Hi there, first I hope I don’t offend anyone since this is not meant to be a bash on anyone and it’s just reflecting my personal feelings. But I assume I will get attacked anyways.

So I’m a 21 year old from Germany and we don’t have many people with darker skin shades here but the few I know who also grew up here are just like any other German and talk/behave the exact same way as every other German and also seem to be perceived like a normal German. Maybe some people might naturally be kinda surprised by people having darker skin since it’s more rare but I feel like people just perceive the different skin shade the same way they perceive different hair and eye color.

But from America I noticed that many people constantly call them “black” or “white” people and make a big thing about it as if they were a different race (and of course we scientifically know that there’s only one human race). And it seems like many Americans identify with that so much that they separated and developed different cultures, behavior and way of talking solely based on their skin shade even though they’re born and raised in the same country.

I know that there was slavery and segregation in America based on exactly this in the past but this is over and we’re living in 2025 now which is why I wonder if this is still appropriate and contemporary.

Because to me personally this kinda feels like America is still stuck in those slavery/segregation times and it makes me feel very uncomfortable every time I hear this “black” and “white” stuff which is becoming constant since American media is everywhere. And I feel like this is also influencing people overseas like here where especially younger people in cities adopt this American mindset and I’ve even seen some using the N-Word etc.

When I grew up I never even had a concept of “different skin colors” because it just felt normal that people naturally look different and I still think like this about people and see it the same way as people having different hair and eye color but I can tell that these racist ideologies are doing something to me.

  • steeznson@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Scientifically race does exist in the sense that humans with certain genotypes can present certain phenotypes but we are all the same species. I don’t think you can really quantify it at the individual human level though without ending up with all this old fashioned racist concepts coming into play, i.e. someone with 1/8 asian hertiage is “still asian” or whatever.

    Race seems to be a bigger deal in the states because it is more politicised in terms of voting blocs. That’s not to say we are immune to it in Europe like people with south asian heritage often vote for particular candidates in the UK for example.

    I think one major factor in perceived differences is that our larger cities in Europe tend to be more genuine melting pots with fewer segregated areas. There are probably other reasons like having a stronger sense of civil society too.

    tl;dr: race is real in a fuzzy sense but not particularly important. Europe has a different culture to the USA in some key senses.

    • ArtificialHoldings@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      There’s already a better word to describe genetic clusters - ethnicity/ethnic group, which is a real scientific concept defined by shared genealogy. Race has pretty much always been defined by someone’s sociopolitical relationship with the British upper class, and has changed over time to accommodate varying definitions of, ex. “white”.

  • Krudler@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Yes and I’m fucking exhausted by it to be honest.

    I work in social services, I do street outreach, housing, peer mentorship, sobriety mentorship, life coaching, youth mentorship…

    One of the biggest principles is that we must see past the apparent outward identity which is only skin deep so to speak

    And yet the moment you take everybody for who they are, without delivering or shoe horning in the identity, it is demanded that you immediately recognize them based on their outward appearances only

    It is literally people demanding that you continually evaluate people on race and culture and language and everything along those lines, while simultaneously demanding that you live virtuously and conduct yourself in a spirit of total equality

    People are fucking morons. And the more people talk about virtue, the less virtuous they are.

    I go to bus shelters every single fucking night for the last 5 years and drop off water and food and clothes, and I’ve never said a mother fucking word to anybody that I do it…

    Yet the very same people that preach in the boardrooms and the conferences and the year-end sessions, are never seen at any protests, they’re never seen volunteering, they are never seen out doing good work. They are always seen accepting award, standing in front of news cameras, proclaiming virtues on social media, and literally doing absolutely nothing to change the world in a positive way

    So yeah I’m sick to death of black and white

    I never want to hear about the color of anybody’s skin tone again for the rest of my life unless it is specifically germane and those opportunities will be one in 10 trillion

  • rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Because to me personally this kinda feels like America is still stuck in those slavery/segregation times

    Yes. American culture is very much based on social hierarchies, and slavery created a very easy, color-coded social hierarchy. So it’s hard to get rid of because a lot of people are invested in it - whether they admit it or not.

