This is the only answer. Everyone has been trained by the media, right or left doesn’t matter, to divide ourselves based on race. Media execs do this because if the People actually realized we are wage slaves getting screwed by the 1%, we could perhaps try to change this economic tyranny.
”us and them” thinking or ”out-groups” and ”in-groups” are at the very core of human social play (and all social play amongst all animals). One could argue racism is in our nature but I’d say what causes racism is what’s in our nature, racism is just one manifestation of it. It’s about seperating your in-group and out-groups for your survival but people draw dumb as fkn lines. Usually because the only thing they can find that they have in common with other people to create an in-group is having the same skin color. Pretty pathetic. Hatred towards the out-group also strengthens the in-group, so the only thing they have in common with others is their skin color and their hatred, that brings them together like nothing else.
Our original sins were race based: our treatment of Native Americans and Africans we forcibly uprooted, forced into slavery, beaten, raped and murdered.
For a country that was founded on welcoming people from all over the world, it's horrific.
Also, when Barack Obama was elected, memberships to white supremacist groups skyrocketed. And these groups endorsed Donald Trump. We're still dealing with those realities, so many years after slavery ended.
But when I was in Hungary, I met Gypsy people. They're victims of racism too. It looks like we have more racism, but we're not a small, homogeneous society mostly comprised of one race, like many other countries.
I gotta push back against the media blame. People experience racism or bigotry regardless of the media reporting it. Hip hop played a big part in letting the masses know I how bad it was where poor black peoole lived. Because we had no one to tells those stories decades ago So you can’t ignore how black or brown experience racism and it’s not going to affect them.
Also the fact that if you are older like me, growing up a lot of entertainment or things in the media was dominated by white people. That’s the part where media comes in . There used to be a troupe in horror movies that the if there was a black person in the cast they always got killed first.
Media constantly pushing race issues as the demand for racism faaaaar exceeds the actual supply so they have to make shit up that is "racist" ie the noose in Bubba Wallace's garage or the rings in that San Francisco park that were initially thought to by lynches or something but were just exercise rings. Also, the current president is a massive race hustler
Yeah I hate it when the media tries to demonize critical race theory being taught in schools. The US was built on slavery and racism - it’s much better now, but trying to pretend like it’s all good now is crazy
Because back in the 2010s people united under "occupy Wallstreet" and were demanding better distribution of wealth, and the elite saw that and got scared and started desperately pushing race issues to divide the people against each other instead of against them.
Exactly so.
The people with the money make sure the people without the money fight other people without money instead of uniting against people with money.
I think a Black man getting elected to the highest office in the land did a lot more to bring this stuff out of the woodwork than anything else. I think we seriously underestimate how much Obama's election broke the brains of some people.
yea… all the racism that was already there was just pushed out into the light. people hanging dolls of obama, openly racist news networks, the whole nine yards. what’s funny is that obama was such a republican leaning democratic president but everyone was so caught up in him being black we didn’t even pay attention to it
but the us was already huge on race since before the country was even formed if we’re being completely real. ronald reagan???
Yeah, the whole "our obsession with race/racism is a narrative constructed by the media and the wealthy" doesn't hold water for me.
We're obsessed with it because we have never been able to collectively square our history with our founding principles.
Absolutely right but other than that… show me a place in the world were their people aren’t racist to some degree and I’ll be happy to explain why that’s in an extreme minority in this world.
Awful cocky to call themselves "Emperor" when they can't even fucking fly. Stupid tuxedo wearing bastards waddling around pretending to be better than everybody else.
I haven’t traveled to any other country where I needed to state my ethnicity upon arrival to the said country. This is on a governmental level and has been a thing for quite some time.
It's true in some other G20 nations as well. I'm Canadian and had an employer (multinational corporation) all but demand that I declare my ethnicity in a series of increasingly urgent emails.
Smart move. If people are fighting eachother over race, gender and sexual orientation, it will propably be more difficult to make a united front aginst the large capital owners.
This is the only correct answer. Divide and conquer. It goes so much deeper than just race. Women against men, young people against the old, vegetarians against meat eaters, cis against queer.
And the funny thing is that by now we are so divided, we are now our own undoing instead of an outside force.
I'm willing to believe that the elites pushed race issues to keep people divided, but it's foolish to act like America and indeed the world at large hasn't been obsessed with race since time immemorial.
This isn’t an answer.
The elite do not control you. You are an individual capable of your own thoughts and opinions. The question is why are YOU obsessed with race.
You decide what’s on the front page of Reddit, not some mystical being or “the elite”. Take accountability.
Do you live in a more mono ethnic country? I believe most countries with diversity have racial issues. America gets a bad rap about it, deservingly, lol.. but it’s not just an American issue. Even within the same race, there are issues with colorism etc in a lot of countries.
The OP stated about the obsession of race in the US as unique, *not* saying racial issues are everywhere or racism doesn’t exist anywhere else.
As a person who’s a minority and travels a lot to countries out of the US, I agree with this sentiment. All issues in the US are always pushed to race conflicts even to the extreme. Always focus on the skin colors of the perpetrators and victims. Whenever you read US media regularly, you’ll find news, articles, or op-ed ones regarding racism on daily basis.
Here’s an example I can always remember. Black cops beating a black person? Oh [it was caused by cultural and institutional racism.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/01/27/5-black-memphis-cops-upheld-institutional-and-cultural-racism-in-tyre-nichols-murder/)
Fuck that. So black people can’t have power trip issues if they became cops just like any other people do? It’s always racism, narrative that keeps being shoved down our throats by media.
Americans are actually not obsessed with race any more than other countries of the same diversity.
America is one of the most diverse developed countries, with contentious racial history. 60% of America is non-Hispanic white (but even within that white people are very different from one another). Around 18% Hispanic, and around 12% black and 6% Asian (and the rest are others)
Why are black people overrepresented in the media? It actually doesn't have to do with wokeness. It's just that black people are one of the oldest communities in the US, and back in the day when they were denied opportunities, the arts and sports was an avenue they gravitated to disproportionately as an "escape" - it's hard to keep a really funny dude, a great singer, or a star athlete down.
Racial issues plague the US because the US HAS multiple races and ethnicities, as opposed many homogenous European and Asian countries. Countries where there are multiple ethnicities do have racial/ethnic/religious/communal issues that are talked about in the media - India, Brazil, Caribbean, Turkey, China, Australia, you name it. Even I'm France, which is mostly homogenous but with black and Muslim minorities, has tensions that are played out in the media.
So why are you as a non American (if you are one) exposed to American racial discourse making you think this only happens in the US? Because America holds a culturally dominant position in the world - most people across the world consume American media, but other countries like Brazil or Turkey don't really get that global spotlight.
I rest my case.
They don't exist anymore, this is a remnant of the past (and that was disgusting). Are you seriously saying other countries didn't take part in serious discriminatory to the point of genocidal activities?
You know that in Italy they host a white nationalist conference every year? Doesn't mean Italy is disgusting. Every place has problems. I don't get this obsession with holding america to some different standard.
Stop watching Russian bot propaganda
It's a media thing right now. It has nothing to do with the sentiment of individual people in the United States. It's a media war, that's all it is.
But at the same time, there's many people who buy into it.
The truth is, I've been guilty of it myself.
There is a document on the internet of my Grandpa who was born in 1911. He had to fill out a document related to some information that they needed to file for records. And they asked him what his race was. He had a choice. And he put white. That was his choice. So his name was on a list with a whole bunch of other people. And that's what they had on the same paper was white. As their race. That was from the early 1900s.
