3d ago

Why is there so much separation in the USA between people who identify as "black" or "white" compared to other regions like South America?

I noticed that in the USA people are often strongly divided based on whether they identify as being "black" or "white". Basically many people there make this a big part about their identity and separate communities based on it to the point where they developed different cultures and even different ways of talking and behavior solely based on whether they identify as "black" or "white".

As far as I understand it's based on the brightness of their skin color because of slavery but it's not quite clear to me who is considered "black" or "white" since I've seen many people who for example have very bright skin and seem to have almost no African ethnicity but they still identify and talk/behave as "being black".

I wonder why they still have this culture and separation since segregation ended in 1964.

Because in other regions like South America such as Brazil for example this culture doesn't seem to exist that much and people just identify as people and they talk, behave and connect the exact same way no matter the skin brightness. People such in South America seem way more mixed and seem to not have this type of separation like in the USA based on external features like skin, hair or eye color.

To me it kind of feels like this is a political and economic reason in the US that they purposefully want to divide people for their gains. Because the extent to which this seems to have been normalized in Americas every day conversation both in private and in public/commercial spaces feels like brainwashing. And I wonder if this will ever improve since it seems to go as far as people being proud about these racist stereotypes and think this is completely normal. But considering the broader global context and America's historical background it doesn't seem normal. Especially with Americas context of slavery you would expect there to be strong efforts of fighting these stereotypes and having a political leadership that doesn't see "color" and only judges based on individuals personality.

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You’re asking why this culture is still around when segregation ended in 1964. Culture has a way of sticking, generally. But look at this timeline.
Slavery was a thing for hundreds of years, and segregation for decades. It’s very deeply rooted. I hate it, but I’m not baffled by it.
- That's a good point. I just hope that we can let go of the past soon and fix these issues
  
  Most of us have. There are just entrenched centers where the history goes very deep.
- Also worth noting, segregation may have "ended" in 64, but there's still soft segregation to this day. There's a massive divide in culture, that's left over from administrations such as Reagan. Racism still hasn't ended, although it has gotten a lot better just in the time I've been alive.
  
  Yep. Interestingly, conservatives disagree on this. They’ll say that black people have absolutely nothing to complain about post Civil Rights Act of 1964. They think that once the law changed, everything else is just a matter of personal merit and fortune. They only recognize institutional racism. They seem to think either that personal and cultural racism doesn’t exist, or (more likely) that that is a personal choice which no one has any business complaining about.

its because slavery.
early u.s. was created on the notion that black people werent people. when those that made money on that being fact were forced to think otherwise, it almost ripped the country in half.
that animosity.. the desire for non whites to be considered not people did not just suddenly vanish. its festered in america. it is ingrained. it is the 'southern heritage' talked about in whispers (and now out loud) with the new fascist takeover of america.
a full 50% of america still hates the fact that non-whites are treated as people.
- not just slavery, modern practices like redlining also kept people physically separate until very recently and some form of it still are practiced today
- Don't forget slavery never ended, it just got rebranded into prisoners in the prison system
- But didn't South America also enslave "black" people?
  
  Brazil took over 10 times more enslaved Africans than North America. That comment is way off.
- but why is it more than in south america?
  
  i would guess size and population densities, and government stabilization. what country is 'south america' ?
  theres more people in a larger area in a much more stable form of government allowing those socio-economic realities to exist far longer.
  ie the united states is super racist.
- Brazil did much worse slavery, but the racism is "softer", there was a moment when 80% of the population was enslaved black/mixed people (indigenous were mostly just genocided away).
  Because most people are mixed, the racism here today is just on looks instead of ancestry, and AFAIK less violent.

oh Brazil do divide people just not into colors but into classes and not just between favela and the rest but between every single class. It's almost like a cast system. It's really weird hearing brazilians talk about other classes.
Also you gonna have a bad time trying to segragate people by color in brazil lol.
- I make 5 cents an hours so I get to live in middle favela, you FILTHY poors who make 3 cents and hour live below me in lower favela
  
  It's the other way around. Low places are higher income in favelas and barrios because they're closer to public transportation, formal services, commerces and salaried jobs. The higher you are in a favela the poorer you are and the worse are the living conditions. For the lack of vehicular access and the chaotic nature of improvised construction means government institutions have a harder time reaching people there. So there's no service support, fewer commerce, lack of legal protection and you're so far away from the formal city that job opportunities are meager.

I misread the title as South Africa so at first I was like what the fuck are you even talking about.
Actual answer: slavery, the civil war, then segregation, then Jim Crow, then redlining, and through all of it slave labor through prisons that disproportionately hold black people. All these things create generational poverty as well. Now it is seen in the attacks on woke and DEI. The United States is profoundly racist.

