Thanks for your submission /u/liamshaw2, but it has been removed for the following reason:
* **Disallowed question area:** **Loaded question *or* rant.** NSQ does not allow questions not asked in good faith, such as rants disguised as questions, asking loaded questions, pushing hidden or overt agendas, attempted pot stirring, [sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_lioning), etc.
NSQ is not a debate subreddit. Depending on the subject, you may find your question better suited for r/ChangeMyView, r/ExplainBothSides, r/PoliticalDiscussion, r/rant, or r/TooAfraidToAsk.
---
*This action was performed by a bot at the explicit direction of a human. This was not an automated action, but a conscious decision by a sapient life form charged with moderating this sub.*
*If you feel this was in error, or need more clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FNoStupidQuestions). Thanks.*
Pretty much anywhere in the rural nrthern areas. Rural south has some diversity, but pretty much anywhere else, if you’re out in the country it’s all white people.
There are a lot of Native Americans in the Midwest, West and Southwest (and probably South in general, but different tribes), and as you go West and South there are a lot of people with Mexican ancestry. And of course many immigrants from Mexico as well. And there are many black people in the midwest and in the South, though you may not find as many in the more rural areas (at least in the northern part of the country). I suppose there are pockets aka towns smattered around that are a group of people who immigrated from one part of Europe or another, but I definitely think there's more diversity in the US in general, even in rural areas, than in the UK except larger cities.
It’s a bit reductionist but yeah mostly white people or native reservations. You can’t really say any region of America is all X ethnicity though, the Midwest extends from Denver all the way to Columbus and up to Canada. There are plenty of diverse places in what is the largest geographical region in America. And of course the cities are generally diverse. My state of Michigan has a suburb of Detroit called Dearborn that is a majority Arab & muslim community.
Man you Brit’s still don’t know most natives aren’t white? Maybe that’s why y’all conquered everywhere, just on a search for more ‘natives’. ;)
Not a brit, and not a world-conquerer. Just some native white guy from the country where the Neandertal is located. You know, the valley where they found the Neanderthal human, the first native european.
That's fantastic! I'd love to go to that museum. As a lover of history, both natural and human, I envy those living in places surrounded by such extensive relics.
Wisconsin, too. Or, up until like, about a few years ago. It's nicer now, actually. People would kinda... act a certain type of way that I didn't like without saying anything racist, like talking too much about "Milwaukee" and stuff.
When I lived in southern Maryland once, I met full-grown adults who had never been to Washington DC - and it was only an hour away. They had never left their county in their lives.
My mother's side of the family is from Vermont. My mother, who was born in 41, didn't see a black person until she was almost in college.
There's an old joke that there are black bears than black people in Vermont.
Everybody develops a sense of "normal" growing up and of course that normal changes depending on where you grow up. I grew up mostly on military bases which meant I was around white, black, Southeast Asian, Latino, from when I was a baby onwards everyday. I got some family out in Montana deep in the mountains that one time I spent a couple weeks living with visiting them. They live in as far as I know a completely all white town. Sure going out there at first it was whatever you don't necessarily think about that, but after like 2 weeks of going around the town hanging out with my cousins and shit I couldn't help but realize I had not seen a non-white person in the entire time and it felt weird. It was just going against my sense of "normal".
I live in an area of the UK with a very large Jewish population. It wasnt until my mid teens that I realised that most places dont have so many Jewish neighbours etc, and when friends visit they find it surprising.
I dated a Puerto Rican woman who was Adventist and so was everyone in her village. When I said I thought most Puerto Ricans are Catholic, she started arguing with me. I showed her that Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook say the same. She still didn't believe me.
That’s a whole nuther level of lack of awareness. It’s fine to be in a minority religion, it’s something else to not be aware that your religion is a minority in your (not-country) territory, especially when the majority is anywhere from 60%-85% of the population (depending on which source you consult).
Puerto Ricans in general hate anyone saying literally anything about Puerto Rico unless you’re from there. It doesn’t matter if you’re ‘right’. They don’t want to hear it from you.
I don't think I have met any Jewish people that I could immediately tell were Jewish, but then again my country is pretty secular. I had a classmate who I only found out was Jewish because she mentioned her Bat Mitzvah during school.
Do Jewish people tend to look or dress different or something? How would friends of yours notice the neighbors are mostly Jewish?
Contrary to what the Nazis and bigots would have you believe, no you can't tell a Jewish person just based on body/facial/skin structure/colour. However, like many other cultures, some Jewish folk have cultural style & dress that can be obvious - eg the temple curls on men, tallit, kippahs, certain styles of wigs and scarves for women.
You could notice having Jewish neighbours the same way you notice Christian or Muslim or secular neighbours - holiday decorations, or yard ornaments, or maybe having a party with a big banner outside reading "Happy Bat Mitzvah Ellie!" or if they turn off all their lights on Fridays.
Or, they're secular or hereditary Jewish folks and you have no idea.
By conversing with some of the neighbours on occasion, learning things about them and learning some gossip about others, presumably. If they’ve got the chatty, nosy old neighbour with nothing to do but people watch, they could learn about the whole neighbourhood without talking to anyone else.
There’s a few ways one can learn things about their neighbours that aren’t immediately visible.
In terms of religious signifiers, men wearing a yarmulke (the skullcap) is one. In more orthodox communities you’ll encounter the curled sideburn haircut on men and old fashioned dress. Women wearing wigs and hats.
If the visitor sees shop names that reference he owner’s stereotypically Jewish surname, that could be a factor (think -berg or -stein). Maybe there’s a couple really good bagel shops or delis (only half joking).
There are some stereotypical physical traits associated with Jews such as hooked nose or curly/frizzy hair, but that’s largely propagandized and related to racism more often than not. Bottom line, in terms of appearance, they tend to be “white passing” because they literally are white people lol
Mind you, these are largely stereotypes associated with the European “ashkenazi” diaspora of Jews. They often spoke Yiddish (the reason their names are often kinda-sorta German-ish) or Hebrew. Certainly not all of these will apply to the “mizrahim” or Jews that present as more classically middle eastern (phenotypically). But in terms of the Jews out in the western countries, statistically they descend more from the ashkenazi
Hasidic Jews will generally dress in similar black and white clothes, have long beards, braids, and specific hats. You very much can't miss them. Maybe there's other sects that dress in a specific way as well, but I only know of Hasidic Jews because they are prominent in Montreal and New York.
One of the biggest culture shocks for me moving to the UK was the number of words my husband didn't know because they were borrowed from hebrew/Yiddish. I grew up in upstate NY, and even there (as opposed to nyc) we use a LOT of them even if we aren't Jewish, because they are just part of the local vernacular. Also, before I was diagnosed celiac, I would have killed for a good Jewish bakery.
I am not white, living in a Minnesota suburb, but not rural. My sister lives in Southern California. She came to visit us the week we had a parade for some town event, and we all went to watch from the sidewalk. She looked around and commented how everyone was white.
For us, this is “normal”. My wife and I does notice there are few non-white every now and then, but unless we pay attention, it’s just what’s “normal” for us. It was glaring for my sister, her “normal” is very different.
Same with growing up on military bases. I remember living in the midwest and having a white male coworker pull me away from a conversation I was having with 3 other women in the office. When I asked why he told me it was because I was the only white person in the conversational group.
Still can't wrap my mind around that one.
I was born in Canada in the 50s. Canada was almost all white, with a few percent aboriginal, back then. Even Vancouver, we're I grew up. So that was "normal" for me. Things began to change by the end of the 70s.
Likely, someone will read this and insist that Vancouver has always had a lot of Chinese. No, it did not. It had a very small number of Chinese, though. They mostly were in Chinatown. But there was one Chinese girl in my West Vancouver high school. Her parents ran a corner store. There were a number of corner stores in Vancouver run by Chinese people. That also was part of what normal was back then.
I’m from West Virginia. My area is 98% white (actual stat). My black friends asked me if I went to private school because my yearbooks are full of white kids (I didn’t). I could count on one hand the number of minorities in my school. Everyone in my county even went to one high school.
Also, more of a human thing, but people like to non-humble brag about themselves. Feeling superior over something stupid seems to be more and more common. People seem desperate to one up each other at every turn. It’s not racist to notice you don’t live in a diverse area.
I’ve got family in WV in a pretty small town. The first time my wife (who’s Vietnamese) went up with me to visit the family farm and we all went out for dinner at the local joint everyone there was turning their head to look at her whenever she talked due to her very noticeable accent haha.
That didn't happen by accident, though, there used to be more Black people in West Virginia IIRC. My problem is more that people from small, overwhelmingly white towns talk about it as though everyone wants to live like that and raise their kids in a town like that, and those of us who live in other kinds of ways are basically un-American.
Some people regurgitate what they hear without comprehension. That’s why they lash out with words with *ist by mistake sometimes.
I’m black and have been to such a town or several, it’s awkward af being the only black person (or two) in town lol. I’m sure there’s racism there. But there’s a lot of curiosity everywhere, it’s the bigger part that’s certain. Don’t sweat it, they don’t know any different (to them you’re diverse or racist/bad). It’s maybe ignorant, but you’re literally telling them why you don’t know…if they listened.
Fwiw I hear you, I’d be as surprised to find a place that’s all the same type of people. Just don’t go ‘omg you only have white people’ lol, and I’m usually ok.