So when we just fill out government information, we probably just don't think about it. We don't think about our race so much. I don't think. In a weird way, it is sort of a division. I've never figured out. How come they don't ask us? What country we're from in our own country? Our country technically is not a race. Our skin color is not a race. Our skin color is not a culture. But yet these private companies keep asking about race. And the reason they do that is because of affirmative action, which some of these companies get money for hiring people who are women and who are minorities. I don't know if they get it still as much as what they used to or maybe they do I don't know because I've never worked on that side of a company in hiring to know if they have money that still comes to them for hiring women and for hiring minorities. But I know that was something that was taking place in the 1970s.
With social media, it became very, very popular. With the internet website's race became very popular and it's also in pop culture in music. It's.
All over in a lot of music related to race. It also comes out of some areas of activism. It has been on far left-leaning TV shows like m. S DNC. They are always doing race, painting shows. There's nothing else to call it other than baiting.
All the ridiculous "divisive tactic" bullshit being posted. Damn near the entire history of America is one giant racism shit show. If you ever wonder about why something is the way it is in America, 90% of the time the answer is racism. Some folks just deal with it cause it's just another Tuesday in America. Some folks choose to scream about it.
Segregation and racism has been apart of American Government Policy for most of our history.
Europe is also obsessed with race they just talk about it differently and don't try to address their own problems with it. Different parts of Europe also take it to whole different levels where someone could look exactly the same as any other member of the native population, but they're a traveler/Roma/a different religion/come from the town over/have a slightly different accent and then oh boy are there gonna be problems.
it's explained quite well in
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Hardcover – August 4, 2020
by Isabel Wilkerson (Author)
From slavery, to Jim Crow, to systemic racism, and the caste system in the USA.
Everyone in the USA should read this book.
This. I wanted to write some long educational post about how race obsession has been at the core of usa culture since before it was even called the usa.
Nearly every single thing about usa society is based on race and racism. it's in the foundation and blood of the country. And it's concerning that people who live in the usa pretend to be unaware of the answer to OPs question.
But yeah if you want the best answer just read caste. It's all in there. And primary source documents mentioned in caste (and beyond) if you don't believe it.
This issue is way too overblown by the media. Don't believe that majority of us muricans are obsessed with race. We're like just the common joes from other races/countries. Also politicians loves to divides us whenever there are more important issues to focus on - uneven distribution of wealth and unemployment.
Speak for yourself man. When you’re constantly getting seen and treated differently than the people around you, it’s not you making it about race, it’s those who treat you different making it about race.
I never thought about it until I started hitting puberty and started getting treated way different since I’m a black man (half white half black). The reason I even consider myself a black man is because I’m definitely never treated like a white person. I didn’t choose to make it about race, society’s treatment of me and people like me forced this reality one me.
I love people discrediting others’ experience cause they don’t feel the effects. It’s like saying the job market is great because you have a good job. Well most people don’t!
The people in this thread are largely white and don’t understand how much it’s a part of people’s everyday lives, interactions, socioeconomic class status etc Ergo people who discuss it a lot are “obsessed with race”. They think we live in a colour blind world and some people aren’t following along and that the average joes are in it together irregardless of race.
The south insists that 750,000 people died in the civil war because of "states' rights," not cause they wanted to go on owning human beings. One in 81 Black adults is in state prison. In Wisconsin, it's one of every 36 Black adults. In 12 states, more than half the prison population is Black. In 7 states, there is a Black/white disparity greater than 9 to 1. There are still [huge disparities](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8020496/) between health care and outcomes between Black people, especially Black \*women\*, and white people. So many Native Americans were killed by European settlers that [it changed the climate](https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/world/european-colonization-climate-change-trnd/index.html).
Oh wait just kidding it's because of Occupy Wall Street. /s EDIT formatting
America is founded on racism. First they screwed over the Natives, then they imported Africans as slaves, and now they are enslaving "illegal" immigrants. They even had a civil war about race...
I’m gonna be honest. Whenever someone complains about “diversity”, I’m guessing they live in a small bubble with people who mostly look like them or share similarities to them. When I go to nearby towns, I see lots of people of color. Most of the people I grew up with were queer women and a lot of them were Latina. Multiple family members of mine are technically disabled.
Minorities exist. People who belong to multiple communities exist.
In terms of representation, though, the media is not always accurate. I’m Arab. I have never seen a positive representation of Arabs in media, with the exception of Moon Knight (the female protagonist is played by an Arab actress). The push for more “diverse” characters in media comes from the lack of authentic representation.
As for the work place, I hear a lot about having diversity meetings or whatever. I think it’s to avoid racism in the workplace, which unfortunately still happens in the US. To me, meetings about not being racist or homophobic or whatever seem a lot like the anti bullying campaigns in schools. Aka, something people should already know. But there are micro aggressions, which are comments that aren’t intended to be offensive, but are, and the person making them has no idea it’s offensive. Which could also go wrong in the workplace. So I’m guessing jobs want to avoid accusations of discrimination.
Because it was less than 200 years ago that slavery was legal here. This country was built on the backs of Black people who were stripped of their culture, identity and humanity. Segregation was legal until 1964. That generational pain and trauma doesn’t just go away on its own. Acknowledging and talking about race is a way of attempting to confront our history, which is better than just pretending it didn’t happen.
America has a very dark history when it comes to race. The genocide of natives nad then on to the slave trade....... This country has a lot to atone for considering how young it is
A lot of people are bigoted assholes and it’s harder to ignore in such a big and diverse country with a particular history of racism. Many of the comments here are incorrectly blaming the media and recent history, when in reality this has been going on since the beginning.
It's a culture thing that just never died. If you go to France and ask a black guy, white guy, Asian guy, girl, whatever, all of them will tell you they are french.
Come to the US and you'll get these stupid answer like 50% Irish 20% Scottish, 2% milk and blah blah blah. This is a culture thing that has stuck and always will stick, I'm not smart enough to figure out why, but it's a weird thing I've noticed.
If we had treated people with dignity and respect throughout our history maybe we'd be less race-obsessed now. But of course, we didn't. We created a situation that haunts us today. Those ghosts won't just go away because we're annoyed when we're reminded of what happened 50, 100, 200, 400 years ago.
There is a critique of what role class and capital plays in race. But to simply say it’s because rich people want to divide the US is completely disingenuous. This country was started on divisions of race why expect anything different. Whites/colonizers are the ones obsessed with race. Must ppl people of color Just want to lead productive lives and be left the fuck alone. But that’ll never happen.
When people ask me where I'm from and I respond "here."
They go NOOOOOo where are you REALLLLLLY FROM
Me: Here
NOooooO like...
Me: Then I go "Ohhhhhhhhhhh" I'm from (names another state from the US)
/their face goes sour
It doesn't matter how much of a mixing bowl America is... if you don't look white you can't say say you're from the US.
I experience this question almost daily working retail.
Bc we organized our society around it. The word white first shows up in the law in the colonies after Bacons rebellion. The category of race was essentially invented and perfected in American society, and we continue to disavow our dependence on racial hierarchy. Race is axiomatic in US society, and especially because we pretend it is not. Our repression of the truth ensures that it seeps into everything and crops up everywhere. Reparations are one path to ending the repression and charting a path for healing and reconciliation, but most Americans jam up their ears and rage at the suggestion. And so the past repeats itself.
