> "look nothing like" .. I can't help think of the old racist saying "black people all look alike to me." It's as if you didn't realize that the cross-race effect might be an issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect .
No, I meant qualitatively they look nothing alike. Italians have dark skin, dark curly hair, and speak a romance language. Swedish people have light skin, blond straight(ish) hair and speak a germanic language.
> Umm, India has 29 languages with at least 1 million native speakers and is "one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse nations in the world" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_India. Indonesia, which is mostly located in Asia, has hundreds of ethnic and linguistic groups.
I'm not saying that India isn't diverse, just that Europe is not just a homogenous mass.
> 71% of Danes, >90% of Greeks, >87% of Poles, and 83% of Italians are Christians. (The main denominations are Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Catholic, respectively - "roughly the same" religion.)
Not roughly the same religion. The contents are quite different. The protestant and Catholics have a long history of religious wars. And yes, they are completely different in many important ways, for instance the divinity of Mary, church governance, and the relationship of idols, the relationship between the Holy Trinity, etc etc
> Which racist South Americans do you know of who have gone to Africa "to plunder the natural resources of the whole region"? Anyone like Rhodes, or the many other British people convinced of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race?
> The European ones include the Britain, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Italy, and Germany. I may have missed a few. Ahh, I see Russia had a short-lived/not official colony at Sagallo. I won't count that one.
Why wouldn't you count the Russian colony? Also that is a small subset of Europe. There's Greece, Turkey, most Slavic countries, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland aren't involved.
That all stopped. Chinese people are far more involved in African politics right now, propping up dictators to extract resources for the gaping maw that is Chinese industry.
The point is that Europeans have stopped doing that, but Americans and Chinese are doing their level best to duplicate their efforts.
For that matter, why is setting up colonies racist? You expand because you either have overwhelming population pressure, need raw materials for industry, or need to get rid of undersirables. Also, if other countries are setting up colonies, there's a huge land grab to ensure economic safety and stability in your own country, or else you get left behind in money and industry.
And one of the most vicious incidents in African consist of the Boer war, British on Afrikaans violence. The Afrikaans invented guerilla war, and the British invented concentration camps for the families of the combatants.
The fact that there are Europeans in South America is proof that there are racist Europeans. I mean, if they've already plundered South America and taken the land of the people, what need do they have for East Africa?
Obviously, I don't think that all Europeans are racist, but you know exactly the point I was making.
Tell me one political crisis in Kenya for the past 50 years that was not stoked by a European country or their policies?
Imagine showing up on other people's lands, then drawing up lines (borders), dividing brothers and cousins, just to take advantage of the chaos.
The best thing to do is to be open-minded and invest some time in a history that is not Eurocentric.
When making a comment, you might want to start with something which isn't obviously a product of your own stereotypical bias. As we know from ABBA, Swedish people do not all have "blond straight(ish) hair".
From my personal experience visiting Sweden, there are many brunettes in the country ... and many bottle-blondes.
I noticed you switched from "Swedish people" to "Italians". Some Italians, like those in South Tyrol, speak German as their native language. Quoting Wikipedia, "Twelve historical minority languages are legally recognised: Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan and Sardinian"
The concept of "Italians" is also rather new, being a creation of the 1800s. There are still large differences between the different regions, and discrimination between Italians based on region. Eg, "Mussolini also played upon long-standing racist attitudes against Sicilians, enacting a number of laws and measures directed at anyone born in Sicily/of Sicilian descent" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Italy .
So Italy doesn't have this stereotypical homogeneity that you stated.
You wrote "I'm not saying that India isn't diverse, just that Europe is not just a homogenous mass." You didn't seem to realize that my point is that Asia is more diverse than Europe. Therefore, if you use the argument "Europeans are a huge mixed bag" as a justification for why it is not reasonable to stereotype "racist Europeans", you must also agree that a concept like "Asian food" or "Asian people" is not meaningful.
"The contents are quite different. The protestant and Catholics have a long history of religious wars. And yes, they are completely different in many important ways"
And the Judean People's Front is completely different than the People's Front of Judea.
Or the old joke asking if someone is religious or atheist; Christian or Jewish; Catholic or Protestant; Episcopalian or Baptist; Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord; Original Baptist Church of God, or Reformed Baptist Church of God; Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915? When the final answer is wrong, "Die, heretic scum!" - http://www.ahajokes.com/reg38.html .
Your argument is exactly what I would expect from someone who doesn't understand the cross-race effect.
You have selected certain properties which you have determined are important. These include skin and hair color, as well as specific religious beliefs. However, you have chosen them because the Eurocentric culture you are from found them important in being able to distinguish between people.
If you had been born and raised in India, or China, or Indonesia, or elsewhere in Asia, you would have learned a rather different set of "important" features. You would care more about the important differences between the different types of Buddhism, or the differences in the caste system, etc. You would use different facial features to distinguish between people from different religions, and find it difficult to distinguish between Europeans.
And you would have difficulty remembering the distinction between the different Christian churches just like I struggle to remember the distinction between Shia, Sunni, and Sufi, much less all of the different branches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches .
"Why wouldn't you count the Russian colony?"
Because it wasn't organized or condoned by the Russian state. "The Russian Government disavowed Achimov, accusing him of disobedience to the Czar and acts of piracy. Participants were arrested and deported back to Odessa" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagallo .
Take Bir Tawil for a modern example. No recognized government has made a land claim on it. However, several people have done so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil lists a couple.