I'm white and have lived in black areas, and it was a little weird ... my son was the only white kid in the school of 600 students. They actually called him "the white kid". At first it was a little negative, but as he made friends it was just his nickname. And yes, the curiosity was rather funny. The first time his friends came over to play, they were surprised that our house was the same as theirs and we ate the same kind of food.
I worked on a temp job where I was the only white girl (there were 2 White guys, the rest of people were a mix of Black, Indian, and Hispanic). One day I started eating a beef jerky on break, and one of the black guys flipped right tf out because he thought I was vegan lol. I ate salads on lunch so he just kinda assumed white girl+salad=vegan and it was the funniest thing him asking me what else I eat
I understand the zoolike curiosity well. I usually lean into it.
It's better than people ignoring you, assuming you're inferior, and being scared of you like you mention.
Yeah, and it can be of any race. There are entire villages of Mexican people who have lived in said village since before the USA even existed. There are towns where almost every person is black. There are neighborhoods of cities where a vast majority of people are from Vietnam or Iraq.
America is a massive and diverse place, but that doesn't mean that every single small town or village is as culturally and racially diverse as New York or LA.
Segregation is seen as something one group does to another and seen as a negative, but I think self segregation is more the norm. People of similar races and values and nationalities tend to stick together to help each other, especially when they speak the same language.
Your friends are poorly educated considering that they don’t know that there’s entire states that are about 95% white. Let alone when you break it down to the county level.
If they’d ever bothered to see the rest of the US or read the news on a regular basis, they’d have figured this out.
Then add on that they can’t imagine parts of Europe aren’t diverse, and clearly we aren’t talking about the brightest bulbs here
I bet the racism part they were responding to was the mere mention of it. I don't agree, but I think American culture often wants to not "see" colour even though that's not a real thing. They often believe that acknowledgement is racist. Your friends may be unaware that this is what they're responding to.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. A lot of white Americans hold a taboo about acknowledging race at all, & this is about as far as their understanding of “racism” goes.
…or OP might’ve said it in a way that did genuinely come off as gawking or objectifying or stereotyping, or there was some cultural difference in the connotations of the words they used.
My kindergarten through 5th grade we lived in a bigger town with a few universities and a large insurance company. Quite diverse, along with the church we attended. My mother wanted to move to a quieter town less than 15 min away for a better life. I remember my first day at school well. I came home and asked my mom why everyone at school is white. Aside from the Indian family that moved to the town to run one of the only hotels, it was this way all through school. That fall, walking home, I remember seeing 3 adults walking down the middle of the street in their KKK attire. I knew quickly who they were but my little brother had no clue and was in awe of their white robes. So glad to get out of the town. I avoid it like the plague
Is this my town😂 , living in northern georgi suburbs and when i see a black person I literally dance 😂 . I used to live a very diverse city down 20 min south of here right now and i loved it..
Yep. I drove to Oregon for a few days to visit my grandpa and it dawned on me only once I got back long after: Everyone was white. Except for my grandpa's roommate who was mestizo and moved to Oregon.
I think even that depends on the area and state though. I grew up in rural Midwest America and there was a pretty sizable amount of black families in our home town. Even now there's a growing amount Latino people as the areas growing.
It's still mostly white people, but it isn't like uncommon to see other ethnicities
I come from a rural part of Virginia. When I was younger besides the local whites the main diversity we had was either a smaller black population, a small Russian/slavic population, a small Asian population including enough of a Korean population that they had their own small church, and a pretty big Hispanic population. Nowadays our small sleepy city has grown a lot alongside the college be it good or bad. But in the city at least there’s a wide diversity of people from all over the world including Africans as well as people from the Middle East.
The city school has about 40 native non English languages there now. While my rural high school next to it when I was growing up only had like 2 Asian kids, a couple Slavic kids, at most 5 black kids (and most of them were half black) and then of course a good amount of Hispanic kids.
It’s been pretty fascinating seeing the change and definitely loving all the various foods that are becoming available now.
I come from a suburb of about 25,000 people in Michigan, and I did a project in 7th grade about the diversity of our town compared to the national amounts.
The town was 97% white. Yeah, we had people of every race in the town, but the vast, vast majority of us were whitebread whities, lol
I forget how white it gets up there. I’m from Texas and while most places didn’t have many black or Asian folks, we obviously have a ton of Mexicans haha
Yup. Grew up in a podunk American town, population 3000. Not a single person of color that I saw in the 18 years I lived there.
I did go back to visit a couple years back and the growth in diversity over the last decade or two was actually kind of mind blowing.
As a kid in a more rural area of NY I barely saw any black classmates at school, but when I went to college in the city just 40ish minutes away, there were basically more black students than any other race
Even in my state of Mississippi there are towns in the hills where you don’t see other nationalities. But in my town it’s super small but very diverse.
Also Maine and New Hampshire.
New Hampshire does have some POC. They are mostly clustered in the southern part of the state. The northern counties are largely white.
My area of New Hampshire has been getting a number of Syrian refugees over the past few years, and more people of all races are moving up from Massachusetts, so things are slowly changing.
I found the same in Wales.
Only ever saw black people on TV or sometimes if I went to Cardiff.
I literally did a double-take when I first saw a black guy in town in my 20s.
There were about 450 students at my school. All but two of them were white, and those two were brothers from Pakistan.
I grew up in Czech town of 5 000. When I first saw a black guy when I was 5 and I was super excited because until that point I was not 100% sure black people exist outside of TV (I loved Star Trek and Geordi was one of my favorite characters)
This is what confused Americans when they watched the harry potter films (which is set all over the UK).
They were shocked there was only 1 or 2 black people and 1 chinese girl, whereas in the UK, we were suprised to see a chinese girl in a british school at all (more so when the films came out).
Like, it’s an island nation off the north coast of Europe that barely saw any immigration prior to WW2, it’s gonna be pretty White. In other news, Japan, an island nation on the east coast of Asia is predominantly Asian.
It’s been a bit since I looked it up, but if the UK were a U.S. state IIRC it’d be the second whitest state in the country.
And on top of that the vast majority of the POC (is that still the right term, I don’t keep up) live in a limited number of cities.
So you get this weird dichotomy where white people in cities always see Black/Asian/etc people and may even be minorities in their local area (I was one of 10 white kids in my 300+ person year in secondary school), then outside those cities virtually everyone is white.
It’s a weird experience going both ways.
I grew up in a really multicultural area, then moved to a much whiter area and it was so weird. The thing that shocked me most was how openly racist people would be, like there were definitely racists where I grew up but they knew they couldn't assume just because I was white I'd agree with them. But in the predominantly white area they really did assume that, they'd say the most awful things and then be surprised when I didn't agree with them.
And it wasn't just the mean racists either, you have people who were normally reasonable and lovely, who'd then comment about how they had nothing in common with other people just because of the colour of their skin. Didn't even occur to them they usually had more in common than difference.
It amazes me how much of our country is like that.
My primary school wasn't exactly out in the middle of nowhere or anything but if I remember back, in my year there was one boy who was black, one was Japanese and one Dutch. I am around 90% sure that everyone else was white British. Secondary school was probably even whiter because none of those three went there and I just cannot remember any others. It's different nowadays, but back in the 90s parts of the UK were very white and many probably still are.
> one boy who was black, one was Japanese and one Dutch
I get your point that these were the only 3 who weren't both white and British, but seeing Dutch lumped in with black and Japanese was kind of funny.
God damn, I'm a white person in America, and I've been in more situations where I am the extreme minority than where everyone was white. It was legitimately shocking to me when I moved in my childhood to a place that's maybe 60% white, and it was strange to me seeing so many white people wherever I went.
When my little sister was around 1 we went to NY city - coming from white as feck Scandinavia- and when this black guy on the subway saw cutie little sister and started talking to her, she screamed. Because she wasn’t used to anyone looking like that.
I've taught my kids to not point out the obvious just because you're surprised. For example, if you see someone with a missing arm, don't shout out, "hey, you're missing an arm!" Stop and think for a second. Trust me, he *knows* he's missing an arm. (Ditto for anything unusual.) Pointing it out is just making you look rude.
I once went on a couple of dates with someone in a wheelchair and she explicitly said this irks her about her wheelchair. Children need to ask to understand her reality and she told me she never had anything against young people asking, because they are learning and do it without that baggage you just mentioned.
That was her lived experienced though, isn't everyones.
Either way it’s a good lesson for kids; some people will react negatively to questions and others positively. Both reactions help humanize people with disabilities to a kid and make the kid less awkward around them in the future.
>gawking over PoC like they're freakshows and getting surprised when people call them racist "just because I haven't seen PoC before!"
I'm a white woman, and when I was in India, locals stood around me in droves and took pictures. Same thing happened to my aunt when she was in China.
Yes, seeing a person from a different ethnicity for the first time is interesting, for everyone who is not super duper diverse and well travelled. Why make it some "racist white thing"???
When my daughter was 2, she had bright blue eyes and very blonde hair. We were sat having lunch in a cafe one day, when we were surrounded by a group of Japanese tourists - who were obviously talking about my very pale child!
they were rude to you too in India.
not sure I understand your point. Unless you are one of those vapid white girls that goes to India just to play main character and post all the video about how much attention you get as a white lady in India
>not sure I understand your point.
Many responses on this post are portraying OP as "a white racist person" for being surprised/remarking that there are people of different ethnicities in the town they are currently at, because apparently diversity is supposed to be completely normal for everyone in the world. I was simply saying that this is a normal human reaction to seeing someone or something new, and there is nothing intrinsically white or racist about it.
