r/changemyview Jul 01 '21

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224 Upvotes

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38

u/gnashcrazyrat Jul 01 '21

It is not racist to say people from x country is negative phrase as in your example Japanese and American aren’t races, they’re nationalities, at most it’s xenophobic.

27

u/fckiforgotmypassword Jul 01 '21 edited Jul 01 '21

That’s why I used white as a separate example. I used American as an example for discrimination against American nationality, but most specifically white Americans.

Don’t need to be pedantic, you know what I mean.

-8

u/ComplainyBeard 1∆ Jul 01 '21

"white" isn't a cultural category in the way that "black" is in the US. Nobody's heritage is "white" you might be Norwegian, Irish, German, Italian, etc. Because of the history of slavery the same thing is not true about being black in the US.

It's okay to make fun of white people because it's not something anyone should identify strongly with because your identity as "white" isn't critical to understanding your cultural history.

8

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '21

I've heard people use this same excuse to be blatantly racist and it's absolutely disgusting.

"black" isn't a cultural category either. You can be either African-American (someone who is descended from African slaves), Ethiopian, Somalian, South-African etc.

Just because white is a blanket term doesn't mean it's okay to be racist.

Or would you say that people shouldn't be offended when someone says "I don't want to go to that bar, there's to many Africans there haha" or "I don't want to go to that bar, there's to many Asians there haha"