Racial divides are very much present in South America, but racial tension seems to be a little lighter than in the US. Culturally, Brazil might have gone particularly far down the path of considering everyone part of a shared Brazilian identity, independent of ethnicity. Then again, Brazil has incredible class differences, and how is race distributed between the gated communities and the favela?
One source observes that "[w]hite workers have 74% higher income on average compared to Black and Brown people", so just because the culture might be less racist than the US, the systematic issues are still very much there.
As for race tensions, America has a few original sins. One is slavery, another is genocide. The two meet and interact in an interesting way when one considers cultural genocide: Africans brought to the US as slaves were not only forced to work for free, but they were taken from their families, deprived of their language and culture, and forced to create something new out of their situation. That's the depressing backstory of how blues became so great.
You see this in today's America: What is there of African culture left in African Americans? African music survived and transformed into call and respond in cotton fields, which transformed into rhythm and blues, which eventually became R&B and hiphop. Other than that? I can't think of anything, but maybe I'm ignorant.
In South America, it's a different story. I went to Colombia last year and briefly got to meet some people from the Afrodescendant community working on remembrance. They too were processing not only centuries of slavery and bad treatment, but also more recent horrors of the armed conflict. They did so in ways that embraced their African roots: Their use of colour, their artwork, their whole cultural production still shows clear roots back to Africa. They also have their own food, fuelled as always by "ancestral knowledge". I also felt like their vibe was a mix between South American and African, but that's harder to measure. Importantly however, unlike their American counterparts, there was not a successful effort to cut off these roots made on the basis of pure cruelty. They are highly aware - and proud - of their ancestry.
It's a complex argument, but I think it is an important one to understand why racial divides in the US are so fucked. White Americans are so fucking obsessed about their great grandfather being Irish, yet they don't want to consider the fact that black Americans had their entire history forcefully erased as a potential issue. I think it is an issue, and I think it's part of the reason why tensions run so high in the US.
- That's an interesting point. I think the sheer fact that Americans with darker skin might be the descendents of slaves might do something psychologically to some people and shape their identity in a different way.
  But I also think that probably many Americans including the ones from European ancestors are probably quite far detached from that culture anyways. And I wonder if Americans with unknown origin couldn't just do a DNA test if they wanted to know their ancestry and get in touch with the specific country be it from Africa or partly European if it was really that meaningful for them.
  I for example don't really care about my ancestors. I might come from slaves but I don't really care as I mainly focus on the present. But every person is different in that regard.
  
  I think we carry culture on even when we don't notice, so there's still a lot of Europe left in white Americans even when they don't think about it actively. In the latest episode of Last Week Tonight John Oliver talked about how American tipping culture originates in how the British during the Tudors period would tip servants when being invited to festivities, or something like that. Just as one random example.
  DNA tests to try to re-establish heritage is pretty popular among African Americans who can afford it. Samuel Jackson got himself Gabonese citizenship after DNA tests linked him to the Benga people. But entering it that way through a DNA test in adulthood obviously leaves you with a whole lot of catching up to do.
  On a more positive note, it seems African nations are often quite welcoming towards African Americans who search for their ancestry. I'm not sure Europeans will extend such goodwill towards our white American cousins for very much longer.
- Other than that? I can’t think of anything, but maybe I’m ignorant.
  According to this guy, some parts of African language were preserved and adapted in certain groups.
  
  That sounds super interesting! I can't watch the video right now, but look forward to checking it out. Thanks for sharing! :)
- One source observes that "[w]hite workers have 74% higher income on average compared to Black and Brown people", so just because the culture might be less racist than the US, the systematic issues are still very much there.
  Those systematic issues aren't racist issues tho. It makes sense the descendants of literal slaves brought from tribes from Africa and the descendants of native tribes in the Americas who didn't even invent the wheel, not even the Aztecs, Mayans or Incas, would have ended up poorer today than the descendants of people from developed civilisations that built huge trans-oceanic vessels. Only literal Star Trek-ian communism could have changed that, even real life communism doesn't and didn't suddenly make janitors rich and college educated managers poor. Look at any Eurasian country with no history of migrations or colonies and the poor people there today are the descendents of poor people from a couple hundred years ago, and the rich people today are the descendents of rich people from a couple hundred years ago.
  The real issue is the lack of social mobility. Some countries have more of it, some less. The way to achieve it is through stuff like real and strong safety nets and welfare and good universal free education and policies such as a progressive inheritance tax, not through racial measures.
  Racial measures exist and have a purpose in divided societies where the racial groups are divided and don't see eye to eye and don't understand each other's issues and therefore each group needs proper democratic representation which also means some amount of economic strength.
  In a society where people aren't actually racist, or racially divided, those kind of measures would only breed resentment because some poor people would be overlooked because they aren't of the "right" colour, in this case not dark enough. So these anti-racism measures would just create more racial drama.
  You can't use a one-size fits all solution to two different countries with a different cultural situation. And considering neither of these two countries is at an extreme of a possible position, the real solutions are more nuanced gradient policies, skewing one way in one country, and the other way in the other.
  
