treatment of minorities, then documenting race in order to track those disparities in quality of living is more beneficial than harmful.
You think so? Seems like the use of such data is one sided, meaning that when the historically disadvantaged group is doing worse than that historically privileged group, that is used as evidence of unjust treatment. But when then historical privileged group is doing worse than the historically disadvantaged group, no comment is made about it. Seems like nowadays most of the use of this data is to generate anger and resentment and sometime used to discriminate against members of the historically groups. It’s not clear to me that the benefits outweigh the harms.
As an Asian-Australian I completely disagree. I wish for a colorblind society where no-one talks about race at all. But I can understand how different opinions can form based on one's individual experiences.
Why did you call the European American kids white?? Sounds very racist. Funny how you were upset by them mentioning your differences but find it perfectly ok to call them by theirs.
As an american who descends from German immigrants and who has spent considerable time in Germany, I want to congratulate you on your thoughtful and sophisicated presentation on race in both Germany and USA. Well done!
I am an American, originally from New York City, who has lived in Japan for 24 years. Observing from afar, it seems that America has become increasing focused on race the past decade, which is sad. For most racial groups in America, there used to be a much stronger identification with one's ethnicity than race. Koreans, Vietnamese, and Indians, e.g., didn't have much solidarity because they were all Asian, and even among Latinos, they placed more importance on which Latin American country their ancestors came from. Among whites in NY, this was true as well, with people regarding themselves as Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc. It was only mainly among blacks (who had their ethnic distinctions erased by slavery) and whites who had ancestors from NW Europe who immigrated 100s of years ago (mainly found in the South and Appalachia) where you would see strong racial identification. Growing up I saw myself as Sicilian, German, and Slovak, and while I knew I was classified as white, it had no importance to me, and I felt no affinity for someone else just because they were also white. Living in Japan is a totally different experience. 99%+ or the population is East Asian and 98% is ethnically Japanese, so you don't have racial tensions. Instead, the division tends to be between Japanese and non-Japanese (just broadly called "foreigners"), and discrimination is pervasive.
I lived in japan and the discrimination is "we native" vs the "foreigners". Other Asians such as Koreans might have it harder but they also blend much easier than whites or blacks. The discrimination in Japan was weird since it was done in ways you would never see them in the west (Not been allowed entry because of race, in the subway, yelling at you on the street etc...) but not all Japanese are like that. So I would never blame a whole country/society ever. There are black who are racist, there are Japanese who hate foreigners, there are Asians which are good people, same for Blacks and whites and some that arent. A group doesnt determine you personality, traits and ways of doing things which people massively fail to understand.
@@Jz-vz8ky Quite the oppodsite. I am more racist since race matters more and I have to hear people say BS all the time. Before this time and age, race didnt matter much we were on the path of simply judging people by their personality and not their looks regarding race or features. But modern America has become a country of Karens where every small thing needs to be amplified so they feel special. The more you speak of race, the more importance you give to it, the worse it will divide people. You are literally putting a barrier "Them" vs "us" based on skin color.
The US census asks "Hispanic or Latino", but those aren't the same. I am Latino but not Hispanic; when the census asked "Hispanic", my mother, who was Salvadoran, said no, because her Romance ancestry is mainly French, not Spanish. An Equatoguinean with some Spanish ancestry is Hispanic, but not Latino, because it's short for Latinoamericano, and he's African.
Yeah.Hispanic or Latino is not an ethnicity, nationality or race. The whole term is stupid. Latin Americans are of different races and origins. And they're not all the same people either.
As a European the whole Hispanic/ Latino thing is super confusing. If they have to put a label on people why not call them South Americans when they are from South America and European when they are from Spain.
Changing Hispanic or Latino to a race in 2030 will be insane. Latinos can be any race and Latinos aren’t a race in of itself. Cause most Latinos are a mixture of many races. Treating Latino as a race will erase White, Black and Asian Latinos.
In the UK, every time I applied for a job. They do ask about race/ethnicity. I have to check "white - other" because they have "white - British/Irish". I'm Polish BTW.
I'm also Polish and people say to me things like ''You're not white cause you are a Roman Catholic like a Mexican'' or ''You are spicy white like Latinos or Irish'' also ''You ain't white you are Eastern European/Slavic''. Once I saw a sign at the lake ''No Eastern European Fisherman Allowed'' with the second part ''Poles ARE Eastern European!''. If you are not a Protestant Anglo Saxon you are a man of color to 'em.
The Navajo talk about the five fingers. If you have five fingers you are human. But I have a friend born with six fingers. Was that less human?They chopped off her sixth finger when she was small.
@@jamesmedina2062that kind of generous classification is more common with people that had no exposure to apes. Most apes are clearly animal, not that different from a coyote or bobcat. The great apes though? Gorilla, orang utans, chimps etc … man if you see them up close they blur the line. It’s the eyes and the face. My first thought literally was: that ain’t no animal looking back. Not quite human, but not an animal either. Deeply unsettling. It was most pronounced with the orange utans.
This is a thoughtful, well-produced video. Thank you, Feli (and others who had a part). We don’t always realize the amount of work that goes into making something like this. Well done!
We distinguish the race of our sausages instead: Frankfurter, Thuringian, Vienna (well, that's Austrian, but sticking with language, it's still German), Bavarian White...
@@Thoringer Ok thank you soooo much for sharing!! A family here owned a place called The Charcoaler and served these things called frankfurters but then a company bought it and turned it into a shadow of its former self. The frankfurters used a type of wiener that was cut open and grilled and the sauce was always a peppery catsup with chopped onions inside a white bun of bread. I loved it!
@@jamesmedina2062 at least as an Austrian I have never heard of anything like that. Sounds like a weird mix of a Bosna (long bun with a Bratwurst, ketchup, mustard, raw onions and curry powder) and a hotdog. Also I thought Wiener and Frankfurter are the same, just different words used in Germany and Austria.
@@jamesmedina2062 Fun is: these definitions can change depending on the region. A "Braunschweiger" is different in my home town than it's in another part of the country.
Thing is that I as a German would never introduce myself to another person as "Hi, I'm D., a proud, white, Christian female. How are you?" In the USA, this happens frequently. And in the next sentence you might even hear from them "I work as a XYZ and make about 65,000 Dollars per year". Mind-boggling.
People in America do not dare to say that in fact most white people do not dare to be proud of themselfes anymore. We have white hatred in our countries you know
I'd like to share a story related to your question at the end of your vid. I am a 49 yr old white swiss. My background, like mayn swiss, is very mixed culturally. Mostly italian and swiss with some flavor from austria, spain and france and religiously my family is all over the place, from protestant and catholic christianity to jewish most of my generation is now either agnostic or atheists. My maternal aunt was not able to get children due to an accident in her late teens. So she and her husband decided to adopt. I was 6 when they adopted a boy and 9 when they adopted a girl. Both of them were from Sri Lanka and their skin was very dark. Yet I never saw that, for me, they were simply my cousins. We grew up and over the years we met to get a drink or come together at family gatherings. Of course, like so many others, we saw the news from the US and other places, the heightened tensions in the internet about race and all that. Still, I never saw them as black and they both told me they never felt not swiss. I should mention we grew up in a very suburban area where many children had different background. Filipino, italian, Brazilian and many more, most of were mixed race.. so we never really saw each other in a racial sense. A couple years ago I got invited to a gathering from a student organization. Turned out one of my cousins was invited too. We sat down next to each other, chatted and waited what the topic was (the student organisation often had interesting topics and lecturers from all ways of life so neither me nor my cousin looked closer at the schedule that day). To our surprise it was a lecture exactly about this topic. Various black and asian students told the audience their story and how they feel forgotten and overlooked in many ways. And then the speaker was a human rights expert, calling for a change in the swiss way of dealing with such topics to, as you pointed out, fight against racism. I understood what they wanted to achieve, and in general I agree with doing our best to fight stereotypes and racism. But for me and also my cousin (we chatted about that often since then) something else happened. For the first time I consciously saw her as a black person and she saw herself as different from me. Just briefly.. but it made a huge impact on her and me that day. I am close to all my family members, including my 'black' cousins.. and so we openly talked about it with each other later. And we both, and to an extend her brother and mine (we included them) feel like we los some part of the innocence for each other. And I don't know if that is good or bad, I feel a bit betrayed by this student organisation. In conclusion, I think the german way is better than the american. As you so elegantly said at the beginning, there is just one race, the human race. Judging or categorizing people by skin color is as useful as doing the same for eye color. And sometimes, no matter the motivation, if we try to do something for the right reason, we also might cause harm doing so. I don't know the best way to deal with such topics but I wanted to share this to show how complicated this can be. If you never thought about race or dealt with it personally, it can be a blessing that you see the human before the difference in others.. or it can make you overlook the struggles others have.
You are right in feeling that way. Ideology is destroying the natural way of dealing with life. Today they aim to convert people in victims so they can be more easily manipulated. Maybe that people complaining they felt forgotten never really felt that way until someone approached them with that agenda.
It somewhat scares me when I see how all this racial privilege discussion is spilling over to here in Europe. Why? For one, there is literally an immeasurable amount of structural and social challenges a human can Go through and it doesn't Help to divide Humans by it, the only thing that helps is to actually care about fellow human beings and See them as such. One common example, the unwanted touching of black peoples hair. Quote Afrozensus: "It's othering and exoticizing." What Help is that lingo? And is that REALLY the issue at Hand Here?? My immediate gut reaction when I read their statistic was not "that's so racist/othering/exoticizing" but "Dang, that's really messed up to infringe in someones bodily autonomy Like that. Just treat people decent, man!!" Just treat people decent, THAT is what we need (and REALLY should work on in our lives and in politics), not dividing ourselves from each other. The Person in the example probably was just innocently curious. That's a human modus operandi to relate to each other and thus a very GOOD thing. BUT the person didn't treat the other person decent, respecting their bodily autonomy regardless of how curious I am. If we would put human decency and being fellowly towards each other in the foreground and model that (instead of talks of sociological concepts) we would actually start seeing and appreciating the fellow human, we wouldn't need censuses asking these questions because we would learn about these experiences from our fellow Humans.
This post shows how actually trying to "bring" awareness to the cause is what makes us more divided. My country is still predominantly white and only recently have been there an influx of POC (hate that term). I don't pay them any mind, and as long as they integrate into our society and norms there shouldn't be an issue. What I'm trying to say is, with shouting about race on every corner people are actually more racially divided as we actually start to looking at the person as someone from a different race than a fellow human.
And yet the Swiss way of dealing with things was clearly not working for non-white Swiss people, or they wouldn't have had to bring it up. I don't get why realizing someone is a different race than you creates division. That seems like the problem that needs to be fixed. Noticing differences should not make you feel less connected to someone.
@@snorristurluson5849 Well, what MariAsherahRose probably means by " Race is a social construct" is that the way how people are cathegorized into racial groups (in the USA or elswhere) in the public/political discourse is not based on scientific evidence and is highly arbitrary. As a prime example of that, at 2:13 - Pakistanis are in a different cathegory then Indians while lumped together with Hmongs and Cambodians. I might not be a geneticist, anthropologist or biologist but I can tell you that Pakistanis are much more closely related to Indians than to either Hmongs or Cambodians, both genetically and by physical appearance. In short this whole race thing is driven more by politics rather than by science.
@@snorristurluson5849 Ethnicity is a thing. Heritage is a thing. Genealogy is a thing. Races are not. Not for humans, anyways. It's not that you couldn't arbitrarily group people by their ancestry, it's that the concept of race (as used and applied) doesn't reflect reality very well. It changes based on context and bias. Ethnicity is right there, just use that. Or say phenotype if you want to keep dividing people by how they look, have fun with that. Just word it properly, please.
@@snorristurluson5849 i am someone with a mixture of different European, African and native American ethnic groups what am I if not multi ethnic? I don't belong to a particular "race" of people lol, you're just a racist.
It's interesting to me that Feli's experience is that those living in Germany with a non-German heritage were not treated differently. That seems to me because it is not her personal experience or perspective. Turks and other economic migranrs were still "guest workers" to the fourth generation with no chance of citizenship until just before Feli was born. I hosted an exchange student from Bochum, just a few years older than Feli, whose father was from Iran. She told me she liked NY so much and wanted to come back because in Germany she was constantly questioned about really being German, despite having an erhnic German mother, being Catholic and culturally German. Yet in NY, no one doubted her when she said she was German. What she said rang true when she came to visit me a few years later, and i am an Airbnb host who had a German guest at the same time. She asked my student several times how to say her 3 syllable, four letter name, and concluded it was too hard to learn and it wasn't a German name and asked how she was German. My student replied that there are immigrants in Germany. Also, this is already too long of a post, but Feli also needs to delve into discrimination and hostility against all immigrants in US history. Americans didnt accept Eiropeans because they were white. In fact, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, and Poles , etc. were not accepted when they first emigrated and many like my own Greek forebearers were not considered white, and i gave been told i am not really American depite being 4th generation.
This is such a interesting video, since I didn't realize that not being asked your ethnicity or race is a thing in many countries. As someone from Québec (Canada), and as a white person, I'm quite "used" to be asked in forms this question. Most of the time, the word "race" is not used (in French, like in German, "race" has a weird connotation and is also used to differentiate animal breeds) but ethnicity. Sometimes, I won't actually be asked my "ethnicity" but my "nationality" which I answer "Canadian" or "Québécois.e". I think a reason why in North America (and sometimes the other Americas), the skin color is so important, is that because of colonialism, NortAm is an "immigrant continent". The only ones who aren't immigrants are Native American nations. So, our cultures are fairly new, and the "white american" culture is omnipresent both here, and all around the world, so it feels like "white americans" don't have cultures, so people end up using skin color or ethnicity to find the group with whom identify as. (This is my theory of course) The only other "big" cultural signifier I'm used to (related to white people) in my regular life is that in Canada, there is the "French speaking" culture and the "English speaking" culture. It's more complex than that but my point is, we're all trying to cling on elements we can see or hear to make our "own" identity. I think that explains why skin color and language can be more important for many people. I'd also like to point out that it's very true that race and/or ethnicity is a social construct, and so, it might feel weird for other people that it's something official here, but it's important to recognize that there are other social constructs that are also (or should be) self-identified and are also very blurry, like gender. I think it's important to discuss if we really want or need these classifications in our official data, or if it harms more than it does good. Many issues (NOT all) that arise from categorizing people into ethnicities also come from boxing them in clean-cut genders (I say that as a non-binary person who has seen way too many "choose between male or female" boxes in my life). My opinion is that for scientific, statistical and social purposes, if it's anonymised, specific data is super important to, like you said, fight injustice, but I don't like the idea of having very arbitrary signifiers like my ethnicity or gender imprinted on official documents.
I very much share your lived experience. I’m a boring ass white German who grew up in rather rural areas in the west of Germany and „race“ never played a big role in my head until I dove in to the „US-centric“ internet and social media world. I was aware of „Ausländer“ mainly because I found it cool when kids spoke more languages other than just German and I also was aware of kids of different religious backgrounds, especially since people got split up in secondary school for religion/ethics lessons, but I wanna say that still didn’t mean much to me. I was friends with whoever I clicked with. That included a Turkish kid, an Albanian kid, a Polish kid, an Indian kid, etc. BUT! I also wanna say that „Ausländer“ was a loaded term that was often used in a demeaning way. By teachers as well, which is disappointing and unacceptable! Speaking of: The polarization and the growing approval of right wing parties in Europe scares me! We need to go vote for every election possible, including the upcoming European elections!
"I'm a White German who grew up in rural areas in the west of Germany where it was 99% White Germans." Do you find it strange that people in tropical climates aren't concerned about snow, blizzards and freezing to death? Do you think the people in polar climates have an irrational fear of cold weather? The people in tropical climates don't even think about it, ever. What could possibly be the difference? Left-wing Germans and Europeans in general are so terrified of even the appearance of loving themselves that they went from AH in the 1930s to swinging the pendulum completely in the other direction. YOU and your ilk are the sole reason for the growing approval of normal-thinking people, aka "right-wing parties." You've convinced yourselves that the only way forward is to completely surrender your home, culture, values, etc., and import people that loathe your very existence. There's this new thing that all the kids are doing called finding a middle ground. You can love your race, your culture, your ethnicity, etc., without hating anyone and/or inviting them to live in your country en masse. Germans and German culture exist because Germany is majority German. That's such a normal thing and yet you want the country to be multicultural, which is just mind bogglingly ridiculous.
I wouldn’t say you’re boring because you are a white German by any means. You don’t have to put yourself down to lift up others. But I understand what you’re saying, you weren’t aware of racism or xenophobia when you were younger and now you’re eyes are open and that is a wonderful thing! When you said “right-wing parties” I think it would be better to say “far-right parties.” Be careful not to stereotype all political conservatives as racist or hating immigrants. Some are POC or immigrants themselves.
@@noahotte2960 Americans are trying to export their historical issues to the rest of the world; a new twist on a the previous ‘American exceptionalism’. My family has only been in the USA for ~50 years so I’m not really interested in the whole ‘slavery’ or ‘North vs South’ issues.
Thank you, Feli, for bringing up this topic! I will never forget our first trip to the US (from Vienna/Austria). We had to fill out our entry-forms on the flight to NY, and my little daughter, who just had learned to write, was eager to manage her own form: Name, date of birth, Passport-No., citizenship, etc. and suddenly got confused by the ethnicity-question. I tried to explain that it is about the colour of her skin, so she decided to fill in: "pink".- Of course this was no option there, and when she asked, why she was supposed to queck "Caucasian", I was not able to explain it to her (or to myself, as a matter of fact). I really appreciate your video!!
0:03 - Actually, when I took Human Resources in college, they told us a form that only asks you to check one line or box is not technically legal anymore, but nobody is enforcing that they change it. What they're supposed to do is allow checking multiple boxes, such as if you're part white and part asian, for example. On the example at this timestamp, that would be an easy change. I've seen forms on computer though that just have a drop-down selection, so you can only pick one.