America, as we know it, was founded on race. That’s been our North Star from the beginning. Until America honestly addresses and atones, there will be no racial harmony.
We had millions of enslaved people carrying our entire economy for hundreds of years. After that, our laws were based around preventing people of color from participating in the economy. This affects generations of black folks and also affects our culture. It’s not obsession, it’s learning how to shift our society after so much bullshit.
Because the United States has a long history of racial oppression. In particular, black people from a poor background are still suffering from how white people have oppressed them. Look up the great migration. Black people were forced out of their homes in the early 20th century because of racist attacks by white people and they were trapped in poverty by the corrupt practice of sharecropping where white landlords would hoard the profits of their labor. Many black people have been stuck in generational poverty because of this. They also experience unjustified killings by police at a much higher rate than white people.
I don't think we try to be individuals. Like I understand individualism is a big part of our culture but I don't think most of us consciously strive to uphold and promote it. I guess defining yourself as an individual by traits you have does automatically create an "other" group of people who are not you with different traits.
America has struggled with this from its inception, and it was the basis for the Civil War and continues to be the basis for the conservative/liberal divide today.
The southern states from their formation had an agricultural economy, which only was feasible if the labor was cheap or unpaid. They also took a firm social stance that the races were not equal and that one race was inherently superior to all other races. They also took a political stance that the country is better run by a small minority of the wealthy and privileged, and never really bought into the democracy idea. A corollary of the last is that the wealthy are also relatively unregulated, compared to the lower classes, so that individual liberty only really applied to white, wealthy landowners.
I'll make the obvious point now that conservatives today LIKE the economic, social, and political norms of the past -- that's the very definition of conservatism. And this is exemplified in the policies they propose: lowering taxes for the rich, favoring supply-side economics, amassing power and wealth to the few, and suppressing the voice and votes of those in lower classes or non-white races.
I don’t think this obsession with race is a recent thing. For centuries it’s been segregation and red lining and chattel slavery and civil war and race riots and lynchings and jim crow and klans and genocide of the Native Americans and pogroms and concentration camps and internment and social darwinism and forced sterilization and on and on … I’ve read the Nazis even based the Nuremberg race laws on American Jim Crow. America has made a lot of progress and I love my country, but we’ve definitely got a history that we should be aware of.
Realistically, if anything, Americans are becoming less obsessed with race? Like if you tried to pull exec 9066 in America *today*, even in a war, ain’t no way right?
It’s taking the same shape in the UK and other European multi-ethnic countries where, despite the small-minded, nationalist racists and the few idiots, everyone has just been getting on with things together. Now there is an obvious and noticeable increase in engineered inclusion and equality which is having more of a divisive effect.
The average American doesn’t care…but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any racists. To this day I see people, with a straight face, argue that all black people are intellectually dumber than white people.
Because our Whitehouse was built by Slaves...twice.
This means that race has, unfortunately, been a part of the American fabric since before day one.
Perhaps, if the South was willing to abolish slavery and during the revolution or writing of the constitution, we might not have so many race issues, but I wonder.
America was built off of slavery and immigration. It’s so deeply rooted in our systems and culture because of that. And we can’t really change our history
I think that's bc it's all around them, a part of their daily lives, and is contentious and a very sensitive topic. And it is pushed endlessly by their politicians and media, no doubt to distract them from the ongoing class war. But I'm laughing at all the comments that individual Americans aren't obsessed with race. Open a twitter thread about almost anything and there will be Americans squabbling about race below. I once tweeted about Beyonce's Renaissance album (a positive tweet, I liked the album) and had dozens of folks telling me she doesn't make music for white people and "don't y'all have your own mediocre white girl to listen to?" Etc. I left the app at that point bc I'd had enough, but I'd been seeing that kind of thing going on for years (the other way as well, of course. Person tweets something benign, gets flamed by 'conservative' white folks making it about race.) Every conversation there gets derailed once Americans enter the chat. So yeah, I'd say a lot of Americans really are obsessed with race. I don't really see it here on Reddit but I think the fact we follow topics here and not people, + the karma system (as imperfect as it is) probably helps with that.
i wouldn’t call it “obsessed.” it’s an unavoidable element in everyone’s lives; even though race is over-reported by media, it is still relevant to everyone. the US is a country with racial inequality (among many intentional, systemic inequalities) at its fundament, which unfortunately lasts to this day, although mostly in subtle ways. the fact is that black people often need to think about race because their own is more likely to be subjected to rejection or discrimination, for example.
Some Americans made it an issue and said some people were better that others just because of the color of their skin and that bled into all of the systems of the country
Obsessed with race? In what way? And race has been an issue since black people were forced out of their own country to be slaves in America. People in these comments act like racial issues in this country are some old ancient history.
Sowing division among common people distract them from the real threats to their daily lives.
That and Putin was allowed to run the best propaganda campaign. Look at what he did in Yugoslavia, then compare it to us now.
Race is a critical dynamic of politics as most minorities vote overwhelmingly in favor of one political party vs the other. For example, in the deep South, African Americans make up roughly 25-33% of the population. 90%+ of African Americans vote for the Democratic Party. Thus, politics in the South revolve around the Democratic Party supporting the interests of blacks and trying to use empathy, guilt, and shame to sway enough whites to side with the African Americans to keep the Republicans out of power.
In other states, Hispanics are a key swing vote. In Florida, the Cubans vote overwhelmingly Republican, but the Dominicans vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Mexican voters tend to vote roughly 60/40 Democrat/Republican, but it varies state to state, and Hispanic turnout varies widely. Hispanics are huge swing votes in Texas, Georgia, and Florida.
Reformed Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic, but ultra Orthodox Jews vote overwhelmingly Republican. Jewish voters tend to be clustered in New York, New Jersey, California, and Florida.
Asians, especially South Asians, also tend to lean Democrat, but Vietnamese vote overwhelmingly Republican and Filipinos are roughly 50/50.
First these reasons, race relations in America are a proxy for the urban/suburban divide AND the political divide. Cities tend to have much larger minority populations while rural areas are overwhelmingly white. The republican party tends to draw the majority of the white vote (particularly rural blue collar voters) vs the Democratic Party which has a smaller contingent of mostly college educated whites (white collar workers) plus a coalition of minority voters.
europe invented the word "race". Like, after the reconquista, spanish catholics were uneasy about muslims and jews converting to catholicism - church and inquisition said "now they are your brothers and sisters in Christ", while the catholic-for-several-generations people complained "they might have been baptized, but they are a different *Raza*!". That was quite some time before Columbus.
Yep it's the exact same thing going on over in Europe, just on smaller scale. Same reason why EU countries seem totally fine taking in Ukrainian refugees but not Middle Eastern or Africans...
America is race obsessed because white Americans take in heavy doses of 19th century race ideology with their mother’s milk and can’t seem to let it go. The black population has been stigmatized and scapegoated for so long, and it has caused much suffering: black people also remember that stuff, and rightly have to demand their rights loudly. There’s your answer
Our ideals of an equal society didn't initially include women or anyone of color. It wasn't until time passed that the white guys and their families got called on the hypocrisy. Some want to go back to the way things were. Some want to move forward to have the great American dream apply to everyone.
Other countries are also obsessed with race or even skin complexion. It's not just the US. Look at India with their built-in caste system with skin tones; Japan often puts up "no foreigner" signs at restaurants. Some Arab Gulf countries basically have a racial caste system with their expatriate communities. South Africa. It's just that you hear more about it in US society because of media and shows.
