On the contrary, when I lived in Europe (Rome) I found it disturbing that the overt racism and inequality was not acknowledged by anyone. I got the impression Italians believed that racism only existed in America and that they themselves couldn't possibly be racist (even though moments earlier they were disparaging east European immigrants)

The more things are called racist, the less people will care. OK, so I'm racist for making rice pudding? Fine, so be it.

Not always, but often times the reason their country is a horrible place to live is because of historical racism in the form of colonisation on the part of European countries or the USA. And it goes without saying that just because something is worse in place A doesn't mean it isn't bad in place B.

Do you know the etymology of the word "slave", that is comes from the Slavic tribes who inhabited central Europe and were enslaved by Arabs: 'The Slav was the most prized of human goods. With increased strength outside his marshy land of origin, hardened to the utmost against all privation, industrious, content with little, good-humoured, and cheerful, he filled the slave markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It must be remembered that for every Slavonic slave who reached his destination, at least ten succumbed to inhuman treatment during transport and to the heat of the climate. Indeed Ibrāhīm (tenth century), himself in all probability a slave dealer, says: "And the Slavs cannot travel to Lombardy on account of the heat which is fatal to them." Hence their high price.' (The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. II, 1913).

I can go on forever for the history of humanity is indeed a sordid affair, riddled with accounts of cruelty and - seen through modern western eyes steeped in Judeo-Christian morality - truly proof of the fallen nature of the human race. I won't since it doesn't change the fact that societies and cultures rise and fall through conquest, then and now. Claiming, as you do, that "...the reason their country is a horrible place to live is because of historical racism in the form of colonisation on the part of European countries or the USA" is myopic, it stems from a vision of the world as a European/American-centric place where all roads lead to Europe and America.

This self-flagellation which is so popular in many western cultures needs to stop or those same cultures will succumb to the process of history which gave rise to them in that other cultures will take over. Many of those cultures don't care about racism - they are openly racist - and have no qualms about slavery.

anyway lots of italians come to my eastern european city and we make it extra obvious we are racist against them so its even

European everyday racism feels a bit different than American racism. It's the end result of many cultures interacting over centuries and accruing generational memories of when X group screwed them over. Meaning, everyone is equally racist to one another. Also, it's not based so much on physical race, as on group belonging. For example, often people from within a single country would be prejudiced to one another, based on the specific city one is born in. Depending on how the country borders get redrawn and what the government decides to call the ethnicity of people within them, those relations can technically flip between being racist and not.

Basically, we can be casually racist with each other, because it's between equals. Americans can't, because it's between two groups, one of which used to inflict horrible human rights abuses over the other.

They probably would recognize me too, but I would decline association to be honest, regardless if it is the US or British variant. Also racism to me has a very specific definition. To believe people to be inferior because of extrinsic properties or ethnicity. Not every form of prejudice is racism of course.

The only person I have ever met that though I was too brown was my dermatologist. Sure, others face racism, but it is also used to justify discrimination and I think that is moving backwards. The US has better understanding on multiculturalism but they changed course recently. It is progress as that is inevitable, but I don't see it improving anything.

When you judge someone by birth location you are also judging someone based on race. Would you accept an Indian person born in Moscow as Russian or would you treat them as Indian? This is harmful..

I really enjoy the guilty/shame we put upon White Christians about slavery.

Even being the *OnlY* people who fought to end the slavery.

Black merchants/kings? Jesuit Company (Converted Jews), Islamic republics, etc.

All did not care about slavery.

But then these pesky White Christians came and said NO to slavery.

I hope they learn the lesson and be more cultural aware in future.

"It is not slavery it is their society..."

And keep themselves out of helping people.

But do you know were the word "slave" comes from?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Terminology

>>Use of the word arose during the Early Medieval Period, when Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe (Saqaliba) were frequently enslaved by Moors from the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.

So brown/black peoples enslaved white peoples, but hey the US only thinks about sold black's by black peoples only, a slave can only be black..end of discussion.

That said, I do find it ironic, that we had to remove all mentions of master/slave from our software products, so as to not offend our American customers. Again, I don't mind, but it's funny when you think about it.

I'm not letting people's stupid actions be marked as a "have to" when they're most definitely still stupid and still neither required nor appropriate.

"I had to" rob the liquor store.

It is part of their culture. The problem runs deep and is shared by countries in the North border (Switzerland, Austria, France).

The history of institutional racism in Europe is different. The levels of institutional racism and violence the US went through in the 20th century are extreme to whatever happened in Europe, barring notable examples (Nazi Germany).

The biggest football team in Italy literally threw around a giant banana to mock a black player. And that's not like it's an isolated incident

There is a difference between having racist people in population and having whole system set up rules to discriminate negatively against part of population.

Ask a typical European what they think of Roma ("gypsies"), then get back to me.

I blame the faulty social system for that. For example, if you never work a day in your life you get higher pension payout as in that case it is based on nationwide average wage. It basically penalizes getting a job.

I grew up in the US but have lived in Barcelona for several years now.

I don't believe that racism is worse in the US than Spain; in fact much the opposite. I live in a mixed-income neighborhood in Barcelona and see far more casual discrimination against low-income immigrants and the local Roma subculture here than I've seen in any major US city. The US has historically had really bad racial policies and there are definitely still parts of the country with a backwards view on race and class, but most of the US (and certainly the parts of the country where a high-skilled immigrant might move to) just isn't like that anymore. I can't speak to the rest of Europe, but Barcelona at least seems behind here.