@Trifler500 I don't know about you but whenever an organisation or a group of activity host asks everyone to please fill out a review and sheet and answer it as honestly as possible. I only answer my hobbies section and languages section. Ethnicity, race, income status, marital status, and other, I leave it in blank. Especially if it does not have 'I do not wish to answer' or Other' options. Check a box on what you are. Then you wonder why they need this information anyhow? Is it to help me find a job? Or just collecting information for free? Do I feel comfortable telling these strangers how little I'm earning? 🤔 💭 💭
I work in HR and companies ask these questions bc they have to report that information to the government through the EEO form. So its not the companies, it's the government that is asking.
@gvue4396 Thank you. Although, I have never been comfortable sharing all my information with the organisations or the government. Even when setting up my YT account, I used my Avatar's name, not my own. But your answer does help, thank you very much.
A large factor in the way Americans think about race is the fact that the country is still mostly divided by race, including the fact that a lot of wealthy white people moved to the suburbs, and that immigrant communities tend to group by country of origin, hence why there are China Towns and Little Italys.
Thank you for this video. I love exploring words and differences in the way people speak. Your experience as a German living in America offers a different perspective and gives me something to think about when it comes to race, ethnicity, and other similar issues. I'm a basic white guy (mostly Western European descent) living now in Texas, almost 70 years old and trying very hard to expand my perspective and understanding.
People may be confused as to why the US has collected racial/ethnic data. As an African American, part of this stems from the denial of bias. Even before slaves were freed, white immigrants faced different circumstances based on which country they came from. If you came from Great Britain or German you were given better treatment than if you were from Ireland or Poland. This has happened to most racial groups in the USA. One of the big points made during the civil rights movement here is that by denying the difference of peoples, it allows policymakers, businesses, and communities to turn a blind eye and ignore large bias in treatment. The results of this tracking have allowed data to be collected that allows us to fight racism. A great example of this is redlining in the USA. You wouldn't have the data to prove the bias if it wasn't tracked. Same with banks giving loans, education, healthcare, etc.
it is more relevant to the USA but a lot has changed for the better. Doesn't mean discrimination doesn't happen at all but it's less common indicating there has been a change which means needed adjustments such as getting rid of race questions. having to state your race still in 2024 is racist. responding to racism throughout history by being racist still means there is..wait for it....RACISM. and frankly making a race always a factor for decisions and conversations ultimately one way or another leads to some sort of profiling based on race. A lot of racism is not even real and is making assumptions via talking about race and just conversations. Morgan Freeman said "stop talking about it."
@@saburo6042its on the schedule once in 9th grade(realschule) but ok. I was rather shocked by the stories my grandma told me when i was little. They were 13 sibblings of whom only 4 survived the war.
It really depends We had ones really thourow (right word for that?) And then every ones in a while when it had something to do with the current topic. For some reason we talked alot about the French revolution. Or maybe I remember wrong (I'm in my early twenties) But a friend of mine on another school had basicly only WW2 and a bit WW1 every Single year. But I never heard of one person going to a german school after 2000 that doesn't know a lot about the WW2 and WW1 and the german part. On the other hand I know some people that know nothing about the history with german colonies because they had it not in school. That really depends on the teacher and the book you use. The first time We had this topic We only talked about the British, french etc. Colonies but they were acting as if Germany did not have colonies at all.
@@laurafaehnrich4261 the colonies are part of the schedule for the kaiserreich and WWI next is third reich and WWII. And you are right we spent the whole 7th grade with french revolution and the causing events.
From what I know, Germans are very privacy conscious, and that makes sense, given what happened in Germany between 1920 to 1990. From discrimination to prosecutions and outright paranoia over neighbours snitching on each other, Germans have learn the hard way that having privacy is needed and in some case a must. Hence the reluctance on collection of any type of data that can be used to classify any group.
JK has said, “Goodness has no opposite. Most of us consider goodness as the opposite of the bad or evil and so throughout history in any culture goodness has been considered the other face of that which is brutal. So man has always struggled against evil in order to be good; but goodness can never come into being if there is any form of violence or struggle” JK
You did a very skillful job of handling an issue that can make people's heads explode. There were so many landmines that you pointed out, diffused, and cleared for everyone. Growing up in America, in the town with people of largely German heritage I was the "Italian" kid who probably carries knives. In the predominantly Polish and Italian heritage town I was the German kid, or the kid that wasn't Polish or Italian enough. 😄 It is interesting to follow the history of who was considered white in America. It was always a tool to exclude some and ensure the power of the capital class. My great grandfather's immigration papers from Sicily described him as "Negro of Italian Descent" solely because of his olive skin. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis put forth that our perception and thoughts were informed and limited by the words we have to conceptualize them. The idea is that if you never have to deal with something, you don't have a word for it - which makes it harder to think and communicate about. On the internment of Americans of Japanese heritage: Ssssshhhhh. We don't like to talk about that. We're the good guys. Those weren't concentration camps. They were just camps where the United States government ... con cen trated people because of their culture and heritage and ... ... look, we're just the good guys. Ok?
Her thinking shows that she grew up in a „Kulturnation“, in which the affiliation to the nation‘s people is defined by sharing the same culture. This makes it easier to integrate persons with different ethnicities, but harder for persons with a totally different cultural background.
I think this makes a lot of sense, in the US where the nation is (ideally) defined by values like democracy, we have to come up with some way to distinguish between people, and race is an easier way to do this than ethnicity or religion with a quick glance
@@colbymcarthur7871Why do you have to distinguish between people? Why is an ID not enough? What does it matter what color my skin has? This just seems like a leftover from the time of segregation.
I'm Swiss and we are historically not a Kulturnation but a Willensnation. You don't need to group people into boxes based on a socially constructed and wrong system like race. That's just racist. Someone who grew up here and went to school here is Swiss... Their skin colour does not change that. No matter how much racists think it does.
@@colbymcarthur7871The whole point is to not distinguish between people based on attributes that can tell you about as much abou the person as their eye colour. I'm from Switzerland, arguably the most democratic country in the world. Of course there will always be racist people, even here. But that old, artificially constructed system they base their discrimination on, has no merit. Someone who grew up and went to school here is Swiss, no matter how much racists would like to not be true.
Alternately, as an American, I was shocked to hear US expats living in Germany describe how they were required to disclose their religion to the German government, so they could be taxed on it. Such a demand over here, would cause an outrage which would, at the very least, get the government officials involved hounded out of office, and maybe even sued.
The Lutheran and the Catholic church in Germany have an agreement with the federal government that their "membership fees" are levied as a tax. It is a topic of contention, but there is not really much political will to change it. The advantage is that they can charge you based on income without getting any actual income data and they don't have to run the administrative infrastructure to take actual membership fees. The simple solution is to just say "no denomination" and believe whatever you want, unless you plan to use any special services like a wedding ceremony or a confessional kindergarten. They don't check your ID, when you just attend a service.
As a German I find this outrages as well. But it even goes further: I never chose to belong to the Church and consider my self an atheist. I still got taxed when I started working because my parents baptized me as a baby! And I couldnt just leave Church immidiately because there is a cancelation period of three month in the contract I never singned.
The fact, that church taxes are collected as a percentage of the income tax only applies to the Catholic and the Protestant Church and simply has historical reasons. Germany was not a State before 1872. It consisted of a number principalities ( Fürstentum) with different churches. After a major loss of land on the left side of the Rhine, they were granted the right to confiscate the properties of the regional churches . As a compensation the churches were granted the right to impose taxes. After WWII this tax privilege was enshrined in the new constution of 1949. On the other hand the 2 Christian Churches have offered a lot of services to the people like hospitals, nursing homes, kindergardens. Now, that more of half the population is not a member of the churches anymore there will be discussions but the constution would have to be amended.
I'm so hoping for this bs to change soon. I absolutely understand how it got to this point but I also think we should've started separating politics and religion at least 10 to 20years ago.. (random numbers from a gut feeling, not trying to make a scientific elaboration here)
In Norway, you tick a box «norwegian citizen» or «other: » So a refugee from Syria who became a norwegian , tick «norwegian» Skin colour shows in your drivers license/ passport, but are never registered.
But the Syrian probably also has a last name like Al-Bashir and not Hansen, so anyone who would want to discriminate against them can easily sort by name on resumes or other forms.
@@fasdaVT that is illegal, we have strong unions that often are involved in the huribg process, overseeing that rules are followed. This is most common in large companies.
@@arveskjellanger4121 that's assuming that the union leaders aren't biased either. And if companies aren't collecting data how could the union prove that they aren't following the rules?
Wollte dir einmal DANKE für deinen Post gestern sagen und dafür, dass du so eine wunderbare Repräsentation einer gebildeten Deutschen mit Herz am richtigen Fleck bist. Danke, dass dieser Content von einer level-headed Person wie dir gemacht wird ❤
Ich bevorzuge das Wort Ethnizität und ich wende das Wort, „Rasse“ niemals in Bezug auf Menschen an. Aber, Bemerkungen über die ethnische Abstammung einer bestimmten Bevölkerungsgruppe, die in eine Volkszählung, z.B., eingegeben werden, sind völlig in Ordnung. Warum nicht? Daran ist nichts verwerfliches. Sie versuchen einfach Statistiken über die Bevölkerung in einer bestimmten Gegend zu sammeln, und das hat einen angemessenen Zweck. Besonders bei Ärztinnen und Ärzte sind solche Einträge in Krankenakten oft wichtig, um rauszufinden, ob die Patientin / der Patient eine genetische Veranlagung zu bestimmen Krankheiten hat. „Ethnizität ist eine soziale Kategorie, die auf wahrgenommenen kulturellen Unterschieden zwischen Gruppen von Menschen basiert. Sie kann auf gemeinsamen Merkmalen wie Sprache, Religion oder Traditionen beruhen und hat erheblichen Einfluss auf menschliche Aktivitäten und Bewegungen“.
In German law, race only appears in one place. § 3 of the German constitution states that “no one may be disadvantaged or favored because of their gender, descent, race, language, origin, faith or political opinion. No one should be disadvantaged because of their disability.” The German state is therefore not allowed to ask about race or skin color.
The one word that distinguishes the American constitution from the German one is "favored." We only prevent discrimination based on these things. We actually have lots of ways people can be favored for them. Scholarships, small business grants, etc.
@@tiffanyellen82 i believe the phrase you meant to say is “punitive discrimination is illegal” but “favorable discrimination is common” followed by your examples :) both forms are still discrimination, so the wording of your comment isn’t as clear as it could be
@@Pikawarps no, I think I said exactly what I meant. I can't believe I'm giving a vocabulary lesson on RUclips but here goes. The definition of discrimination: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.
@@tiffanyellen82 Scholarships or business grants (only) for white people are definitely not allowed in the USA. So it's not about favoring or disfavoring a particular race. But some people in the USA prioritize dispensing justice at a collective racial level over equal rights in the classic sense of ignoring an individual's racial classification. And most people in the USA would be OK with rejecting Reese Witherspoon for the role of Malcolm X on the basis of her race and gender, which is to say that most people in the USA are not equal rights absolutists.
Thank you so much for this video. As a fellow German growing up in Germany I have the same experiences and thoughts as Feli. It is however very useful to get another perspective and helps me understand the American aspect and reasons behind it. Your video makes me reflect and think about this topic and it makes me happy as I feel more educated now!!
As Feli mentioned, we collect this data here in the UK & Ireland does it too. I'm British, of Indian heritage. I fully understand why Germany, France & others are wearing of collecting it though. If you ever change, I think us & Ireland are better comparisons as we're the only European nations that collect it, I think.
22:40 As a Greek, person this is kind of true but not entirely accurate "γαλάζιο" is not a separate color from "μπλέ" but rather a subtype of it, generally describing "light blue" , but not always , for example , the sea is often describe as "γαλάζια" even when its blue, and our flag, which is white and blue , and definitely not galaIzio, is called "γαλανόλευκη" (galanolefki) even though the blue part is actually dark blue In general, while we have a separate word for it , we don't see it as a different color
As a Canadian, I was surprised when I first heard the American Media report on voter demographics including “White College Educated Men” or “Suburban Housewives” for example. In Canadian, demographic reporting is generally either by geographic location, by men and women, or by age or language group.
I am a product of sin of the First Nations people I am a registered Alaskan native, but I cannot be a registered first nations because I have family sin of not being pure enough for the Canadian government as a first nation. I am only 25%.
@@therealkoolbeans We have 2 major groups of people in Norway too. The minority group is othen categorized as native even though both groups are. We categorize native Sami as native based on language. They have to speak the language of Sami to be classified as a Sami.
@@TullaRask OK so you lose your Norwegian heritage when you don’t speak, your language is what I hear am I wrong or is it a special rule for minorities that’s not wrong you just can’t place it on not minorities
@@therealkoolbeans classifying it according to percentage of DNA results in a none-changable classification. If Sami wants the benefits of being Sami they just have to learn the language ;)
Wow! Great job addressing this topic in an informative and balanced way while supporting all the views presented not just with personal accounts but extensive research. Kudos! Please keep these unique topic videos coming!!!!
Thanks for sharing Feli! I appreciate you tackling such a difficult topic earnestly and don't envy what you will have to slog through based on the comments I've seen already. I'm hispanic on my mom's side and white on my dads, and can tell you as a mixed person that this is a difficult subject (though hispanic isn't officially considered race in the US, it is defacto to the layperson, making me hispanic or mixed but rarely white to others). I have mixed feelings on the use of race and ethnicity in the US. My grandmother spoke Spanish as her first language (despite being born in El Paso), and while her English was never even close to fluent, she intentionally didn't speak Spanish with her children to spare them from the discrimination she faced for speaking Spanish as a first language, so my mom grew up speaking English only, and it caused a disconnect between younger generations and the older generations, as well as from our heritage. I remember as a kid wanting to learn Spanish as a kid so I could talk to my grandma, but my family told me I shouldn't learn it because people would discriminate against me for speaking Spanish and how it would make me do worse in school. I also remember having friends over one time and my mom made enchiladas and the kids complained the enchiladas were too spicy, so I told my mom how I hated enchiladas and why couldn't she cook normal food like meatloaf (something I regret saying all these years later). I appreciate how you touched on the being not white is less cool as a kid, but as an adult you realize there are generational traumas that you may not have had. As a person who straddles the two worlds of hispanic and white, I get that sentiment a lot from a lot of white people who feel that they don't have "cool" things like quinces or food or music but don't realize that they do as well because there are tons of white things that are just as cool but they don't see it because it is the default in the US (for example pizza or hot dogs or sweet 16s or bar-be-cues). I guess the grass is always greener on the other side! Also, I can safely say the vast majority of hispanic people love sharing their food and culture so long as people are engaging in it from a place of love :) I appreciated you talking on the shade/shadow and Schatten (sp?) difference in German (or the western languages on smells vs the Malaysian language). I'd love to hear more about these kinds of distinctions that are more difficult between the languages/cultures of the US or Germany :) Much love to you and all the other people of this small planet we share together!
I think the prejudice is because it's too easy to just speak Spanish in the US, it's basically the second language, whereas Asians have to learn English, I think it's when people choose not to speak English even though they live in the US is where people get upset, and I agree that we all love "white" things like food and stuff, it's just that white people are not as connected to their heritage as Hispanics and Asians etc
This becomes weird once you realize it’s 2024 and there are Black people from Europe, whose parents were also born there, meaning they don’t have any connection to Africa or America!
They have ancestry from elsewhere. For example, a person born in the UK whose grandparents were all from Nigeria is of Nigerian heritage, so it's not correct to say they have no connection to Africa.
I remember when I came back to America about 5 years ago, after being raised most of my life abroad, and the first time I applied for a job here and saw them asking for my race I was like "WTF???!!!!". I didn't know Americans ask this on applications, and thought it was pretty racist and insane.
Me too, when I was applying for an American online program. It was so strange, I thought "is this legal? Why are they asking me this?" And I didn't even know which race to pick.
I was reading about when it comes to racial equality and universities, its a tricky one. Many US educational facilities such as colleges, universities stopped entirely having pictures and even the names of the students on applications. To combat accusations of a racist process. Hence switching over to purely accepting people based on their accomplishments... As a way to eliminate cultural biases. By simply removing the entire issue out of their hands and over to "the system". The result was a drastically diminished black representation in vast favour of Asian. So I think that was considered unfavourable too and was put an end to. While some university admission processes are almost purely laid out like an IQ test. Which is also widely considered a bad move.
@@captain_context9991 maybe some combination of "quotas" or "limits" of different races, not like exactly equal numbers, but a weighted consideration thing
Don't worry, the rest of the world is just as bewildered at US obsession with race. The fact they even use "caucasian" while refering to a broad group was confusing to me, since to me caucasian just means from Caucasus(Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). I'm asian but I have pale white skin yet I'm not white is so ???
As a Southeast Asian with very white skin I want to move to the US and argue that I'm a white person just to prove how bullshit this whole system is lmaoo
@@myspleenisbursting4825 American people really be trying to say or convince you of what you are or not, it is horrible, straight up prejudice and racism
My family came to the USA in the 1950’s. I have zero interest in any ‘sit down’ or ‘conversation’ about race. Go after the people who profited, it shouldn’t be that hard to track down those families and companies. And leave the rest of the world alone, we aren’t interested in American internal historical issues.
@@Gingerphile00 they want to have a ‘conversation’ but when it becomes ‘uncomfortable’ like discussing crime stats, they tend to want to shut down the conversation. Nothing can be achieved without an honest and open discussion.
@@Gingerphile00 lets not forget out of wedlock birth percentage and dependency on public benefits percentages as well. Nah can't talk about uncomfortable facts. Lets just make up narratives like young blck men are disproportionately killed by the police--which isn't true at all and no data supports it. But a feelings based narrative can lead to political power.
I've read before about languages that use cardinal map directions instead of "left" and "right", and as a result those speakers tend to have an excellent sense of direction. Having words for things in your everyday vocabulary means you're more likely to recognize and be aware of those things, for better or worse.
A (german) freind of mine crossed the word "white" out and wrote "pale" above it. He than had a two hour interview with border police at the airport ...