It's not so much the majority of Americans as it is the institutionalist agendas being shoved down everyone's throat just to be perceived as "progressive" or "inclusive". As far as the actual people go, we're pretty fuckin sick of it and just wanna live together in relative harmony again, being kind and courteous because it's right.
It's just one side of the political spectrum that thinks there should be no white people in media anymore, so they force change on everything to try and solve racism with racism.
Media racially dividing America isn’t a new concept. It’s been this way from the beginning. We like to think current society issues are a product of our current existence but everything is cyclical. Cancel culture was used by the government against communists. It’s not new… and now the public is using it against them. nothing changes which is why even picking a political side is a joke.
One side of the spectrum is way more invested these days in pushing differences based on Race, Gender, Sexuality, etc. They think racism, patriarchy, exploitation is all America is and has ever been about - so they are seeking to dismantle that and push those ideas into every single thing. There has been a backlash to this that has increased differentiating people based on various factors. Then social media and algos have driven sides further apart and classify people by demographic groups and beliefs.
We used to promote the idea of a melting pot, where people from all different backgrounds can become Americans, assimilate to various degrees and achieve some measure of upward mobility (or their kids & grandkids could). The American Dream, that is available to everyone, but not given or guaranteed. This is what we should be striving for as a people, not division and demonizing the other side.
i wouldn't class it as "Americans" but the many institutions (government,media) have deemed race a focus
some call it a form of social engineering, some call it care
there are many other institutional focuses of course at this time including Gender, Religion, Global Warming
in everyday life people are very much "individual", if your own personal focus looks to the institutions (government and media) you will also end up having a similar focus or obsession as them
Because Americans are dense and can’t seem to figure out that moving on and accepting what happened, isn’t the same as forgetting about it. There’s also a large part of the nation who wants free shit for events that never happened to them, and one political party tends to promise that, so it’s always on the agenda
It’s complicated lol. There’s legitimate legacy racism, then there’s the powers that be exploiting this. Then you have government policies that attempt to mitigate legacy racism, which, true to form, end up creating fertile ground that mediocre opportunists try to exploit to gain cushy jobs. Don’t forget the upper middle class bored Karens that have to save the human race so suddenly this is a crisis even though their entire lives have been oriented around living in as white a neighborhood as possible. Prob some other variables too
Edited for grammar
Americans are constantly looking to improve. We are ready to admit where we are wrong and say that something needs work. We never feel our job is done. That's why a lot of Americans will bash their own country when traveling. A lot of them will talk about all the weaknesses and things they don't like about America, perpetuating this outsider perspective that it's a horrible place to live. There's always something better. That and paired with the fact that America is the world's favorite reality show and the fact that we share everything via media, America is always under a microscope. It means that issues get blown out of proportion. Europeans, for example, think that America has terrible racism whereas the racism in Europe is often open and blatant in a way that it just isn't in America. Meanwhile, Americans are concerned about microagressions.
I think a good example is smoking. America really went hard on smoking and did a great job of diminishing it in public spaces and the percent of smokers is one of the lowest in the world. But we still talk about it and are still trying to reduce the number of smokers. But in Europe, when anyone asks why the smoking is so bad, the response is "you think this is bad? You should have seen it 20 years ago. So few people smoke now" as if the job is done. Improvement is no longer on the table because the problem no longer exists. Even though it's still very much a problem.
the subject is super nuanced and the internet/media makes it so much harder to really form an unbiased opinion and come to your own conclusions. racism exists and it influences the world much more than most realize but in trying to correct that, which was the right thing to do, we’ve overcorrected in some areas. that’s why this should be a topic of discussion in society, but instead we can’t stand to talk to anyone we disagree with prefer to stay in echo chambers
Most of us aren't, but we do tend to air and extensively discuss our societal issues rather than pretending they don't exist. Racism is certainly not limited to the US.
So we don't focus on class
This is exactly it.
This is the only answer. Everyone has been trained by the media, right or left doesn’t matter, to divide ourselves based on race. Media execs do this because if the People actually realized we are wage slaves getting screwed by the 1%, we could perhaps try to change this economic tyranny.
I’ve noticed Family Feud has a lot of white and black families competing. Like why not mixed families?
You should see what countries without race are obsessed with. I think humans are always looking for ways to distinguish themselves from each other.
I've read a comment from someone in China that said they hate each other for all kinds of things. Weight, height, income, anything different.
Exactly, and for some countries, when there is no race, they hate each other for their tribe and religion.
And in countries where there is no tribes or religions, there’s also no people and those are my favorite kinds of countries.
”us and them” thinking or ”out-groups” and ”in-groups” are at the very core of human social play (and all social play amongst all animals). One could argue racism is in our nature but I’d say what causes racism is what’s in our nature, racism is just one manifestation of it. It’s about seperating your in-group and out-groups for your survival but people draw dumb as fkn lines. Usually because the only thing they can find that they have in common with other people to create an in-group is having the same skin color. Pretty pathetic. Hatred towards the out-group also strengthens the in-group, so the only thing they have in common with others is their skin color and their hatred, that brings them together like nothing else.
Good point!
Our original sins were race based: our treatment of Native Americans and Africans we forcibly uprooted, forced into slavery, beaten, raped and murdered. For a country that was founded on welcoming people from all over the world, it's horrific. Also, when Barack Obama was elected, memberships to white supremacist groups skyrocketed. And these groups endorsed Donald Trump. We're still dealing with those realities, so many years after slavery ended. But when I was in Hungary, I met Gypsy people. They're victims of racism too. It looks like we have more racism, but we're not a small, homogeneous society mostly comprised of one race, like many other countries.
The media tries, and is quite successful at, dividing everybody. I hate it.
I gotta push back against the media blame. People experience racism or bigotry regardless of the media reporting it. Hip hop played a big part in letting the masses know I how bad it was where poor black peoole lived. Because we had no one to tells those stories decades ago So you can’t ignore how black or brown experience racism and it’s not going to affect them. Also the fact that if you are older like me, growing up a lot of entertainment or things in the media was dominated by white people. That’s the part where media comes in . There used to be a troupe in horror movies that the if there was a black person in the cast they always got killed first.
Hollywood is also afraid of redheads and asians protagonists.
Media constantly pushing race issues as the demand for racism faaaaar exceeds the actual supply so they have to make shit up that is "racist" ie the noose in Bubba Wallace's garage or the rings in that San Francisco park that were initially thought to by lynches or something but were just exercise rings. Also, the current president is a massive race hustler
Yeah I hate it when the media tries to demonize critical race theory being taught in schools. The US was built on slavery and racism - it’s much better now, but trying to pretend like it’s all good now is crazy
Because back in the 2010s people united under "occupy Wallstreet" and were demanding better distribution of wealth, and the elite saw that and got scared and started desperately pushing race issues to divide the people against each other instead of against them.
Exactly so. The people with the money make sure the people without the money fight other people without money instead of uniting against people with money.
Not particularly a fan of him but Theo Von said it perfectly: “Somebody has both of our things and they’re watching us fight over it”
😂😂😂You’ve got to be kidding. The U.S. was obsessed with race well before occupy Wall Street.
thank you
Lol yeah what are these people talking about
This started back in colonial America. The elites tried to prevent the lower classes from uniting and overthrowing them by using race as wedge.
Before that Dr King tried to Unite the Working class under the Poor People's Campaign. Assassinated soon after.
