points by klaff 12 hours ago | 0 comments
Thanks for the link. I'm a white American who has been lucky enough to visit Sri Lanka! I don't agree with your conclusion that American racism is inescapable, or uniquely so. I believe we can make progress on bigotries - in particular, despite the current and despicable wave against people who are transgender, non-binary, or otherwise queer, I believe we have made significant progress in reducing homophobia over the last 5 decades (the ones I can remember!). On the negative side, I did reach the conclusion (due to what I've seen during the Trump era) that much of what I thought was progress on racism was simply racists learning to code-switch. That part's depressing.
[–] graemep 12 hours ago
[–] pseudalopex 8 hours ago
> I find it odd that so many liberal Americans can accept the idea that gender is a matter of identify, while race is a fixed biological characteristic.
Liberal Americans said race is arbitrary in my experience. And people who said gender identity should be respected believed it was fixed.
[–] klaff 1 hour ago
I would have thought American liberals (like me) would mostly view race as a social construct and therefore not immutable. However I am not an expert in sociology and my experience must be shaped by not being part of any visible minority.
The other oddity is a tendency to lump everyone non-white together. Think of phrases such as "global majority".