Very true. I can see what you are referring to. Even as a very successful law-abiding "expat" I could not stand the tribalism and extreme unconscious racism in my workplace and the society in general. As you said they think all foreigners are children or stupid and they don't respect your knowledge. Life there made me depressed, so I ran away in less than a year and living life now in Ireland. Not blaming the Swedes themselves, they're free to think whatever they like or be arrogant or whatsoever but blaming the false picture and narrative they draw about the country. If you don't respect or want people to live and contribute to your society then don't have a misleading policy of tolerance and integration.

I hate "expat", just a way of trying to make yourself sound better, it's obnoxious

Hahaha, I used the quotes because I hate it too. That was failed sarcasm:)

You are damned if you do, damned if you don't. I don't think there is a way to not be called racist once in a while any more. I could hide in the forest and we are still "all racist jerks", according to you, People love to project racism on others. But perhaps you can exemplify for us why we are all racist jerks, but you are not?

If people there are such jerks, why do you want to be in their country, or have day-to-day conversations with them? What gives you the right as a foreigner to force "persistent societal change" in a country on the other side of the world? Haven't Americans violently tried that already in a whole bunch of different places?

> if you don't fit a specific trope you can't be Swedish.

Swedes are an ethnic group, you can't be Swedish unless you're born Swedish. Just as you can't be Han, Inuit, Ukrainian or Bantu unless you're born with that ethnicity. American, Brazilian, Roman and a few others are nations that are not ethnically bound, but they are the exception.

> why do you want to be in their country

I didn't. Blame my employer for sending me there to lead a CAB for our Northern Europe customers. I've always hated traveling to Northern Europe. At least in Italy or Greece I can pass as $Southern_European American so I don't get stink eye.

> you can't be Swedish unless you're born Swedish

So how does a non-ethnic Swede who has been living in Sweden their entire life and with Swedish citizenship become fully Swedish?

This is the crux of the issue. If you aren't given a chance to assimilate, there's no reason to.

At the end of the day, Trump can say racist stuff about Mexican Americans, yet Mexican Americans hold top cabinet members, leaders of industry, and everyday middle class people in the US. And this is just one example.

I don't see a similar kind of assimilation in most of Northern Europe, excluding the British Isles and Norway (kinda).

> I didn't. Blame my employer for sending me there to lead a CAB for our Northern Europe customers. I've always hated traveling to Northern Europe. At least in Italy or Greece I can pass as $Southern_European American so I don't get stink eye.

Fair enough, then it's work and at least you aren't stuck there forever having to try to make friends.

> So how does a non-ethnic Swede who has been living in Sweden their entire life and with Swedish citizenship become fully Swedish?

He or she will never be Swedish at all. Just as the thousands of Western missionaries who went to China never became Chinese in the slightest, even if they learnt the language and picked up the customs. The person will always be a foreigner. If they have a child with a Swede, that child will be half-Swedish and so on.

Assimilation is a whole different thing. But if the Swedes don't want to welcome foreigners to equal positions of influence, that is their decision. Most of the countries in the world have official policies and laws to limit the influence and the rights of immigrants – including the US.

> This is the crux of the issue. If you aren't given a chance to assimilate, there's no reason to.

Rather, if you aren't given a chance to assimilate, you shouldn't come. If I'm treated rudely as a guest in somebody's house, I'll excuse myself.

> Honestly, despite all the issues the US has - managing diversity is definitely not one of those.

You're kidding, right...?

And we're all racist just because of some people you encountered?

I'm just saying it as I've experienced it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's hard to describe but there's definetly a palpable sense of otherness that I haven't noticed anywhere in the US.

There is absolutely culture war issues everywhere (especially here in the US), but assimilating into being "American" is easy compared to what my relatives back in Europe faced and my own experiences there for work and vacation. And it's a big reason a number of them either emigrated to the US/Canada or back to Asia.

The US mostly does not have a systematic problem with how emigrants are treated. It's completely normal for people to emigrate to the US, become a citizen and be completely accepted as such. The US does however have a particular problem with systematic ill treatment of the descendants of slaves. The key word is systematic. People as everywhere are free to be dicks to other people.

In general, I agree with you. I hate the swedish culture in that aspect. In Sweden, "diversity" is another word for skin color, if you are diverse in how you think or your opinions you will be ousted very quickly and people will distance themselves from you which is most likely why I don't have many friends and have moved many times under my life. Quite often, I don't feel swedish at all.

I kinda agree with the prospect that the swedish right demonizing them but the problem is that it usually comes from bad experiences with immigrants. Immigrants that work, are productive and do their due diligence very few swedes have an issue with.