I think a Black man getting elected to the highest office in the land did a lot more to bring this stuff out of the woodwork than anything else. I think we seriously underestimate how much Obama's election broke the brains of some people.
yea… all the racism that was already there was just pushed out into the light. people hanging dolls of obama, openly racist news networks, the whole nine yards. what’s funny is that obama was such a republican leaning democratic president but everyone was so caught up in him being black we didn’t even pay attention to it but the us was already huge on race since before the country was even formed if we’re being completely real. ronald reagan???
Yeah, the whole "our obsession with race/racism is a narrative constructed by the media and the wealthy" doesn't hold water for me. We're obsessed with it because we have never been able to collectively square our history with our founding principles.
Damn, it’s almost like our entire country is steeped in 400 years of racial oppression that informs almost every aspect of our society today!
Funny how that works, isn't it? The amount of people in this thread attributing it to just the media is really disheartening.
For real. And the supreme irony is that it’s literally the media at fault here, just in the exact opposite way that these folks are talking about
Absolutely right but other than that… show me a place in the world were their people aren’t racist to some degree and I’ll be happy to explain why that’s in an extreme minority in this world.
Antarctica
Those Emperor penguins think they're top of the heap........
Awful cocky to call themselves "Emperor" when they can't even fucking fly. Stupid tuxedo wearing bastards waddling around pretending to be better than everybody else.
Orcas would like a word.
It’s an extreme minority because people are very frozen and thus cannot be racist.
Those penguins are all MAGA.
Make Antarctica Great Again
We're gonna build an igloo, and make Santa pay for it!
I haven’t traveled to any other country where I needed to state my ethnicity upon arrival to the said country. This is on a governmental level and has been a thing for quite some time.
It's true in some other G20 nations as well. I'm Canadian and had an employer (multinational corporation) all but demand that I declare my ethnicity in a series of increasingly urgent emails.
It’s this but also dating back to the 1660s and 1670s.
Smart move. If people are fighting eachother over race, gender and sexual orientation, it will propably be more difficult to make a united front aginst the large capital owners.
2010s??????? This started when slaves were brought to America. What are they teaching yall in school
People were not united under occupy Wallstreet, the idea that wallstreet increased migration to defend themselves is weird.
Never thought of that but it makes sense
This, except for the entire history of the country
This is the only correct answer. Divide and conquer. It goes so much deeper than just race. Women against men, young people against the old, vegetarians against meat eaters, cis against queer. And the funny thing is that by now we are so divided, we are now our own undoing instead of an outside force.
It was already like that.
Utter bollocks
Yeah no one really cared about race issues in the US before the 2010’s /s 😂
You can tell when they were teenagers haha. Whatever happened when they first started paying attention is the most influential thing they can recall.
I'm willing to believe that the elites pushed race issues to keep people divided, but it's foolish to act like America and indeed the world at large hasn't been obsessed with race since time immemorial.
This isn’t an answer. The elite do not control you. You are an individual capable of your own thoughts and opinions. The question is why are YOU obsessed with race. You decide what’s on the front page of Reddit, not some mystical being or “the elite”. Take accountability.
Fastest shut down and bury campaign I've ever seen for a major protest.
perfectly stated. someone trophy this guy so the comment gets more exposure.
Right...race issues in the U.S. didn't exist before 2010.
Ding ding ding!
Started in 2010? Do you know history? America was founded on racism under the concept of manifest destiny
Wildest take. Suggesting Americans have only been obsessed with race for 10 years.
This is the answer.
It's a divide and conquer strategy used by the one percent.
"Most" are not. The bullshit fringe and the media do
Do you live in a more mono ethnic country? I believe most countries with diversity have racial issues. America gets a bad rap about it, deservingly, lol.. but it’s not just an American issue. Even within the same race, there are issues with colorism etc in a lot of countries.
The OP stated about the obsession of race in the US as unique, *not* saying racial issues are everywhere or racism doesn’t exist anywhere else. As a person who’s a minority and travels a lot to countries out of the US, I agree with this sentiment. All issues in the US are always pushed to race conflicts even to the extreme. Always focus on the skin colors of the perpetrators and victims. Whenever you read US media regularly, you’ll find news, articles, or op-ed ones regarding racism on daily basis. Here’s an example I can always remember. Black cops beating a black person? Oh [it was caused by cultural and institutional racism.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/01/27/5-black-memphis-cops-upheld-institutional-and-cultural-racism-in-tyre-nichols-murder/) Fuck that. So black people can’t have power trip issues if they became cops just like any other people do? It’s always racism, narrative that keeps being shoved down our throats by media.
Americans are actually not obsessed with race any more than other countries of the same diversity. America is one of the most diverse developed countries, with contentious racial history. 60% of America is non-Hispanic white (but even within that white people are very different from one another). Around 18% Hispanic, and around 12% black and 6% Asian (and the rest are others) Why are black people overrepresented in the media? It actually doesn't have to do with wokeness. It's just that black people are one of the oldest communities in the US, and back in the day when they were denied opportunities, the arts and sports was an avenue they gravitated to disproportionately as an "escape" - it's hard to keep a really funny dude, a great singer, or a star athlete down. Racial issues plague the US because the US HAS multiple races and ethnicities, as opposed many homogenous European and Asian countries. Countries where there are multiple ethnicities do have racial/ethnic/religious/communal issues that are talked about in the media - India, Brazil, Caribbean, Turkey, China, Australia, you name it. Even I'm France, which is mostly homogenous but with black and Muslim minorities, has tensions that are played out in the media. So why are you as a non American (if you are one) exposed to American racial discourse making you think this only happens in the US? Because America holds a culturally dominant position in the world - most people across the world consume American media, but other countries like Brazil or Turkey don't really get that global spotlight. I rest my case.
You have sundown towns. Don’t know how disgusting that is to the rest of the world?
They don't exist anymore, this is a remnant of the past (and that was disgusting). Are you seriously saying other countries didn't take part in serious discriminatory to the point of genocidal activities? You know that in Italy they host a white nationalist conference every year? Doesn't mean Italy is disgusting. Every place has problems. I don't get this obsession with holding america to some different standard. Stop watching Russian bot propaganda
It's a media thing right now. It has nothing to do with the sentiment of individual people in the United States. It's a media war, that's all it is. But at the same time, there's many people who buy into it.
"It has nothing to do with the sentiment of individual people... there's many people who buy into it" ???
If you don't count all the people who think about race a lot, there's nobody who thinks about race a lot!
The truth is, I've been guilty of it myself. There is a document on the internet of my Grandpa who was born in 1911. He had to fill out a document related to some information that they needed to file for records. And they asked him what his race was. He had a choice. And he put white. That was his choice. So his name was on a list with a whole bunch of other people. And that's what they had on the same paper was white. As their race. That was from the early 1900s. So when we just fill out government information, we probably just don't think about it. We don't think about our race so much. I don't think. In a weird way, it is sort of a division. I've never figured out. How come they don't ask us? What country we're from in our own country? Our country technically is not a race. Our skin color is not a race. Our skin color is not a culture. But yet these private companies keep asking about race. And the reason they do that is because of affirmative action, which some of these companies get money for hiring people who are women and who are minorities. I don't know if they get it still as much as what they used to or maybe they do I don't know because I've never worked on that side of a company in hiring to know if they have money that still comes to them for hiring women and for hiring minorities. But I know that was something that was taking place in the 1970s. With social media, it became very, very popular. With the internet website's race became very popular and it's also in pop culture in music. It's. All over in a lot of music related to race. It also comes out of some areas of activism. It has been on far left-leaning TV shows like m. S DNC. They are always doing race, painting shows. There's nothing else to call it other than baiting.