The collection of ethnic background data is common in the UK as well, for the same reasons of reducing inequalities. Certainly in terms of medical data, it can help identify minorities or ethnic groups who may need greater support in accessing healthcare services for example. One thing that is noticeable is that we don't use the term 'race' - instead it is ethnic background and it can also apply to Welsh, Scottish, Irish backgrounds as well (although the wording is still "White British/Black British" etc). I absolutely agree about being cautious of how this data is used - I can imagine that this is felt quite strongly in Germany and other nations who have lived through regimes that have weaponised this data so I absolutely get your point. Used well, it can be a force for good - often some ethnicities have cultural differences about healthcare access or may perhaps need different methods of communication to support access to civil institutions such as Universities or Councils. Maybe it is about reframing the question - asking if they need any other support or providing a way to signpost to different support networks. Either way, maybe these decisions need to be put in the hands of the very ethnic groups that are being asked these questions. It's a big and very important topic!
The main reasons for asking about ethnicity is for reasons opposite of racist reasons. It's for statistical reasons to find out "problem areas" such as racism. For example, if a city or region has 12% Black, but Blacks are being arrested at a 40% rate, you night want to look into that to see if there are racist reasons for the discrepancy. It's also to make sure races aren't getting their votes watered down by gerrymandering so that they are less represented in Congress. For the most part, the government asking for your race and/or ethnicity is to have a database from which to find the problem areas that need fixing.
@@lynnhettrick7588 You must collect the appropriate data. How is race related to crime rate? There is no relation. What matters is how people leave, in what environment they grew up and what families. How is race relevant to that?
@@umka7536 Because racist police officers target black people for arrest and then racist prosecutors, judges, and juries target black people for incarceration. Obviously! Did you think that racist people all stopped existing?
It is still racism. In other countries with multiple colors on people they dont classify and put persons in boxes depending of their color. "Yes you are american but a different type of american" "Diversity but separated" That classification system should be abollied
Clinical geneticist here. Knowing a person's background helps us pinpoint disorders specific to that group. Like breast cancer susceptibility in Ashkenazi Jews or French Canadians. Not meant to be offensive or invasive, although it is often interpreted that way.
But those categories are misnomers. Indians are lumped together with asians or we are put together with all “brown” people which includes everyone from Turkey to the southern tip of India. All these people are different and don’t even look the same yet in American/Canadian eyes they are the same people. The word Caucasian is a misnomer too. Black is the most genetically diverse category.
I was brought up to respect everyone regardless of their skin color. However I also realize my own experiences are not everyone's experiences. It does me no harm to listen and even if I end up disagreeing, I understand the other person's perspective better. I hope for the same in return. There is one thing you mentioned though about Europeans coming to this country largely not mattering exactly where they came from. That's not entirely true. The Irish were very discriminated against and exploited
i am algerian (in north africa) i never thought about race untill i got to see videos from the USA on yt, then my sister emigrated tot he USA there she told me that North africans are put in a group with middle easterns i found it so odd like why not just put african ?? then i discovered that ppl in the US divided africa based on skin color and i found it outragiouse and racist in ma book it took me time to wrap my head around this idea that ppl in the US think diffrently (not accepting it bcouse in my book i am a proud algerian, african and medditteranean all at the same time not by my skin color or religion just culture and land) ... i belive that talking and identifying race constantly is raciste is divides ppl in an intentional way into groups and each group will think they are the most unfortunate ones not talking about it at all can lead to bulling in schools and things like that but i am sure in adulthood things can get on track and learn right from wrong yet it will keep a scar in the heart of the bullied one !!!
As a white person in the US, I can understand how confusing this conversation is. There are no easy answers. But because I recognize that as a white person I do get certain unfair privileges, I think that listening to people of other colors/ethnicities and following their lead in facing these problems is the best method. People of color in the US are the ones who are experiencing these hardships. I feel like that makes them the most qualified to point us in the correct direction to overcome these biases.
In Spanish we also use the same word for race and breed, "raza". Which obviously has the same root as "race" and "rasse". And as a correction, the two blues are different colors in Spanish, the light blue is "celeste" which also means "celestial" (obviously has the same root) and the darker one is proper blue. The exact same way pink and red are different colors in English, and Spanish. Not entirely different, everyone knows both are lighter versions of the 'main' color.
@@fabianmacielsi pero eso implica que no es solo azul, está mezclado con otro. En ese marco para mi, tono y color vienen siendo lo mismo. También se le pudo haber llamado blanco oscuro o el nombre de cualquier cosa que lucha blanco pero no claro. Es una cuestión de percepción.
Hitler looked to America for his racial laws against jews. He basically directly took them from jim crow and American citizenship laws, and then applied it to Germany. He was also inspired by the extirpation of the natives, and praised America as being the "first racial state". Many seem to think WWII was fought by the USA for some kind of anti-racist ideal, which ignores that jim crow was legally enforced for another 20 years after the war.
Just wait till Europeans find out how strange it is for Americans to be asked their religion by the state (in order to pay taxes to benefit the church)... Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Iceland Germany, Finland, Denmark...
Well, you're not asked by your employer or something... You're asked in case you want to fund the institutions of the religion you attend to. Why should I, an agnostic, fund your church for example? Yeah, you should fund that through your taxes yourself if you wish to use their services.
@@LeegallyBliindLOL IMO this shouldn't be part of tax forms either. If a religious institution wants to collect some sort of fee from its members, it's damned well welcome to do so by itself, not via the government. It's time we quit subsidizing the Church. Separation of state and church, FFS.
These are the kinds of videos I originally subscribed to your channel for; educational, interesting, informative differences between the two places where you have spent a lot of time. Your in-depth research, honest analysis, and thoughtful presentation are the things that keep me subscribed. I realize there are subscribers who just want to see you dance around in a dirndl, but those seem like cheap clicks to me. I'm just glad that you continue to make these types of videos.
Whenever I travel outside the USA...my home, where I have been a citizen since birth...I always got this perplexed look at me. They think I am from India. I even had an immigration officer in Munchen Airport think my US passport was a fraud! They didn't believe I was American. So, every country is obsessed with race. Not just Americans. FYI: I am of Indian background, but not from India.
The debate between color blindness and color perception is an interesting one. Both can be used by bad actors to hurt people and both cause a double bind problem. A double bind is when a person has to choose whether to engage in a system that oppresses them or reject it with the caveat that they will be oppressed regardless. In the case of color awareness, if one rejects it then they become oblivious to how racism hurts them and their community giving bad actors free rein to do what they want. Aka the downside of colorblindness. But by participating in color awareness one would legitimize the concept of race and give racists the information needed to draft discriminatory policy that, again, hurts them and their community.
Interesting video! Never thought about the race questions before because its just so prevalent that its normal. The first time I ever remember being asked about race, without having someone answer for me like a parent, was in 3rd grade (8-9yo) during state testing. It was probably asked in testing before that, but that's the earliest I can remember ever seeing it. It may depend on the state, but where I live you see it on every state test, every year.
when I was learning English and found out about the word 'race' I thought it was extremely weird, to me it sounded like they were talking about people like dog breeds. Now that I'm already fluent I've become desensitized to it and it doesn't call my attention anymore but I do remember that first impression
I am in the UK and we often have those types of questions here too (though the options are different). I guess it’s for understanding diversity or to see if certain communities experience issues more than others, but I can totally see how this could be misused and I do find it odd sometimes. We usually have an option which says “Prefer not to say” however.
And in the UK, Asian refers to South Asians only like Pakistan. Japanese and Koreans can’t tick that box…oddly I’ve seen “oriental” on UK forms….like a rug ,archaic term
@@monero892Most forms have removed it now. The joke with those forms is that they group ethnicities who detest each other due to their histories together.
@@modmaker7617 it depends on where you have most people of Asian origin I suppose. In the UK there are large South Asian communities. In the US, less so. "Stupidity"? I don't think so. It's two completely different countries using language in the most appropriate way to each.
America doesn't have an 'obsession' with race. And being colorblind is not a virtue. There is a reason that the census is asking about race and that is because it is a CENSUS! You are absolutely not allowed to use race in this country when it comes to work or housing and many other arenas. Now, as a person who lived YEARS in Germany, I will tell you I was appalled that a person have to include a photo on your resume for many jobs. That screams possibility of discrimination. Also Feli, Germany has a very different past to the USA. My friend of carribean background was living in Munich and was in an office applying for a job and the sweet secretary said to her co-worker "can you get a coffee for the blackie?" (auf deutsch) That means zero sensitivity and understanding of what it is like to be of color in Germany. Colorblind is not an option anymore!
For the outside world you do. Would be greatly appreciated if you accept other pics from people who may not be born, grown, living in your country - continent. Of course we do see different skin tones as well as long as we have working eyes but it's not or at least shouldn't be a walking advertisement to judge folks by that. 😂
The discussion about shades of blue and shade vs. shadow is fascinating! In English, we consider pink a very different color than red. But really isn't pink to red as baby blue is to dark blue? I believe, at least in the Midwest US, shade comes from trees and shadows come from just about anything else. Certainly people and anything artificial like a car or a house cast shadows. But a shadow from a mountain or a building might be considered shade -- if you are out on a hot day and looking for a cool place to rest. I think I'd say the key thing is the usage. Shade is used when you are seeking shelter from the sun, particularly from the shadow of a tree. While a shadow is the shade thrown by an object, when the key thing is you are looking at the shadow.
3 месяца назад+2
"Shade" means shielded from the sun. "Shadow" is a shape of an object caused by the object blocking the sun.
As I see the word "pink" used, some pinks aren't all that pale (e.g. fuchsia, shocking pink). As for hue, it tends to be reds with a touch of purple, rather than reds with a touch of orange, that get called pink.
The whole history of language in relation to the perception of color is a very fascinating rabbit hole indeed. It can open your mind to how some things 'feel' like common sense but are clearly not always as they seem at face value. Rather, our perception is influenced by our cultural upbringings. Relevant when it comes to 'race'.
Thank you so much for saying there is only one human race. We in the US make such a HUGE deal over race. When I was stationed in Germany people were much more private and didn't ask questions of race or seemed to care about it really.
YES PLEASE make a video on how language effects concepts. I'm learning a second language and have been for years, but I still struggle the most with things that the language thinks of as different that are the same in English are the things I struggle with the most. I think it's so interesting
90% of people who are diagnosed with Sickle Cell Anemia are Black/African. Chinese women who've never smoked are having a dramatic increase in rates of diagnosed throat cancer. These statistics are invaluable for Treatment and early prevention. There's probably a lot of genetic variances within ethnic groups like the examples i've brought up. Not only is it practical in medicine. It allows for appreciation of certain cultures because it allows the culture to stand out. Which leads to more acceptance.
i"m also colombian and something else i find weird as hell and ignorant is how many americans actually think "latino" and "hispanic" are a race. 34:44 made me facepalm so hard....
@@sebastianvr8843 It's more about a geographical region than race though. If you are Latino, you're from Latin America (including Brazil, Haiti, and other anglophone countries in the Caribbean). If you're Hispanic, you come from a country that speaks Spanish as an official language (which could include Spain or Equatorial Guinea, but not Brazil, Haiti, Guyana, Suriname, etc.)
As a German that also went to a Gymnasium in Bavaria, I think I understand what you mean by "not being as aware of that category" and "easily having friends" with other backgrounds. However, please don't forget how this is still a very entitled perspective. Not only because of the exclusionary nature of the Bavarian school system, splitting kids not really by talent, but especially by their sociocultural status, it also shows how you and me were always privileged enough not having to think about how skin color (or speaking Turkish or Russian) would make you a target of everyday racism. So I'm not sure if "not putting these categories into our heads" really helps with fighting racism here, because then they most certainly will just not be in our "potato" heads, but most certainly still exist in the heads of every member of any discriminated group. Actually I think the political debate in Germany about racism and discrimination is far less sophisticated and sometimes really dumb here in Germany.
I think describing people by colour is quite uniquely American? As someone from the UK, unless i am specifically asked, colour isn't in my vocabulary when talking about people. It is much more geographical.
Sidebar, I remember hearing a funny story on BBC Radio Scotland where the presenter and his co-host were talking about when a Scot achieves some great success on the world stage they're regarded as a BRITISH national hero/icon; But when they screw up or do something terrible, they're always only Scottish.
Man, there's a lot of comments that boil down to "If we all just stopped talking about it, it'd go away" and "I don't see race". Yes you do. We all see race, and if you think you don't, it's because you do unconsciously. Some are worse than others, but realizing your biases is the first step to countering them. I'm white, and remember when I heard about colorism (treating black people differently based on what shade of black they are), my first reaction was "What? That's so silly, who would do that? (Certainly not me)" But then later I noticed that yes, I had been unconsciously thinking of darker skinned black people differently and didn't even realize it. This is why talking about it is necessary. Ignorance doesn't prevent racism; it just lets you be racist without even being aware of it.
@@Norsilca Sure, it happens, but the criteria are different. Different nations tried to erase of the map other nations in Europe - so naturally we care more about culture, although it was mitigated a lot by having UE, but there are still nations outside that don't wish us well (to put it mildly).
@@phoearwenien4355 I get that people care more about culture than in the US. But it's pretty clear they also care about race, especially when it comes to non-Europeans. A lot of the biggest disagreements in Europe are about that now. Europeans also see race, even if they don't know it.
As someone from Luxembourg I feel you, being Black in the US seems way more significant than in Europe and we also don’t really talk about the colour of the skin but more the personality of the person.
As a university Equal Employment Opportunity reviewer, we collect this data in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In this act, the United States Federal Government is trying to correct the affects of past discrimination in housing, employment, and educational law. In the United States, the after affects of segregation are still felt throughout the society and each state is asked to correct this in some manner. Here are some differences in application. In California, disaggregated population statistics are the most diverse. This ensures that past discrimination between different Asian populations are recognized (Asian Americans of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descents are not faced with the level of discrimination that Vietnamese, Filipinos, and Hmong face) (I used to work in California). In Pennsylvania, where I worked in HR in the mid 2010, the simple racial categorization that you show is employed in examining the degree of services provided in the population. I now work in Georgia, where there is a concerted effort to erase racial categorization because there is a believe that reverse racism against white populations is a strong political beliefe, even though the statistics do not prove this belief. However a state employs data collection largely determines federal funds allocations to the state. It is a complicated matter. There are no simple solutions to past legal discrimination/segregation in the United States.
There is a simple solution I propose, which--if it had been implemented in 1964--would've mostly eradicated racism by now: Stop calling it out everywhere. The problem we have in America is we obsess over the past and how to "make it right", when what we should have done once the law was passed is enforce it rigorously, forever buried the hatchet and moved forward. Would it stink that those who were disadvantaged legally never got any compensation? Yes it would have. But that's history for you. My British and Anglo-Saxon ancestors never got compensated for being taken as slaves in the Roman Empire or for being dispossessed of the English crown by the French Normans. But no one talks about that any more because....we got over it. Time passed, and it really does heal all wounds. I also have Irish, Celtic, and good dose of Germanic ancestry. All of those groups have been oppressed, enslaved, mistreated, and so forth throughout history. And we also did our fair share of that nasty stuff to other groups. But rather than dwelling on it forever, we changed the laws, created a better society, and moved past it quickly, realizing that it's better to focus on the future than endlessly rehash the past. That's what we call "feuds. You've heard the phrase, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?" The corollary is, "Some people who learn from history choose to repeat it."
Personally, do you think once a state gets "close enough" that all of this enforcement and some of the reporting should be discontinued? At what point do we stop making future generations pay (taxpayer funding all of this) for the sins of the past?
Race is still very much part of the official narrative in South Africa, too 😞 Here is a quote by Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, which eloquently shows why I wish we were living in his South Africa, not our current one: 'Against multi-racialism we have this objection, that the history of South Africa has fostered group prejudices and antagonisms, and if we have to maintain the same group exclusiveness, parading under the term of multi-racialism, we shall be transporting to the new Africa these very antagonisms and conflicts.'
Brilliant video! You ask the most important, difficult, and poignant questions. Whether the German or the American approach is better is beyond me, but what is certain is that regardless of the approach, comprehensive efforts to underscore our common humanity through integration, cultural, and diplomatic exchanges are essential. Merely collecting (or not collecting) data is just one small part of our overall human experience; continually identifying opportunities to build bonds, affections, solidarity and to open hearts to each other in all aspects of life is essential. Thanks again for a great video.
„Racial hygiene“ is the word for word translation of „Rassenhygiene“. It is usually called „Nazi eugenics“ though, as it stems from the ideas of eugenics that were prevelant in western science at the time and have since been negated. Those ideas were the consensus in western medicine. The Nazis thus didn’t invent „Rassenhygiene“ but radicalized it. Which explains, how large parts of German academia, especially Doctors and Psychologists were complicit in the NS attrocities. As far as I know, „eugenics“ is still considered a normal medical term in some parts of the world.
I'm a German who was born into a white catholic community in rural Bavaria in the late 1960s, and I'll never forget the story my grandma told me from shortly after "the war" when she saw the first (and only) n...o (I'm sorry, that's the word she used) in her life. She owned a small village store back then, and when the Americans came, that black soldier and two (or three, her memory was unclear there) white ones checked every house in the village for hidden treasures, weapons, and, most of all, Nazis. So that dark black man forced her at gunpoint to go down into the cellar and show him what was down there. Rural cellars back then were a flap in the floor with a ladder to a hole in the ground, so to say, so she climbed down and started shouting in the Slavic dialect she had learned from her parents, "Pataken! Pataken!" and throwing potatoes at the soldier. He started laughing, said something to his fellows, and they all went away laughing, but imagine what could have happened! That story deeply impressed me as a child because she always added that that black man sure was a nice person hadn't he been a soldier. So in my childish thinking, I was convinced for a while that all black people are nice although I hadn't seen one yet. With that in mind, how could I ever have become a racist or militarist? That's not possible.
Same here. First colored man my mother ever saw was a soldier at the end of WW2. Shared his chocolate with the kids.❤ When I went on a trip to Asia a lot of people were impressed by our big European noses.
Negro is outdated, but it's not a slur like the other N word is. For the 1960s it, along with "Afro-American" later in the decade, were the preferred terms. There's a War Stories series on RUclips that largely focuses on German and Japanese soldiers and their recollections from the immediate post-war period. I find them fascinating. My dad was Air Force and ironically our assignment to Grafenwöhr brought me into contact with more African-Americans than I had on a regular basis until that point (I was 13). My dad was raised in Jim Crow Texas and did everything he could to raise us differently.