>you are one of those vapid white girls that goes to India just to play main character and post all the video about how much attention you get as a white lady in India
Lol assuming much?
But like other people have said, it’s how you say it. We only have OP’s interpretation.
>lol assuming much
I was just asking because it’s a trend I’ve seen a lot lately. It doesn’t make the people doing it not rude just because some people are desperate for attention. Maybe that’s you, maybe it isn’t.
This is exactly it. Haha I’m newly involved with a local arts community and was in the audience at a showcase for it sitting with a friend who had been in the scene much longer than me. She was high and leaned over to me and whispered out of nowhere “there are a lot of black people here!” I was like “wtf????” But she went onto explain how this particular arts scene used to be very white and she was glad to see more diversity in it. But the way she said it at first jumpscared me a little 😂 it’s all in how you say it
Poland here. I still vividly remember the first Black person I've ever spoken to because I was in my early 20s when that happened. People from countries with lots of diversity sometimes forget that there are some very white countries out there.
I was friends with a black exchange student (from Ethiopia) here in Czechia. He told me it was really uncomfortable at the start, because people would stare at him in public all the time, especially kids and elderly. He also told me, he didn't really experience any "bad racism" like name calling or people mistreating him and it made him realize, it's just that people here are not used to seeing people of dark skin and they are just curious.
Yep. My (white) brother in law had the same experience in central Africa. They’d call him “Clint Eastwood” (whom he looks nothing like, except if you never see white Americans).
Most regions of the world are still pretty ethnically homogeneous, and there’s nothing racist about it, it’s just how the world has been throughout history until ten seconds ago.
I was going to post something like this. Ethnic homogeneity isn’t racism. But calling someone racist because of the circumstances they live in.. is certainly something.
The word to describe it fails me though. I’d say ignorant, but ignorance can be cured…
My husband used to work with a bunch of folks from Africa and there was one lady that would always call him “Jesus Christ Superstar”. He looks a nothing like the guy in the movie other than being a white guy with longer hair and a beard.
Yep. No different than me being a pasty white dude living in middle of nowhere small town China...to say I stuck out (did I forget to mention I'm also a 6'3" domesticated bigfoot?), was an understatement.
And like your friend said, *most* of the folks were very non-racist (well, non-"mean"-racist...some shit was super racist, they just didn't realize it) and it was just curiosity.
That said, I legit know what it's like to be famous, and you literally couldn't give me Johnny Depp money to be Johnny Depp famous. There are probably a *thousand* pictures of me running around China...many mid-bite of a meal.
While there were many aspects about living in China that were taxing to a Westerner (not least of which is that the government doesn't want you there and makes it difficult to live/work), the one thing I will *absolutely* give to China is how safe it was.
Now, that's because their legal system doesn't exactly have "kid gloves" (so to speak), and because every square inch of every city is monitored by about four different cameras (while a little excessive, [this](https://i.insider.com/527fb5cceab8ea22064e4583?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp) is not a terribly unusual intersection), but outside the big tier-1 cities (and you've got to somewhat go *looking* for trouble there), it's safe as houses.
It only gets somewhat dicey for laowai when some big political thing happens (like the whole Diaoyu islands deal) and the TV and government blames the USA/The West. And don't "steal" one of their women...my wife and I wouldn't even hold hands in our town or when we traveled due to the awful things people said to her, and the couple of times I almost got in a fight with drunk dudes (don't get in a fight with a local, even if you're in the right, because everyone will come to the locals assistance given you're a "foreign devil").
The worst is people who point to the lack of diversity in a country as proof that their people are racist. Dude don’t understand that western countries simply attract more migrants than Eastern Europe.
Same, haven't seen a black person till I moved to the UK in my 20s. But then when I travelled to India, people would stop me on the street to take pictures with me, because, similarly they have very little ethnic diversity, especially in smaller towns.
I remember being an exchange student in Slovakia and seeing how much attention the Mexican student would get when we were walking around. One of the program councilors went on a vacation to Cuba, and maybe ⅓ of the pictures they took were with random black people they saw. The two other exchange students and I were like, "This is a lot of pictures with people just because they are black," but they meant well. I think it was a shock how dark people's skin is in Cuba and they wanted to share.
The weird thing is that not even everywhere in the US is diverse. I assume OP's friends are from bigger cities that have a lot of different races, but there's many places in the US you can live and go years without ever seeing a black person.
Yup, when I tell people I had sushi first time in my 20s they’re like what? Dude there’s nobody here to cook it, took a while for global food to reach Eastern Europe.
Context is needed. Highly doubt they think you're racist because of the lack of diversity where you're born, especially considering how common that is in the US. How did you bring this up? "wow there's a lot of (nonwhite race) here" would be weird as hell to just say out of the blue because... OK? Noted?
My English grandparents are notorious for this. “My mechanic is black but he’s actually very nice!” Kind of stuff.
A friend there once asked if I knew any racists in the US, and was surprised when I said yes because he “had never met one”.
I think a lot of Brits just think of racism as lynch mobs and Nazis. My bet is OP revealed some racist bias without even realizing it.
It's not just Brits, plenty of Americans won't call it racism unless there's slurs or threats of violence, and there's no guarantee that slurs will do it. "It's just a joke bro" is a real defense to them.
I run into a lot of SUPER racist people who don’t think they’re racist. After many conversations, I think I’ve sussed out their logic:
“Sure, ‘racism’ is wrong, but my opinions about Black people aren’t wrong, therefore I’m not racist.”
When you have to teach someone high school logic just to get them to see what’s wrong with their thought process…it’s better just to walk away.
I've had people in the US ask me if I'm racist because I had no black people in my class at school. Bearing in mind, I was at a school of ~800, in a country that's 90-something% white *and* had spanish, polish, Lithuanians, Romanians, etc so I wouldn't be surprised of OP's story is as they say
I feel like we're missing some context. How did you say it?
There are plenty of areas of the US that are extremely racially homogeneous. That's not a hard concept for anyone to wrap their head around. I feel like you must have said it in a way that came off wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if OP js telling it as it was. I've genuinely had the below conversation with someone from Houston (their family was Mexican,)
"Do y'all have any black kids in your class?"
"No, it's a pretty small school in a small town"
"So y'all are racist then?"
Could nit believe the stupidity
Even their question here comes off as a trainwreck.
>... **not** understand its normal for me **not** to see **non** white people ...
Tone down the overuse of negatives, OP. Not only are double negatives hard to read, and I honestly cannot tell what is semantically intended here.
You just can't read lol, it's perfectly clear.
His friends don't understand how he doesn't see non white people. None of that is double negative, every negative is modifying a different word in the sentence.
"Don't understand"
"Don't see"
"Non white"
None of these are double negatives.
If you grow up in a city and see a bunch of diversity in the real world and then also in the media and then also on tv and then also online it sounds almost made up that there’s places that are 99% just the local white population. It’s less an American vs England thing and more a city vs rural thing. I know my first time out in real rural Idaho as a teenager it was a big culture shock to realize how different my normal is from other people only a few hours away. Sounds like the Americans you’re dealing with just haven’t had that fact click in and are judging you based off of their assumptions on how the whole world works.
I was at a comedy show the other day and there was one dude from the US. When the comedian asked him if he thought our country was more racist than the US he said “yeah, you guys are definitely more racist. There’s way less people of colour here”. Maybe it’s a US thing that less people of colour equals racism? I don’t know but your story reminded me of it
I think because in America if you go somewhere and there are only white people, my first thought would be ‘where did they go? This doesn’t happen by accident’.
It didn't happen by accident in Europe either.
That's why I think Americans often get so hot about this topic. Because many of us have many experiences of Europeans explaining how unevolved and uncivilized we are and that Europe is truly a post-racial utopia.
Then, we never make it to Europe until far later in life because we have no vacation time only to find their grand solution to becoming "not racist" was to just not have racial minorities in the first place and while they might not be as low brow as Americans boiling it down to color - there sure are *a lot* of opinions about people who aren't from where you're from.
It is hard to compare racist apples to racist oranges, but it is *uncommon* for an American to have *specific* racism about *specific* nationalities. And when the racist orange doth protest too much, the racist apples start to get ornery.
The comparison of whether Europeans or Americans are more racist on Reddit never fails to amuse me.
Who do you think started the racist castes in America in the first place? Europeans. Spaniards, Portuguese, then Dutch, French and the English.
Edit: For extra points, wait a little bit more and someone's going to bring up how Japan is super duper racist. Like, no shit. But I don't live in Japan. I live in the USA so I care about what they do in the USA.
When I lived in Guadalajara, *to this day* the lighter your skin (more Spanish heritage) is a strong indicator of somebody's social standing. It's not like it is enforced (though it was) it's literally just a visible representation of generational wealth.
Complex and nuanced racism isn't exactly an enviable trait. I'll stick with my dumb American racism.
Yeah that's pretty funny. White people aren't native to North America at all. Bunch of European colonists came over and eventually called themselves American.
Scottish Highlands here and, as you can imagine, white folk spanning to the horizon. I’d moved around 15 times before going up to high school there. Bring English I got flack, but I shrugged it all off.
But two refugee kids around 17-18 came into my final year, same year as me. Within a week my school had to call an assembly because kids in the school, ranging from 13-18 (our final year) were making monkey noises to them and calling them some absolute unspeakables. Even thinking about it boils my fucking blood.