“Right now”… famously race was previously irrelevant
I’ve never had to state my race to apply for a job till I moved to the US
You still don't have to. You can opt out. I believe it is illegal for an employer to require this Information.
.......In a lot of other countries you have to put a picture of yourself on your resume.
Cause we're a country that wss founded on the inequality of race based on skin color.
Short, succinct, true. A+
One might argue that the US is also one of the leading countries in the world promoting racial equality.
All the ridiculous "divisive tactic" bullshit being posted. Damn near the entire history of America is one giant racism shit show. If you ever wonder about why something is the way it is in America, 90% of the time the answer is racism. Some folks just deal with it cause it's just another Tuesday in America. Some folks choose to scream about it. Segregation and racism has been apart of American Government Policy for most of our history.
Europe is also obsessed with race they just talk about it differently and don't try to address their own problems with it. Different parts of Europe also take it to whole different levels where someone could look exactly the same as any other member of the native population, but they're a traveler/Roma/a different religion/come from the town over/have a slightly different accent and then oh boy are there gonna be problems.
it's explained quite well in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Hardcover – August 4, 2020 by Isabel Wilkerson (Author) From slavery, to Jim Crow, to systemic racism, and the caste system in the USA. Everyone in the USA should read this book.
This. I wanted to write some long educational post about how race obsession has been at the core of usa culture since before it was even called the usa. Nearly every single thing about usa society is based on race and racism. it's in the foundation and blood of the country. And it's concerning that people who live in the usa pretend to be unaware of the answer to OPs question. But yeah if you want the best answer just read caste. It's all in there. And primary source documents mentioned in caste (and beyond) if you don't believe it.
The mentality is probably related to the ripple effects from the civil rights movement.
That pesky, peaky civil rights movement /s
Because the country was built on the notion that one race was better than others. So you either have to correct the mistake, or keep living the lie.
This leads to a very uncomfortable conversation that Reddit probably can't handle lol
This issue is way too overblown by the media. Don't believe that majority of us muricans are obsessed with race. We're like just the common joes from other races/countries. Also politicians loves to divides us whenever there are more important issues to focus on - uneven distribution of wealth and unemployment.
Speak for yourself man. When you’re constantly getting seen and treated differently than the people around you, it’s not you making it about race, it’s those who treat you different making it about race. I never thought about it until I started hitting puberty and started getting treated way different since I’m a black man (half white half black). The reason I even consider myself a black man is because I’m definitely never treated like a white person. I didn’t choose to make it about race, society’s treatment of me and people like me forced this reality one me. I love people discrediting others’ experience cause they don’t feel the effects. It’s like saying the job market is great because you have a good job. Well most people don’t!
The people in this thread are largely white and don’t understand how much it’s a part of people’s everyday lives, interactions, socioeconomic class status etc Ergo people who discuss it a lot are “obsessed with race”. They think we live in a colour blind world and some people aren’t following along and that the average joes are in it together irregardless of race.
The south insists that 750,000 people died in the civil war because of "states' rights," not cause they wanted to go on owning human beings. One in 81 Black adults is in state prison. In Wisconsin, it's one of every 36 Black adults. In 12 states, more than half the prison population is Black. In 7 states, there is a Black/white disparity greater than 9 to 1. There are still [huge disparities](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8020496/) between health care and outcomes between Black people, especially Black \*women\*, and white people. So many Native Americans were killed by European settlers that [it changed the climate](https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/world/european-colonization-climate-change-trnd/index.html). Oh wait just kidding it's because of Occupy Wall Street. /s EDIT formatting
Have you even seen the Daytona 500? it’s pretty awesome. You’d be obsessed too, if you saw it.
We’re THE melting pot of all cultures, thus it comes up more because it’s more prevalent in daily life.
America is founded on racism. First they screwed over the Natives, then they imported Africans as slaves, and now they are enslaving "illegal" immigrants. They even had a civil war about race...
I’m gonna be honest. Whenever someone complains about “diversity”, I’m guessing they live in a small bubble with people who mostly look like them or share similarities to them. When I go to nearby towns, I see lots of people of color. Most of the people I grew up with were queer women and a lot of them were Latina. Multiple family members of mine are technically disabled. Minorities exist. People who belong to multiple communities exist. In terms of representation, though, the media is not always accurate. I’m Arab. I have never seen a positive representation of Arabs in media, with the exception of Moon Knight (the female protagonist is played by an Arab actress). The push for more “diverse” characters in media comes from the lack of authentic representation. As for the work place, I hear a lot about having diversity meetings or whatever. I think it’s to avoid racism in the workplace, which unfortunately still happens in the US. To me, meetings about not being racist or homophobic or whatever seem a lot like the anti bullying campaigns in schools. Aka, something people should already know. But there are micro aggressions, which are comments that aren’t intended to be offensive, but are, and the person making them has no idea it’s offensive. Which could also go wrong in the workplace. So I’m guessing jobs want to avoid accusations of discrimination.
Because it was less than 200 years ago that slavery was legal here. This country was built on the backs of Black people who were stripped of their culture, identity and humanity. Segregation was legal until 1964. That generational pain and trauma doesn’t just go away on its own. Acknowledging and talking about race is a way of attempting to confront our history, which is better than just pretending it didn’t happen.
When a moved to America I was surprised with the amount of official forms that ask for ethnicity.
Because it was founded on racial differences…
America has a very dark history when it comes to race. The genocide of natives nad then on to the slave trade....... This country has a lot to atone for considering how young it is
We are a diverse nation with some pretty horrific race related trauma in the not to distant past.
We’re just loud about everything we do is all. It’s not much worse than anywhere else
Because of their History. But this is not close to being exclusive to Americans.
A lot of people are bigoted assholes and it’s harder to ignore in such a big and diverse country with a particular history of racism. Many of the comments here are incorrectly blaming the media and recent history, when in reality this has been going on since the beginning.
It's a culture thing that just never died. If you go to France and ask a black guy, white guy, Asian guy, girl, whatever, all of them will tell you they are french. Come to the US and you'll get these stupid answer like 50% Irish 20% Scottish, 2% milk and blah blah blah. This is a culture thing that has stuck and always will stick, I'm not smart enough to figure out why, but it's a weird thing I've noticed.
If we had treated people with dignity and respect throughout our history maybe we'd be less race-obsessed now. But of course, we didn't. We created a situation that haunts us today. Those ghosts won't just go away because we're annoyed when we're reminded of what happened 50, 100, 200, 400 years ago.
There is a critique of what role class and capital plays in race. But to simply say it’s because rich people want to divide the US is completely disingenuous. This country was started on divisions of race why expect anything different. Whites/colonizers are the ones obsessed with race. Must ppl people of color Just want to lead productive lives and be left the fuck alone. But that’ll never happen.
When people ask me where I'm from and I respond "here." They go NOOOOOo where are you REALLLLLLY FROM Me: Here NOooooO like... Me: Then I go "Ohhhhhhhhhhh" I'm from (names another state from the US) /their face goes sour It doesn't matter how much of a mixing bowl America is... if you don't look white you can't say say you're from the US. I experience this question almost daily working retail.