There's a story in parts of England that the first US soldiers to arrive were in all-black regiments, and were entirely welcome in the pubs (probably because they'd had to be very polite to _survive_ in the US), then when the white ones showed up and demanded the segregation of British pubs into whites-only and blacks-only pubs, they *_ALL_* went "blacks only" because nobody liked the white GIs much and nobody was about to throw out the black ones who'd been no trouble at all.
@@Sableagle Wow. Risked their lifes to fight the biggest racist of all times and then went back to face segrated busses and restroom... . Disgusting times.
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▸What are YOUR experiences and opinions on this topic? Have you ever experienced racism? Which of the two approaches do you agree with more? 🤔👇
I remember when I was first asked about my race, I was asking the same questions. I didn't understand why my friends needed to know my race. I felt like they were going to say something I didn't like afterward. It was only a few years ago.
All they got is estimates in the US too, Feli. because every city, every university, every state, everyone collects data differently. Like your surveys everybody uses different key words to describe often the same things. So conducting any kind of statistics across states, becomes pure guesswork.
I don't understand the "urine" culture.
I'm actually more surprised that you have never before been asked a Race question (although it makes sense why) than it being common in the USA.
Even here in the UK on the census we are asked to select from the following categories & sub categories and these I have also seen elsewhere eg when registering at a Doctors
Asian or Asian British (Indian, Pakastain,Bangladeshi, Chinese , Other Asian background)
Black, Black British, Caribbean or African (Caribbean African, any other black background)
Mixed or multiple ethnic groups (White& Black Caribbean, White & Black African, White & Asian, any other mixed or multiple ethnic background)
White (English|Welsh|Scottish|Northern Irish|British , Irish , Gypsy or Irish Traveller, Roma, Any other white background)
Other ethnic group (Arab,Any other ethnic group)
You have a lot to learn..
As someone who grew up in former Soviet union, I was extremely confused by the term "Caucasian" used in USA as a synonym to those of European race. In Russia and some other ex-Soviet countries this term is used to describe people native to Caucasus region, such as Georgians, Azeris, Armenians, Chechens, etc. In the 1990s there was a lot of prejudice against Caucasians in Russia (and there still is), they were stereotyped as criminals and terrorists, would be attacked by neonazis, profiled by police, face discrimination and were not considered white, some common racial slurs were based on their perceived "non-whiteness" (by USA standards majority of Caucasians would be considered white). Racial definitions can vary a lot in different regions based on various historical factors, and can make no sense outside those regions. So for someone outside USA American racial categories can look very strange and illogical, and so does American preoccupation with race and categorizing people based on it in general.
Another example of Americans trying to export their historical problems and issues to the rest of the world.
In America, you will still be classified as an ‘oppressor’ no matter that your family has no ties to ‘slavery’ or the historical American issues.
As someone who grew up Knowing that the Caucauses Exist, I find it soo disheartening. Here in the US they profit on people's ignorance.
When I started watching TV shows in English I was confused by that term as well. "Caucasian? Huh? Why are all those people from the caucasus region? I don't understand...?"
Took me quite some time to realise they meant "white".
I'm from Sweden, and I think in the US, race is often used as a veiled and lopsided way of talking about issues of class - because discussing straight in terms of class, the entitled vs the poor (even working poor) is seen as un-American.
I am an Egyptian who lived in Germany for many years. A few years ago, I moved to the US. When I first arrived, I didn't pay attention to people's skin color. I didn't even notice if the person I was talking to was white, Hispanic, or black. I didn't think it mattered. But over time, I started to notice and now I prefer the way things are done in Germany. I don't think constantly talking about race helps. I believe that if we stop making such a big deal out of skin color, racism will eventually fade away. Ultimately, people should be treated equally and hired based on their skills.
If you are speaking to someone, and actually paying attention to them, how do you not see the color of their skin? One would need to actually be blind to do so.
Now, if you state you see them and who they are and their ethnicity/culture, but you accept them and appreciate them for who they are as an individual then that makes sense.
We should all be seen for all the nuances of who we are, but accepted and treated with equality and respect anyway!
In the US that is what many are trying to achieve. It is difficult, but we have to keep trying. One day I truly believe we can do that throughout the world.
The world is a bigoted and prejudice place. This thread proves it.
unfortunately the USA was started by some super racist and christian europeans.
@@jonok42 You don't need to keep trying, you need to stop talking about it... A person LOOKING like they belong to some culture because they have a certain skin color or features, now that sounds racist to me. You can't see culture, you are guessing based on experience, you are the bigot here. The problem in the US is that race, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, crippling childhood trauma, etc is being used to stand out and that doesn't help when you actually want to blend in...
@@jonok42 It's not that they don't see the color of their skin. They just don't draw any conclusions from it and don't force into a topic of discussion. You don't have to know their culture to accept them as a human being.
As an American I find it mind boggling that I have to be aware of every single slur and stereotype a people have so that I can actively avoid using it. Why do I have to learn racism to be non-racist? A politician in Maryland used a word that he did not intend to be a slur and I would venture that the vast majority of Americans were unaware the word was a slur, but it cost him a primary election because he wasn't aware that so many of his constituents would take offense to the word that he used in a completely different context from how they understood it (David Trone in case you care enough to ask and no I won't repeat the word).
@@jonok42 As a non-American (Italian to be specific), I've always suspected that the reason Americans seem obsessed with race to us Europeans, is because in America there is a racial group that has its own dialect (AAVE, also known as Ebonics, spoken by blacks). It took me a long time to figure this out, but when you do, the difference between the old world and the US is striking. There is NOTHING like that over here in Italy. Immigrants speak with the accent of their home country, and their children who grow up here, INVARIABLY, speak the same as everyone else. Black Italians (or Asian Italian, or anyone else, as long as they grow up here) sound exactly like everyone else, they don't have an accent.
I honestly think that explains all the problems with race the US has that Europe doesn't have.
It's harder to treat a group the same as everyone else when they speak in a different way.
As a polish person this “race” stuff always seemed messed up to me
Maybe because polish word rasa is used for dog breeds and is rarely used to refer to humans
Even if someone used the word in this context around me I always felt weird because people aren’t dogs or cats
Same but I never will try to explain that to an USA inhabitants online 😆 again 😆.
@@annasaddiction5129 that “again” certainly says a lot 😂
I once tried to say to an American that race is used for animals and that there aren't races for human but he just replied to me saying I was uneducated. I think most European would rather use "ethnicity" or don't even talk about that, it's just pigmentation why would that matter ?
You're right. Biologically speaking, there is no such thing as race in humans. All other actual races died out.
@@LeegallyBliindLOLWell there is a race in ethnology but It's not the same thing as in taxonomy. And It's about mostly morphology.
I'm an American and I think America's focus on race is bizarre
It's used for stats and studies guy, c'mon keep up.
@@mako8091 Not all the time my friend. This comes from family experience
No it's not. It's unnecessary and YOU know it. Only Amerikkka is obsessed with a social construct.
It is racist first and foremost. And as such it is also bizarre. "Americans" are a hard contender for the most absurd "race" of humans.
@@mako8091it the philippines we just check what is the color of our skin not the race. Americans are morons
It does feel weird why I as an American have to sign off for what ethnicity or race I am for employment, it should not be there for any reason.
The reason for this is probably things like making sure there is enough diversity within the company. As a white person this actually worked in my favor ONCE. I used to work at a Walgreens in Orlando and I was literally hired because I was white. I was the only white person that worked at the whole store. Not that I think there is anything discriminatory about this. I think its a good thing to have intentional diversity. Its just not usually something that benefits white people, because of white privilege.
If you belong to a group that is historically not denied equal opportunity, it can feel that way
Because of “white privilege”.
Anti-White discrimination in enforced by the American state.
They get every benefit and advantage in hiring, promotions, admissions, scholarships, grants, loans, layoffs, mortgages, down payments, dorms, federal contacts, and relief aid.
It's an attempt to try to make up for the discrimination of the past by making sure that employers do not have a pattern of only hiring certain ethnic groups
I was on vacation in NYC in 2019, we were in the metrostation when a man next to us had an epileptic seizure and fell on his head. Blood started to flow out of his head so we went to the nearest emergency pole and called 911. My brother explained what happened and the first question that the dispatcher asked was ‘is he white, black or hispanic?’. The man looked Latino, so my brother said hispanic. (We’re dutch, btw) At first we thought it was for identification, but soon realised that the metrostation was nearly empty (it was late in the evening) so there’s no way they wouldn’t have seen the guy laying on the ground with a pool of blood around him. When they finally arrived 15 minutes (!!) later they only brought a first aid kit and walked over to the man in the slowest pace ever. That was not to ‘eliminate’ racism, that very much was racism. If your first question is what is the persons ‘race’ and not for example ‘how long ago did it happen?’ or ‘how much blood did he lose?’ or anything like that then it really sounds like racism to me.
Racism has never left the USA😞
That is awful. 😮
It was for indetification. How would the dispatcher know the station was empty? You're being an idiot.
911 dispatchers are trained to ask for race for identification purposes. They don't know who will be present or how confusing the scene may be when help arrives. I can't speak for the slow response of the EMTs in this case, but the question from the dispatcher was for identification.
@@phoenixfreefallIn latin america exist a diversity of races and never ever a medic will ask you about your race
As a polish guy in Berlin, when I was in school our class was naturally very diverse and no one said anything about it. We had black, asian, slavic, native american and arabic people there but “race” was never an issue or even a topic of discussion. It was way more important which country you’re from or grew up in. Like I remember having conversations with classmates where they were from and they proudly identified themselves being from a certain country (e.g. Ireland, Cameroon, South Korea, Russia etc.) but never their “race”. I never really thought about that either. Concepts like White/Caucasian and Asian are therefore pretty confusing to me bc they’re so wide in their scope and definition. I always thought more in terms of country of origin, rather than race or ethnicity
Uh huh. Marriage types says otherwise.
Yes the country of origin affects behavior and culture more directly than race does. I think conserving race data allows for discrimination but people can conserve "racism" if they want to because people intrinsically are interested in history. We seem obsessed with where a person "grew up" in the US.
@@jamesmedina2062I disagree, you care about the colour of their skin, otherwise you wouldn’t ask about it. For example Elon musk, an actual African immigrant, faces far less racism than an African-American whose family has been in the US for generations. That’s because you do not care where they “grew up”. If I see a black guy in Germany it matters a great deal whether he is from central Africa or the US. With the American, as we would refer to a black US citizen, I know that I will most likely have all the important values in common. I know there will be no language barrier and that he in all likelihood won’t be a criminal. For the African man there would be a lot more prejudice to overcome.
Skin colour tells you absolutely nothing about a person. Country of origin and how someone got to where he is now on the other hand … it’s not even racism. Just being wary of strangers, and people from the US are less strange than people from a wholly different culture you can’t even properly communicate with.
@@sebastianbauer4768 Elon Musk is a bad example 😅 If a black man was as rich he wouldn't have any problems.
@@Habakuk_ Nice theory, unfortunately we can’t test it as it’s impossible for a black man to get that rich due to the racism :D.
This is a really balanced and thoughtful take on the topic. I must say though, that checking boxes for race on a form is not where or when American children learn what race they are or are perceived to be. Maybe if you're white but generally, if you're a POC then as a kid you learned what race you are not from checking boxes but from your family, friends, strangers, etc. Sometimes it's a gentle awareness learned from people that love you but just as often you find out from racists saying racist crap to you and you not understanding what it even means but feeling hurt regardless. Then your loved ones have to explain what happened and why.
If you're mixed race, then the box checking could have been a source of stress b/c until a couple decades ago, you couldn't check more than one box and that forced people to choose just one which isn't accurate and basically seems like a denial of part of their heritage. Then they added the "other" box so multiracial people could use that if they didn't want to choose one race. Then they added the mixed race or multiracial option as well as letting you check more than one box. So, it's something that evolves over time.
So yeah, I can see how older kids and adults coming to this country for the 1st time would be shocked at the race question on forms and I can see how that could be the catalyst for them starting to see the world, themselves, and other people through a racial lens that they previously did not. But that generally isn't what happens to kids born here; obviously there's always exceptions. Racial data collecting is not the cause of racism in this country. It's always been here since the colonizers landed. The data can be used for evil or for good, but the data is just data it is neither good nor bad, it's data.
thank you for taking the time to explain this, sis.
@@tiffanyhill-rice5126 You're welcome, sis. I appreciate your comment.🙂I had the time that day. 😉
@@hopew6979 sis? Are you guys related???
@@budguy21 yes.
What´s your race? Formula 1.
👍😂
I feel threatened by Formula 1 and don't want that race in my neighborhood!
Professional racist
HA! Indeed!
The Lady in the Clip where this comes from is absolute Gold! It shows perfect tha Crazyness on the so called "inclusive" People!
Article 1 Dutch Constitution
“All those in the Netherlands are treated equally in equal cases. Discrimination on grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or on any other grounds is not permitted.”
America’s founding documents say the same thing, but we 100% are treated differently by the government based on our race/skin color/family backgrounds
When was that constitution written?
@@petercollingwood522 when i'm right it must be 1964 the Civil Rights Act (sry when i'm wrong, i am german)
They wrote the same thing in the American constitution eg. "all men are created equal ...". However the guy who first said it kept more than 100 slaves in his Virgina family farm His name was Washington.. They ask people about their racial origins because they classify them and put those who are of the same skin colours together whether it's about housing, theater seats, work place, schooling seats in classrooms etc ...
US Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
14th Amendment Section 1:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
15th Amendment:
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Among the civil rights acts and many other laws
I visited US a few years ago and I only stayed for 2 weeks. Within those 2 weeks, I was asked EXTENSIVELY where I'm from multiple times. When I said, I'm from Australia, and then they started asking where my parents are from until where's my great grandparents are from. Seriously, I'm a native Australian and I really don't know any further than where's my grandpa is from.
It's because Americans deep inside are keenly aware of their colonial history which goes back just a few generations, and they don't have deep roots in their own country, and thus feel a need to establish their identity as descendants of immigrants of every corner of Europe (unless they're black) then hang on to their particular ancient heritage to set themselves apart from other groups.
@@residentzero You know what I find funny about that? It never comes up in movies, especially not wester movies. I mean it usually takes two or three generations until the original culture starts to vanish. Even traces from the parent's or grandparent's culture could give a character interesting quirks.
Though I have missed the same in pirate movies. It's not like they were born as pirates or came from the same country. Even the fighting styles from Spain and France would be different at the time.
Here in Germany I get asked very often where I'm from. People are just curious.
I think it's a double-edged sword. Its often a gear thing that stimulates talk and curiosity about our origins. Other times it can pigeon-hole you and people will undoubtedly discriminate towards you. I find when parents are adamant about continuing norms they will teach their kids to be judgemental and to conserve the norms taught being taught to them. So often this cultural pride ends up being quite a bit discriminatory toward others. At the same time it is good to cherish you ancestors and history. So its complicated
@@residentzero which is truly sad because everywhere else You (not OP, but persons in 1st comment) are nothing more, nothing less - an American. With white teeth, white sneakers and loud voice. I feel bad breaking it for immigrant Americans to, for example, Germany being proud "for coming back home". No, honey, no... Also quit the whole expat thing, we all know emmigrant goes away, immigrant arrives. It's not a slur, no need to feel embarrassed.
as a black American i’m subscribing because this video was very informative and we need more people like you educating us about things we may not know
Like not identifying as a black American. I bet your skin colour isn't even black, but rather dark brown or caramel. Nor does it matter unless we artificially make it matter.
your race is irrelevant
what is always confusing with the word "caucasian" is that this region " the caucasus" is not even european^^ its located between the northeastern border of turkey, near russias south border where armenia, aserbaidjan and Georgia (not to confuse with the US State) are located. :D
It is on border of Europe, but people there don't look like you mostly imagine a typical "white person" so it was always weird even for me why they call it like that. I don't think we learned about some "caucasian" race in Czech schools, but there were still things that could be considered racist in these days when I was visiting elementary schools. But funny is that even people from India are part of "europoid" race by our teachbooks even when they are obviously not white, so everything they teach in USA is just weird for us, like they have some "latino" race etc....bizzare stuff.
technically they are both i mean all of europe and asia except for india is a single continental plate, only difference is that someone set a border there once and though yeah thats it
georgians identify as european, armenia considers itself asian and azerbaidjan identifies as arab wich technically should also be considered its own continent if we devide eurasia by cultures because arabs are far from japanese or chinese people culturally
@@stiegelzeine2186 I found it recently that Europe pretty much doesn't exist as a continent, it's just a cultural or political border.
The classification comes from an old racist classification of people in caucasian mongoloid and negro. Caucasian being everything from white to Indian. It doesnt make a lot of sense and is a good reason to toss out the word caucasian aswell as we have the other two.
Edit from Wikipedias Page about Caucasian Race : "Introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history,[b] the term denoted one of three purported major races of humankind (those three being Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid)."
I was once told that this is because, in terms of evolution over the past 28,000 years, it is thought that light skin evolved first in the Caucasus mountains.
As someone who is mixed race and white passing I've found these questions nothing but confusion and pain. I always try to put "decline to state" but then an employee will return the form to me and demand I pick something else. No matter what I select I feel like I'm lying and betraying a part of myself. Do I put "white" and deny my Mexican heritage? If I put "hispanic" am I denying the white priveledge I have as a white passing person? And then there's the obnoxious time-wasting questions from strangers if they can't put you into a box. "Where are you from?" "California." "No . . . where are you FROM?" "California." "OK, where are your parents from?" "CALIFORNIA. Will you please take my fare and let me on this damn bus!?" (actual interaction I had when I was a teenager)
Why do they even have a decline option then? lol
I mean, what's the point of that option if they will demand you to not decline it.
This happened to me too. I'm born and raised and have lived in Pittsburgh my entire life. I've had people argue with me about where I was born because I'm Jewish.
Understandable. Put your "white privilege" to good use, and keep fighting these stupid racist questionnaires by declining to answer. We should not tolerate nor submit to racism. We need to treat people as equals, no matter where we are from.
rossjaron7309
So you’re saying jevvish is more than a religion?
Mexicans are also white usually, I mean weren't the Spanish one of the peoples that invented this categorization for their very mixed colonies? The initial white/black/Asian/native question + a separate question for Hispanic heritage is what usually see on forms.