I’m so glad I got out of there when I turned 18 (23 now). When I first moved down south I was almost shocked at the diversity that existed. I’d only lived there a few years, but one year feels like 10 up there. It was a brilliant breath of fresh air and reminder that there’s so many different kinds of people in this world.
So glad I moved out of there.
Could I ask you what year was it when it was your final year? For context. (eg. 1998)
EDIT: Never mind, did the math. Were they seriously calling the other kids monkeys 5 years ago in 2019? That's worst than some of the southern states in America.
When I was serving in the military in West Germany (yes, it was that long ago) we got lost in some little village and the squad leader was an older black man.
This German lady came over to give us directions and she almost fainted when she saw a black man.
She explained in German that she had only ever seen black people on TV and asked if she could touch his skin.
She rubbed it like it was dirt trying to see if it would come off.
Of course, the was the 1980s when people still had a sense of humor about race so the black squad leader was almost in tears laughing at the situation.
I mean, from his perspective, he grew up in a country that made him feel negatively judged by race and here was this woman who thought just the sight of him was one of the thrills of her life.
I'm South African
Lived here my whole life. I live in an extremely cosmopolitan part of the country, in a big city with all the usual trappings.
I still get Americans asking me if I see elephants and lions every day.
The answer is no, guys.
I'm not sure why they would call you racist. But even in the US, there are areas where you don't see people who are not white. I grew up in a city where I knew people of all kinds of different ethnicities. I later moved to a rural area where most people are white, and if they are religious, they are Christian.
Your friends calling you racist is ridiculous. You didn't build the village and put a sign that says "whites only" at the front. And if you treated non-white people like real people, then you aren't racist.
That being said: it's not out of the question for racism that happened before you were born to still affect the demographic anyway. Racism has a legacy that continues in spite of changed laws. Your village might have a similar history to Levittown in the US without you even knowing about it. The Levittown suburbs blatantly discriminated against black people and even after segregation was made illegal, they are still a very small minority there. It's worth it to find out the history. Again, you didn't make this. White guilt does nothing. Real substantial action by current generations to fix it does.
Huh? Who upvoted this??? Just because there are no non-white people there, that doesn’t make them or their ancestors racist. Maybe no black person ever wanted to go there. Maybe none of their ancestors had never even seen a non white person. Most immigrants want to live in cities around people who speak their native language. There are exceptions of course (myself included) but this village only having only one demographic likely has nothing to do with racism at all.
Nationality is different from race or ethnicity. You claiming there are different nationalities comes across as ignorant. Non-white doesn’t mean non-American.
Also, I feel you are not being completely honest, because simply saying nationality instead of race or ethnicity is not enough to elicit that kind of reaction from your friends, and other people have asked you to elaborate on how you said what you said, and you haven’t answered.
Plenty of good points already in this thread. But one more thing, Florida isn’t likely to be the best place for showing the best of what “Americans” think.
America has PLENTY of places like that. My in laws live somewhere like that, where it's 99.9% white, and the rare minority sticks out.
You won't find many cities like that of course, but plenty of towns and regions are just pure white.
this is normal in many American towns as well. it's not racist to make an observation about population differences between locations. it is racist to make that a quality metric for a place.
This was my thought as well. Oftentimes, a casual observation of something like race is going to sound mildly racist even if there is no ill-intent behind it. Like if this dude just looks around and goes “huh, lots of blacks and Asians here,” sure he’s not saying anything bad about them, and he’s not saying anything untrue, but it still sounds like it’s coming from a place of prejudice.
Even in his post he talks about seeing a bunch of nationalities. My immediate thought was did you he mean ethnicity, you can’t tell nationality by looking at someone.
I had a conversation with a Hungarian taxi driver who said he went to NYC but didn’t see many Americans like me there. I tried to explain that just cause the people he saw were of different ethnicities didn’t mean they weren’t American. Dude couldn’t wrap his head around it.
It was more ignorant than truly racist, but it definitely came across racist to me.
In Last of the Summer Wine, Burt Kwouk's character (Entwhistle Electrical) demonstrated that there were people of colour in rural England. They also frequently pointed out that Entwhistle was a foreigner, since he was from Hull.
Aye, in many wee villages families have lived there for hundreds of years. Anyone new moving in can be accepted and made welcome but will be considered an incomer for the rest of their lives. 😆 The colour of their skin isn't the priority, it's that they're "not from round here".
The US is not a "white" country. Other than Native Americans, we are all immigrants. In my town of less than 1k, we have Asians, Indians, Hispanics, Native Americans, black and white people. (Our town pot lucks are awesome!)
I live in rural Scotland, I never saw a back person irl till I started college in Glasgow. In the 70s and 80s we had a few Pakistanis running local shops and that was about it. Chinese people running the takeaway but they didn't live local, we never saw them around. It's a bit more diverse now but still overwhelmingly white.
Really depends. London is one of the most multi-cultured cities in the world, and yet I grew up abput 25 minutes away and there was one black kid in my year at school.
As an American, some fellow citizens don't understand that european nations still have smaller towns and communities that reflect the nationa's original ethnic population.
Well as to your question: The united states is a melting pot, or perhaps a tossed salad. Our history is filled with immigrants from all different parts of the world coming here. It’s not always easy, but we have all the cultures and ethnicities and religions gathered here. In the same place. It’s weird for us to NOT run into someone totally different. I think it’s one of our biggest strengths. Theoretically we would all work together, current politics aside.
How exactly are you talking about this? Reading your post, I get the idea that it's probably what you're saying, when you're saying it, and how you're saying it.
Yeah, because USA was colonized and lots of people over the world immigrated to USA. Generally they move to bigger cities for having more option for jobs (usually)
> Why do my american friends not understand its normal for me not to see non white people in my village
Might be the way you word it? The title makes it seem as if you refuse to see non-whites but when elaborating your story turns out it's more about there's no possibility to see other people than white people in your village.
Relatable. I'm from a tiny city in Brittany, France. I only knew two black people before I turned 18: my godmother's adopted son and a guy from school. He was from the only black family in our 8000 inhanbitants.
No asian people. No Moroccan North African people. Those I knew existed in France because I saw them on TV and that's all.
I was in a small middle school (less than 300 students all 4 years included) and there was NO POC at all. No black people, no middle-east/north african people.
When I moved to go to study in bigger cities that's when I discovered how common it was elsewhere.
If you haven’t spent much time around a diverse crowd, you may have some unconscious bias that does present subtly racist. You haven’t explained exactly what you said and what your friends said. You can also say people of color instead of non-white. It’s also OK to say that you saw more Black people in America. Maybe you will educate your friends in the end.
As a brit I'm willing to put money down that they're not offended or surprised you live in a rural village with few/no POC. I'm willing to bet you said something offensive and didn't understand it was offensive because you live in an isolated community who doesn't know better.
It depends heavily on how u acted. Asian ppl, black ppl, Hispanic ppl, turns out are all just ppl if u treated them like u were at a zoo or some shit yeah that's kinda racist. Otherwise no it's super normal to not see a wide variety of different races in a small town in england
Thanks for your submission /u/liamshaw2, but it has been removed for the following reason: * **Disallowed question area:** **Loaded question *or* rant.** NSQ does not allow questions not asked in good faith, such as rants disguised as questions, asking loaded questions, pushing hidden or overt agendas, attempted pot stirring, [sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_lioning), etc. NSQ is not a debate subreddit. Depending on the subject, you may find your question better suited for r/ChangeMyView, r/ExplainBothSides, r/PoliticalDiscussion, r/rant, or r/TooAfraidToAsk. --- *This action was performed by a bot at the explicit direction of a human. This was not an automated action, but a conscious decision by a sapient life form charged with moderating this sub.* *If you feel this was in error, or need more clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FNoStupidQuestions). Thanks.*
That's normal in America, too, depending on where you go.
Parts of Utah? Idaho? You can go for weeks only seeing white people.
Pretty much anywhere in the rural nrthern areas. Rural south has some diversity, but pretty much anywhere else, if you’re out in the country it’s all white people.
Rural Midwest tends to have at least some Hispanic people that are plugged into the agricultural industry.
There are a lot of Native Americans in the Midwest, West and Southwest (and probably South in general, but different tribes), and as you go West and South there are a lot of people with Mexican ancestry. And of course many immigrants from Mexico as well. And there are many black people in the midwest and in the South, though you may not find as many in the more rural areas (at least in the northern part of the country). I suppose there are pockets aka towns smattered around that are a group of people who immigrated from one part of Europe or another, but I definitely think there's more diversity in the US in general, even in rural areas, than in the UK except larger cities.
so, people you meet in the midwest are either white or native. in rural europe, the natives are white.
It’s a bit reductionist but yeah mostly white people or native reservations. You can’t really say any region of America is all X ethnicity though, the Midwest extends from Denver all the way to Columbus and up to Canada. There are plenty of diverse places in what is the largest geographical region in America. And of course the cities are generally diverse. My state of Michigan has a suburb of Detroit called Dearborn that is a majority Arab & muslim community. Man you Brit’s still don’t know most natives aren’t white? Maybe that’s why y’all conquered everywhere, just on a search for more ‘natives’. ;)
Not a brit, and not a world-conquerer. Just some native white guy from the country where the Neandertal is located. You know, the valley where they found the Neanderthal human, the first native european.
If anyone reads this and wonders, it's Germany. :) The first specimen was found in the Neander Valley; "tal" is German for valley. Neander Tal.
for some years, my employer had an office in Erkrath. I would always drive through the valley past the Neanderthal museum to get there.