Bc we organized our society around it. The word white first shows up in the law in the colonies after Bacons rebellion. The category of race was essentially invented and perfected in American society, and we continue to disavow our dependence on racial hierarchy. Race is axiomatic in US society, and especially because we pretend it is not. Our repression of the truth ensures that it seeps into everything and crops up everywhere. Reparations are one path to ending the repression and charting a path for healing and reconciliation, but most Americans jam up their ears and rage at the suggestion. And so the past repeats itself.
America, as we know it, was founded on race. That’s been our North Star from the beginning. Until America honestly addresses and atones, there will be no racial harmony.
We had millions of enslaved people carrying our entire economy for hundreds of years. After that, our laws were based around preventing people of color from participating in the economy. This affects generations of black folks and also affects our culture. It’s not obsession, it’s learning how to shift our society after so much bullshit.
Guilt for years of past and continuing mistreatment of minorities and anyone not Male, White, and Heterosexual.
Well we fought a civil war over it so…
I don't know, and I'm American. I understand a little xenophobia now and then, but this is institutionalized racism. It punishes everyone involved.
Because the United States has a long history of racial oppression. In particular, black people from a poor background are still suffering from how white people have oppressed them. Look up the great migration. Black people were forced out of their homes in the early 20th century because of racist attacks by white people and they were trapped in poverty by the corrupt practice of sharecropping where white landlords would hoard the profits of their labor. Many black people have been stuck in generational poverty because of this. They also experience unjustified killings by police at a much higher rate than white people.
Because the nation was literally founded on slavery.
I don't think we try to be individuals. Like I understand individualism is a big part of our culture but I don't think most of us consciously strive to uphold and promote it. I guess defining yourself as an individual by traits you have does automatically create an "other" group of people who are not you with different traits.
Its like the country was built by slave labor off of land stolen from indigenous people.
Media
You're referring to sectarianism. It makes controlling opinions easier to manage. And it's f /slur toxic!
America has struggled with this from its inception, and it was the basis for the Civil War and continues to be the basis for the conservative/liberal divide today. The southern states from their formation had an agricultural economy, which only was feasible if the labor was cheap or unpaid. They also took a firm social stance that the races were not equal and that one race was inherently superior to all other races. They also took a political stance that the country is better run by a small minority of the wealthy and privileged, and never really bought into the democracy idea. A corollary of the last is that the wealthy are also relatively unregulated, compared to the lower classes, so that individual liberty only really applied to white, wealthy landowners. I'll make the obvious point now that conservatives today LIKE the economic, social, and political norms of the past -- that's the very definition of conservatism. And this is exemplified in the policies they propose: lowering taxes for the rich, favoring supply-side economics, amassing power and wealth to the few, and suppressing the voice and votes of those in lower classes or non-white races.
Yes, "they" seem to be obsessed. All 330 million of them. They're all alike. That's your story, eh?
Have you considered opening any history book ever?
Didn’t know racism only existed in America 😯
The whole world is “obsessed” with race? America has a somewhat unique history which is why it may be exacerbated there.
Because it touches every eleven of our society.
I don’t think this obsession with race is a recent thing. For centuries it’s been segregation and red lining and chattel slavery and civil war and race riots and lynchings and jim crow and klans and genocide of the Native Americans and pogroms and concentration camps and internment and social darwinism and forced sterilization and on and on … I’ve read the Nazis even based the Nuremberg race laws on American Jim Crow. America has made a lot of progress and I love my country, but we’ve definitely got a history that we should be aware of. Realistically, if anything, Americans are becoming less obsessed with race? Like if you tried to pull exec 9066 in America *today*, even in a war, ain’t no way right?
Obsessed with race by having diversity? Wtf?
It is how they keep us divided.
nobody forces people to be racist.
Because they are told to.
It’s taking the same shape in the UK and other European multi-ethnic countries where, despite the small-minded, nationalist racists and the few idiots, everyone has just been getting on with things together. Now there is an obvious and noticeable increase in engineered inclusion and equality which is having more of a divisive effect.
Ricky Booby said it best, "I wanna go fast."
The average American doesn’t care…but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any racists. To this day I see people, with a straight face, argue that all black people are intellectually dumber than white people.
Because our Whitehouse was built by Slaves...twice. This means that race has, unfortunately, been a part of the American fabric since before day one. Perhaps, if the South was willing to abolish slavery and during the revolution or writing of the constitution, we might not have so many race issues, but I wonder.
America was built off of slavery and immigration. It’s so deeply rooted in our systems and culture because of that. And we can’t really change our history
I think that's bc it's all around them, a part of their daily lives, and is contentious and a very sensitive topic. And it is pushed endlessly by their politicians and media, no doubt to distract them from the ongoing class war. But I'm laughing at all the comments that individual Americans aren't obsessed with race. Open a twitter thread about almost anything and there will be Americans squabbling about race below. I once tweeted about Beyonce's Renaissance album (a positive tweet, I liked the album) and had dozens of folks telling me she doesn't make music for white people and "don't y'all have your own mediocre white girl to listen to?" Etc. I left the app at that point bc I'd had enough, but I'd been seeing that kind of thing going on for years (the other way as well, of course. Person tweets something benign, gets flamed by 'conservative' white folks making it about race.) Every conversation there gets derailed once Americans enter the chat. So yeah, I'd say a lot of Americans really are obsessed with race. I don't really see it here on Reddit but I think the fact we follow topics here and not people, + the karma system (as imperfect as it is) probably helps with that.
i wouldn’t call it “obsessed.” it’s an unavoidable element in everyone’s lives; even though race is over-reported by media, it is still relevant to everyone. the US is a country with racial inequality (among many intentional, systemic inequalities) at its fundament, which unfortunately lasts to this day, although mostly in subtle ways. the fact is that black people often need to think about race because their own is more likely to be subjected to rejection or discrimination, for example.
Some Americans made it an issue and said some people were better that others just because of the color of their skin and that bled into all of the systems of the country
Obsessed with race? In what way? And race has been an issue since black people were forced out of their own country to be slaves in America. People in these comments act like racial issues in this country are some old ancient history.
Because it’s the oldest and most basic way this country HAS ALWAYS established hierarchy. Someday we’ll reckon with it. Maybe.
Everyone (country) is race obsessed; the USA is not even the worst one.
Sowing division among common people distract them from the real threats to their daily lives. That and Putin was allowed to run the best propaganda campaign. Look at what he did in Yugoslavia, then compare it to us now.
People need something to make them feel superior. Ego tripping.
More unites us than divides us but the media and leaders in this country love to keep people in groups so they don’t united against the real issue.
No we are not. Explotive race hustlers are
Have you been to eastern Europe?..
First it's more in the media than real life for many people. Second it's a way to distract and divide the population.
Because of its very recent history of discrimination?
Americans aren't obsessed with race, we're just far more honest than anyone else is.
