Consensus and detente on racism

I believe there are very few people who hate/ dislike black, brown whatever colour skin. In my experience it's always been about culture.
I spoke earlier about a pub I use where a lot of Africans drink. In the early days of them using this pub there was a big problem with them going to the bar, putting their money down and just saying: beer. No please/ thank you. You can understand the resentment this caused.
My friend, the barmaid asked why they never said please or thank you. They were completely bemused. They said: why should we thank you, your just doing your job: culture, again. Once it was explained that we always say please and thank you, peace and harmony resumed.
Would you believe that I have an Eastern European friend who can't watch black people kissing on the screen!! Bear in mind she never saw a black person until the 90s after the wall came down and she was able to go to America. It was a huge cultural shock for her.

Eloethan wrote "there's a difference between racism and prejudice". That's something that confuses me, so how are they different? Is it the difference between feeling something and expressing it?
Our son who lives in India teaches in an international school with pupils from all over the world.I asked him if there was any ill-feeling between the various groups. He had to think hard about it and eventually said "the lightskinned Indians look down on the darkskinned Indians, otherwise none."

yes cultural differences cause a great deal of confusion and resentment. The American Army had an exercise for their troops where this was a lesson to be learned. They were separated into groups and each group given some very simple rules to "live" by. One group then "visited" the other and was told to try to integrate and learn the rules by which this group lived. This was brought forcefully home just how incredibly difficult if not downright impossible it is to understand different cultures.

However this would be true for all different societies regardless of skin colour.

So yes I do agree cultural misunderstanding can be a real problem, but that does not explain the racialism rampant in some states in America and undoubtedly n the U.K.

Do you actually mean racialism (the acknowledgement of biological and cultural differences between the races) whitewave, or racism?

Oh racism -sorry!

What a strange world we live in.How does one look British? Reference to one comment that her daughters boyfriend looks? british wears british clothes but has a surname name that is not of British origin.
I have a Scottish surname and was born in the UK and I do not wear a kilt.

Have any of you seen this.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00klf6j
Alice Roberts TV program has made an excellent case to suggest that all of us have our ethnic origins deeply entrenched in Africa.

To enhance the debate on the thread see the program.

nell Yes I have seen those and also read Sapiens which at the beginning of the book deals with the same subject.

Go on then what are you thinking?

It really makes no odds whether we've all got our ethnic origins entrenched in Africa.

As thatbags has said on another thread, a lot of so-called racism is simply survivalism, and sometimes to my mind 'We were here first and don't really want to share, now that times are hard'-ism.

That can apply to anyone of any race or ethnic background who has lived for a period of time in the same place.

Well I definitely was here first as I am a Celt and here before any of you Anglo saxons so I feel superior to all of you lot.

Who are you calling an Anglo-Saxon?
This could get nasty...

are you an Anglo Saxon then ana?

I have no idea! I have never traced my family tree and one of my grandmothers was French, married to a Scotsman. I expect I'm just a mongrel, like most others.

The Out of Africa thing has been known for a long time.

Yes we know bags

This came up on another thread. Sociological aspects of changes in Western society leading to Trump and also Brexit. The article talks about the dangers of labelling those who voted for either as racist pure and simple. The argument is more complex.

www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/10/when-and-why-nationalism-beats-globalism/

It's a good ten minute read but worth the effort, imo

You are not superior to me whitewave , which branch of we Celts do you relate to?

Oh! I'm a Cornish Celt I believe members of the Brittany tribe.

Thank you Blinko for that link.Very thought provoking.
As was Jason Cowley 's contribution to What makes us Human on Radio 2 at lunchtime.Discussing with Paddy Considine the seismic shifts both here and in America this year.

Also Lillyflower just read back over today's whole thread and your post at 10.44 was very succinctly put and spot on.Thank you too.

Whitewave, Cornish , Welsh and Breton ,

Italian,Irish and Yorkshire here!

A pure bred mongrel here..

Petra I can't reminder which bits of your post I didn't understand as it was so long ago, but I suspect it was all of it. If part of a post makes sense I can usually figure out what the rest means...It's a skill I learned from having so many people with varying degrees of dementia in my life