When I (I'm german) lived in the US, I always answered this 'race' question with "human". I never cot any reaction😅
Perfectly acceptable, given the optional nature of the question. Note that "race" is asocial concept, not a scientific reality. Race is an illusion.
I do the same - Born in the U.S.
try 'i'm not a dog' next time
😊❤
@AsterFoz 😂
I was very surprised by the meaning of the term "Caucasian" in the USA. I come from Russia, my ethnic group is Ossetians. Ossetians are a small Indo-Iranian people who live in Russia in the Caucasus region. In Russia, "Caucasians" are people who live in the Caucasus Mountains (Ossetians, Circassians, Chechens, etc.). Very often people from the central regions of the country call us "black" people. They say this not because of our skin color, but because of our eye and hair color. Unlike Slavs, who are mostly blond with light eyes, Caucasians have black hair and dark eyes. We Caucasians often face prejudice and labels in our country. Stereotypically, we are considered stupid (because we often speak Russian with an accent), aggressive and dangerous. Although there are many creative people among Caucasians, famous writers, composers, artists, conductors, dancers, athletes.
Yea it's odd it's because the theory was the Aryans came from there 😂 but if you look at Armenians some.of them as dark as iraquis😂 imo east Europeans Slavic are the whitess! And not the Caucasus people 😮 especially armenians who are light brown skinned 😂
iran , georgia, armenia, turkiye , caucasian, europe is 44 countries
Lezginka showgroup shows beautiful culture
@@jamesclarkmaxwell-v2n Persians turkics Caucasics non Semitic but they aren't white they look distinct the only ones who look white. Are part slavic east euro! I seen armenians who look almost pakistani
Im from Spain, and that adds a whole new layer when you need to fill the survey. I am very "white looking" im blond, tall, green eyes, blond beard etc so I am confused as German or Anglo. Since I am Spanish I was born in Europe. Thus on the census It's always confusing if I should mark Caucasian White, White Latino etc... according to the Census you are Latino (which also includes Brazil) or Hispanic only if you are born in Spanish Speaking America but if you are born in Europe you have to write Caucasian White. So Spain's position is very odd in the census and in reality you can mark what you like since it contradicts itself, at least in the case of Spain. It doesnt help I am Basque which we do not speak a romance language or are necessarily Latin culturally.
well there is always some exception, but Spanish people mostly does not look white.
@@XY-uc1twAre you saying Mediterranean or Southern Europeans like Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Greeks, Israel are not white?
@@josemanueld5413 yes, most of them are not white, but brown. Except in northern Italy, where some German minorities live and Israil has many Russian like people.
Hahahhahahaa brown? Hahahhahaha you mean tanned😅 these people
So true!!
I find it interesting that those qualifiers exclude so many details as well... For example, I'm latina, but I'm a white Latina, there are native Latinos, black latinos, even Asian latinos, but then it feels like when you say latino you only think about a certain group and it excludes all other things that makes us different. A Gaucho will have 100% different life experiences from a Native from the US, same as a black person from Colombia, so I find it all a bit confusing and innacurate.
I don’t believe there are much White Latina’s in the country. America has a very small Spanish population.
I used to be confused by this until I realized that ethnicity and race being separated meant that I could represent my indigenous and African ancestry by checking all relevant boxes. Could someone looking at my paperwork confuse me for a more traditional biracial person? Sure, but as a Puerto Rican, that’s still technically what I am.
@@georgejackson2631 Wrong. I'm from New Mexico and there are a ton of white Latinas. I'm one of them. Latino/a is an ethnicity, not a race.
But people from Spain are not latinos, are they? So what does the spanish population has to do with it?
Most forms use the term "Latino or Hispanic origin"
Black woman, born and raised in the US. Can confirm I didn’t learn I was black from watching my mom fill out forms. I was told I spoke well for a black child when I was really young. Additionally wasn’t invited to a sleepover because, you guessed it, black. I had to hang my head in shame. I would have preferred seeing her check a box and proudly explain what it means to be a black person without the humiliation of finding out through racism first.
Both the bogus forms and the social exclusion are forms of racism, and it is absolutely NOT OK!
So sorry that happened to you. I hope I can teach my children to invite ALL their friends to have fun with them.
No idea what happened to my comment? Did I offend some white supremacist at RUclips?🤣
Sorry you went through that . That's horrid & you arent the one that should feel shame
❤
Are you sure its related to racism? Cause what you may perceive as racism is sometimes simply not so. I mean many blacks speak sadly with a peculiar accent or badly due to socio-economic reasons, so it's ignorant to say/tell someone that, but I do understand why they might want to be polite and tell you that. Not inviting you to a sleep over doesnt necessarily mean its done because of racism, maybe those girls didnt like you for whatever reasons. Something I see a lot in the US is that any little rift they have with someone they automatically blame it on their race and racism which is not really the case a lot of the time. When you see through the lense of race you perceive everything as racism. That's something I really see in the US compared to other places.
As an asian grown up in Germany, I wish that there were some more awareness regarding racism. In school, I was mobbed because of my asian looks and if I were trying to search for help, teachers didn't really do much and didn't even clarify why the mobbing kids are wrong or should not say the things they did (or even think in this way, but that's hard to change if you were grown up in such an environment, but the more it is important to teach students beginning from a young age on). The only thing I was told everytime was "he/she did not mean it maliciously" or "don't take it too seriously" and I was sent away sometimes without even talking to the mobber (I mean, sometimes there were teachers who were also racists and that was a horrendous time..., but also the non-racists were like that because they didn't experienced mobbing or don't know how it would feel like missing kind of an empathy as a social educated teacher).
These early days shaped me so drastically in a bad way, and the worst part is that those (former) mobbers and teachers or any other people related to this do not recognize it...
ich glaube dir sofort!
so sorry, you had to go through that! racism/xenophobia is very much pervasive in germany, from my experience especially in smaller places.
i was also a migrant child but look "white", so blend in quite easily. that was and is a huge advantage.
i just felt like a foreigner in the very small village i grew up in. people there didn't make much more of a distinction between "foreign as not from this village" and "foreign as not from germany" 😅 (mostly, at least). my mom experienced quite a bit of xenophobia though (even though she, too, looked "white").
but right next village over there was a huge neo-nazi problem with mass brawls between them and groups of russian immigrants or turkish immigrants at almost every bigger event (Kirmes). and between russian immigrants and turkish immigrants. ... geze, i forgot how much shit was going on there, i'm so happy to live where i live now.
ok, i'm losing my train of thought and am gonna end this comment on this 😅
That is a problem of Europe in general - we are so righteous, that we are not able to say anything. As highest peak can be used something like "immigrant" or "other ethnicity". And while we do not handle this kind of topics, people are rose with wild handling manners. Plus as cherry on the top, media (of particular kind) make this much worse.
friend of mine is full of bu..sh.t and hates immigrants and liberals and so ... He is living abroad (other EU country) and in fact, he is immigrant there (respond is always - "that is different thing") - and of course, while he want to be handled equally there - he is liberal too. We hate each other more and more day by day. It is crazy how political correctness does not allow even talking about these topics, nor educate people and same political correctness allows content creators (individuals, or print media or .... any type of media) to speak freely lies (desinformation) or share and spread rumors (misinformation) and of course if here is no education so people cant critically review content they later adapt. All is wrong.
My cousin's neigbour is Pakistani, my tenant is Palestinian, My coworkers are Ukrainians and one is Tunisian, one welder is Vietnamese I buy my loved Kebap from Turkish and we have here a lot of Koreans and Chinese (KIA factory is here and a lot of their suppliers) and so on. How that matter, yes if here is some census, ok. Everybody can pronounce their cultural backgrounds, but other way this social construct has to be deconstructed. Again, we have here lack of education and people take same way social and biological definition. Most times it is - it is proven, races are here, look at dogs. I am looking and looking and in same breed dogs can have different colour of fur, but never seen human race wit different heads (so different, that should to matter), different sizes or differently shaped body parts.
Maybe I am wrong, but I agree, that for governing purposes is good to know that here is criminality caused by people from there or there (standard russian mafias in 90's) and law enforcement needs to put an eye on some more likely risky groups/areas, but it is more like opinion groups than ethnicity/race (religion, nazis, xenofobic, chauvinistic ....) and individual idiocy. I am trying hard to not put people into bags, but think on individual bases and I always say that somebody is idiot because he is idiot, not because he speaks other language, worship different god or was born beyond virtual line on the map.
Of course same can be applied for "they". Here exist people moving to Europe thinking that "we" are weak, will do nothing to "them", will feed them and "they" take our women, but it is minimum. Stereotypes are dangerous. Here, most of population, see gypsies as poor,crazy, dirty, irresponsible lifestyle living group, but in fact only 13% of Gypsies are living that way and other gypsies are ashamed by behaviour of those people. I had gypsy friends on university, in previous work I have colleague with university degree education and worked with gypsies a lot, yes some are not educated well, but they work hard (it is for sure some systematic problem with higher rates of well educated people of this group - they are "African Americans" of our country).
We still trying (country I live in and people I meet time to time) to find differences. We are use it as excuses for saying we are better. We are lazy to think in details and simplifications can cause disaster on the end of the day. Yes, this guy broke rules he will go to jail or be bannished - how it matters if he is Caucasian white from Crimea or coal black from Zambia or Light brown from Somalia (or other different local african ethnicities - include egyptians, north africans and pale south africans+bambjillion other ethnic and religious group around the globe)? That guy is an idiot breaking rules we are used to (and made our law by such norms).
For all people on both sides of this barricade - Hey, we are all people and we have this civilization because of cooperation, wake up!
As a „just German“ I want to say how sorry I am!
Was this in the former East Germany? Because the Soviet Era brought a lot of problems with it, and less then 35 years is not enough time to heal the society there. Also nowdays children somehow are so satisfied with everything, so some become arrogant and have lack of empathy... New culture and new generation. I wouldn't blame the German system. If they try to pay attention to everyone according to their skin color or country of origin, other kids will notice and the distance between them will grow immediately because someone has a different treatment. So, maybe the solution is to just help them understand in the program how others might feel, and to teach them more sympathy in general ...
My childhood in Norway was also full of bullying, but racism was not a part of it. They didn't do much either. You have to separate between race and racism. Race is non-existing, but racism or discrimination exists and has to be fixed each time.
It is odd to me as an American too. I thought we would be past this back in the 1970's. It looks like it will be forever.
There is progress but there's still a long way to go. Every major institution in America still has a large overrepresentation of white people controlling it. So either 1) Racist theories are correct and people of color really are inferior or 2) Systematic racism still exists in America.
As a white person, I only answer the question about race because I am also disabled.
There are plenty of bigots out there. We did not get past it. Many just got quieter about it. In the past 8 years, many have proudly come out with their bigotry.
Democrat party relies on racial grievance for their continued existence.
As long as there are european christians in the American continent there will always be poverty and racism.
In Canada, asking about race or ethnicity in a job interview is highly discouraged and can be seen as discriminatory. The Canadian Human Rights Act and provincial laws prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and other grounds. Focus interview questions on qualifications, skills, and experience, not personal characteristics. If race or ethnicity information is needed for diversity purposes, it should be collected separately and voluntarily, not during the interview. Candidates can file complaints with human rights commissions if they feel discriminated against.
Yes, in the US race or ethnicity information must be collected only after the job offer has been made, and is usually done when completing the forms required to connect your pay to taxing and social security processes.
Canada is so far gone at this point. A native Torontonian is now Indian and Canada's immigrants despise White Canadians.
The "Canadian Human Rights Act" etc may be designed to prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc ...
But in practice, every government office strives to have "one of everybody" on staff to maximize their diversity. While this may seem to be creating opportunities, it is doing so by taking them away from others - it is in fact a form of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc.
@@pwnmeisteragehow do you know the “one of everybody” isn’t just as qualified?
It is also illegal to ask about Race or Ethnicity in the US in an interview as it is a protective class. Not sure where you are getting your assumptions from.
As an Asian kid growing up in a predominantly white community in the US, it wasn't my parents or teachers who it in my head that I was racially different from everyone else. It was actually white kids in my own school who were parroting racist sentiments they heard from their siblings or parents who told me that I was Chinese or Japanese, as they were making fun of me for my "slanted eyes". No labeling of my race could have contributed to the racism I experienced in elementary school. If your society already has people who harbor racist attitudes that manifest themselves as actual poorer treatment of minorities, then documenting race in order to track those disparities in quality of living is more beneficial than harmful.
You think so? Seems like the use of such data is one sided, meaning that when the historically disadvantaged group is doing worse than that historically privileged group, that is used as evidence of unjust treatment. But when then historical privileged group is doing worse than the historically disadvantaged group, no comment is made about it. Seems like nowadays most of the use of this data is to generate anger and resentment and sometime used to discriminate against members of the historically groups. It’s not clear to me that the benefits outweigh the harms.
Good thing there is no racism in Asia! LOL
As an Asian-Australian I completely disagree. I wish for a colorblind society where no-one talks about race at all. But I can understand how different opinions can form based on one's individual experiences.
Why did you call the European American kids white?? Sounds very racist. Funny how you were upset by them mentioning your differences but find it perfectly ok to call them by theirs.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience! 🙏
As an american who descends from German immigrants and who has spent considerable time in Germany, I want to congratulate you on your thoughtful and sophisicated presentation on race in both Germany and USA. Well done!
I am an American, originally from New York City, who has lived in Japan for 24 years. Observing from afar, it seems that America has become increasing focused on race the past decade, which is sad. For most racial groups in America, there used to be a much stronger identification with one's ethnicity than race. Koreans, Vietnamese, and Indians, e.g., didn't have much solidarity because they were all Asian, and even among Latinos, they placed more importance on which Latin American country their ancestors came from. Among whites in NY, this was true as well, with people regarding themselves as Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc. It was only mainly among blacks (who had their ethnic distinctions erased by slavery) and whites who had ancestors from NW Europe who immigrated 100s of years ago (mainly found in the South and Appalachia) where you would see strong racial identification. Growing up I saw myself as Sicilian, German, and Slovak, and while I knew I was classified as white, it had no importance to me, and I felt no affinity for someone else just because they were also white.
Living in Japan is a totally different experience. 99%+ or the population is East Asian and 98% is ethnically Japanese, so you don't have racial tensions. Instead, the division tends to be between Japanese and non-Japanese (just broadly called "foreigners"), and discrimination is pervasive.
Japan is actually very racist sometimes especially to blacks even if they are still ethnic Japanese
Acting like racism doesn't exist causes more racism and unintentional bias
Funny how Japan got to keep their ethno state despite doing exactly what Germany did.
I lived in japan and the discrimination is "we native" vs the "foreigners". Other Asians such as Koreans might have it harder but they also blend much easier than whites or blacks. The discrimination in Japan was weird since it was done in ways you would never see them in the west (Not been allowed entry because of race, in the subway, yelling at you on the street etc...) but not all Japanese are like that. So I would never blame a whole country/society ever. There are black who are racist, there are Japanese who hate foreigners, there are Asians which are good people, same for Blacks and whites and some that arent. A group doesnt determine you personality, traits and ways of doing things which people massively fail to understand.
@@Jz-vz8ky Quite the oppodsite. I am more racist since race matters more and I have to hear people say BS all the time. Before this time and age, race didnt matter much we were on the path of simply judging people by their personality and not their looks regarding race or features. But modern America has become a country of Karens where every small thing needs to be amplified so they feel special. The more you speak of race, the more importance you give to it, the worse it will divide people. You are literally putting a barrier "Them" vs "us" based on skin color.
The US census asks "Hispanic or Latino", but those aren't the same. I am Latino but not Hispanic; when the census asked "Hispanic", my mother, who was Salvadoran, said no, because her Romance ancestry is mainly French, not Spanish. An Equatoguinean with some Spanish ancestry is Hispanic, but not Latino, because it's short for Latinoamericano, and he's African.
They're not the same, which is why they include both terms and an "or"
Yeah.Hispanic or Latino is not an ethnicity, nationality or race. The whole term is stupid. Latin Americans are of different races and origins. And they're not all the same people either.
As a European the whole Hispanic/ Latino thing is super confusing. If they have to put a label on people why not call them South Americans when they are from South America and European when they are from Spain.
@@gmalcolms yes, but they "put them into the same pot" as per the the German saying. So the census doesn't care about those differences.
Changing Hispanic or Latino to a race in 2030 will be insane. Latinos can be any race and Latinos aren’t a race in of itself. Cause most Latinos are a mixture of many races. Treating Latino as a race will erase White, Black and Asian Latinos.
In the UK, every time I applied for a job. They do ask about race/ethnicity. I have to check "white - other" because they have "white - British/Irish". I'm Polish BTW.
I'm also Polish and people say to me things like ''You're not white cause you are a Roman Catholic like a Mexican'' or ''You are spicy white like Latinos or Irish'' also ''You ain't white you are Eastern European/Slavic''. Once I saw a sign at the lake ''No Eastern European Fisherman Allowed'' with the second part ''Poles ARE Eastern European!''. If you are not a Protestant Anglo Saxon you are a man of color to 'em.
@morvran9074 Most White Americans are Catholic
@@morvran9074 Just tell people you are a mixture.
I always write in human when it asks for race on any form. I’m American.
The Navajo talk about the five fingers. If you have five fingers you are human. But I have a friend born with six fingers. Was that less human?They chopped off her sixth finger when she was small.
@@jamesmedina2062 I have ten
@@jamesmedina2062that kind of generous classification is more common with people that had no exposure to apes. Most apes are clearly animal, not that different from a coyote or bobcat. The great apes though? Gorilla, orang utans, chimps etc … man if you see them up close they blur the line. It’s the eyes and the face. My first thought literally was: that ain’t no animal looking back. Not quite human, but not an animal either. Deeply unsettling. It was most pronounced with the orange utans.
@jattikuukunen: Thank you, that comment was required. 👌
Well there used to be more human races, but the only one left now is homo sapiens.
This is a thoughtful, well-produced video. Thank you, Feli (and others who had a part). We don’t always realize the amount of work that goes into making something like this. Well done!
We distinguish the race of our sausages instead: Frankfurter, Thuringian, Vienna (well, that's Austrian, but sticking with language, it's still German), Bavarian White...
what is a frankfurter like? There was a food place here that sold them here next to hamburgers but I am not sure if they were authentic.