    Americans (except for the most liberal) tend to look at race as a biological reality and regard anyone saying race isn’t science as woke extremism. Generally when science conflicts with common/traditional sense in America, common sense wins. The only reason quantum physics isn’t banned from schools yet is because probably only about 10% of Americans know the first thing about quantum physics.

    Americans also regard a wide variety of racial discrimination - such as in dating (including who you allow your kids to date), or where you live, or where you send your kids to school, as “not racist”. This is considered not racist because the goal isn’t to harm racial minorities, but rather you’re just doing it to protect your place in the social hierarchy. The race-based social hierarchy. And if this harms minorities, well it’s not like it’s your fault right?

    And if you dare try to suggest that the above is racist, people will get very angry at you and do things like elect Trump.

    So yeah, racism is still very prevalent in the US.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      This is a major oversimplification.

      Americans made a huge mistake tying race to identity so hard and it’s incredibly cringy from outsiders pov. Europe is taking more of a colorblind approach and while it still needs a lot of work it’s much more sustainable and really the only viable path forward. World where race == identity will never be sustainable.

      • UnculturedSwine@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        Pretending to be colorblind doesn’t make one colorblind. Americans have largely adopted an ideology of anti-racism. That is, acknowledge that racial biases exist and keep the door open for healthy conversations. You may try to ignore the fact that racial biases exist but doing so only perpetuates them.

        • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          We can disagree here. I’m convicned that colorblindness is the only way to approach this and we can see in practice that American approach doesn’t work with your government throwing nazi salutes and banning words and constant race war looming over the entire country.

          Maybe if you took the colorblind route you wouldn’t be where you are right now.

          • UnculturedSwine@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 days ago

            The colorblind route is how we got here. It has allowed white supremacists to operate under our noses while the people pretending to be colorblind give them the benefit of the doubt when they do their racist dog whistles. You see it even now with some of my countrymen trying to say Elon is just being autistic when he throws out a Nazi salute. We’ve been taking the colorblind route for decades and the only way we’ve been able to fight back is to listen to the minorities that are here and build our communities around celebration of our differences. I’m not going to treat everyone the same because the reality is that we are not all the same. Everyone has their own quirks and experiences and neuroses. I treat everyone how they want to be treated because that is how I respect their individuality. Everyone has the potential to teach me important things I don’t know.

            • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              the colorblind route js how we got here.

              Umm big doubt on that my dude. US ties identity to race so hard that colorblindness is not even a term in your social dictionary and thats why you’re all so mad when people call you out cause you simple don’t even understand what a colorblind mentality is.

              • UnculturedSwine@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                5 days ago

                The definition of color blindness I’m using is ignoring race and treating everyone the same in spite of it. If you’re using a different definition, tell me what it is and I can engage you based on that. If you’re just going to be condescending to me, I might as well just not engage with you at all.

    • Loid@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      My balls, you fucking eurotard. Saying that Europe isn’t racist is like saying the sky is green.

  • goldfish_brain@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    America is still very much racist. The Trump regime is particularly racist. They seek to codify their unspoken biases.

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    If you ever see little kids with different skin tones playing together, they are clearly not bothered by skin color, and it has no bearing on their play. The racism in America is completely learned. It is not natural. Sometimes consciously, but many times unconsciously.

    Loosely similar is how men in most places are fine walking around alone at night. While women consciously try to move in groups, even during the daytime. Many men have no idea how different it is for many women.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      They aren’t bothered by it. But they’ll also still say “the dark girl”, with no malice of course.

      Skin color, hair color, height, weight. These are all easy to see and use to identify people when we don’t know names.

      There’s nothing wrong with saying “the black guy” if you don’t know Steve yet. I guess you could also say “the darker hair individual, maybe a 4c”.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I know that there was slavery and segregation in America based on exactly this in the past but this is over

    It is not…

    There’s still a lot of racial bias in housing, even by name before the landlord/realtor meets the potential client.

    its just not done with the explicit approval of the government, however that is unfortunately likely to change soon.

    Even after the civil rights movement, all the Republicans and a lot of the Dems opposed integration. And we’re still paying for it.

  • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Back in the 90s the focus was to be colorblind, ie to treat everyone the same. Now people are focusing on race again in a big way. It boggles my mind that people now think treating people differently based on race is somehow a good thing. That people should get preferential hiring based on race is probably the biggest WTF.

    • loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      I recommend you check out “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander.

      The basic getaway from the book is this: Segregationists didn’t go anywhere, and since the time of Ronald Reagan, the ways the segregationists found to keep black people down are mostly related to the economy and law enforcement. The stereotype being attacked is now the “gang-bangers”, those from “the hood”. Not all black people… Just most of them.

      From the 60s-70s, black people living in near industrial zones where they mostly worked were hit by mass unemployment due to their relocation. Rather than try to find a solution, propaganda stigmatising them was massively produced, the “war on drugs” was started to punish them for the only survival means that some found. Black people serve disproportionately long sentences, and are forever alienated when they get out, often unable to find jobs. Not only those who were imprisoned, but their families and communities suffer from this. This is not only true of drug-related crime; but sometimes things like misfiled taxes. The war on drugs was basically a pretext to over police and arbitrarily arrest black people, and dissuade them from forms of protest against their situation.

      Now, compared to segregation, this is as big a net, but not such a tight one: This systems allows some black people to escape this system and get a situation equal to white people… But of you look at the bulk of the stats, many aren’t better off than during segregation.

      These were at first, right-wing policies bore by the Republican Party, but Bill Clinton ended up doubling down on them instead of opposing them, because he didn’t want to appear “weak on crime”, since then there has been no opposition to it in mainstream politics.

      Colorblindness helps this system, because it keeps you from naming the oppressed group, and thus from seing the oppression. It makes it easier to swallow the idea that the millions in prison are no-good gang hooligans from the mysterious land of “hood”, but that for the most part, black people are doing fine, because those who went to the same school as you or are among your coworkers are doing fine.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    So I’m a 21 year old from Germany

    When, as a people, or a nation do unprecedented crimes and evil, it rings out through history, carried by the parents and given to the children. Racism is still a topic for discussion because it’s still a problem. I’m sure you understand.

    • Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I’m sure you understand

      Idk I spent a few years in Europe and, to be honest, I don’t think so. You ask a European about gypsies or Muslim immigrants and all of a sudden they’re mask off. But “it’s different” so it’s okay

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Because Americans conflate this with race when it’s not the skin color that causes pain for Europeans but the cultural aspects. Clearly Islam and gypsy cultures are much more than race right?

  • freamon@preferred.social
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    7 days ago

    I watched a TV show called ‘Justified: City Primeval’ - it’s not very good, but something I found weird was how often the characters mentioned each other’s race I’m from the UK, so maybe it was just badly written, or maybe Americans do actually talk like that.

  • wjrii@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    So, good for you, but the particular dynamics of being a colonial country that had a massive portion of its economy based on race-based slavery has resulted in an approach to diversity that has much deeper roots and has been wrestling with hard issues for much longer than Germany has, and Germany’s own record with dealing with identifiable minorities in the last hundred years has, shall we say, not always been great.

    Many European countries are only now hitting levels of diversity America had fifty years ago, and America has been made of statistically significant communities with distinctive origins for hundreds of years, and this in a colonizing country where there is no historically continuous monoculture. Historically, people tend to become dicks to the “Other” among them when faced with hardship, and much of American history reflects that sort of thing, but also its aftermath and attempts to heal.

    Diverse and defiantly distinctive communities formed and persisted because that was how people got by and found support and could make their way, admittedly often because opportunities to assimilate, into whatever soup of dimly remembered pan-European customs that passes for a privileged culture here, were intentionally blocked. Yet even if the reasons for them are shameful, they are real and important, and the American dialogue on race simply cannot be color-blind even when well-meaning. Instead, it has to be a dance, where people of goodwill celebrate both differences and similarities and do not set groups above one another but also do not pretend they don’t exist.

    I wish more Americans would understand that our approach rarely translates well, and for fuck’s sake I wish we had fewer people who were stuck in the bad old days where reconciliation and healing were very much not priorities. That said, I also wish that people from countries with a very different cultural and historical experience would not assume that their countries have shit figured out, when a lot of it simply boils down to “we don’t have many people with darker skin shades here.”