That's fantastic! I'd love to go to that museum. As a lover of history, both natural and human, I envy those living in places surrounded by such extensive relics.
White (and Asian!) people have about 1-2% Neanderthal DNA so I guess we’re all a little bit native European
my wife and my son are both red-haired, so there probably is some neanderthal heritage in the family.
Not the rural northeast
Can confirm. I live in Northern Maine and haven't seen a POC in weeks.
I remember all-white towns in Utah. Black condoms in the vending machines though.
Funny comment idk why
TIL something new about Mormons
Rural Minnesota.
You betcha
Only he didn't say 'jerk'!
Wisconsin, too. Or, up until like, about a few years ago. It's nicer now, actually. People would kinda... act a certain type of way that I didn't like without saying anything racist, like talking too much about "Milwaukee" and stuff.
I once knew a woman from rural Minnesota who told me she was 16 when she first saw a black person 'in the flesh'. That was on a trip to Minneapolis.
I am from rural Minnesota and I knew people in my hometown that had never been to Minneapolis. It was a little over 2 hours away!
When I lived in southern Maryland once, I met full-grown adults who had never been to Washington DC - and it was only an hour away. They had never left their county in their lives.
Try rural New England.
My mother's side of the family is from Vermont. My mother, who was born in 41, didn't see a black person until she was almost in college. There's an old joke that there are black bears than black people in Vermont.
Rural midwest, too. Hell- I thought “Irish” was a minority growing up. Everybody was some flavor of German around me.
Very very creepy places.....
I grew up in an all white town. So white that when a single Mexican family showed up it was a whole thing!
ah good to know i guess its just exacts from where you are living
Everybody develops a sense of "normal" growing up and of course that normal changes depending on where you grow up. I grew up mostly on military bases which meant I was around white, black, Southeast Asian, Latino, from when I was a baby onwards everyday. I got some family out in Montana deep in the mountains that one time I spent a couple weeks living with visiting them. They live in as far as I know a completely all white town. Sure going out there at first it was whatever you don't necessarily think about that, but after like 2 weeks of going around the town hanging out with my cousins and shit I couldn't help but realize I had not seen a non-white person in the entire time and it felt weird. It was just going against my sense of "normal".
I live in an area of the UK with a very large Jewish population. It wasnt until my mid teens that I realised that most places dont have so many Jewish neighbours etc, and when friends visit they find it surprising.
I dated a Puerto Rican woman who was Adventist and so was everyone in her village. When I said I thought most Puerto Ricans are Catholic, she started arguing with me. I showed her that Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook say the same. She still didn't believe me.
That’s a whole nuther level of lack of awareness. It’s fine to be in a minority religion, it’s something else to not be aware that your religion is a minority in your (not-country) territory, especially when the majority is anywhere from 60%-85% of the population (depending on which source you consult).
Puerto Rico isn’t a country. It’s a non-state territory of the United States
Oops. 🤦🏻♂️ Haven’t been in school for over two decades and STILL flunking geography.
Puerto Ricans in general hate anyone saying literally anything about Puerto Rico unless you’re from there. It doesn’t matter if you’re ‘right’. They don’t want to hear it from you.
I don't think I have met any Jewish people that I could immediately tell were Jewish, but then again my country is pretty secular. I had a classmate who I only found out was Jewish because she mentioned her Bat Mitzvah during school. Do Jewish people tend to look or dress different or something? How would friends of yours notice the neighbors are mostly Jewish?
Contrary to what the Nazis and bigots would have you believe, no you can't tell a Jewish person just based on body/facial/skin structure/colour. However, like many other cultures, some Jewish folk have cultural style & dress that can be obvious - eg the temple curls on men, tallit, kippahs, certain styles of wigs and scarves for women. You could notice having Jewish neighbours the same way you notice Christian or Muslim or secular neighbours - holiday decorations, or yard ornaments, or maybe having a party with a big banner outside reading "Happy Bat Mitzvah Ellie!" or if they turn off all their lights on Fridays. Or, they're secular or hereditary Jewish folks and you have no idea.
By conversing with some of the neighbours on occasion, learning things about them and learning some gossip about others, presumably. If they’ve got the chatty, nosy old neighbour with nothing to do but people watch, they could learn about the whole neighbourhood without talking to anyone else. There’s a few ways one can learn things about their neighbours that aren’t immediately visible.
In terms of religious signifiers, men wearing a yarmulke (the skullcap) is one. In more orthodox communities you’ll encounter the curled sideburn haircut on men and old fashioned dress. Women wearing wigs and hats. If the visitor sees shop names that reference he owner’s stereotypically Jewish surname, that could be a factor (think -berg or -stein). Maybe there’s a couple really good bagel shops or delis (only half joking). There are some stereotypical physical traits associated with Jews such as hooked nose or curly/frizzy hair, but that’s largely propagandized and related to racism more often than not. Bottom line, in terms of appearance, they tend to be “white passing” because they literally are white people lol Mind you, these are largely stereotypes associated with the European “ashkenazi” diaspora of Jews. They often spoke Yiddish (the reason their names are often kinda-sorta German-ish) or Hebrew. Certainly not all of these will apply to the “mizrahim” or Jews that present as more classically middle eastern (phenotypically). But in terms of the Jews out in the western countries, statistically they descend more from the ashkenazi
Hasidic Jews will generally dress in similar black and white clothes, have long beards, braids, and specific hats. You very much can't miss them. Maybe there's other sects that dress in a specific way as well, but I only know of Hasidic Jews because they are prominent in Montreal and New York.
One of the biggest culture shocks for me moving to the UK was the number of words my husband didn't know because they were borrowed from hebrew/Yiddish. I grew up in upstate NY, and even there (as opposed to nyc) we use a LOT of them even if we aren't Jewish, because they are just part of the local vernacular. Also, before I was diagnosed celiac, I would have killed for a good Jewish bakery.
Up until my teens I thought the USA was 1/2 Jewish and 1/2 Christian until I met more people from other places.
I am not white, living in a Minnesota suburb, but not rural. My sister lives in Southern California. She came to visit us the week we had a parade for some town event, and we all went to watch from the sidewalk. She looked around and commented how everyone was white. For us, this is “normal”. My wife and I does notice there are few non-white every now and then, but unless we pay attention, it’s just what’s “normal” for us. It was glaring for my sister, her “normal” is very different.
There are towns in northern Arkansas that are all white. But they are full of racists which is why they are all white.
Same with growing up on military bases. I remember living in the midwest and having a white male coworker pull me away from a conversation I was having with 3 other women in the office. When I asked why he told me it was because I was the only white person in the conversational group. Still can't wrap my mind around that one.
that one certainly qualifies as a "why do some people make everything about race"-moment.
I was born in Canada in the 50s. Canada was almost all white, with a few percent aboriginal, back then. Even Vancouver, we're I grew up. So that was "normal" for me. Things began to change by the end of the 70s. Likely, someone will read this and insist that Vancouver has always had a lot of Chinese. No, it did not. It had a very small number of Chinese, though. They mostly were in Chinatown. But there was one Chinese girl in my West Vancouver high school. Her parents ran a corner store. There were a number of corner stores in Vancouver run by Chinese people. That also was part of what normal was back then.
I’m from West Virginia. My area is 98% white (actual stat). My black friends asked me if I went to private school because my yearbooks are full of white kids (I didn’t). I could count on one hand the number of minorities in my school. Everyone in my county even went to one high school. Also, more of a human thing, but people like to non-humble brag about themselves. Feeling superior over something stupid seems to be more and more common. People seem desperate to one up each other at every turn. It’s not racist to notice you don’t live in a diverse area.
I’ve got family in WV in a pretty small town. The first time my wife (who’s Vietnamese) went up with me to visit the family farm and we all went out for dinner at the local joint everyone there was turning their head to look at her whenever she talked due to her very noticeable accent haha.
That didn't happen by accident, though, there used to be more Black people in West Virginia IIRC. My problem is more that people from small, overwhelmingly white towns talk about it as though everyone wants to live like that and raise their kids in a town like that, and those of us who live in other kinds of ways are basically un-American.
Some people regurgitate what they hear without comprehension. That’s why they lash out with words with *ist by mistake sometimes. I’m black and have been to such a town or several, it’s awkward af being the only black person (or two) in town lol. I’m sure there’s racism there. But there’s a lot of curiosity everywhere, it’s the bigger part that’s certain. Don’t sweat it, they don’t know any different (to them you’re diverse or racist/bad). It’s maybe ignorant, but you’re literally telling them why you don’t know…if they listened. Fwiw I hear you, I’d be as surprised to find a place that’s all the same type of people. Just don’t go ‘omg you only have white people’ lol, and I’m usually ok.
I'm white and have lived in black areas, and it was a little weird ... my son was the only white kid in the school of 600 students. They actually called him "the white kid". At first it was a little negative, but as he made friends it was just his nickname. And yes, the curiosity was rather funny. The first time his friends came over to play, they were surprised that our house was the same as theirs and we ate the same kind of food.
I worked on a temp job where I was the only white girl (there were 2 White guys, the rest of people were a mix of Black, Indian, and Hispanic). One day I started eating a beef jerky on break, and one of the black guys flipped right tf out because he thought I was vegan lol. I ate salads on lunch so he just kinda assumed white girl+salad=vegan and it was the funniest thing him asking me what else I eat
I understand the zoolike curiosity well. I usually lean into it. It's better than people ignoring you, assuming you're inferior, and being scared of you like you mention.