@@jamesmedina2062 iirc, similar to a Vienna but smoked slightly more.
@@Thoringer Ok thank you soooo much for sharing!! A family here owned a place called The Charcoaler and served these things called frankfurters but then a company bought it and turned it into a shadow of its former self. The frankfurters used a type of wiener that was cut open and grilled and the sauce was always a peppery catsup with chopped onions inside a white bun of bread. I loved it!
@@jamesmedina2062 at least as an Austrian I have never heard of anything like that. Sounds like a weird mix of a Bosna (long bun with a Bratwurst, ketchup, mustard, raw onions and curry powder) and a hotdog.
Also I thought Wiener and Frankfurter are the same, just different words used in Germany and Austria.
@@jamesmedina2062 Fun is: these definitions can change depending on the region. A "Braunschweiger" is different in my home town than it's in another part of the country.
Thing is that I as a German would never introduce myself to another person as "Hi, I'm D., a proud, white, Christian female. How are you?" In the USA, this happens frequently. And in the next sentence you might even hear from them "I work as a XYZ and make about 65,000 Dollars per year". Mind-boggling.
and my pronoun is...
No one would say ‘proud, White’ here
I had conversations with americans throwing their salary around, crazy to me as a swiss person
People in America do not dare to say that in fact most white people do not dare to be proud of themselfes anymore. We have white hatred in our countries you know
Not even the kkk talk like that 😂😂
I'd like to share a story related to your question at the end of your vid. I am a 49 yr old white swiss. My background, like mayn swiss, is very mixed culturally. Mostly italian and swiss with some flavor from austria, spain and france and religiously my family is all over the place, from protestant and catholic christianity to jewish most of my generation is now either agnostic or atheists.
My maternal aunt was not able to get children due to an accident in her late teens. So she and her husband decided to adopt. I was 6 when they adopted a boy and 9 when they adopted a girl. Both of them were from Sri Lanka and their skin was very dark. Yet I never saw that, for me, they were simply my cousins. We grew up and over the years we met to get a drink or come together at family gatherings. Of course, like so many others, we saw the news from the US and other places, the heightened tensions in the internet about race and all that. Still, I never saw them as black and they both told me they never felt not swiss. I should mention we grew up in a very suburban area where many children had different background. Filipino, italian, Brazilian and many more, most of were mixed race.. so we never really saw each other in a racial sense.
A couple years ago I got invited to a gathering from a student organization. Turned out one of my cousins was invited too. We sat down next to each other, chatted and waited what the topic was (the student organisation often had interesting topics and lecturers from all ways of life so neither me nor my cousin looked closer at the schedule that day). To our surprise it was a lecture exactly about this topic. Various black and asian students told the audience their story and how they feel forgotten and overlooked in many ways. And then the speaker was a human rights expert, calling for a change in the swiss way of dealing with such topics to, as you pointed out, fight against racism.
I understood what they wanted to achieve, and in general I agree with doing our best to fight stereotypes and racism. But for me and also my cousin (we chatted about that often since then) something else happened. For the first time I consciously saw her as a black person and she saw herself as different from me. Just briefly.. but it made a huge impact on her and me that day. I am close to all my family members, including my 'black' cousins.. and so we openly talked about it with each other later. And we both, and to an extend her brother and mine (we included them) feel like we los some part of the innocence for each other. And I don't know if that is good or bad, I feel a bit betrayed by this student organisation.
In conclusion, I think the german way is better than the american. As you so elegantly said at the beginning, there is just one race, the human race. Judging or categorizing people by skin color is as useful as doing the same for eye color. And sometimes, no matter the motivation, if we try to do something for the right reason, we also might cause harm doing so. I don't know the best way to deal with such topics but I wanted to share this to show how complicated this can be. If you never thought about race or dealt with it personally, it can be a blessing that you see the human before the difference in others.. or it can make you overlook the struggles others have.
Thank you for sharing that
You are right in feeling that way. Ideology is destroying the natural way of dealing with life. Today they aim to convert people in victims so they can be more easily manipulated.
Maybe that people complaining they felt forgotten never really felt that way until someone approached them with that agenda.
It somewhat scares me when I see how all this racial privilege discussion is spilling over to here in Europe. Why? For one, there is literally an immeasurable amount of structural and social challenges a human can Go through and it doesn't Help to divide Humans by it, the only thing that helps is to actually care about fellow human beings and See them as such. One common example, the unwanted touching of black peoples hair. Quote Afrozensus: "It's othering and exoticizing." What Help is that lingo? And is that REALLY the issue at Hand Here?? My immediate gut reaction when I read their statistic was not "that's so racist/othering/exoticizing" but "Dang, that's really messed up to infringe in someones bodily autonomy Like that. Just treat people decent, man!!" Just treat people decent, THAT is what we need (and REALLY should work on in our lives and in politics), not dividing ourselves from each other. The Person in the example probably was just innocently curious. That's a human modus operandi to relate to each other and thus a very GOOD thing. BUT the person didn't treat the other person decent, respecting their bodily autonomy regardless of how curious I am. If we would put human decency and being fellowly towards each other in the foreground and model that (instead of talks of sociological concepts) we would actually start seeing and appreciating the fellow human, we wouldn't need censuses asking these questions because we would learn about these experiences from our fellow Humans.
This post shows how actually trying to "bring" awareness to the cause is what makes us more divided. My country is still predominantly white and only recently have been there an influx of POC (hate that term). I don't pay them any mind, and as long as they integrate into our society and norms there shouldn't be an issue.
What I'm trying to say is, with shouting about race on every corner people are actually more racially divided as we actually start to looking at the person as someone from a different race than a fellow human.
And yet the Swiss way of dealing with things was clearly not working for non-white Swiss people, or they wouldn't have had to bring it up.
I don't get why realizing someone is a different race than you creates division. That seems like the problem that needs to be fixed. Noticing differences should not make you feel less connected to someone.
03:54: Anthropologists realized about 150 years ago that trying to give race a scientific definition is impossible.
As an anthropologist, I concur. Race is a social construct.
@@MariAsherahRose No it absolutely isn't. You don't have to be a geneticist, anthropologist or biologist to know that race is in fact definitely real
@@snorristurluson5849 Well, what MariAsherahRose probably means by " Race is a social construct" is that the way how people are cathegorized into racial groups (in the USA or elswhere) in the public/political discourse is not based on scientific evidence and is highly arbitrary. As a prime example of that, at 2:13 - Pakistanis are in a different cathegory then Indians while lumped together with Hmongs and Cambodians. I might not be a geneticist, anthropologist or biologist but I can tell you that Pakistanis are much more closely related to Indians than to either Hmongs or Cambodians, both genetically and by physical appearance. In short this whole race thing is driven more by politics rather than by science.
@@snorristurluson5849 Ethnicity is a thing. Heritage is a thing. Genealogy is a thing. Races are not. Not for humans, anyways. It's not that you couldn't arbitrarily group people by their ancestry, it's that the concept of race (as used and applied) doesn't reflect reality very well. It changes based on context and bias. Ethnicity is right there, just use that. Or say phenotype if you want to keep dividing people by how they look, have fun with that. Just word it properly, please.
@@snorristurluson5849 i am someone with a mixture of different European, African and native American ethnic groups what am I if not multi ethnic? I don't belong to a particular "race" of people lol, you're just a racist.
It's interesting to me that Feli's experience is that those living in Germany with a non-German heritage were not treated differently. That seems to me because it is not her personal experience or perspective. Turks and other economic migranrs were still "guest workers" to the fourth generation with no chance of citizenship until just before Feli was born. I hosted an exchange student from Bochum, just a few years older than Feli, whose father was from Iran. She told me she liked NY so much and wanted to come back because in Germany she was constantly questioned about really being German, despite having an erhnic German mother, being Catholic and culturally German. Yet in NY, no one doubted her when she said she was German. What she said rang true when she came to visit me a few years later, and i am an Airbnb host who had a German guest at the same time. She asked my student several times how to say her 3 syllable, four letter name, and concluded it was too hard to learn and it wasn't a German name and asked how she was German. My student replied that there are immigrants in Germany. Also, this is already too long of a post, but Feli also needs to delve into discrimination and hostility against all immigrants in US history. Americans didnt accept Eiropeans because they were white. In fact, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, and Poles , etc. were not accepted when they first emigrated and many like my own Greek forebearers were not considered white, and i gave been told i am not really American depite being 4th generation.
This is such a interesting video, since I didn't realize that not being asked your ethnicity or race is a thing in many countries.
As someone from Québec (Canada), and as a white person, I'm quite "used" to be asked in forms this question. Most of the time, the word "race" is not used (in French, like in German, "race" has a weird connotation and is also used to differentiate animal breeds) but ethnicity. Sometimes, I won't actually be asked my "ethnicity" but my "nationality" which I answer "Canadian" or "Québécois.e".
I think a reason why in North America (and sometimes the other Americas), the skin color is so important, is that because of colonialism, NortAm is an "immigrant continent". The only ones who aren't immigrants are Native American nations. So, our cultures are fairly new, and the "white american" culture is omnipresent both here, and all around the world, so it feels like "white americans" don't have cultures, so people end up using skin color or ethnicity to find the group with whom identify as. (This is my theory of course)
The only other "big" cultural signifier I'm used to (related to white people) in my regular life is that in Canada, there is the "French speaking" culture and the "English speaking" culture. It's more complex than that but my point is, we're all trying to cling on elements we can see or hear to make our "own" identity. I think that explains why skin color and language can be more important for many people.
I'd also like to point out that it's very true that race and/or ethnicity is a social construct, and so, it might feel weird for other people that it's something official here, but it's important to recognize that there are other social constructs that are also (or should be) self-identified and are also very blurry, like gender. I think it's important to discuss if we really want or need these classifications in our official data, or if it harms more than it does good. Many issues (NOT all) that arise from categorizing people into ethnicities also come from boxing them in clean-cut genders (I say that as a non-binary person who has seen way too many "choose between male or female" boxes in my life).
My opinion is that for scientific, statistical and social purposes, if it's anonymised, specific data is super important to, like you said, fight injustice, but I don't like the idea of having very arbitrary signifiers like my ethnicity or gender imprinted on official documents.
I very much share your lived experience.
I’m a boring ass white German who grew up in rather rural areas in the west of Germany and „race“ never played a big role in my head until I dove in to the „US-centric“ internet and social media world. I was aware of „Ausländer“ mainly because I found it cool when kids spoke more languages other than just German and I also was aware of kids of different religious backgrounds, especially since people got split up in secondary school for religion/ethics lessons, but I wanna say that still didn’t mean much to me. I was friends with whoever I clicked with. That included a Turkish kid, an Albanian kid, a Polish kid, an Indian kid, etc.
BUT! I also wanna say that „Ausländer“ was a loaded term that was often used in a demeaning way. By teachers as well, which is disappointing and unacceptable!
Speaking of:
The polarization and the growing approval of right wing parties in Europe scares me! We need to go vote for every election possible, including the upcoming European elections!
It’s unfortunate that you think you belong to a ‘boring ass’ culture. Seems to be pretty common trait among Germans.
"I'm a White German who grew up in rural areas in the west of Germany where it was 99% White Germans."
Do you find it strange that people in tropical climates aren't concerned about snow, blizzards and freezing to death? Do you think the people in polar climates have an irrational fear of cold weather? The people in tropical climates don't even think about it, ever. What could possibly be the difference?
Left-wing Germans and Europeans in general are so terrified of even the appearance of loving themselves that they went from AH in the 1930s to swinging the pendulum completely in the other direction. YOU and your ilk are the sole reason for the growing approval of normal-thinking people, aka "right-wing parties." You've convinced yourselves that the only way forward is to completely surrender your home, culture, values, etc., and import people that loathe your very existence. There's this new thing that all the kids are doing called finding a middle ground. You can love your race, your culture, your ethnicity, etc., without hating anyone and/or inviting them to live in your country en masse. Germans and German culture exist because Germany is majority German. That's such a normal thing and yet you want the country to be multicultural, which is just mind bogglingly ridiculous.
I wouldn’t say you’re boring because you are a white German by any means. You don’t have to put yourself down to lift up others. But I understand what you’re saying, you weren’t aware of racism or xenophobia when you were younger and now you’re eyes are open and that is a wonderful thing! When you said “right-wing parties” I think it would be better to say “far-right parties.” Be careful not to stereotype all political conservatives as racist or hating immigrants. Some are POC or immigrants themselves.
@@noahotte2960 Americans are trying to export their historical issues to the rest of the world; a new twist on a the previous ‘American exceptionalism’. My family has only been in the USA for ~50 years so I’m not really interested in the whole ‘slavery’ or ‘North vs South’ issues.
Very underrated comment!
Thanks for sharing your insight and the call to vote. Du sprichst mir aus der Seele 😁👍
Thank you, Feli, for bringing up this topic!
I will never forget our first trip to the US (from Vienna/Austria). We had to fill out our entry-forms on the flight to NY, and my little daughter, who just had learned to write, was eager to manage her own form: Name, date of birth, Passport-No., citizenship, etc. and suddenly got confused by the ethnicity-question. I tried to explain that it is about the colour of her skin, so she decided to fill in: "pink".- Of course this was no option there, and when she asked, why she was supposed to queck "Caucasian", I was not able to explain it to her (or to myself, as a matter of fact).
I really appreciate your video!!
0:03 - Actually, when I took Human Resources in college, they told us a form that only asks you to check one line or box is not technically legal anymore, but nobody is enforcing that they change it. What they're supposed to do is allow checking multiple boxes, such as if you're part white and part asian, for example. On the example at this timestamp, that would be an easy change. I've seen forms on computer though that just have a drop-down selection, so you can only pick one.
@Trifler500 I don't know about you but whenever an organisation or a group of activity host asks everyone to please fill out a review and sheet and answer it as honestly as possible. I only answer my hobbies section and languages section.
Ethnicity, race, income status, marital status, and other, I leave it in blank. Especially if it does not have 'I do not wish to answer' or Other' options.
Check a box on what you are. Then you wonder why they need this information anyhow? Is it to help me find a job? Or just collecting information for free? Do I feel comfortable telling these strangers how little I'm earning? 🤔 💭 💭
I work in HR and companies ask these questions bc they have to report that information to the government through the EEO form. So its not the companies, it's the government that is asking.
@@gvue4396 Yes
@gvue4396 Thank you. Although, I have never been comfortable sharing all my information with the organisations or the government. Even when setting up my YT account, I used my Avatar's name, not my own. But your answer does help, thank you very much.
The corporations ARE the government now
A large factor in the way Americans think about race is the fact that the country is still mostly divided by race, including the fact that a lot of wealthy white people moved to the suburbs, and that immigrant communities tend to group by country of origin, hence why there are China Towns and Little Italys.
Thank you for this video. I love exploring words and differences in the way people speak. Your experience as a German living in America offers a different perspective and gives me something to think about when it comes to race, ethnicity, and other similar issues. I'm a basic white guy (mostly Western European descent) living now in Texas, almost 70 years old and trying very hard to expand my perspective and understanding.
People may be confused as to why the US has collected racial/ethnic data. As an African American, part of this stems from the denial of bias. Even before slaves were freed, white immigrants faced different circumstances based on which country they came from. If you came from Great Britain or German you were given better treatment than if you were from Ireland or Poland. This has happened to most racial groups in the USA. One of the big points made during the civil rights movement here is that by denying the difference of peoples, it allows policymakers, businesses, and communities to turn a blind eye and ignore large bias in treatment. The results of this tracking have allowed data to be collected that allows us to fight racism. A great example of this is redlining in the USA. You wouldn't have the data to prove the bias if it wasn't tracked. Same with banks giving loans, education, healthcare, etc.
Thanks for this!
Thank you for explaining!
Yes, very true. This is one of many reasons I prefer the US method.
it is more relevant to the USA but a lot has changed for the better. Doesn't mean discrimination doesn't happen at all but it's less common indicating there has been a change which means needed adjustments such as getting rid of race questions. having to state your race still in 2024 is racist. responding to racism throughout history by being racist still means there is..wait for it....RACISM. and frankly making a race always a factor for decisions and conversations ultimately one way or another leads to some sort of profiling based on race. A lot of racism is not even real and is making assumptions via talking about race and just conversations. Morgan Freeman said "stop talking about it."
Hang on. You're telling me you guys fight racism by being racist?
Hearing you as a German speak about "The Holocaust" in the way you do, give me hope for the future, So thank you.
You have it down to your bones when you hear it every year in History class in School so yeah
She's done a whole video about it and how Germans are educated on the subject. Worth a watch.
@@saburo6042its on the schedule once in 9th grade(realschule) but ok. I was rather shocked by the stories my grandma told me when i was little. They were 13 sibblings of whom only 4 survived the war.
It really depends
We had ones really thourow (right word for that?) And then every ones in a while when it had something to do with the current topic. For some reason we talked alot about the French revolution. Or maybe I remember wrong (I'm in my early twenties)
But a friend of mine on another school had basicly only WW2 and a bit WW1 every Single year.
But I never heard of one person going to a german school after 2000 that doesn't know a lot about the WW2 and WW1 and the german part.
On the other hand I know some people that know nothing about the history with german colonies because they had it not in school. That really depends on the teacher and the book you use. The first time We had this topic We only talked about the British, french etc. Colonies but they were acting as if Germany did not have colonies at all.
@@laurafaehnrich4261 the colonies are part of the schedule for the kaiserreich and WWI next is third reich and WWII. And you are right we spent the whole 7th grade with french revolution and the causing events.
From what I know, Germans are very privacy conscious, and that makes sense, given what happened in Germany between 1920 to 1990.
From discrimination to prosecutions and outright paranoia over neighbours snitching on each other, Germans have learn the hard way that having privacy is needed and in some case a must.
Hence the reluctance on collection of any type of data that can be used to classify any group.
JK has said, “Goodness has no opposite. Most of us consider goodness as the opposite of the bad or evil and so throughout history in any culture goodness has been considered the other face of that which is brutal. So man has always struggled against evil in order to be good; but goodness can never come into being if there is any form of violence or struggle”
JK
You did a very skillful job of handling an issue that can make people's heads explode. There were so many landmines that you pointed out, diffused, and cleared for everyone.