    • Social_Discussion@lemm.eeOP
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      7 days ago

      I think it’s very important to face the issue and not be blind about it. But it should be faced by acknowledging “we separate people based on their skin shade and we should give efforts to stop doing that”.

      Because I think it’s pretty much self-explanatory that separation on purely ethnicity/looks is not constructive where people are artificially treated as if they were different even though they’re not. I think the damage clearly outweighs here.

      Justifying racism by saying ‘this is what we always did and it worked like that’ is not the right way forward imo as we can’t be stuck in the past and make the same mistakes that could be successfully improved.

      Of course this can’t be changed overnight but I think it’s important to start somewhere as I think no one wants to live in such unfair system like this. I haven’t said other countries aren’t affected by this but at least here in Germany it feels like it’s not being done to the extent like in America based on any purely ethnicity difference like skin, eye or hair appearance.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        Kid, you are nothing short of adorable.

        How long were the Nazis in power in Germany? About ten years, fifteen? 1930’s to the Mid-1940’s? During how much of that time were Jews discriminated against, subjugated and slaughtered? Even if it started on day one, fifteen years is a fraction of one human lifetime. How would you describe the relationship between ethnic Germans and Jews today, given that little incident 80 years ago? Any grudges or awkwardness there?

        Now I want you to imagine it was allowed to go on for a century, followed by another century of “the law says we’re merely allowed to treat you as a second-class citizen now, so get to the back of the fucking bus.”

        Segregation in the United States lasted long enough for separate dialects of English to form. Turns out that wounds that took generations to carve are taking generations to heal. Imagine that for a moment.

        • 3 dogs in a trenchcoat@slrpnk.net
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          6 days ago

          Segregation in the United States lasted long enough for separate dialects of English to form.

          dude, european jews were segregated so long that new languages formed

        • starlinguk@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          The Jews have been discriminated against and slaughtered for CENTURIES. Herr Hitler was just one of the many, many leaders who committed genocide. They’ve been segregated since forever. This wasn’t just 15-year booboo.

          And don’t get me started on Leopold II and the Dutch and British empires.

        • TheAvarageNerd@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          I think I have to point out, that the Nazis weren’t the only ones discriminating against and slaughtering Jews in Europe. There’s a long history of that, going back centuries. Ever heard of the cruscades for example? They didn’t limit themselves to killing non-Christian only in the holy lands. The Nazis were just the ones who did the killings on an industrial scale. But their reasoning for doing it goes way, way back. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews

          This doesn’t excuse anything the Nazis did, or any form of discrimination, but I just feel it’s very dishonest to limit our view of anti-semitism in Germany (and Europe in general) to a fifteen year period, when it’s definitely been there a lot longer.

      • wjrii@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Because I think it’s pretty much self-explanatory that separation on purely ethnicity/looks is not constructive where people are artificially treated as if they were different even though they’re not. I think the damage clearly outweighs here.

        Justifying racism by saying ‘this is what we always did and it worked like that’ is not the right way forward imo as we can’t be stuck in the past and make the same mistakes that could be successfully improved.

        What I’m trying to get at is that while appearance is not any kind of enlightened reason for distinct communities to have arisen, through accidents of history and genetics they did, and they are still relevant and appreciated by the people who are part of them. The color terminology is shorthand that acknowledges history. It’s not “justifying racism” to accept that in many places your ethnic background, especially if visible, means that certain experiences will have been more or less common for you. You can engage in this, even light heartedly, in good faith and as a way to understand your neighbors better, and indeed to think of them as your friends and neighbors instead of “Other.” People who are trying to do right by their fellow Americans are not using it to “separate,” but acknowledging that separation gave rise to proud, distinct communities and there’s no value in snuffing that out. The dialogue can be a way to unite us.