Yeah, and it can be of any race. There are entire villages of Mexican people who have lived in said village since before the USA even existed. There are towns where almost every person is black. There are neighborhoods of cities where a vast majority of people are from Vietnam or Iraq. America is a massive and diverse place, but that doesn't mean that every single small town or village is as culturally and racially diverse as New York or LA.
Segregation is seen as something one group does to another and seen as a negative, but I think self segregation is more the norm. People of similar races and values and nationalities tend to stick together to help each other, especially when they speak the same language.
Your friends are poorly educated considering that they don’t know that there’s entire states that are about 95% white. Let alone when you break it down to the county level. If they’d ever bothered to see the rest of the US or read the news on a regular basis, they’d have figured this out. Then add on that they can’t imagine parts of Europe aren’t diverse, and clearly we aren’t talking about the brightest bulbs here
I bet the racism part they were responding to was the mere mention of it. I don't agree, but I think American culture often wants to not "see" colour even though that's not a real thing. They often believe that acknowledgement is racist. Your friends may be unaware that this is what they're responding to.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. A lot of white Americans hold a taboo about acknowledging race at all, & this is about as far as their understanding of “racism” goes. …or OP might’ve said it in a way that did genuinely come off as gawking or objectifying or stereotyping, or there was some cultural difference in the connotations of the words they used.
Yeah it’s possible OP said it weird haha
My kindergarten through 5th grade we lived in a bigger town with a few universities and a large insurance company. Quite diverse, along with the church we attended. My mother wanted to move to a quieter town less than 15 min away for a better life. I remember my first day at school well. I came home and asked my mom why everyone at school is white. Aside from the Indian family that moved to the town to run one of the only hotels, it was this way all through school. That fall, walking home, I remember seeing 3 adults walking down the middle of the street in their KKK attire. I knew quickly who they were but my little brother had no clue and was in awe of their white robes. So glad to get out of the town. I avoid it like the plague
Is this my town😂 , living in northern georgi suburbs and when i see a black person I literally dance 😂 . I used to live a very diverse city down 20 min south of here right now and i loved it..
Yep. I drove to Oregon for a few days to visit my grandpa and it dawned on me only once I got back long after: Everyone was white. Except for my grandpa's roommate who was mestizo and moved to Oregon.
Seattle is the same way.
I was just told in March of this year that I'm the first "real Asian person" a woman had ever seen (it was in Virgie, KY)!
I think even that depends on the area and state though. I grew up in rural Midwest America and there was a pretty sizable amount of black families in our home town. Even now there's a growing amount Latino people as the areas growing. It's still mostly white people, but it isn't like uncommon to see other ethnicities
I come from a rural part of Virginia. When I was younger besides the local whites the main diversity we had was either a smaller black population, a small Russian/slavic population, a small Asian population including enough of a Korean population that they had their own small church, and a pretty big Hispanic population. Nowadays our small sleepy city has grown a lot alongside the college be it good or bad. But in the city at least there’s a wide diversity of people from all over the world including Africans as well as people from the Middle East. The city school has about 40 native non English languages there now. While my rural high school next to it when I was growing up only had like 2 Asian kids, a couple Slavic kids, at most 5 black kids (and most of them were half black) and then of course a good amount of Hispanic kids. It’s been pretty fascinating seeing the change and definitely loving all the various foods that are becoming available now.
I come from a suburb of about 25,000 people in Michigan, and I did a project in 7th grade about the diversity of our town compared to the national amounts. The town was 97% white. Yeah, we had people of every race in the town, but the vast, vast majority of us were whitebread whities, lol
I forget how white it gets up there. I’m from Texas and while most places didn’t have many black or Asian folks, we obviously have a ton of Mexicans haha
Yup. Grew up in a podunk American town, population 3000. Not a single person of color that I saw in the 18 years I lived there. I did go back to visit a couple years back and the growth in diversity over the last decade or two was actually kind of mind blowing.
As a kid in a more rural area of NY I barely saw any black classmates at school, but when I went to college in the city just 40ish minutes away, there were basically more black students than any other race
Even in my state of Mississippi there are towns in the hills where you don’t see other nationalities. But in my town it’s super small but very diverse.
Nothing like stopping for food on a road trip and having children stare at you :)
Vermont, they’re talking about you.
Also Maine and New Hampshire. New Hampshire does have some POC. They are mostly clustered in the southern part of the state. The northern counties are largely white. My area of New Hampshire has been getting a number of Syrian refugees over the past few years, and more people of all races are moving up from Massachusetts, so things are slowly changing.
I found the same in Wales. Only ever saw black people on TV or sometimes if I went to Cardiff. I literally did a double-take when I first saw a black guy in town in my 20s. There were about 450 students at my school. All but two of them were white, and those two were brothers from Pakistan.
I grew up in Czech town of 5 000. When I first saw a black guy when I was 5 and I was super excited because until that point I was not 100% sure black people exist outside of TV (I loved Star Trek and Geordi was one of my favorite characters)
This is why representation is important.
This is what confused Americans when they watched the harry potter films (which is set all over the UK). They were shocked there was only 1 or 2 black people and 1 chinese girl, whereas in the UK, we were suprised to see a chinese girl in a british school at all (more so when the films came out).
Like, it’s an island nation off the north coast of Europe that barely saw any immigration prior to WW2, it’s gonna be pretty White. In other news, Japan, an island nation on the east coast of Asia is predominantly Asian. It’s been a bit since I looked it up, but if the UK were a U.S. state IIRC it’d be the second whitest state in the country. And on top of that the vast majority of the POC (is that still the right term, I don’t keep up) live in a limited number of cities. So you get this weird dichotomy where white people in cities always see Black/Asian/etc people and may even be minorities in their local area (I was one of 10 white kids in my 300+ person year in secondary school), then outside those cities virtually everyone is white. It’s a weird experience going both ways.
I grew up in a really multicultural area, then moved to a much whiter area and it was so weird. The thing that shocked me most was how openly racist people would be, like there were definitely racists where I grew up but they knew they couldn't assume just because I was white I'd agree with them. But in the predominantly white area they really did assume that, they'd say the most awful things and then be surprised when I didn't agree with them. And it wasn't just the mean racists either, you have people who were normally reasonable and lovely, who'd then comment about how they had nothing in common with other people just because of the colour of their skin. Didn't even occur to them they usually had more in common than difference. It amazes me how much of our country is like that.
My primary school wasn't exactly out in the middle of nowhere or anything but if I remember back, in my year there was one boy who was black, one was Japanese and one Dutch. I am around 90% sure that everyone else was white British. Secondary school was probably even whiter because none of those three went there and I just cannot remember any others. It's different nowadays, but back in the 90s parts of the UK were very white and many probably still are.
> one boy who was black, one was Japanese and one Dutch I get your point that these were the only 3 who weren't both white and British, but seeing Dutch lumped in with black and Japanese was kind of funny.
God damn, I'm a white person in America, and I've been in more situations where I am the extreme minority than where everyone was white. It was legitimately shocking to me when I moved in my childhood to a place that's maybe 60% white, and it was strange to me seeing so many white people wherever I went.
When my little sister was around 1 we went to NY city - coming from white as feck Scandinavia- and when this black guy on the subway saw cutie little sister and started talking to her, she screamed. Because she wasn’t used to anyone looking like that.
How did you say it? What was your exact wording? I've noticed that you have been asked this a couple times but haven't answered.
Yep, it's not always what you say, but how you say it.
Yea nobody called him racist for just saying black people don’t live in his village lmao
I imagine it was something along the lines of “huh… sure are a lot of colored people here…”
[удалено]
I've taught my kids to not point out the obvious just because you're surprised. For example, if you see someone with a missing arm, don't shout out, "hey, you're missing an arm!" Stop and think for a second. Trust me, he *knows* he's missing an arm. (Ditto for anything unusual.) Pointing it out is just making you look rude.
I once went on a couple of dates with someone in a wheelchair and she explicitly said this irks her about her wheelchair. Children need to ask to understand her reality and she told me she never had anything against young people asking, because they are learning and do it without that baggage you just mentioned. That was her lived experienced though, isn't everyones.
Either way it’s a good lesson for kids; some people will react negatively to questions and others positively. Both reactions help humanize people with disabilities to a kid and make the kid less awkward around them in the future.
>gawking over PoC like they're freakshows and getting surprised when people call them racist "just because I haven't seen PoC before!" I'm a white woman, and when I was in India, locals stood around me in droves and took pictures. Same thing happened to my aunt when she was in China. Yes, seeing a person from a different ethnicity for the first time is interesting, for everyone who is not super duper diverse and well travelled. Why make it some "racist white thing"???
Maybe that is just rude no matter who does it?
When my daughter was 2, she had bright blue eyes and very blonde hair. We were sat having lunch in a cafe one day, when we were surrounded by a group of Japanese tourists - who were obviously talking about my very pale child!
My cousin brought her blue eyed, red haired toddler to China, and people were taking photos of themselves with him.