That said, I do agree there's a lot more inequality in the US than Spain. (It seems to me though that's more about the middle and upper class in the US being much richer—the poor in Spain don't seem to have an easier life than the poor in the US.)

On racism, I don't wanna sound harsh, but I believe you only see less because the US is much more segregated. I am typically perceived as Hispanic by most Americans, and believe me, racism is an issue. I don't want to imagine how it is for an immigrant from Africa or Latin America.

Yes, the Spanish healthcare system works quite well; I'm a fan! It does a much better job of ensuring coverage than the US system, particularly for the lower middle class. In the US, the poorest ~25% have good public coverage through Medicaid or Medicare and the top ~40% do ok with the employer-subsidized system, but there's a giant donut hole in the middle with no good options and the system sucks for them.

> I see the same problem with education: while we were not poor, I am not sure if I would have been able to go to one of the best schools in my country, as I did for free in Spain.

I admire Spain's commitment to free university education and I think it's a good deal for some folks, the lower middle class in particular. But for helping the very poorest advance, I'm not sure it works in practice. The Spanish high-school graduation rate is much lower than the US one, and anecdotally at least I feel like the children from low-income families I know here in Spain are less likely to consider university or a professional career an option at all compared to their peers in the US, despite it being free. I'm not sure how to fix this.

> On racism, I don't wanna sound harsh, but I believe you only see less because the US is much more segregated. I am typically perceived as Hispanic by most Americans, and believe me, racism is an issue.

It's possible that US cities are more segregated on average, but I don't think that's driving my personal observations. I've lived in low-income neighborhoods with 20-90% minority populations my entire adult life, so I've had a lot of exposure to race relations to calibrate against. More concretely, my wife happens to be hispanic, and feels she's experienced more negative racism in Barcelona than she ever did in the US.

I think it does. I studied in the south of Spain (I am Spaniard too), and some of my fellow students comes from very poor sides of the city.

It is very frequent now to see teachers, lawyers and other careers that requires University level studies that are Gypsies, that were born and raised inside those communities.

IMHO free quality education is the perfect equalizer, but it is true that there is much to do there.

There is no such thing as free education. Someone is paying for it

I'm a bit confused by this. Racism in Barcelona against Hispanics? It's because she doesn't speak Catalan?

My current theory is that the difference between Europe and the US right now is that discrimination is about the same but that in the US racism is openly discussed and criticized. This leads to an illusion that racism is worse in the US because we hear about it more. In this theory Europe like the US in the 60s in which racism was prevalent but sort of more hidden in the dominant white public consciousness.

Excuse me? If there’s anything I’ve learned in about two months of applying is that no company wants yet another white, male engineer.

Not through bad intent from folks doing the hiring just through human things: white men are more likely to know what to expect from a tech interview, or even to know someone who can give them an inside scoop. Without even getting into how off putting some job listings can be to many folks not extremely steeped in nerd culture.

The actual interview process everywhere I’ve worked has been pretty rigid and without doing some form of blinding on the code parts could not be more neutral to the candidates identity.

Which is to say: if you’re not getting interviews as an experienced software engineer you must have something glaringly wrong with your resume. Maybe have a trusted friend or former coworker take a look. If you’re not getting offers from at least some of those interviews you probably need to brush up on your algorithms, and make sure you’re actually conversational in all the things listed on your resume.

I don't think it "favors" white men. Go into any university Computer Science or engineering class and what will you find? Mostly White men and foreign students. Of course there will be other genders and ethnic groups but the majority of students are white men and foreign students. Therefore most of the candidates for jobs right out of school for most engineering positions at tech companies are white men because it is hard for foreign students to obtain work permits.

This would say the issue with diversity needs to be solved elsewhere. I think businesses should be judged on the diversity of the departments based on the diversity of people with the proper credentials. It is as asinine to think a tech company's engineering department should match the demographics of society when the demographics of the people obtaining the necessary skills to work in that department are so far off.

You can find demographics data here: https://datausa.io/profile/cip/computer-science-110701

According to your own data, Hispanics got 8.16% of CS degrees; African Americans got 3.81%. Facebook tech workers are 4.6% Hispanics and 2.1% Black. Google tech workers are 5.3% Hispanic and 2.9% Black. Both companies are far away from even matching the percentages of the candidate field.

Sources: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/07/facebook-diversity-report-... https://console.cloud.google.com/bigquery?p=bigquery-public-...

I’m an associate-level engineer. Why would a company, many of which are increasingly proud of their diverse team, pick a white engineer when there are hundreds of equally skilled junior applicants that won’t bring down their recruiting metrics?

I’ve literally seen recruiting KPIs at previous startups involve how many black or woman engineers they hire in a quarter.

My current attempts at breaking into the industry is currently being made more difficult by the previous decades of inequity in software engineering teams.

Some studies showed certain ethnic markers are harmful for applicants: https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-n... https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

I am quite frustrated that being colored means I get to be put on posters, literally got a photo taken of me and the diversity/inclusion HR put it up on the company website to further their agenda which I completely disagree with. It always felt condescending to me. I want to be judged by merit and not my skin color.

I completely agree with you. Pity is a particularly disturbing version of contempt. But if you think that this contempt is only reflected in the diversity circus, you are fooling yourself.

High-caste Americans (sorry Wilkerson, the simile is too good to let it go) want to virtue-signal and maybe give some breadcrumbs to the minorities they feel pity for, not put them at their level.

Every white leader I’ve met have given me opportunities and often their higher ups are not white. The problem is the corporate HR wokeness and their agenda feels condescending to me. That’s the distinction I want to clarify.

You can probably be green and get a job if you know how to code.