Is racism just another American tradition?

LOL. It’s hardly uniquely American. It is everywhere on globe, including the most liberal countries. It is universal.

Or like Torch and Overlord.

Racism is no more of a tradition than being a criminal is.

There will always be bad guys that break the law.

There will likely always be evil racist SOBs.

It’s much worse in other places in the world.

It is not an American thing. It is a human thing.

It is not a tradition. It is ignorance and fear winning out.

I think all the above answers fit quite nicely.^^

In India, they have the caste system which is a form of racism.

People in European countries are against the Romani (gypsies). That’s racist.

It’s all over.

In my country, we are incredibly racist and xenophobic. It is common practice to call denigrating names to:

Indigenous peoples.
Black people.
LGBT community.
People from other geographical regions of the country.
Foreigners from certain countries (mostly those perceived as troublesome like Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Perú, Haiti).

So, whenever you want to insult someone you usually pick one of the terms used to referrer to the indigenous people. The other insults are kind of exclusive. And all of them are based on stereotypes.

I think that it is because of our colonial past that this kind of behavior is not frown upon when someone sees it. You hear it at the stadium during soccer games, you see it in social media platforms, graffiti. It is everywhere! I see the U.S. as more civilized in certain ways, again, because the history behind the civil rights movement. I have been to basketball and baseball games and pretty much everyone behaves. If I were to transpose to my country, let’s say an NBA game, and LeBron James had a lousy night, you would not believe the amount of abuse that player would receive. And that kind of abuse is something I have witnessed in world cup qualifying games…

It is something that I have been ashamed of more than once. That’s why whenever friends come to visit I always pretend that attending soccer games is not worth it.

No. It is world-wide and everybody does it.

Correction @kritiper every country has it,I would like to think not everybody does it.
But then again I could be wrong.

People are racist within their own “groups” not just simply within a country. Plus, grouping people racially seems to be tricky too, it’s defined many different ways.

It happens everywhere. One difference is America has it written down in black and white and drilled into our heads that we are a country where all men are created equal, and that we are a system based on merit, and not on surnames and the social class we are born into, so when America is racist or bigoted it seems hypocritical and completely against what our values are supposed to be as a country. Other countries have had social hierarchies for centuries, and sometimes there was some relation to race or some sort of bigotry.

@JLeslie Those groups include religious isms, too. My mother, the good Irish Catholic she is, doesn’t like Black people.

@kritiper I don’t know what Catholic has to do with being racist against black people. Is that a thing? My closest black friends are Catholic.

I guess among the Christian sects there is some bigotry? I don’t know? I know evangelicals will say the Mormons and Catholics aren’t Christian. I think that isn’t very nice, and I don’t agree. Some Orthodox Jews feel non-observant Jews aren’t really Jewish. Althougg, I think it’s a very small number.

My point was among blacks they have their own schtick about light skinned and darker skinned. The wealthy Indians (Indians in India) tend to be whiter. My exboyfriends mother used to say something when my exboyfriends would get very tanned, they were Hispanic, lots of Indian (indegenous) blood.

@JLeslie It wasn’t about what church she adheres to, it’s that, as an extremely religious person who should be accepting of everyone, she isn’t. And she can’t be the only one, so racism, a form of discrimination, can apply to everyone, one way or another.

@kritiper I see. Well, the most racist people I know (when I say I know, I mean someone that is a close friend or family) happen to be Catholic, but their religion has nothing to do with it. They also would never ever wish harm, unequal treatment, or think they shouldn’t be in America because of their race, that wouldn’t occur to them. For them America is a melting pot.

There are people who are racist and don’t even know it.

I think people define racist many different ways.