Just because Jeremiah Heaton, a US citizen, claimed the land, that doesn't make it new American colony.
"The point is that Europeans have stopped doing that"
Well, first, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Equatorial_Guinea_coup_d%... was a thing. "The 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt, also known as the Wonga coup,[1] failed to replace President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo with exiled opposition politician Severo Moto. Mercenaries organised by mainly British financiers were arrested in Zimbabwe on 7 March 2004 before they could carry out the plot."
And it's not like I know much about what's going on in Africa. There's almost certainly more of that going on.
> In the second half of the 20th century, Africa’s division of labor and national institutions – everything from military to banking and foreign trade - was largely determined by the core countries - US and northwest Europe - with the considerable assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and its affiliates, African Development Bank and a number of United Nations agencies, and of course, the explosion of NGOs some of which are fully funded by governments trying to peddle political and economic influence. In short, the external mechanisms of Africa’s dependence became stronger and more solidified in the last six decades than they were during the era of colonial rule. ...
> Largely because of China as a major new player in the region’s trade, there was a rise after the recession of the early 1990s, but this too was limited to the primary sector of production. The China factor did not help the continent lift its GDP amounting to under $300 billion in 1997 while the debt was $315 billion. This allowed the IMF to impose austerity and neoliberal measures of privatization, corporate tax reductions, and trade barrier removals that further weakened the national economies. The austerity measures not only prevented upward socioeconomic mobility, but actually drove more people into lower living standards.
Third, your original point was your (IMO fake) surprise at how someone could make a continent-wide stereotype. This new point is rather tangential, and comes across as something like "look, they are also being mean so stop blaming me for being mean."
leyth (the person you responded to) said nothing about Chinese in that area of Africa. The implication is that they will be equally welcoming to racist Chinese and racist Americans.
> why is setting up colonies racist?
Um, did you not understand what I meant by "British people convinced of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race"? One of the arguments for their imperialism was that they are, by race, the people best suited to rule the world.
It's like you don't even care to inspect or improve your own understanding of the world, so I'll make it easier and quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes :
> One of Rhodes's primary motivators in politics and business was his professed belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was, to quote his will, "the first race in the world".[3] Under the reasoning that "the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race",[3] he advocated vigorous settler colonialism and ultimately a reformation of the British Empire so that each component would be self-governing and represented in a single parliament in London. Ambitions such as these, juxtaposed with his policies regarding indigenous Africans in the Cape Colony—describing the country's black population as largely "in a state of barbarism",[4] he advocated their governance as a "subject race"[4] and was at the centre of moves to marginalise them politically—have led recent critics to characterise him as a white supremacist and "an architect of apartheid."
Of your three criteria ("overwhelming population pressure", "need raw materials for industry", "need to get rid of undersirables"), I guess that's the third - get rid of all the non-Anglo-Saxons in the world. Which is incredibly racist. But it really feels like it's an entirely new reason you didn't think about. Which means you know even less than I about this topic.
"if other countries are setting up colonies, there's a huge land grab ..."
Ahh, apologetics for imperialism. I suppose next you'll argue that if other countries are entering the slave trade then your country should as well, "or else you get left behind in money and industry." The British and America made a lot of money from slavery. Europeans made a lot of money from their African colonies. That doesn't justify colonization. Or slavery.
> one of the most vicious incidents in African consist
And now we are well removed from anything to do with the topic. This is relevant because ... just exactly why?
No, I meant qualitatively they look nothing alike. Italians have dark skin, dark curly hair, and speak a romance language. Swedish people have light skin, blond straight(ish) hair and speak a germanic language.
> Umm, India has 29 languages with at least 1 million native speakers and is "one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse nations in the world" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_India. Indonesia, which is mostly located in Asia, has hundreds of ethnic and linguistic groups.
I'm not saying that India isn't diverse, just that Europe is not just a homogenous mass.
> 71% of Danes, >90% of Greeks, >87% of Poles, and 83% of Italians are Christians. (The main denominations are Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Catholic, respectively - "roughly the same" religion.)
Not roughly the same religion. The contents are quite different. The protestant and Catholics have a long history of religious wars. And yes, they are completely different in many important ways, for instance the divinity of Mary, church governance, and the relationship of idols, the relationship between the Holy Trinity, etc etc
> Which racist South Americans do you know of who have gone to Africa "to plunder the natural resources of the whole region"? Anyone like Rhodes, or the many other British people convinced of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race?
> The European ones include the Britain, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Italy, and Germany. I may have missed a few. Ahh, I see Russia had a short-lived/not official colony at Sagallo. I won't count that one.
Why wouldn't you count the Russian colony? Also that is a small subset of Europe. There's Greece, Turkey, most Slavic countries, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland aren't involved.
That all stopped. Chinese people are far more involved in African politics right now, propping up dictators to extract resources for the gaping maw that is Chinese industry. The point is that Europeans have stopped doing that, but Americans and Chinese are doing their level best to duplicate their efforts.
For that matter, why is setting up colonies racist? You expand because you either have overwhelming population pressure, need raw materials for industry, or need to get rid of undersirables. Also, if other countries are setting up colonies, there's a huge land grab to ensure economic safety and stability in your own country, or else you get left behind in money and industry.
And one of the most vicious incidents in African consist of the Boer war, British on Afrikaans violence. The Afrikaans invented guerilla war, and the British invented concentration camps for the families of the combatants.