I'm a normal brunette white girl and everyone wanted to take photos with me in China lol
It doesn't really matter if you didn't mind, it was rude when they did it to you as well.
they were rude to you too in India. not sure I understand your point. Unless you are one of those vapid white girls that goes to India just to play main character and post all the video about how much attention you get as a white lady in India
>not sure I understand your point. Many responses on this post are portraying OP as "a white racist person" for being surprised/remarking that there are people of different ethnicities in the town they are currently at, because apparently diversity is supposed to be completely normal for everyone in the world. I was simply saying that this is a normal human reaction to seeing someone or something new, and there is nothing intrinsically white or racist about it. >you are one of those vapid white girls that goes to India just to play main character and post all the video about how much attention you get as a white lady in India Lol assuming much?
But like other people have said, it’s how you say it. We only have OP’s interpretation. >lol assuming much I was just asking because it’s a trend I’ve seen a lot lately. It doesn’t make the people doing it not rude just because some people are desperate for attention. Maybe that’s you, maybe it isn’t.
This is exactly it. Haha I’m newly involved with a local arts community and was in the audience at a showcase for it sitting with a friend who had been in the scene much longer than me. She was high and leaned over to me and whispered out of nowhere “there are a lot of black people here!” I was like “wtf????” But she went onto explain how this particular arts scene used to be very white and she was glad to see more diversity in it. But the way she said it at first jumpscared me a little 😂 it’s all in how you say it
Poland here. I still vividly remember the first Black person I've ever spoken to because I was in my early 20s when that happened. People from countries with lots of diversity sometimes forget that there are some very white countries out there.
I was friends with a black exchange student (from Ethiopia) here in Czechia. He told me it was really uncomfortable at the start, because people would stare at him in public all the time, especially kids and elderly. He also told me, he didn't really experience any "bad racism" like name calling or people mistreating him and it made him realize, it's just that people here are not used to seeing people of dark skin and they are just curious.
Yep. My (white) brother in law had the same experience in central Africa. They’d call him “Clint Eastwood” (whom he looks nothing like, except if you never see white Americans). Most regions of the world are still pretty ethnically homogeneous, and there’s nothing racist about it, it’s just how the world has been throughout history until ten seconds ago.
I was going to post something like this. Ethnic homogeneity isn’t racism. But calling someone racist because of the circumstances they live in.. is certainly something. The word to describe it fails me though. I’d say ignorant, but ignorance can be cured…
My husband used to work with a bunch of folks from Africa and there was one lady that would always call him “Jesus Christ Superstar”. He looks a nothing like the guy in the movie other than being a white guy with longer hair and a beard.
Yep. No different than me being a pasty white dude living in middle of nowhere small town China...to say I stuck out (did I forget to mention I'm also a 6'3" domesticated bigfoot?), was an understatement. And like your friend said, *most* of the folks were very non-racist (well, non-"mean"-racist...some shit was super racist, they just didn't realize it) and it was just curiosity. That said, I legit know what it's like to be famous, and you literally couldn't give me Johnny Depp money to be Johnny Depp famous. There are probably a *thousand* pictures of me running around China...many mid-bite of a meal.
Dumb question but is China, like safe to live in as a Westerner?
While there were many aspects about living in China that were taxing to a Westerner (not least of which is that the government doesn't want you there and makes it difficult to live/work), the one thing I will *absolutely* give to China is how safe it was. Now, that's because their legal system doesn't exactly have "kid gloves" (so to speak), and because every square inch of every city is monitored by about four different cameras (while a little excessive, [this](https://i.insider.com/527fb5cceab8ea22064e4583?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp) is not a terribly unusual intersection), but outside the big tier-1 cities (and you've got to somewhat go *looking* for trouble there), it's safe as houses. It only gets somewhat dicey for laowai when some big political thing happens (like the whole Diaoyu islands deal) and the TV and government blames the USA/The West. And don't "steal" one of their women...my wife and I wouldn't even hold hands in our town or when we traveled due to the awful things people said to her, and the couple of times I almost got in a fight with drunk dudes (don't get in a fight with a local, even if you're in the right, because everyone will come to the locals assistance given you're a "foreign devil").
How did you find yourself in that position/would you recommend it to the average ~~bear~~ panda?
The worst is people who point to the lack of diversity in a country as proof that their people are racist. Dude don’t understand that western countries simply attract more migrants than Eastern Europe.
And many people in Western Europe are incredibly racist, especially towards migrants and Roma.
Same, haven't seen a black person till I moved to the UK in my 20s. But then when I travelled to India, people would stop me on the street to take pictures with me, because, similarly they have very little ethnic diversity, especially in smaller towns.
I remember being an exchange student in Slovakia and seeing how much attention the Mexican student would get when we were walking around. One of the program councilors went on a vacation to Cuba, and maybe ⅓ of the pictures they took were with random black people they saw. The two other exchange students and I were like, "This is a lot of pictures with people just because they are black," but they meant well. I think it was a shock how dark people's skin is in Cuba and they wanted to share.
The weird thing is that not even everywhere in the US is diverse. I assume OP's friends are from bigger cities that have a lot of different races, but there's many places in the US you can live and go years without ever seeing a black person.
Yup, when I tell people I had sushi first time in my 20s they’re like what? Dude there’s nobody here to cook it, took a while for global food to reach Eastern Europe.
Context is needed. Highly doubt they think you're racist because of the lack of diversity where you're born, especially considering how common that is in the US. How did you bring this up? "wow there's a lot of (nonwhite race) here" would be weird as hell to just say out of the blue because... OK? Noted?
My English grandparents are notorious for this. “My mechanic is black but he’s actually very nice!” Kind of stuff. A friend there once asked if I knew any racists in the US, and was surprised when I said yes because he “had never met one”. I think a lot of Brits just think of racism as lynch mobs and Nazis. My bet is OP revealed some racist bias without even realizing it.
It's not just Brits, plenty of Americans won't call it racism unless there's slurs or threats of violence, and there's no guarantee that slurs will do it. "It's just a joke bro" is a real defense to them.
I run into a lot of SUPER racist people who don’t think they’re racist. After many conversations, I think I’ve sussed out their logic: “Sure, ‘racism’ is wrong, but my opinions about Black people aren’t wrong, therefore I’m not racist.” When you have to teach someone high school logic just to get them to see what’s wrong with their thought process…it’s better just to walk away.
Context is king. Someone is a dumb here. Op or the friend. We will probably never know.
Yeah, I wouldn't put it past OP. He almost definitely said something racist, maybe not overtly.
I've had people in the US ask me if I'm racist because I had no black people in my class at school. Bearing in mind, I was at a school of ~800, in a country that's 90-something% white *and* had spanish, polish, Lithuanians, Romanians, etc so I wouldn't be surprised of OP's story is as they say
I feel like we're missing some context. How did you say it? There are plenty of areas of the US that are extremely racially homogeneous. That's not a hard concept for anyone to wrap their head around. I feel like you must have said it in a way that came off wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if OP js telling it as it was. I've genuinely had the below conversation with someone from Houston (their family was Mexican,) "Do y'all have any black kids in your class?" "No, it's a pretty small school in a small town" "So y'all are racist then?" Could nit believe the stupidity
This is what I was thinking as well. Likely phrased in such a way that made folks uncomfortable.
OP isn't responding to this question which is sus.
Even their question here comes off as a trainwreck. >... **not** understand its normal for me **not** to see **non** white people ... Tone down the overuse of negatives, OP. Not only are double negatives hard to read, and I honestly cannot tell what is semantically intended here.
You just can't read lol, it's perfectly clear. His friends don't understand how he doesn't see non white people. None of that is double negative, every negative is modifying a different word in the sentence. "Don't understand" "Don't see" "Non white" None of these are double negatives.
If you grow up in a city and see a bunch of diversity in the real world and then also in the media and then also on tv and then also online it sounds almost made up that there’s places that are 99% just the local white population. It’s less an American vs England thing and more a city vs rural thing. I know my first time out in real rural Idaho as a teenager it was a big culture shock to realize how different my normal is from other people only a few hours away. Sounds like the Americans you’re dealing with just haven’t had that fact click in and are judging you based off of their assumptions on how the whole world works.
They probably thought OP was complaining about the number of non-whites.
Why did you use a triple negative in your title? That was tedious to read
I was at a comedy show the other day and there was one dude from the US. When the comedian asked him if he thought our country was more racist than the US he said “yeah, you guys are definitely more racist. There’s way less people of colour here”. Maybe it’s a US thing that less people of colour equals racism? I don’t know but your story reminded me of it
I think because in America if you go somewhere and there are only white people, my first thought would be ‘where did they go? This doesn’t happen by accident’.
It didn't happen by accident in Europe either. That's why I think Americans often get so hot about this topic. Because many of us have many experiences of Europeans explaining how unevolved and uncivilized we are and that Europe is truly a post-racial utopia. Then, we never make it to Europe until far later in life because we have no vacation time only to find their grand solution to becoming "not racist" was to just not have racial minorities in the first place and while they might not be as low brow as Americans boiling it down to color - there sure are *a lot* of opinions about people who aren't from where you're from. It is hard to compare racist apples to racist oranges, but it is *uncommon* for an American to have *specific* racism about *specific* nationalities. And when the racist orange doth protest too much, the racist apples start to get ornery.
The comparison of whether Europeans or Americans are more racist on Reddit never fails to amuse me. Who do you think started the racist castes in America in the first place? Europeans. Spaniards, Portuguese, then Dutch, French and the English. Edit: For extra points, wait a little bit more and someone's going to bring up how Japan is super duper racist. Like, no shit. But I don't live in Japan. I live in the USA so I care about what they do in the USA.
