Race

On NPR today, they were talking about how France is racist, and yesterday they were talking about how Germany is racist. They said that part of why France is racist is that ever since their African colonies became independent, they feel that black people are ungrateful. Honestly, that is probably how Chinese people would feel if Tibet became independent. Many Chinese people already feel Tibetans are ungrateful for all the money that is spent on them, although Tibetans feel that the people benefiting the most from these development projects are Chinese businessmen. Anyway, they said that Germany is racist because they've always placed a value on the exclusivity of being German so there are some immigrants there who have been there for three generations and Germans don't think they are German. On the one hand, they are not German, ethnically, but nationality isn't the same as ethnicity anymore. Germany apparently only recently made it possible for people who are not ethnically German to obtain German citizenship. This sort of surprises me that a modern developed Western nation would do that, although I supposed Iceland is like that, too. These tensions always happen when the demographics change drastically. Like right now, Chinese society is pretty homogenous, and so most Chinese people also think that you are not Chinese unless you look Chinese, and for the most part, they are right since China was not open to the West until the 80s. The difference, though, is that Chinese people have adopted Western attitudes towards race. That is, white people are rich and to be respected whereas black people are looked down upon a little. Many foreign white people still feel offended that they are considered outsiders even though some have lived there longer than people like me, haha. But I think they are overreacting. If you can't speak Chinese and are second generation, for example, Chinese people also consider you an outsider, and these white people grew up in the US or UK. Of course no matter how well you speak, if you've lived most of your life outside China, especially your formative years, you are culturally not Chinese. And even though I grew up in the US, it's not like I was adopted and raised by white people. Regarding black people, the central government occasionally tries to ease tensions by having Africa expos or having a black person perform at Chinese new year's, and it certainly helps to a certain extent. Anyway, I found the discussions about the roots of racism in the different countries pretty interesting.