On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Certainly. In my travels and foreign contacts, I find US-ers to be
> one of the least bigoted people I meet, much less likely to express
> racist or sexist views than, for example, Eastern Europeans, Germans,
> British or French. That pertains to the "common folk" and the
> "intellectual elite" as well. I also find the US institutions and
> laws to be much more equitable and accomodating toward foreigners than
> those of my beloved Western Europe (e.g. Germany that has one of the
> most fucked up immigration and citizenship policies in the developed
> world - you can be born in Germany and still ineligible to become a
> German citizen).
Wojtek, you are conflating (1) views toward immigrants with views toward race, and (2) expression with importance.
On the second point, it is true that Americans are more sensitive about avoiding racial slurs than say, the British. But Germans are also more sensitive about avoiding Jewish slurs than the British are. It's not a measure of how unimportant these things are in our respective countries. It's rather a measure of how sensitive they are. How in each country an historical trauma has been become national category of perception, where to outsiders, it's just a fact. Intellectuals of all nations are obsessed with ferreting out what hides in plain sight. It's what we do. Outsiders often find the resulting hubbub inexplicable because they share neither the obsessions nor the blindsight that define a national point of view. Of course, there are truths that are only visible from outside. But there are just as many truths that are only visible once you grasp the worldview and see if from inside out.
And you can't do that until you accept that your own view is partial. You act as though yours were iron clad. Perhaps you are just being defensive because you are under attack. But that is easy to fix. Simply apologize. What for? For transgressing the norms that define this group and hurting people's feelings. What else does one apologize for? Afterwards we can debate your ideas.
That is, unless you have some lower class macho honor code that is stopping you :o)
And speaking of those ideas, back to (2). Race, to the extent that it is more than an articulation of class, is a belief in the importance of descent, which is anchored in the family system. So if you want social measures of relative racism, key among them has to be segregation or integration in the milieus that count for its reproduction: residential neighborhoods, schools, dating and marriage. On these counts, when when it comes to immigrants, America does much better than Europe, which is not at all surprising, considering the history inscribed in our institutions. When it comes to race, I'm not so sure. On passing acquaintance, London seems better integrated along black/white lines than New York. But I could be wrong.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com