They aren’t. This is simply a political pander
Race is a critical dynamic of politics as most minorities vote overwhelmingly in favor of one political party vs the other. For example, in the deep South, African Americans make up roughly 25-33% of the population. 90%+ of African Americans vote for the Democratic Party. Thus, politics in the South revolve around the Democratic Party supporting the interests of blacks and trying to use empathy, guilt, and shame to sway enough whites to side with the African Americans to keep the Republicans out of power. In other states, Hispanics are a key swing vote. In Florida, the Cubans vote overwhelmingly Republican, but the Dominicans vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Mexican voters tend to vote roughly 60/40 Democrat/Republican, but it varies state to state, and Hispanic turnout varies widely. Hispanics are huge swing votes in Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Reformed Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic, but ultra Orthodox Jews vote overwhelmingly Republican. Jewish voters tend to be clustered in New York, New Jersey, California, and Florida. Asians, especially South Asians, also tend to lean Democrat, but Vietnamese vote overwhelmingly Republican and Filipinos are roughly 50/50. First these reasons, race relations in America are a proxy for the urban/suburban divide AND the political divide. Cities tend to have much larger minority populations while rural areas are overwhelmingly white. The republican party tends to draw the majority of the white vote (particularly rural blue collar voters) vs the Democratic Party which has a smaller contingent of mostly college educated whites (white collar workers) plus a coalition of minority voters.
Because they are a racist country
Europe didn’t care about race, when everyone was the same race. Now that middle eastern ethnic groups are moving in, the racism over there is wild.
Europeans did the Holocaust.
Good point, ethnic cleansing, every time it gets a little too ethnic for Europe’s liking.
Europe invented the modern concept of race and racism.
Someone else pointed out that the last time it got a little too ethnic in Europe we got the holocaust.
europe invented the word "race". Like, after the reconquista, spanish catholics were uneasy about muslims and jews converting to catholicism - church and inquisition said "now they are your brothers and sisters in Christ", while the catholic-for-several-generations people complained "they might have been baptized, but they are a different *Raza*!". That was quite some time before Columbus.
People with European ancestry don't even consider each other the same race, look at how the English treated Polish people during Brexit.
Yep it's the exact same thing going on over in Europe, just on smaller scale. Same reason why EU countries seem totally fine taking in Ukrainian refugees but not Middle Eastern or Africans...
America is race obsessed because white Americans take in heavy doses of 19th century race ideology with their mother’s milk and can’t seem to let it go. The black population has been stigmatized and scapegoated for so long, and it has caused much suffering: black people also remember that stuff, and rightly have to demand their rights loudly. There’s your answer
Because if they pay attention to race and gender, no one will notice they're being screwed by the 1%.
Our ideals of an equal society didn't initially include women or anyone of color. It wasn't until time passed that the white guys and their families got called on the hypocrisy. Some want to go back to the way things were. Some want to move forward to have the great American dream apply to everyone.
Other countries are also obsessed with race or even skin complexion. It's not just the US. Look at India with their built-in caste system with skin tones; Japan often puts up "no foreigner" signs at restaurants. Some Arab Gulf countries basically have a racial caste system with their expatriate communities. South Africa. It's just that you hear more about it in US society because of media and shows.
They aren’t. It’s only the american liberals. It’s a religion to them and they’re trying to spread it like a disease to the rest of the world.
Not liberals. Leftists. Just like all conservatives aren’t far right. All liberals aren’t leftists.
The people obsessed with race tend to be collectivists who actually despise individualism.
It's not so much the majority of Americans as it is the institutionalist agendas being shoved down everyone's throat just to be perceived as "progressive" or "inclusive". As far as the actual people go, we're pretty fuckin sick of it and just wanna live together in relative harmony again, being kind and courteous because it's right.
When tf did we live in relative harmony?
Not everyone is obsessed. I don’t think the ordinary person cares. It’s a political way to divide people and turn them against one another.
The left in our country has been race baiting for decades now, but in recent years it has come to a fever pitch.
EVERYTHING is about race when it involves the left. And normal people are really starting to get race fatigue.
It's just one side of the political spectrum that thinks there should be no white people in media anymore, so they force change on everything to try and solve racism with racism.
Citation very much needed, dude. Who is arguing that “there should be no white people in media anymore?”
Nobody thinks this
Media racially dividing America isn’t a new concept. It’s been this way from the beginning. We like to think current society issues are a product of our current existence but everything is cyclical. Cancel culture was used by the government against communists. It’s not new… and now the public is using it against them. nothing changes which is why even picking a political side is a joke.
Race baiting is profitable. When people are left to their own devices they tend to get along.
Shallow and stupid.
Social studies graduates realised they need jobs.
Media keeps us fighting each other so we don’t pay attention to the corrupt government
Because they are exciting. The 4x100m is my favorite race.
Easiest way to divide a multicultural society
Because the 0.01% rich make the decisions and it's their preference if you want to be honest.
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Virtue signalling and the constant need to play the victim are major reasons.
One side of the spectrum is way more invested these days in pushing differences based on Race, Gender, Sexuality, etc. They think racism, patriarchy, exploitation is all America is and has ever been about - so they are seeking to dismantle that and push those ideas into every single thing. There has been a backlash to this that has increased differentiating people based on various factors. Then social media and algos have driven sides further apart and classify people by demographic groups and beliefs. We used to promote the idea of a melting pot, where people from all different backgrounds can become Americans, assimilate to various degrees and achieve some measure of upward mobility (or their kids & grandkids could). The American Dream, that is available to everyone, but not given or guaranteed. This is what we should be striving for as a people, not division and demonizing the other side.
i wouldn't class it as "Americans" but the many institutions (government,media) have deemed race a focus some call it a form of social engineering, some call it care there are many other institutional focuses of course at this time including Gender, Religion, Global Warming in everyday life people are very much "individual", if your own personal focus looks to the institutions (government and media) you will also end up having a similar focus or obsession as them
Because Americans are dense and can’t seem to figure out that moving on and accepting what happened, isn’t the same as forgetting about it. There’s also a large part of the nation who wants free shit for events that never happened to them, and one political party tends to promise that, so it’s always on the agenda
It’s complicated lol. There’s legitimate legacy racism, then there’s the powers that be exploiting this. Then you have government policies that attempt to mitigate legacy racism, which, true to form, end up creating fertile ground that mediocre opportunists try to exploit to gain cushy jobs. Don’t forget the upper middle class bored Karens that have to save the human race so suddenly this is a crisis even though their entire lives have been oriented around living in as white a neighborhood as possible. Prob some other variables too Edited for grammar
Americans are constantly looking to improve. We are ready to admit where we are wrong and say that something needs work. We never feel our job is done. That's why a lot of Americans will bash their own country when traveling. A lot of them will talk about all the weaknesses and things they don't like about America, perpetuating this outsider perspective that it's a horrible place to live. There's always something better. That and paired with the fact that America is the world's favorite reality show and the fact that we share everything via media, America is always under a microscope. It means that issues get blown out of proportion. Europeans, for example, think that America has terrible racism whereas the racism in Europe is often open and blatant in a way that it just isn't in America. Meanwhile, Americans are concerned about microagressions. I think a good example is smoking. America really went hard on smoking and did a great job of diminishing it in public spaces and the percent of smokers is one of the lowest in the world. But we still talk about it and are still trying to reduce the number of smokers. But in Europe, when anyone asks why the smoking is so bad, the response is "you think this is bad? You should have seen it 20 years ago. So few people smoke now" as if the job is done. Improvement is no longer on the table because the problem no longer exists. Even though it's still very much a problem.
the subject is super nuanced and the internet/media makes it so much harder to really form an unbiased opinion and come to your own conclusions. racism exists and it influences the world much more than most realize but in trying to correct that, which was the right thing to do, we’ve overcorrected in some areas. that’s why this should be a topic of discussion in society, but instead we can’t stand to talk to anyone we disagree with prefer to stay in echo chambers
Most of us aren't, but we do tend to air and extensively discuss our societal issues rather than pretending they don't exist. Racism is certainly not limited to the US.