  a) OP is talking about racial divides, not only racism. b) Makes sense, sure. Whether it's acceptable is another question. You don't need full-on communism to erase historical inequality. Even capitalism holds a promise of meritocracy, even though it routinely fails to deliver. In the real world, wealth tax and free universal education can go a long way. But accepting that the descendants of slaves are still poorer than the descendants of their masters and considering it to be anything else than a huge problem is seriously fucked up.
  Also, Scandinavian social democracies are pretty egalitarian.

The understanding of races in Latin America had a lot more shades of grey compared to Anglo America.
In Latin America, there were words for the mixing of various peoples along with a gradation of allowed positions in society.
In contrast, Anglo America typically treated race as all or nothing. Even for mixed race people, they would get classified typically as the lower status race.

That's because most of latin america is mixed with huge percent of population being mestizos. When almost everyone can claim that they are white/black skin color becomes irrelevant. And they were colonized by different people with different culture.
- I did a quick Google search and it seems like there are many South American countries with a bigger Caucasian percentage than the USA. As of the 2022 Census, USA is 60.9% . Uruguay having 90.7%, Argentina 97% and Costa Rica has 82%.
  In Europe for example the percentage of people identifying as black is even smaller and they're an even smaller minority but even they still mostly aren't separated and are culturally the same.
  
  Caucasian itself is a very US term, in the sense that most of so called caucasians aren't as white as northern europeans. Indians are caucasians, northern africans are caucasians, caucasians are caucasians, southern europeans, turks. Most of these people are 'white' but not 'US white'.
  
  Yes, and Argentina is a very unusual South American country due to this. Brazil has a national identity that is based on being mixed. Countries like Peru or Bolivia have made their own national identities that are different but still don't emphasize ethnicity/skin colour as the US does.
  
  I don't have a precise answer to your post but I'd like to add my two cents - it's not just USA. I'm born and raised in Argentina and moved to Australia when I was 19. Although there isn't a black vs white dichotomy here, people are very, very conscious of skin shades. I still don't get why they obsess over it.
  Just to illustrate, my skin/hair color is sort of like Monica Belucci's. My eyes are green. In Argentina I was considered a brunette, period. Sure, there were lots of people a bit darker than me, and also lots of people more white, but I never felt like anyone cared. You'd only bring the topic when describing someone physically. In Australia? I've been referred to as "a person of color" so many times I lost count, and always by Aussies -even aussies who I would consider to be of a similar complexion to mine. Immigrants on the other hand, don't seem to mind, no matter their own color. People here somehow find ways to make the skin tone and background matter, and I'm amazed at how some conversations end up touching the race topic gratuitously. It's in their mindset. They can't help themselves.
  
  Argentina is also quite racist.

Usa has never tried to break with their own slavery/racism in the past. They have not admitted that it was wrong what they were doing, and that they will never do it again. Therefore it is still there and it remains strong.
Although there are many who frown on racism today, it is only on the surface, only a show.
It is like a law of nature: when you (as a people) have not learned from history, then you are bound to repeat it.
- They have not admitted that it was wrong what they were doing
  This is a straight up lie.
  There was a civil war about it. It was the most costly war for the country in terms of lives.
  There was an amendment to the US Constitution about it.
  The President at the time that slavery was ended is considered to be in the top 3 of the country's history.
  There's a federal holiday to memorialize a civil rights leader. There are parades across the country on this day.
  There are museums and exhibits all over the country on this topic.
  There are tons of documentaries and shows on it.
  This is such a blatant lie, that I don't even know what to say.
  
  I kept waiting for that comment you are replying to take a turn and be a joke, but it never did. They actually believe America never admitted they did anything wrong when it came to slavery?
  I too am at a loss for words.
  
  There was a civil war about it.
  I know that. I don't deny that. But what was the outcome of it? They have reunited with gritted teeth.
  Memorials are a good thing to remember people, but not very meaningful for that what I have talked about.
  
  Please reread that amendment slowly, word for word. See if you maybe missed something the first time.
- I also wonder why so many Americans still casually use the N-Word. It feels kinda surreal to use this considering all the weight and suffering that was connected to that word.
  Imagine Jews or Germans with different ethnicity would be casually using the Hakenkreuz and slurs that Nazis used, as a slang in every day conversation in Germany. That would be unthinkable.
  