Growing up in America, in the town with people of largely German heritage I was the "Italian" kid who probably carries knives. In the predominantly Polish and Italian heritage town I was the German kid, or the kid that wasn't Polish or Italian enough. 😄
It is interesting to follow the history of who was considered white in America. It was always a tool to exclude some and ensure the power of the capital class. My great grandfather's immigration papers from Sicily described him as "Negro of Italian Descent" solely because of his olive skin.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis put forth that our perception and thoughts were informed and limited by the words we have to conceptualize them. The idea is that if you never have to deal with something, you don't have a word for it - which makes it harder to think and communicate about.
On the internment of Americans of Japanese heritage: Ssssshhhhh. We don't like to talk about that. We're the good guys. Those weren't concentration camps. They were just camps where the United States government ... con cen trated people because of their culture and heritage and ... ... look, we're just the good guys. Ok?
Her thinking shows that she grew up in a „Kulturnation“, in which the affiliation to the nation‘s people is defined by sharing the same culture. This makes it easier to integrate persons with different ethnicities, but harder for persons with a totally different cultural background.
I think this makes a lot of sense, in the US where the nation is (ideally) defined by values like democracy, we have to come up with some way to distinguish between people, and race is an easier way to do this than ethnicity or religion with a quick glance
@@colbymcarthur7871and germany isn't a defined democracy???
@@colbymcarthur7871Why do you have to distinguish between people? Why is an ID not enough? What does it matter what color my skin has? This just seems like a leftover from the time of segregation.
I'm Swiss and we are historically not a Kulturnation but a Willensnation. You don't need to group people into boxes based on a socially constructed and wrong system like race. That's just racist. Someone who grew up here and went to school here is Swiss... Their skin colour does not change that. No matter how much racists think it does.
@@colbymcarthur7871The whole point is to not distinguish between people based on attributes that can tell you about as much abou the person as their eye colour. I'm from Switzerland, arguably the most democratic country in the world. Of course there will always be racist people, even here. But that old, artificially constructed system they base their discrimination on, has no merit.
Someone who grew up and went to school here is Swiss, no matter how much racists would like to not be true.
Alternately, as an American, I was shocked to hear US expats living in Germany describe how they were required to disclose their religion to the German government, so they could be taxed on it. Such a demand over here, would cause an outrage which would, at the very least, get the government officials involved hounded out of office, and maybe even sued.
The Lutheran and the Catholic church in Germany have an agreement with the federal government that their "membership fees" are levied as a tax. It is a topic of contention, but there is not really much political will to change it. The advantage is that they can charge you based on income without getting any actual income data and they don't have to run the administrative infrastructure to take actual membership fees. The simple solution is to just say "no denomination" and believe whatever you want, unless you plan to use any special services like a wedding ceremony or a confessional kindergarten. They don't check your ID, when you just attend a service.
As a German I find this outrages as well. But it even goes further: I never chose to belong to the Church and consider my self an atheist. I still got taxed when I started working because my parents baptized me as a baby! And I couldnt just leave Church immidiately because there is a cancelation period of three month in the contract I never singned.
And even if you leave you still pay as they give some of tax money to the church by default.
At least we get every sunday work free for that
The fact, that church taxes are collected as a percentage of the income tax only applies to the Catholic and the Protestant Church and simply has historical reasons. Germany was not a State before 1872. It consisted of a number principalities ( Fürstentum) with different churches. After a major loss of land on the left side of the Rhine, they were granted the right to confiscate the properties of the regional churches . As a compensation the churches were granted the right to impose taxes.
After WWII this tax privilege was enshrined in the new constution of 1949.
On the other hand the
2 Christian Churches have offered a lot of services to the people like hospitals, nursing homes, kindergardens.
Now, that more of half the population is not a member of the churches anymore there will be discussions but the constution would have to be amended.
I'm so hoping for this bs to change soon. I absolutely understand how it got to this point but I also think we should've started separating politics and religion at least 10 to 20years ago.. (random numbers from a gut feeling, not trying to make a scientific elaboration here)
In Norway, you tick a box «norwegian citizen» or «other: »
So a refugee from Syria who became a norwegian , tick «norwegian»
Skin colour shows in your drivers license/ passport, but are never registered.
But the Syrian probably also has a last name like Al-Bashir and not Hansen, so anyone who would want to discriminate against them can easily sort by name on resumes or other forms.
@fasdaVT that is true but its not a official government policy
@fasdaVT that is true but its not a official government policy
@@fasdaVT that is illegal, we have strong unions that often are involved in the huribg process, overseeing that rules are followed. This is most common in large companies.
@@arveskjellanger4121 that's assuming that the union leaders aren't biased either. And if companies aren't collecting data how could the union prove that they aren't following the rules?
Wollte dir einmal DANKE für deinen Post gestern sagen und dafür, dass du so eine wunderbare Repräsentation einer gebildeten Deutschen mit Herz am richtigen Fleck bist. Danke, dass dieser Content von einer level-headed Person wie dir gemacht wird ❤
Ich bevorzuge das Wort Ethnizität und ich wende das Wort, „Rasse“ niemals in Bezug auf Menschen an. Aber, Bemerkungen über die ethnische Abstammung einer bestimmten Bevölkerungsgruppe, die in eine Volkszählung, z.B., eingegeben werden, sind völlig in Ordnung. Warum nicht? Daran ist nichts verwerfliches. Sie versuchen einfach Statistiken über die Bevölkerung in einer bestimmten Gegend zu sammeln, und das hat einen angemessenen Zweck. Besonders bei Ärztinnen und Ärzte sind solche Einträge in Krankenakten oft wichtig, um rauszufinden, ob die Patientin / der Patient eine genetische Veranlagung zu bestimmen Krankheiten hat. „Ethnizität ist eine soziale Kategorie, die auf wahrgenommenen kulturellen Unterschieden zwischen Gruppen von Menschen basiert. Sie kann auf gemeinsamen Merkmalen wie Sprache, Religion oder Traditionen beruhen und hat erheblichen Einfluss auf menschliche Aktivitäten und Bewegungen“.
In German law, race only appears in one place.
§ 3 of the German constitution states that “no one may be disadvantaged or favored because of their gender, descent, race, language, origin, faith or political opinion. No one should be disadvantaged because of their disability.”
The German state is therefore not allowed to ask about race or skin color.
The one word that distinguishes the American constitution from the German one is "favored." We only prevent discrimination based on these things. We actually have lots of ways people can be favored for them. Scholarships, small business grants, etc.
@@tiffanyellen82 i believe the phrase you meant to say is “punitive discrimination is illegal” but “favorable discrimination is common” followed by your examples :) both forms are still discrimination, so the wording of your comment isn’t as clear as it could be
Since June 1945 right
@@Pikawarps no, I think I said exactly what I meant. I can't believe I'm giving a vocabulary lesson on RUclips but here goes. The definition of discrimination: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.
@@tiffanyellen82 Scholarships or business grants (only) for white people are definitely not allowed in the USA. So it's not about favoring or disfavoring a particular race. But some people in the USA prioritize dispensing justice at a collective racial level over equal rights in the classic sense of ignoring an individual's racial classification. And most people in the USA would be OK with rejecting Reese Witherspoon for the role of Malcolm X on the basis of her race and gender, which is to say that most people in the USA are not equal rights absolutists.
Thank you so much for this video. As a fellow German growing up in Germany I have the same experiences and thoughts as Feli. It is however very useful to get another perspective and helps me understand the American aspect and reasons behind it.
Your video makes me reflect and think about this topic and it makes me happy as I feel more educated now!!
As Feli mentioned, we collect this data here in the UK & Ireland does it too. I'm British, of Indian heritage.
I fully understand why Germany, France & others are wearing of collecting it though. If you ever change, I think us & Ireland are better comparisons as we're the only European nations that collect it, I think.
22:40 As a Greek, person this is kind of true but not entirely accurate
"γαλάζιο" is not a separate color from "μπλέ" but rather a subtype of it, generally describing "light blue" , but not always , for example , the sea is often describe as "γαλάζια" even when its blue, and our flag, which is white and blue , and definitely not galaIzio, is called "γαλανόλευκη" (galanolefki) even though the blue part is actually dark blue
In general, while we have a separate word for it , we don't see it as a different color
As a Canadian, I was surprised when I first heard the American Media report on voter demographics including “White College Educated Men” or “Suburban Housewives” for example. In Canadian, demographic reporting is generally either by geographic location, by men and women, or by age or language group.
I am a product of sin of the First Nations people I am a registered Alaskan native, but I cannot be a registered first nations because I have family sin of not being pure enough for the Canadian government as a first nation. I am only 25%.
@@therealkoolbeans We have 2 major groups of people in Norway too. The minority group is othen categorized as native even though both groups are. We categorize native Sami as native based on language. They have to speak the language of Sami to be classified as a Sami.
@@TullaRask OK so you lose your Norwegian heritage when you don’t speak, your language is what I hear am I wrong or is it a special rule for minorities that’s not wrong you just can’t place it on not minorities
@@therealkoolbeans classifying it according to percentage of DNA results in a none-changable classification. If Sami wants the benefits of being Sami they just have to learn the language ;)
This is not true. For your taxes reports you can identify as inuit or indian ;)
Wow! Great job addressing this topic in an informative and balanced way while supporting all the views presented not just with personal accounts but extensive research.
Kudos! Please keep these unique topic videos coming!!!!
Thanks for sharing Feli! I appreciate you tackling such a difficult topic earnestly and don't envy what you will have to slog through based on the comments I've seen already. I'm hispanic on my mom's side and white on my dads, and can tell you as a mixed person that this is a difficult subject (though hispanic isn't officially considered race in the US, it is defacto to the layperson, making me hispanic or mixed but rarely white to others).
I have mixed feelings on the use of race and ethnicity in the US. My grandmother spoke Spanish as her first language (despite being born in El Paso), and while her English was never even close to fluent, she intentionally didn't speak Spanish with her children to spare them from the discrimination she faced for speaking Spanish as a first language, so my mom grew up speaking English only, and it caused a disconnect between younger generations and the older generations, as well as from our heritage. I remember as a kid wanting to learn Spanish as a kid so I could talk to my grandma, but my family told me I shouldn't learn it because people would discriminate against me for speaking Spanish and how it would make me do worse in school. I also remember having friends over one time and my mom made enchiladas and the kids complained the enchiladas were too spicy, so I told my mom how I hated enchiladas and why couldn't she cook normal food like meatloaf (something I regret saying all these years later).
I appreciate how you touched on the being not white is less cool as a kid, but as an adult you realize there are generational traumas that you may not have had. As a person who straddles the two worlds of hispanic and white, I get that sentiment a lot from a lot of white people who feel that they don't have "cool" things like quinces or food or music but don't realize that they do as well because there are tons of white things that are just as cool but they don't see it because it is the default in the US (for example pizza or hot dogs or sweet 16s or bar-be-cues). I guess the grass is always greener on the other side! Also, I can safely say the vast majority of hispanic people love sharing their food and culture so long as people are engaging in it from a place of love :)
I appreciated you talking on the shade/shadow and Schatten (sp?) difference in German (or the western languages on smells vs the Malaysian language). I'd love to hear more about these kinds of distinctions that are more difficult between the languages/cultures of the US or Germany :) Much love to you and all the other people of this small planet we share together!
Thanks for sharing your experience! 🙏
I think the prejudice is because it's too easy to just speak Spanish in the US, it's basically the second language, whereas Asians have to learn English, I think it's when people choose not to speak English even though they live in the US is where people get upset, and I agree that we all love "white" things like food and stuff, it's just that white people are not as connected to their heritage as Hispanics and Asians etc
This becomes weird once you realize it’s 2024 and there are Black people from Europe, whose parents were also born there, meaning they don’t have any connection to Africa or America!
Doesn't mean anything. Silly comment 💯
They have ancestry from elsewhere. For example, a person born in the UK whose grandparents were all from Nigeria is of Nigerian heritage, so it's not correct to say they have no connection to Africa.
I remember when I came back to America about 5 years ago, after being raised most of my life abroad, and the first time I applied for a job here and saw them asking for my race I was like "WTF???!!!!". I didn't know Americans ask this on applications, and thought it was pretty racist and insane.
Me too, when I was applying for an American online program. It was so strange, I thought "is this legal? Why are they asking me this?" And I didn't even know which race to pick.
Just write Human in the other box.
@carolinegrace3963 it is illegal just WOKE DEMONCRAPPERS Lies
You're not required to answer
@@mwduck i know, I usually choose "prefer not to answer"
Danke für die große Arbeit, die Du Dir zu dem Thema gemacht hast! 😃👍🏼
I was reading about when it comes to racial equality and universities, its a tricky one. Many US educational facilities such as colleges, universities stopped entirely having pictures and even the names of the students on applications. To combat accusations of a racist process. Hence switching over to purely accepting people based on their accomplishments... As a way to eliminate cultural biases. By simply removing the entire issue out of their hands and over to "the system". The result was a drastically diminished black representation in vast favour of Asian. So I think that was considered unfavourable too and was put an end to. While some university admission processes are almost purely laid out like an IQ test. Which is also widely considered a bad move.
Thanks. Shows the complexities.
I don't think either is a good way, we can't ignore "race" and we have to consider all applicants fairly
@@danielzhang1916
So how should they do it. As I say above, they have tried different angles.
@@captain_context9991 maybe some combination of "quotas" or "limits" of different races, not like exactly equal numbers, but a weighted consideration thing
Did it favor Asians more than before or was that just the prediction?
Don't worry, the rest of the world is just as bewildered at US obsession with race. The fact they even use "caucasian" while refering to a broad group was confusing to me, since to me caucasian just means from Caucasus(Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). I'm asian but I have pale white skin yet I'm not white is so ???
As a Southeast Asian with very white skin I want to move to the US and argue that I'm a white person just to prove how bullshit this whole system is lmaoo
@@myspleenisbursting4825 American people really be trying to say or convince you of what you are or not, it is horrible, straight up prejudice and racism
From an African-American… Thank you for making this video. Our country is long overdue for a civilized and fact-based sit-down-and-talk about race.
My family came to the USA in the 1950’s. I have zero interest in any ‘sit down’ or ‘conversation’ about race. Go after the people who profited, it shouldn’t be that hard to track down those families and companies. And leave the rest of the world alone, we aren’t interested in American internal historical issues.
@@damonmelendez856do you think racism in the US didn’t exist in the 1950s?
@@Gingerphile00 they want to have a ‘conversation’ but when it becomes ‘uncomfortable’ like discussing crime stats, they tend to want to shut down the conversation. Nothing can be achieved without an honest and open discussion.
@@Gingerphile00 lets not forget out of wedlock birth percentage and dependency on public benefits percentages as well. Nah can't talk about uncomfortable facts. Lets just make up narratives like young blck men are disproportionately killed by the police--which isn't true at all and no data supports it. But a feelings based narrative can lead to political power.
@@damonmelendez856 No need for you to participate. Just sit back and watch the adults converse.
I've read before about languages that use cardinal map directions instead of "left" and "right", and as a result those speakers tend to have an excellent sense of direction. Having words for things in your everyday vocabulary means you're more likely to recognize and be aware of those things, for better or worse.
A (german) freind of mine crossed the word "white" out and wrote "pale" above it. He than had a two hour interview with border police at the airport ...
The collection of ethnic background data is common in the UK as well, for the same reasons of reducing inequalities. Certainly in terms of medical data, it can help identify minorities or ethnic groups who may need greater support in accessing healthcare services for example. One thing that is noticeable is that we don't use the term 'race' - instead it is ethnic background and it can also apply to Welsh, Scottish, Irish backgrounds as well (although the wording is still "White British/Black British" etc).
I absolutely agree about being cautious of how this data is used - I can imagine that this is felt quite strongly in Germany and other nations who have lived through regimes that have weaponised this data so I absolutely get your point. Used well, it can be a force for good - often some ethnicities have cultural differences about healthcare access or may perhaps need different methods of communication to support access to civil institutions such as Universities or Councils. Maybe it is about reframing the question - asking if they need any other support or providing a way to signpost to different support networks.
Either way, maybe these decisions need to be put in the hands of the very ethnic groups that are being asked these questions. It's a big and very important topic!
The main reasons for asking about ethnicity is for reasons opposite of racist reasons. It's for statistical reasons to find out "problem areas" such as racism. For example, if a city or region has 12% Black, but Blacks are being arrested at a 40% rate, you night want to look into that to see if there are racist reasons for the discrepancy. It's also to make sure races aren't getting their votes watered down by gerrymandering so that they are less represented in Congress. For the most part, the government asking for your race and/or ethnicity is to have a database from which to find the problem areas that need fixing.
Yes, you can’t fix a problem unless you’re aware of it. Collecting data is one way to be aware of the problems.
@@lynnhettrick7588 You must collect the appropriate data. How is race related to crime rate? There is no relation. What matters is how people leave, in what environment they grew up and what families. How is race relevant to that?
@@umka7536 Because racist police officers target black people for arrest and then racist prosecutors, judges, and juries target black people for incarceration. Obviously! Did you think that racist people all stopped existing?
Unfortunately the data can be used by racists as well.
It is still racism. In other countries with multiple colors on people they dont classify and put persons in boxes depending of their color.
"Yes you are american but a different type of american"
"Diversity but separated"
That classification system should be abollied
You've covered a difficult and complicated subject really well.
Clinical geneticist here. Knowing a person's background helps us pinpoint disorders specific to that group. Like breast cancer susceptibility in Ashkenazi Jews or French Canadians. Not meant to be offensive or invasive, although it is often interpreted that way.
But those categories are misnomers. Indians are lumped together with asians or we are put together with all “brown” people which includes everyone from Turkey to the southern tip of India. All these people are different and don’t even look the same yet in American/Canadian eyes they are the same people. The word Caucasian is a misnomer too. Black is the most genetically diverse category.
I was brought up to respect everyone regardless of their skin color. However I also realize my own experiences are not everyone's experiences. It does me no harm to listen and even if I end up disagreeing, I understand the other person's perspective better. I hope for the same in return.
There is one thing you mentioned though about Europeans coming to this country largely not mattering exactly where they came from. That's not entirely true. The Irish were very discriminated against and exploited
This video is very complete, well researched and presented! Congratulations Feli !
