Caveats

I feel like I need half a textbook of caveats when talking about racism.

Like races are not real, we made them up with no biological backing. And even though it is not real, so much of society was based around it that it is now a real thing. If it was based on biology, then Africa would have 100s of races while the rest of the world might get a handful.

Another caveat, I have mostly been in a middle class well off environment, and was likely blinded to racism. I also can acknowledge that the scale and manifestation of racism varies from place to place. There are no cops shooting down minorities in Spain, but feel free to ask any European about the Romani people and see how they respond (I literally grew up thinking that the slur for Romani was the normal term, and I doubt I am the only one).

Yet another caveat, this is my subjective perspective. From my own experience.

So whiteness is more of which arbitrary demographic is closer to power. That is why throughout history some “white” people were not white. Irish/jews/Italians… depending on the context were not white (Italians in Italy were white, in south American colonies they were also white, but in north America they were not).

If I miss to say any objective form of racism I am not saying that it wasn’t there, just that if it was, I was blind to it thanks in part to ignorance and privilege.

Spain/Barcelona

In Europe race is more dictated along national cultural lines. A Spaniard is white and has a whole culture to celebrate. Unlike in America where cultural backgrounds were erased to create a homogeneous “white” group. This leaves a noticeable cultural vacuum. You dont have polish/norwegian ancestry you are white.

Another caveat. Although I think it is an objective bad thing that people in the preferred ethnicity have had their cultural background erased to some degree. It is not nearly as bad as what they do to other cultures. This is like if I hit people with a water hose I will get splashed.

A lot of “anti-racist” movements in Spain are based on integration and cultural erasure, anyone can be Spanish, they just have to drop all their “primitive traits” and they can be accepted. In Barcelona there is a lot of help for immigrants to be integrated in the Catalan culture rather than the Spanish culture. Which seems to me a bit disingenuous and more like using immigrants to score demographic points. There is a fine line between making local culture diverse and welcoming and expecting minorities to erase their culture, and honestly I have no idea where in that line is Catalunya.

That place that shall not be named

When I was 18 I moved to the country that shall not be named. (my family was zionist and I was deep into that ideology). I hope you all already know my opinions of Israel. Living there I learned how real apartheid can be, while also being so invisible to white people living there. And in Israel I was white. However even there there was a racial hierarchy. The proper Israeli is Ashkenazi, Mizrahis (jewish communities from Arabic regions) are lower in the ranking, Arabs, way at the bottom, and Palestinians? Not even considered people. (Israel makes a distinction of Israeli Arabs who live in their segregated communities but are technically Israeli while officially a class B citizen, and Palestinians who are not even considered people). Just like the US with the cultural erasure, there is a strong cultural erasure in Israel as well. With the proper culture being a mix of Ashkenazi and palestinian cultural appropriation (there is another caveat here, because throughout the past 2 thousand years there were healthy jewish communities living in Palestine and some zionist will use that to claim that they aren’t stealing Palestinian culture,which they claim does not exist, but that is BS). Ironically I forgot to write about black jews from Ethiopia who are considered the bottom of the hierarchy as well, and were sterilized without their consent or knowledge all the way till 2013.

BTW, I did not join the IDF, I went in as a zionist but left a bit more like a liberal (don’t worry, I got better, the great march of return showed me without a shadow of a doubt that it was not a 2 sided issue).

England

I moved to northern England and was focused on my studies & PhD. But the UK has its own history of racism. Like how they celebrate that they ended slavery and they actually did reparations…. To the slavers, they finished paying the loans for the reparations in 2016. And there was the time that they lost the records of all Jamaican immigrant workers they invited after WW2 and deported old retirees because of that in 2018. The Brexit campaign was so racist, half the pro brexit campaign was “brown people coming into europe is scary”. And the gammons bought it up (Gammon is a slur for white English racists). And from what I see on the news, I think they are getting worse. And after experiencing England during brexit the St George’s flag (red cross on white background), it always gives me racist gammon vibes.

Scotland

In Scotland I experienced the least racism so far. I think it is because their hate for the English overpowers every other demographic. I think it is the only country in the world that expanded voting rights to all residents, including immigrants who are not citizens. And although it is not proof that there is no racism, their previous prime minister was Muslim (Humza Yousaf) and married to a Palestinian. I also wonder if their failed attempt at colonialism, which ended with them being colonized instead, made them less interested in racism (Darien scheme).