  I think it is mostly used by AfroAmerican people, and i believe it is relatively common thing to see groups of people calling themselves with a pejorative word used by other groups (i think punk and queer evolved this way too, though the n-word is a much stronger instance, i see the same pattern)

In 1865, the U.S. ratified the 13th amendment that reads "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Essentially ending slavery as we know it.
And since then, the wealthy have been attempting to do everything they can to bring it back.
It started with the black codes and Jim Crow, doing a facsimile of slavery and violence. This merged into segregation, and then on to red linning and unequal judicial practices. In the civil war, the south got poor white men to enlist by convincing them that freed black men would take their jobs, and we see this continued rhetoric today.
As a result, black people have been grouped together by way of literally preventing them from being in white areas, and for the last 70 years, relying on how difficult it really is to move up and out of any area. You know the best way of passing down wealth? Real estate, which black people have been pointedly pushed away from by redlining and segregation. Ultimately, black Americans have developed their own parallel culture, one that white people have historically shrieked away from. So we end up with two very different groups that see each other as different.

Race was invented by Europeans to divide the working class against itself.
That worked so well that every capitalist country has gone out of their way to reinforce it ever since.
I like to think i was a pretty sharp kid. I had it figured out at the ripe old age of 11 that if you could freely swap blood and organs between different races of people then there wasn't enough difference between them to bother mentioning.

noticed that in the USA people are often strongly divided based on whether they identify as being “black” or “white”.
I don't really see this, in my area at least. Other people's experience will vary. I notice my white and black clasmates get along very well. Hate is not born, it's taught. I think this "divide" is more in rural areas. I'm in Philly and it's a very diverse city, racism between white and black kids are almost non-existent (or at least I never witnessed any actual racism between white kids and black kids beyond the kids being "edgy" with their "dark humor"). I mean like, I never heard a white kid said the N word with the hard R.
I did, however, notice a lot of kids making racist "jokes" against me (For context: I was born in PRC, and immigrated to the US). Like white kids and black kids would both make jokes like "Chinese language probably sounds like 'Chng Chng'" and then they both laugh at the "joke" I'm just like wtf dude. Luckily, as you go up higher in the grade level, the less racist people seem to be.
For context, my high school was like (approximately): 30% White, 20% Black, maybe like 15% Latino, 30% Asian.
Now, the school was very shitty, there were bullying everywhere. But bullying usually wasn't based on race.
And despite the racism that I personally have faced, I do have some Chinese-American classmates who were born here in the US, and they seem to get along with everyone else well, so I'm guessing I'm just not "Americanized" enough and its more like Xenophobia more than Racism/Sinopobia. I'm don't use an "American" name so I guess that's is one of the major reasons why I get targed for racism but others who look just like me don't get targeted.
Now, to be clear, that's not to say there aren't racism between white people and black people. I'm not downplaying racism, I'm just saying I'm lucky to live in a place where the racism is very minimal. There are probably some racists in certain neighborhoods in Philly. I did see some trump flags when traveling around the city, so those people definitely exist. But my point is that its so rare and so socially unacceptable (at least in my city) that I'm having a hard time recalling when I personally witnessed any serious (as in a non-joke) racism between white people and black people happened (I mean, other than on those on the news).
But, outside of my city, especially the rural areas... I don't have first hand experience, but those are probably not somewhere a racial minority would want to go to. And I personally would NEVER go to any republican dominated area.
- This is sort of what I saw in California - where I'm from, Hispanic people were "the white people", and people descended from Africans were "the black people" and I wasn't aware of any sort of prejudice against Asians, they got lumped under the big umbrella of "white" . But when I was in California it was more like black and white guys considered themselves Americans, all one thing, and discriminated against Mexicans and Asians.
  It's all made up, to keep people divided. Not to say there are no historical reasons reverberating still - institutional wealth comes from the past and slavery, so descendents of slaves have legitimate grievance- but the categories/rules of in groups and out groups and who is discriminated against are not the same all over the US.

As others have said, there are lots of divides in various cultures. From what I have heard, many people from the Americas look down on those from further south in the Americas. (Americans look down on Mexicans, who look down on Guatemalans, etc.) I've heard there are still certain views regarding Han Chinese versus others in China, xenophobia in Japan, sectarianism between subsets of Islam, and a basic level of nativism throughout much of the world. For America, the culture started with the era of 'scientific' racism so it started with a color divide. Those old divides remain because certain classes of people keep reinforcing because it helps their narrative. In the same way you can look at what happened with American healthcare through a Marxist, free-market-absolutist, or various other views, you can look at America through various lenses, and the racial one still holds a lot of sway. As long as enough people identify with the grouping, it grants political power to those who have authority in that group. The power is used to reinforce the identity to perpetuate itself and the cycle continues. It takes fairly drastic circumstances to change that.

Wow.

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