Comparing America, which since World War I has been the wealthiest, most powerful nation on Earth, with some backwater country in Asia or Africa which has oppressive, racially motivated policies is not really honest.
The South has a lot of problems many of which it created for itself by not keeping up with the times and instead violently opposing those changes. This pattern plays out again and again and again with a multitude of important issues: Inter-racial marriage, gay rights, gay marriage, climate change...
Attitudes can change if the extremist activists stop creating an environment where there's such tremendous social pressure to conform to these extreme views. It's difficult to be an outlier in some parts of the US because you'll be persecuted, shunned, all but run out of town. The loud, angry Tea Party crowd puts everyone in a difficult position.
So congratulating yourself that South Carolina isn't as racist as South Sudan is really not helping.
> Comparing America, which since World War I has been the wealthiest, most powerful nation on Earth, with some backwater country in Asia or Africa which has oppressive, racially motivated policies is not really honest.
Who should we compare America to then?
France? France is hardly a model society with its outlawed burkas on beaches and the home of the LePen family. Moreover, apparently anti-semitism is such a pressing issue that it has been outlawed in France (along with Holocaust denial) since 1990.
Greece? The Golden Dawn Party (a Neo-Nazi party) holds 18 of the 300 seats (6%) in the Greek parliament.
South Africa? The end of apartheid is barely twenty years old and racism is apparently "alive and well"[0].
Norway? In 2011 a far-right extremist group (anti-Muslim) killed 77 people and members of the UN claim the government is doing too little too combat right-wing extremist violence against Muslims.[1]
Germany? In June a poll found that more than 40% of Germans support a ban on Muslim immigration.[2] Additionally, apprently 60% of Germans believe Islam has no place in their country, and last year attacks on refugee camps increased 500%.
The Balkans? In the '90s these countries were entirely reformed through a nearly 10-year period of war and ethnic cleansing.
Sure, maybe the ideal might be similar to Canada, Australia, or Great Britain, all of which are predominantly single-race societies. But where is that shining city on the hill out there that we should be comparing ourselves to? I can't find it. Our goal can't be to become "less racist" than any of those "Western" countries listed above. It just has to be to get better.
For clarity, I'm not claiming that the U.S. is any more or less racist than any of countries above. I'm just saying they all have their problems too.
Canada and Australia have really shameful legacies of mistreatment of indigenous people. Much of which happened while these two countries were legally and culturally part of the UK (Dominions). The UK has a really complex past full of its own great crimes against humans.
I agree with your larger part in that racism is a human problem. I don't think that acknowledgement serves to excuse anything the US has done.
Of those countries mentioned only South Africa is one on-par with the level of consistent, simmering racial tension as the US.
France, Greece, Norway, Germany they all have their minority populations for various reasons, in the case of France and England it's largely due to colonial history, but there's an important distinction here.
In none of these cases were the minorities imported as slaves and then emancipated and later systematically discriminated against, marginalized, and basically left to die. Although some of these countries participated in slavery, the legacy of those policies lives on in places like Brazil and various ex-colonies in the West Indies.
> Sure, maybe the ideal might be similar to Canada, Australia, or Great Britain, all of which are predominantly single-race societies.
Wrong. Canada has a significant indigenous population, as does Australia. Great Britain has several groups with a very strong identity that do not always get along. The simmering tension in Northern Ireland is, to this day, a serious problem that's largely along religious/cultural lines. Canada is not immune to criticism here, but these groups were never kept as slaves, nor forcibly segregated. Where discrimination exists, and it does, it's often personal attitudes that need to be fixed, not the express policy of any local government.
The problem with America's racism is unlike Poland or Lithuania where minorities are rare, America has states with a significant population of African-American or Latin-American people that to this day are treated very, very poorly.
Demographically America is on track to be a "majority minority" country within decades. That's a sign that as a country America needs to get its shit together and deal with its past.
The South has a lot of problems many of which it created for itself by not keeping up with the times and instead violently opposing those changes. This pattern plays out again and again and again with a multitude of important issues: Inter-racial marriage, gay rights, gay marriage, climate change...
Attitudes can change if the extremist activists stop creating an environment where there's such tremendous social pressure to conform to these extreme views. It's difficult to be an outlier in some parts of the US because you'll be persecuted, shunned, all but run out of town. The loud, angry Tea Party crowd puts everyone in a difficult position.
So congratulating yourself that South Carolina isn't as racist as South Sudan is really not helping.