No, it is not a completely alien context, but many of the things that lie at the roots of racism are different - the proportions of various ethnic groups, our perceptions of self identity and what we invest that in, the history of how we view our culture in relation to other people, and the very solutions we have tried to find to racial issues. To ignore all that strikes me as foolish. Where I think the main difference lies though, for the purpose of this discussion, is in willingness to talk about racism. Now obviously my knowledge of the US is not extensive, I've only visited it once and had contact with Americans here on LJ, plus of course experienced the sort of American culture that they export to our country. My experience though is that Americans talk about racism all the time whereas in the UK it is very seldom mentioned. Hence I characterise the UK as having a perception of harmony whist the US has a perception of antagonism. These of course are descriptions of the overriding 'typical' ethos of the two countries, not of every individual within that country. So yes, there will be people in each country who differ from the norm of that country, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the majority of those who see racial problems as a conflict issue in this country do themselves belong to an ethnic minority. That is exactly what I would expect, in fact - the people who are on the wrong side of disadvantage will frequently see a conflict where the privileged don't. But my observation of the Americans is that they are, all of them collectively as a nation, more willing to accept the conflict model as the default, and hence seem to think about and interpret these issues in those terms. They seem to do this incidentally not just for discussions of racism but all these socio-political questions. Now I could well be mistaken in my impression of them, Alixtii has just pointed out that there are apparently plenty of Americans who believe in the harmonious system. I mainly posited the theory as an explanation for those people who I keep seeing saying 'why oh why don't the Brits agree with everything we say'. There are of course many possible reasons why people might not agree with something another person says - I was suggesting a possible one.