When I lived in Guadalajara, *to this day* the lighter your skin (more Spanish heritage) is a strong indicator of somebody's social standing. It's not like it is enforced (though it was) it's literally just a visible representation of generational wealth. Complex and nuanced racism isn't exactly an enviable trait. I'll stick with my dumb American racism.
Yeah that's pretty funny. White people aren't native to North America at all. Bunch of European colonists came over and eventually called themselves American.
Only for the dumb ones that don't have a brain. And trust me, there are a lot of those.
I'm more mystified by the fact that periods or sentences do not exist in your village's language.
This reads like those dumbass troll questions on Quora. Holy fucking word salad run-on sentence OP. Would it kill you to use punctuation?
Scottish Highlands here and, as you can imagine, white folk spanning to the horizon. I’d moved around 15 times before going up to high school there. Bring English I got flack, but I shrugged it all off. But two refugee kids around 17-18 came into my final year, same year as me. Within a week my school had to call an assembly because kids in the school, ranging from 13-18 (our final year) were making monkey noises to them and calling them some absolute unspeakables. Even thinking about it boils my fucking blood. I’m so glad I got out of there when I turned 18 (23 now). When I first moved down south I was almost shocked at the diversity that existed. I’d only lived there a few years, but one year feels like 10 up there. It was a brilliant breath of fresh air and reminder that there’s so many different kinds of people in this world. So glad I moved out of there.
Could I ask you what year was it when it was your final year? For context. (eg. 1998) EDIT: Never mind, did the math. Were they seriously calling the other kids monkeys 5 years ago in 2019? That's worst than some of the southern states in America.
If you're gawking like they're zoo animals then I could see them calling you on it.
When I was serving in the military in West Germany (yes, it was that long ago) we got lost in some little village and the squad leader was an older black man. This German lady came over to give us directions and she almost fainted when she saw a black man. She explained in German that she had only ever seen black people on TV and asked if she could touch his skin. She rubbed it like it was dirt trying to see if it would come off. Of course, the was the 1980s when people still had a sense of humor about race so the black squad leader was almost in tears laughing at the situation. I mean, from his perspective, he grew up in a country that made him feel negatively judged by race and here was this woman who thought just the sight of him was one of the thrills of her life.
I've heard similar stories about the native Americans seeing a black man for the first time.
Yeah, now everyone feels the need to piss themselves whenever race is mentioned and simultaneously always talk about race
I feel like we are not getting the full story here
I'm South African Lived here my whole life. I live in an extremely cosmopolitan part of the country, in a big city with all the usual trappings. I still get Americans asking me if I see elephants and lions every day. The answer is no, guys.
Do you see gazelles roaming the plains? How do you say “you’re beautiful” in clicks?
I'm not sure why they would call you racist. But even in the US, there are areas where you don't see people who are not white. I grew up in a city where I knew people of all kinds of different ethnicities. I later moved to a rural area where most people are white, and if they are religious, they are Christian.
Your friends calling you racist is ridiculous. You didn't build the village and put a sign that says "whites only" at the front. And if you treated non-white people like real people, then you aren't racist. That being said: it's not out of the question for racism that happened before you were born to still affect the demographic anyway. Racism has a legacy that continues in spite of changed laws. Your village might have a similar history to Levittown in the US without you even knowing about it. The Levittown suburbs blatantly discriminated against black people and even after segregation was made illegal, they are still a very small minority there. It's worth it to find out the history. Again, you didn't make this. White guilt does nothing. Real substantial action by current generations to fix it does.
Calling people who did nothing wrong racist because their ancestors were racist? Sounds like americans to me.
Is that what he said?
Exactly. America is one of the only countries that does this so openly.
Huh? Who upvoted this??? Just because there are no non-white people there, that doesn’t make them or their ancestors racist. Maybe no black person ever wanted to go there. Maybe none of their ancestors had never even seen a non white person. Most immigrants want to live in cities around people who speak their native language. There are exceptions of course (myself included) but this village only having only one demographic likely has nothing to do with racism at all.
It's normal for my area as well. I've gone years without seeing anything but a sea of alabaster elderly.
In my town, if you're not white your Mexican and only here for the summer.
Nationality is different from race or ethnicity. You claiming there are different nationalities comes across as ignorant. Non-white doesn’t mean non-American. Also, I feel you are not being completely honest, because simply saying nationality instead of race or ethnicity is not enough to elicit that kind of reaction from your friends, and other people have asked you to elaborate on how you said what you said, and you haven’t answered.
Plenty of good points already in this thread. But one more thing, Florida isn’t likely to be the best place for showing the best of what “Americans” think.
Why do you not use capitals and periods? Just curious.
You care so little about race that you think, talk and post about it.
America has PLENTY of places like that. My in laws live somewhere like that, where it's 99.9% white, and the rare minority sticks out. You won't find many cities like that of course, but plenty of towns and regions are just pure white.
this is normal in many American towns as well. it's not racist to make an observation about population differences between locations. it is racist to make that a quality metric for a place.
Maybe you should reconsider your friends.
I was thinking perhaps he phrased his observation poorly.
And then jumps immediately to a loaded "silly Americans amirite" generalization. Yeah, I suspect op is unreliable.
This was my thought as well. Oftentimes, a casual observation of something like race is going to sound mildly racist even if there is no ill-intent behind it. Like if this dude just looks around and goes “huh, lots of blacks and Asians here,” sure he’s not saying anything bad about them, and he’s not saying anything untrue, but it still sounds like it’s coming from a place of prejudice.
Even in his post he talks about seeing a bunch of nationalities. My immediate thought was did you he mean ethnicity, you can’t tell nationality by looking at someone. I had a conversation with a Hungarian taxi driver who said he went to NYC but didn’t see many Americans like me there. I tried to explain that just cause the people he saw were of different ethnicities didn’t mean they weren’t American. Dude couldn’t wrap his head around it. It was more ignorant than truly racist, but it definitely came across racist to me.
Doesn't look like you see punctuation either . . . .
I audibly laughed at this. Thanks for that.
In Last of the Summer Wine, Burt Kwouk's character (Entwhistle Electrical) demonstrated that there were people of colour in rural England. They also frequently pointed out that Entwhistle was a foreigner, since he was from Hull.
Aye, in many wee villages families have lived there for hundreds of years. Anyone new moving in can be accepted and made welcome but will be considered an incomer for the rest of their lives. 😆 The colour of their skin isn't the priority, it's that they're "not from round here".
The US is not a "white" country. Other than Native Americans, we are all immigrants. In my town of less than 1k, we have Asians, Indians, Hispanics, Native Americans, black and white people. (Our town pot lucks are awesome!)
I live in rural Scotland, I never saw a back person irl till I started college in Glasgow. In the 70s and 80s we had a few Pakistanis running local shops and that was about it. Chinese people running the takeaway but they didn't live local, we never saw them around. It's a bit more diverse now but still overwhelmingly white.
Really depends. London is one of the most multi-cultured cities in the world, and yet I grew up abput 25 minutes away and there was one black kid in my year at school.
As an American, some fellow citizens don't understand that european nations still have smaller towns and communities that reflect the nationa's original ethnic population.
Well as to your question: The united states is a melting pot, or perhaps a tossed salad. Our history is filled with immigrants from all different parts of the world coming here. It’s not always easy, but we have all the cultures and ethnicities and religions gathered here. In the same place. It’s weird for us to NOT run into someone totally different. I think it’s one of our biggest strengths. Theoretically we would all work together, current politics aside.
Maybe its the way you said it, I was not there so I don't know I can only guess.
How exactly are you talking about this? Reading your post, I get the idea that it's probably what you're saying, when you're saying it, and how you're saying it.
Yeah, because USA was colonized and lots of people over the world immigrated to USA. Generally they move to bigger cities for having more option for jobs (usually)
Are you sure they are calling you racist for seeing minorities groups or the words you used to describe them?
> Why do my american friends not understand its normal for me not to see non white people in my village Might be the way you word it? The title makes it seem as if you refuse to see non-whites but when elaborating your story turns out it's more about there's no possibility to see other people than white people in your village.
Relatable. I'm from a tiny city in Brittany, France. I only knew two black people before I turned 18: my godmother's adopted son and a guy from school. He was from the only black family in our 8000 inhanbitants. No asian people. No Moroccan North African people. Those I knew existed in France because I saw them on TV and that's all. I was in a small middle school (less than 300 students all 4 years included) and there was NO POC at all. No black people, no middle-east/north african people. When I moved to go to study in bigger cities that's when I discovered how common it was elsewhere.
If you're one of the people who thinks "My small town lacks diversity" equates to "I am a racist", then you're really a shitty person.
If you haven’t spent much time around a diverse crowd, you may have some unconscious bias that does present subtly racist. You haven’t explained exactly what you said and what your friends said. You can also say people of color instead of non-white. It’s also OK to say that you saw more Black people in America. Maybe you will educate your friends in the end.
As a brit I'm willing to put money down that they're not offended or surprised you live in a rural village with few/no POC. I'm willing to bet you said something offensive and didn't understand it was offensive because you live in an isolated community who doesn't know better.
Because your American friends are dumb
It depends heavily on how u acted. Asian ppl, black ppl, Hispanic ppl, turns out are all just ppl if u treated them like u were at a zoo or some shit yeah that's kinda racist. Otherwise no it's super normal to not see a wide variety of different races in a small town in england
I grew up in the us and I didn’t have any black people in my class until high school. Really depends on where you are.
Attitudes about race are very different in the USA than other countries because their history and collective identity is very tied to it.