[mhurron]

> I think Americans are much less racist than almost anyone else. I'm Bengali by ethnicity, and my observation is that people on the subcontinent are racist enough to make a south Georgia redneck blush.

Not really, it's just in the rest of the world being openly racist is just fine, in the US (and Canada) you have to pick when you can be openly racist and pretend otherwise the rest of the time.

> think we'd still have legal segregation if the courts hadn't forced it down peoples' throats.

We would.

[potatolicious]

A bit uncharitable. As a minority myself I do think Americans are a lot less racist than almost anyone else, by virtue of the fact that they're aware it exists.

Call it white guilt if you must (though it's really a misnomer), but the fact that Americans are aware of their own racism makes the situation much, much more tolerable than in other places.

Sure, covert racism is still a problem (a big one at that), but at least there is awareness and a substantial degree of introspection. Both of these are absent in more racially homogenous countries, where not only is racism overt, but there is so little public consciousness of it that extreme racism is accepted as a matter of course.

In the US the words "oh good, you're not dating a black girl" will be outright rejected as racist, or at least give people pause and cause discomfort. I've personally experienced the exact same statement tossed around in another country as if it was the most natural thing to say in the world.

[mhurron]

Again, it depends on who they're talking to. My father-in-law won't talk much to the black propane truck driver when they deliver, he'll be out there making sure he got all he's charged for, but will complain endlessly about the nigger in the white house when it's the white driver. If you're white he'll tell you straight out that black people are incapable of advanced (like math) thought like a good white person, that's why they're all lazy and poor. He'll also tell you he's not racist.

Because you're white, he assumes you agree with him. In a lot of the US, 'thank god you're not dating a black girl' will only cause discomfort if they think they're in mixed company, not because they think it's wrong. Once the person who they don't know about leaves, so does any discomfort about saying what they really mean.

He doesn't say that shit to me anymore not because it's wrong, but because he's figured out I don't agree with him and look at him like the idiot he is.

[potatolicious]

> "will only cause discomfort if they think they're in mixed company, not because they think it's wrong"

Yes, and that's a crucial difference. It will give them pause, or cause discomfort, because they know what they've just said is controversial. They know what they've just said is considered inflammatory, even if they themselves don't believe so.

This is, sadly, still a pretty leap beyond racially homogenous countries where all of the above is said without any awareness, because they're not even aware that disagreement exists on their point.

Your father in law no longer says these things to you because he knows you're on the other side. In many countries there is no other side, or the "other side" is so infinitesimally small that it's not in anyone train of thought while they spew their racist crap.

The mere presence of the "other side" gives hope that we might one day be further along than we are now.