I'm so glad I found your channel 💜 I've been learning German on Duolingo and it's fun to learn more about Germany itself
i am algerian (in north africa) i never thought about race untill i got to see videos from the USA on yt, then my sister emigrated tot he USA there she told me that North africans are put in a group with middle easterns i found it so odd like why not just put african ?? then i discovered that ppl in the US divided africa based on skin color and i found it outragiouse and racist in ma book it took me time to wrap my head around this idea that ppl in the US think diffrently (not accepting it bcouse in my book i am a proud algerian, african and medditteranean all at the same time not by my skin color or religion just culture and land) ...
i belive that talking and identifying race constantly is raciste is divides ppl in an intentional way into groups and each group will think they are the most unfortunate ones not talking about it at all can lead to bulling in schools and things like that but i am sure in adulthood things can get on track and learn right from wrong yet it will keep a scar in the heart of the bullied one !!!
As a white person in the US, I can understand how confusing this conversation is. There are no easy answers. But because I recognize that as a white person I do get certain unfair privileges, I think that listening to people of other colors/ethnicities and following their lead in facing these problems is the best method. People of color in the US are the ones who are experiencing these hardships. I feel like that makes them the most qualified to point us in the correct direction to overcome these biases.
In Spanish we also use the same word for race and breed, "raza". Which obviously has the same root as "race" and "rasse".
And as a correction, the two blues are different colors in Spanish, the light blue is "celeste" which also means "celestial" (obviously has the same root) and the darker one is proper blue. The exact same way pink and red are different colors in English, and Spanish. Not entirely different, everyone knows both are lighter versions of the 'main' color.
Tenemos muchos nombres específicos para tonos, pero no deja de ser azul.
@@fabianmacielsi pero eso implica que no es solo azul, está mezclado con otro. En ese marco para mi, tono y color vienen siendo lo mismo. También se le pudo haber llamado blanco oscuro o el nombre de cualquier cosa que lucha blanco pero no claro. Es una cuestión de percepción.
Hitler looked to America for his racial laws against jews. He basically directly took them from jim crow and American citizenship laws, and then applied it to Germany. He was also inspired by the extirpation of the natives, and praised America as being the "first racial state". Many seem to think WWII was fought by the USA for some kind of anti-racist ideal, which ignores that jim crow was legally enforced for another 20 years after the war.
So many people seems to forget that the USA had racist laws well before Germany, it's quite appalling to see that most American don't know about this.
America was also antisemitic they also did forced sterilization
Just wait till Europeans find out how strange it is for Americans to be asked their religion by the state (in order to pay taxes to benefit the church)... Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Iceland Germany, Finland, Denmark...
Well, you're not asked by your employer or something... You're asked in case you want to fund the institutions of the religion you attend to. Why should I, an agnostic, fund your church for example? Yeah, you should fund that through your taxes yourself if you wish to use their services.
@@LeegallyBliindLOL IMO this shouldn't be part of tax forms either. If a religious institution wants to collect some sort of fee from its members, it's damned well welcome to do so by itself, not via the government. It's time we quit subsidizing the Church. Separation of state and church, FFS.
These are the kinds of videos I originally subscribed to your channel for; educational, interesting, informative differences between the two places where you have spent a lot of time. Your in-depth research, honest analysis, and thoughtful presentation are the things that keep me subscribed.
I realize there are subscribers who just want to see you dance around in a dirndl, but those seem like cheap clicks to me. I'm just glad that you continue to make these types of videos.
Whenever I travel outside the USA...my home, where I have been a citizen since birth...I always got this perplexed look at me. They think I am from India. I even had an immigration officer in Munchen Airport think my US passport was a fraud! They didn't believe I was American. So, every country is obsessed with race. Not just Americans.
FYI: I am of Indian background, but not from India.
HEAVY topic and very well done video. Thanks.
The debate between color blindness and color perception is an interesting one. Both can be used by bad actors to hurt people and both cause a double bind problem. A double bind is when a person has to choose whether to engage in a system that oppresses them or reject it with the caveat that they will be oppressed regardless.
In the case of color awareness, if one rejects it then they become oblivious to how racism hurts them and their community giving bad actors free rein to do what they want. Aka the downside of colorblindness.
But by participating in color awareness one would legitimize the concept of race and give racists the information needed to draft discriminatory policy that, again, hurts them and their community.
Interesting video! Never thought about the race questions before because its just so prevalent that its normal. The first time I ever remember being asked about race, without having someone answer for me like a parent, was in 3rd grade (8-9yo) during state testing. It was probably asked in testing before that, but that's the earliest I can remember ever seeing it. It may depend on the state, but where I live you see it on every state test, every year.
when I was learning English and found out about the word 'race' I thought it was extremely weird, to me it sounded like they were talking about people like dog breeds. Now that I'm already fluent I've become desensitized to it and it doesn't call my attention anymore but I do remember that first impression
I admire the fact that you tackle these topics!!
I am in the UK and we often have those types of questions here too (though the options are different). I guess it’s for understanding diversity or to see if certain communities experience issues more than others, but I can totally see how this could be misused and I do find it odd sometimes. We usually have an option which says “Prefer not to say” however.
And in the UK, Asian refers to South Asians only like Pakistan. Japanese and Koreans can’t tick that box…oddly I’ve seen “oriental” on UK forms….like a rug ,archaic term
@@monero892Most forms have removed it now.
The joke with those forms is that they group ethnicities who detest each other due to their histories together.
Asian
UK - South Asian (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh)
USA - East Asian (China, Korea, Japan)
Gotta love this stupidity.
@@modmaker7617 it depends on where you have most people of Asian origin I suppose. In the UK there are large South Asian communities. In the US, less so. "Stupidity"? I don't think so. It's two completely different countries using language in the most appropriate way to each.
America doesn't have an 'obsession' with race. And being colorblind is not a virtue. There is a reason that the census is asking about race and that is because it is a CENSUS! You are absolutely not allowed to use race in this country when it comes to work or housing and many other arenas. Now, as a person who lived YEARS in Germany, I will tell you I was appalled that a person have to include a photo on your resume for many jobs. That screams possibility of discrimination. Also Feli, Germany has a very different past to the USA.
My friend of carribean background was living in Munich and was in an office applying for a job and the sweet secretary said to her co-worker "can you get a coffee for the blackie?" (auf deutsch) That means zero sensitivity and understanding of what it is like to be of color in Germany. Colorblind is not an option anymore!
For the outside world you do. Would be greatly appreciated if you accept other pics from people who may not be born, grown, living in your country - continent. Of course we do see different skin tones as well as long as we have working eyes but it's not or at least shouldn't be a walking advertisement to judge folks by that. 😂
*accept other pov before telling them what ( not) to do and how to live their lifes on 6 other continents. 💜
The discussion about shades of blue and shade vs. shadow is fascinating! In English, we consider pink a very different color than red. But really isn't pink to red as baby blue is to dark blue?
I believe, at least in the Midwest US, shade comes from trees and shadows come from just about anything else. Certainly people and anything artificial like a car or a house cast shadows. But a shadow from a mountain or a building might be considered shade -- if you are out on a hot day and looking for a cool place to rest.
I think I'd say the key thing is the usage. Shade is used when you are seeking shelter from the sun, particularly from the shadow of a tree. While a shadow is the shade thrown by an object, when the key thing is you are looking at the shadow.
"Shade" means shielded from the sun. "Shadow" is a shape of an object caused by the object blocking the sun.
As I see the word "pink" used, some pinks aren't all that pale (e.g. fuchsia, shocking pink). As for hue, it tends to be reds with a touch of purple, rather than reds with a touch of orange, that get called pink.
I’ve heard that Chinese doesn’t have a separate word for pink. They just call it “light red”.
Lamp shade shields you from the light by casting a shadow.
The whole history of language in relation to the perception of color is a very fascinating rabbit hole indeed. It can open your mind to how some things 'feel' like common sense but are clearly not always as they seem at face value. Rather, our perception is influenced by our cultural upbringings. Relevant when it comes to 'race'.
Thank you so much for saying there is only one human race. We in the US make such a HUGE deal over race. When I was stationed in Germany people were much more private and didn't ask questions of race or seemed to care about it really.
YES PLEASE make a video on how language effects concepts. I'm learning a second language and have been for years, but I still struggle the most with things that the language thinks of as different that are the same in English are the things I struggle with the most. I think it's so interesting
90% of people who are diagnosed with Sickle Cell Anemia are Black/African. Chinese women who've never smoked are having a dramatic increase in rates of diagnosed throat cancer. These statistics are invaluable for Treatment and early prevention. There's probably a lot of genetic variances within ethnic groups like the examples i've brought up. Not only is it practical in medicine. It allows for appreciation of certain cultures because it allows the culture to stand out. Which leads to more acceptance.
Yeah I'm insurance companies would love to get their hands on that information...
I'm Colombian and it also weirds me out.
i"m also colombian and something else i find weird as hell and ignorant is how many americans actually think "latino" and "hispanic" are a race. 34:44 made me facepalm so hard....
It should be changed to Mestizo. Almost no Spanish speakers in America are White.
@@sebastianvr8843 it’s basically asking ‘you white? Or South American?’ Lol but in a friendlier wording
then stay in colombia
@@sebastianvr8843 It's more about a geographical region than race though. If you are Latino, you're from Latin America (including Brazil, Haiti, and other anglophone countries in the Caribbean). If you're Hispanic, you come from a country that speaks Spanish as an official language (which could include Spain or Equatorial Guinea, but not Brazil, Haiti, Guyana, Suriname, etc.)
As a German that also went to a Gymnasium in Bavaria, I think I understand what you mean by "not being as aware of that category" and "easily having friends" with other backgrounds. However, please don't forget how this is still a very entitled perspective. Not only because of the exclusionary nature of the Bavarian school system, splitting kids not really by talent, but especially by their sociocultural status, it also shows how you and me were always privileged enough not having to think about how skin color (or speaking Turkish or Russian) would make you a target of everyday racism. So I'm not sure if "not putting these categories into our heads" really helps with fighting racism here, because then they most certainly will just not be in our "potato" heads, but most certainly still exist in the heads of every member of any discriminated group. Actually I think the political debate in Germany about racism and discrimination is far less sophisticated and sometimes really dumb here in Germany.
yeah Germany should discuss ethnic differences more often on school and don't focus on skin color. It is such a lame distinguisher
I think describing people by colour is quite uniquely American? As someone from the UK, unless i am specifically asked, colour isn't in my vocabulary when talking about people. It is much more geographical.
Hogwash. Look how you lot treat Pakistanis
Sidebar, I remember hearing a funny story on BBC Radio Scotland where the presenter and his co-host were talking about when a Scot achieves some great success on the world stage they're regarded as a BRITISH national hero/icon; But when they screw up or do something terrible, they're always only Scottish.
You have such a wealth of knowledge Feli. You cover a wonderful diversity of topics!
Man, there's a lot of comments that boil down to "If we all just stopped talking about it, it'd go away" and "I don't see race". Yes you do. We all see race, and if you think you don't, it's because you do unconsciously. Some are worse than others, but realizing your biases is the first step to countering them. I'm white, and remember when I heard about colorism (treating black people differently based on what shade of black they are), my first reaction was "What? That's so silly, who would do that? (Certainly not me)" But then later I noticed that yes, I had been unconsciously thinking of darker skinned black people differently and didn't even realize it. This is why talking about it is necessary. Ignorance doesn't prevent racism; it just lets you be racist without even being aware of it.
Amen, this is one of the more logical assessments on this topic.
Skin colour doesn't give you any relevant information in Europe, so no, people don't see it there. Culture and language are much more important.
@@phoearwenien4355 Pretty sure racism also happens in Europe. They might say it's about "culture", but so do racists here.
@@Norsilca Sure, it happens, but the criteria are different. Different nations tried to erase of the map other nations in Europe - so naturally we care more about culture, although it was mitigated a lot by having UE, but there are still nations outside that don't wish us well (to put it mildly).
@@phoearwenien4355 I get that people care more about culture than in the US. But it's pretty clear they also care about race, especially when it comes to non-Europeans. A lot of the biggest disagreements in Europe are about that now. Europeans also see race, even if they don't know it.
The US was a settler colonial project with lasting and deep-rooted affects in US society that we still struggle with today.
As someone from Luxembourg I feel you, being Black in the US seems way more significant than in Europe and we also don’t really talk about the colour of the skin but more the personality of the person.
As a university Equal Employment Opportunity reviewer, we collect this data in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In this act, the United States Federal Government is trying to correct the affects of past discrimination in housing, employment, and educational law. In the United States, the after affects of segregation are still felt throughout the society and each state is asked to correct this in some manner. Here are some differences in application. In California, disaggregated population statistics are the most diverse. This ensures that past discrimination between different Asian populations are recognized (Asian Americans of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descents are not faced with the level of discrimination that Vietnamese, Filipinos, and Hmong face) (I used to work in California). In Pennsylvania, where I worked in HR in the mid 2010, the simple racial categorization that you show is employed in examining the degree of services provided in the population. I now work in Georgia, where there is a concerted effort to erase racial categorization because there is a believe that reverse racism against white populations is a strong political beliefe, even though the statistics do not prove this belief. However a state employs data collection largely determines federal funds allocations to the state. It is a complicated matter. There are no simple solutions to past legal discrimination/segregation in the United States.
There is a simple solution I propose, which--if it had been implemented in 1964--would've mostly eradicated racism by now: Stop calling it out everywhere.
The problem we have in America is we obsess over the past and how to "make it right", when what we should have done once the law was passed is enforce it rigorously, forever buried the hatchet and moved forward. Would it stink that those who were disadvantaged legally never got any compensation? Yes it would have. But that's history for you. My British and Anglo-Saxon ancestors never got compensated for being taken as slaves in the Roman Empire or for being dispossessed of the English crown by the French Normans. But no one talks about that any more because....we got over it. Time passed, and it really does heal all wounds.
I also have Irish, Celtic, and good dose of Germanic ancestry. All of those groups have been oppressed, enslaved, mistreated, and so forth throughout history. And we also did our fair share of that nasty stuff to other groups. But rather than dwelling on it forever, we changed the laws, created a better society, and moved past it quickly, realizing that it's better to focus on the future than endlessly rehash the past. That's what we call "feuds.
You've heard the phrase, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?" The corollary is, "Some people who learn from history choose to repeat it."
But does it accomplish the stated objectives?
@@willj1598 Probably not, so we should just get rid of it, because it in and of itself is racist, lol.
The solution of the U.S. government is to discriminate against White people.
Personally, do you think once a state gets "close enough" that all of this enforcement and some of the reporting should be discontinued? At what point do we stop making future generations pay (taxpayer funding all of this) for the sins of the past?
Race is still very much part of the official narrative in South Africa, too 😞 Here is a quote by Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, which eloquently shows why I wish we were living in his South Africa, not our current one: 'Against multi-racialism we have this objection, that the history of South Africa has fostered group prejudices and antagonisms, and if we have to maintain the same group exclusiveness, parading under the term of multi-racialism, we shall be transporting to the new Africa these very antagonisms and conflicts.'
Brilliant video!
You ask the most important, difficult, and poignant questions.
Whether the German or the American approach is better is beyond me, but what is certain is that regardless of the approach, comprehensive efforts to underscore our common humanity through integration, cultural, and diplomatic exchanges are essential. Merely collecting (or not collecting) data is just one small part of our overall human experience; continually identifying opportunities to build bonds, affections, solidarity and to open hearts to each other in all aspects of life is essential.
Thanks again for a great video.
„Racial hygiene“ is the word for word translation of „Rassenhygiene“. It is usually called „Nazi eugenics“ though, as it stems from the ideas of eugenics that were prevelant in western science at the time and have since been negated. Those ideas were the consensus in western medicine. The Nazis thus didn’t invent „Rassenhygiene“ but radicalized it. Which explains, how large parts of German academia, especially Doctors and Psychologists were complicit in the NS attrocities. As far as I know, „eugenics“ is still considered a normal medical term in some parts of the world.
I'm a German who was born into a white catholic community in rural Bavaria in the late 1960s, and I'll never forget the story my grandma told me from shortly after "the war" when she saw the first (and only) n...o (I'm sorry, that's the word she used) in her life.
She owned a small village store back then, and when the Americans came, that black soldier and two (or three, her memory was unclear there) white ones checked every house in the village for hidden treasures, weapons, and, most of all, Nazis. So that dark black man forced her at gunpoint to go down into the cellar and show him what was down there. Rural cellars back then were a flap in the floor with a ladder to a hole in the ground, so to say, so she climbed down and started shouting in the Slavic dialect she had learned from her parents, "Pataken! Pataken!" and throwing potatoes at the soldier. He started laughing, said something to his fellows, and they all went away laughing, but imagine what could have happened!
That story deeply impressed me as a child because she always added that that black man sure was a nice person hadn't he been a soldier. So in my childish thinking, I was convinced for a while that all black people are nice although I hadn't seen one yet. With that in mind, how could I ever have become a racist or militarist? That's not possible.
Same here. First colored man my mother ever saw was a soldier at the end of WW2. Shared his chocolate with the kids.❤
When I went on a trip to Asia a lot of people were impressed by our big European noses.
Just few months ago I watched the German TV miniseries "Ein Hauch von Amerika". :)
Negro is outdated, but it's not a slur like the other N word is. For the 1960s it, along with "Afro-American" later in the decade, were the preferred terms.
There's a War Stories series on RUclips that largely focuses on German and Japanese soldiers and their recollections from the immediate post-war period. I find them fascinating.
My dad was Air Force and ironically our assignment to Grafenwöhr brought me into contact with more African-Americans than I had on a regular basis until that point (I was 13). My dad was raised in Jim Crow Texas and did everything he could to raise us differently.
There's a story in parts of England that the first US soldiers to arrive were in all-black regiments, and were entirely welcome in the pubs (probably because they'd had to be very polite to _survive_ in the US), then when the white ones showed up and demanded the segregation of British pubs into whites-only and blacks-only pubs, they *_ALL_* went "blacks only" because nobody liked the white GIs much and nobody was about to throw out the black ones who'd been no trouble at all.
@@Sableagle Wow. Risked their lifes to fight the biggest racist of all times and then went back to face segrated busses and restroom... . Disgusting times.