        I believe we can agree that using visible “racial” markers to treat someone as less valuable than someone else is disturbing and evil, and still sadly common. I’m just saying that it’s not the mere use of the terms, or creating media that acknowledges them that results in the continuation of racism. Hell, in some ways, refusing to acknowledge differences gives a person with bad intent the license to settle on a single definition of what it means to be a “proper” American and to decide that anyone who doesn’t act the right way is less valuable: “I didn’t refuse to hire him because he’s black, but because he dresses and speaks differently. All he has to do is be exactly like me and I’d be more than happy to hire him!” (coughJDVancecoughcough)

      • DearOldGrandma@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        They’re not justifying racism, they’re explaing how the US has gotten to where it is today and why people act as they do. The culture here regarding it is different compared to most parts of Europe, and people generally are trying very much to combat these issues. But as this is a deeply cultural and historical undertaking in the US, a lot of change - cultural, political, or otherwise - will happen very slowly and will not always appear progressive. Despite recent events, the US has generally - though not always - been making small steps in the right direction here. Seit du Deutsch bist, weißt du, Fortschritt ist kompliziert.

  • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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    7 days ago

    It’s a complicated issue in the United States because of the history. Lots of countries did slavery, but at the point the United States did it, science was starting to spark into its modern form and one idea that “seemed good at the time” was pursuing superior genes.

    That … went really really really sideways and basically became a justification for continued slavery on the premise that white people were just better and they were doing the inferior black people a favor. Basically while the rest of the world was going “maybe slavery isn’t good” the US was like “slavery is the humane thing to do, because science!”

    Even after shit like that gets disproven people still tend to believe some amount of it (look at the antivax movement). So, even after the slaves were freed, they and their children were looked down upon by the culture. Many black people remained uneducated, financially bankrupt, etc. The culture especially in the south fought really hard to keep it that way for a looonnngggggg time.

    That kind of formed a counter culture of its own, the “gang” culture. Which isn’t all that different from the counter culture you see that came from prohibition and the moonshiners and such … basically outlaws fighting the man, looked down upon, etc

    So basically there are several main US cultures, Northern East White, Midwestern White, West Coast White, Southern White, Black, and the Appalachian White/redneck culture that descends from a mix of the moonshine runners, rural farmers, coal miners, and white southern culture.

    Black people of course have multiple cultures even within the US but it’s all kind of lumped into this messy “black culture” thing. Some black people I’ve met love the black gangster with the gold chains imagery and hold it up as something great and the “true black culture”, others see it as ridiculous and trashy.

    Calling these other cultures white is also intellectually dishonest as the entire US is a melting pot and the cultures of those regions were not formed by a single skin color … but I’m using “white” for the purposes of the contrast …

    Anyways, black people just kind of stand out so they’re an easy target… and they have been targeted for a very long time fueled (at least in part) by that long ruled scientifically ridiculous idea that they’re inferior.

    Add in the extra spice that the Appalachian subculture is angry about being tied in with the other white cultures despite being screwed over by the government a lot (not to the extent black people were, but still badly) … and you’ve basically got the mess that is America in 2025.

    There’s a mix of justifiably mad people on both sides, outright racists, and people that serve to benefit from the conflict never ending politically.

    (Perspective of a white guy originally from Appalachia that has seen a fair bit of the country and world now … and largely no longer agrees with the Appalachians politically … but is trying his best to explain a very complicated and touchy subject without writing a novel or making a bunch of people angry … your collective grace is appreciated)

  • DaveyRocket@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    That’s funny, I’m an American who literally argued with a German why Schwarze Pete (Black Pete) being a thing in the Netherlands, a country that heavily dealt in the slave trade, serving as a servant for Santa, and encouraging a form a black face… maybe a little racist?

    Germans really like to analyze American politics, but mention nuclear power or Palestine and you see there’s a lot more in common than different.

    • Social_Discussion@lemm.eeOP
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      7 days ago

      For me the interest in American society comes from the feeling that America is the center of the earth. Not only is 99% of the content that I consume as a gen-z from America but I also grew up being told America is the best and most powerful country in the world.

      America feels like the core of our Western society but the fact that it’s still an entire ocean away I think is what makes many people curious about it more than other countries cause it’s such a big deal and influence but we can’t quite reach or control it which upsets some people cause they don’t agree on certain things with the US but can’t control it (hope that makes somewhat sense).

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        I also grew up being told America is the best and most powerful country in the world.

        Lol, when I was in China, I was told China was the best, then I immigrated to the US and was told the USA was the best. Seems like just nationalism.

    • Fleppensteyn@feddit.nl
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      7 days ago

      I’ve never understood why Americans want to come over and tell us it’s “racist” to dress up as a character that happens to look too much like an African in their eyes