Hmm. See, on the one hand I get the feeling that the UK is like Australia, and people are a lot more resistant to thinking/talking about race, and do tend to see ourselves as (comparatively) unracist and harmonious. When I first skimmed your comment over breakfast I thought I agreed with it.
But on second thoughts I get the feeling you're missing what to me is the most important point: that people in the UK and Australia are wrong. We're hugely, horribly racist countries with giant gaping horrible racial issues. We're just more in denial about it than America, because we have no large clearly discriminated against ethnic minority like African-Americans to act as a constant reminder. (At least, this is my experience of Oz, and afaict it's true of England too)
Also: annoyance at members of a country with so many racial problems presuming 'to tell us what we should think'
So..people from racist countries aren't qualified to talk about racism? I've not seen any Americans saying "Your country's policies need to be more like Americas", I've seen them saying "You, personally, (like most white Americans) could stand to benefit from the lessons we American PoCs have learned thanks to living in such a racist society".
Sorry if this comes across as a bit confrontational, but the last time I tried being polite about this subject everyone assumed I was agreeing with the person I was disagreeing with so I'm trying a different tack :/
(Also: here from metafandom. And I would comment on the actual point of this post but I have nothing to add but "Hmm.. interesting". And I'm not going to comment on whether or not America is more racist than England, because what do I know? I'm not sure you could really measure such a thing anyway)
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As a fellow non-American...(admittedly not a Brit)
Date: 2008-02-27 10:11 am (UTC)But on second thoughts I get the feeling you're missing what to me is the most important point: that people in the UK and Australia are wrong. We're hugely, horribly racist countries with giant gaping horrible racial issues. We're just more in denial about it than America, because we have no large clearly discriminated against ethnic minority like African-Americans to act as a constant reminder. (At least, this is my experience of Oz, and afaict it's true of England too)
Also: annoyance at members of a country with so many racial problems presuming 'to tell us what we should think'
So..people from racist countries aren't qualified to talk about racism? I've not seen any Americans saying "Your country's policies need to be more like Americas", I've seen them saying "You, personally, (like most white Americans) could stand to benefit from the lessons we American PoCs have learned thanks to living in such a racist society".
Sorry if this comes across as a bit confrontational, but the last time I tried being polite about this subject everyone assumed I was agreeing with the person I was disagreeing with so I'm trying a different tack :/
(Also: here from metafandom. And I would comment on the actual point of this post but I have nothing to add but "Hmm.. interesting". And I'm not going to comment on whether or not America is more racist than England, because what do I know? I'm not sure you could really measure such a thing anyway)