[thejdude]

As a European I'm surprised by the very stark black-white separation in US culture. Why do the two (almost) not mix, even after centuries?

During my student year in the US, I was friends with students of all colors - culturally they were really the same. So what is it? Peer pressure?

Most young black women I see (over here) are incredibly beautiful, but then in my country they're mostly fresh immigrants - the cultural difference would be much stronger than a couple of White and Black Americans.

From watching TV my impressions are that there's especially a taboo for white guys to date black women, and the prejudice that "vanilla" just isn't cool. Can anyone enlighten me?

[Eleopteryx]

I don't think there's any simple answer to this.

On the most abstract level: it seems to come down to various related problems feeding into each other. People of color continue to be economically and socially disadvantaged, which plays into the negative perceptions that society might have toward them, which makes it more challenging to elevate oneself above such problems, which allows the cycle to repeat, generation after generation. So if a large portion of the population consciously or unconsciously sees a group as the lesser, then that perception reveals itself socially, legally, politically...that perception to some degree immutable on account of its existence. This simultaneously creates a counter-culture whereby the mainstream is rejected on account of the rejection it creates, which further feeds into the cycle of poor racial integration. In many ways, racial segregation is merely class segregation, it's just that blacks are disproportionately of lower socioeconomic class.

Without forcing oneself to be open-minded, one might immediately associate a black person with low income, poor education, "criminality" (I put that in quotes because laws don't practically apply to all races/classes equally [e.g. the war on drugs]), and then question "what will my friends/family think?" because even if one has abandoned his or her prejudices, he or she will still have to contend with everyone else.

It's overwhelming for me to even try paint a complete picture in a single comment. There's so many nuances to the situation that I feel like I'm already short-changing all of the relevant groups by being so general.

[cyphunk]

As an American living in Europe I'm surprised you could think that black-white separation in the US is so stark in comparison to Europe. Racism always felt like a European invention to me that the US just executes very well because it's a country founded by a bunch of European rejects. By in large though latent racism seems to be much stronger in the EU. They just aren't as expressive about it because... 1. most EU cities are not diverse enough to warrant much thought on the topic or even present an opportunity for division. 2. Europeans "respect" authority or their place more so the racists keep their mouth shut. But when they do open their mouth, oh my

> From watching TV my impressions are that there's especially a taboo for white guys to date black women, and the prejudice that "vanilla" just isn't cool. Can anyone enlighten me?

For a European, or Northern European, black falls under exotic because it is something so rare. Look at how your countrymen react to turkish, roma or other migrant races of the EU and then you'll hopefully shed a bit of the elitism.

[thejdude]

Well, we don't have that many black people, but every day on the train I see, and where I live, I'm surrounded by lots of Turkish people, Polish, Russians, a few blacks (I think the family a few houses down is of French origin), Spanish, Italians, lots of south/eastern Europeans whose language I can't identify...

Most seem to be hard-working families, or working/school youth, and generally seem more or less well-integrated. Of course on average they are less educated than the natives, there is more crime among them, but the same is true for natives from a poor/worker's origin compared to academics.

I've seen a few Roma (or whatever they are; looked like my stereotype of Roma) whose "job" it is to ride downtown and beg for money all day. I suppose (and hope) there are also more integrated ones among them.

Overall, sure there are also prejudices or racism, but the same is true in America regarding Mexican immigrants. As to elitism - I'm not sure what you mean by that. Yes, I'm a white, educated, good-looking guy; I'm lucky. Doesn't mean I think less of people from other backgrounds - on the contrary I respect them a lot if they don't just collect welfare.

[cyphunk]

There are prejudices and racism in Europe, indeed. Segregation is a much an issue in the EU as in the US but in very different ways. I can speak for Germany with some certainty where segregation can be found starkly in the education system to general social circles, in a manner that seems to come from a long ago era. Discrimination that is so clear and certain one might mistakenly assume it was institutionalised. Perhaps of interest is the Soros interviews from 2013 with teachers and students in Berlin and and General stats for Germany as a whole [1]. More disturbing is the arguments made by Gymnasium headmasters that argue immigrants would not benefit from being permitted in this higher "class" of school because it is dominated by a different culture (aka lets reaffirm our racist environments) and that they were not as capable academically. It's as if they never learned of research supporting the Pygmalion effect [2].

I know you are a modern open individual but just felt your method of using your experiences in Europe as measurement for the US just shows your lack of understanding of the actual situation in both places. This, is what I found to be elitist.

1: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/st...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect#Rosenthal.E2....

[mkr-hn]

This article has a thorough overview of the history (and present) of race relations in the US: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...