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The USA is the better country for people of colour to prosper and achieve successs. I found the Americans are more happier, open, friendly and less racist than the Brits.
The Brits are tolerant to some degree. Many are happy to socialize with minorities in the pub and buy each other drinks, but they don't want them to be their manager or supervisor at work.
Lol- many Americans (considering a lot of middle class families have more disposable income and greater personal wealth than in the UK) are no more happy, open or friendly than the british. In fact many love to complain incessantly about how bad they have it now. Regarding incomers (whatever race) I think many US southerners are a bit like people from the NE of England. They like their own little tribe. A bit Victorian really.
The USA is the better country for people of colour to prosper and achieve successs. I found the Americans are more happier, open, friendly and less racist than the Brits.
The Brits are tolerant to some degree. Many are happy to socialize with minorities in the pub and buy each other drinks, but they don't want them to be their manager or supervisor at work.
American racism is very unique. Don't get me wrong, there is racism all over the world, but not quite like in the U.S. Everything here is based on your skin color. People form opinions about your educational level, status, etc on a regular basis, and it is mostly grounded in how dark or light you are. Having dark skin in the U.S., is akin to being a criminal, evil, ugly, ignorant/uneducated and poor; while having light/white skin here, equals being intelligent, friendly, beautiful, law-abiding, respectful, etc. Interestingly, US. racism is most extreme in the Northeast (in places like NYC, PA, CT, and much of New England, especially Boston).
I'd love to live outside of the U.S.; however, I have a very good career here. But if I could transfer my position elsewhere, I would leave in a heartbeat.
Define extreme racism in the northeast, as I've yet to experience it. Apart from that, my experiences have been good. I own a home a car and at the same time rent an apartment, work and I have my own business and I'm not even light skinned! There are different sub culture groups in every community. Here you achieve these things through hard work and having your priorities right. I'm very happy and I enjoy raising my children here.
There was a black middle and upper class before civil rights.
A good comparison would be comparing NYC with London. Both have similar sized West Indian populations, NYC I think a bit larger. But NYC population is extremely segregated, living almost entirely among other blacks (whatever their origins), as nearly no local white residents. I don't think London has anything to the extreme levels of ethnic and racial segregation found in NYC. Check this out:
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The Caribbean population in NYC and other parts of the USA is better off than that of the UK, and this despite the supposedly higher racism in the USA and the fact that a very high % of these are relatively recent immigrants, whereas in the UK most are either UK born or arrived as young kids.
Some people might not mind a little segregation if they enjoyed more socio economic success.
I also wonder if the black population in London was as large as it is in NYC (2 million) whether there might not be more "racial angst" amongst the native white population there.
I think the fact that they are illegal explains why this may be true. It seems to me (as a Briton) that people in the US (though not necessarily more racist) do seem to be a little bit more obsessed about race, I get the feeling that people there are catagorised by their race eg the term African American or Italian American, Irish American etc..
The notion that in the UK a black person is merely "English" is laughable. I know too many of them who fled to NYC to escape what they perceived as greater barriers to their upward mobility in the UK.
Britain was a more homogeneous country until recently, while the US began as a migrant society, so the dynamics are totally different. It's hard to compare, but there certainly is racism in Britain.
Indeed in the USA we are allowed to a greater degree to maintain our immigrant identities and culture without having it being assumed that we refuse to "fit in".
Lets say Ive never in my life saw a black having to travel in another part of a bus or train.. or sit in a cinema in their own section.. barbaric...
I do not know if you know this but this is 2013. As late as the early 70s there were signs in the UK saying that "no n.....s" for people looking for employees or tenants.
As some one who lived in London in the late 70s and moved to NYC in the early 80s London was agood deal more racist a city than NYC. Racist attacks were routine in London then.
Yes London has changed, but so has NYC. So using archaic examples to prove your point is dishonest.
Let's blame everything on the South and totally forget about Dr. King having bottles thrown at him when he marched through Chicago, or little black children who were spit on and cursed at for being bussed to schools in all white neighborhoods in Boston, or the numerous race related attacks that occurred in New York City during the late 80's.
Let's forget that the most segregated cities in the U.S today are all Northern cities (Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, the list goes on and on).
Nope only those darn Southerners were the problem
I happen to agree with you. While Jim Crow was de jure in the South it was de facto every where else in the USA. So northerners feeling superior to southerners as they claim to be less racist are as silly as when UK folks pretend that racsm is a US thing.
Racial minorities in the UK are small and insignificant and even diverse London is a good deal whiter than most large US cities. Non white ethnic groups are also more mobilized and able to impact on policy in the USA than the UK due to these larger numbers.
So maybe the racial hysteria might be less in the UK than in the USA, which is going to become a majority "nonwhite" country within a generation or two. Knowing what I know of the British, given similar demographics they would be even more hostile than the Americans are, as most have a much narrower notion of "Englishness" than people in the US have of "Americanness".
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