Why America’s Obsession With Race Feels Odd to Germans | Feli from Germany

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👉The first time I was asked about my "race" in the US, I was pretty stumped! I had never been asked this before and couldn't believe that people actually have to state if they're white or black. In Germany, this would be illegal. So, let's talk about race in the US compared to Germany!
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0:00 Race Forms in the US
6:09 German History With Race
10:25 The German Word "Rasse"
13:12 Why the USA Collectes Racial Data
15:21 Same Goal - Different Approach
16:16 Growing up in Germany: Lack of Racial Awareness?
21:49 How Language Influences the Way We Think
24:14 Historical Reasons for Different Approach
25:10 Racism in Germany
26:43 Subcultures & Clichés
28:43 Downside of the German Approach
30:46 Abuse of Race & Ethnicity Data
33:03 Do Racial Categories Create Division?
34:53 Conclusion
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LINKS:
Deutscher Bundestag about ethnicity statistics: www.bundestag.de/resource/blo...
Political Crime in Germany, Statistic 2023 ▸shorturl.at/7vGq6
Afrozensus Germany ▸afrozensus.de/
Racial Disparities in US Healthcare ▸shorturl.at/nUuyG
Jahai study ▸pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24355...
Situation Report on Racism in Germany ▸shorturl.at/KaEO6
The effects of banning affirmative action on school diversity ▸shorturl.at/OBrdp
Updates for 2030 US Census Forms ▸shorturl.at/Hmq7U
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ABOUT ME: Hallo, Servus, and welcome to my channel! My name is Felicia (Feli), I'm 30 years old, and I'm a German living in the USA! I was born and raised in Munich, Germany but have been living in Cincinnati, Ohio off and on since 2016. I first came here for an exchange semester during my undergrad at LMU Munich, then I returned for an internship, and then I got my master's degree in Cincinnati. I was lucky enough to win the Green Card lottery and have been a permanent resident since 2019! In my videos, I talk about cultural differences between America and Germany, things I like and dislike about living here, and other topics I come across in my everyday life in the States. Let me know what YOU would like to hear about in the comments below. DANKE :)

[@FelifromGermany]

Go to piavpn.com/felifromgermany to get 83% off Private Internet Access with 4 months free! ▸What are YOUR experiences and opinions on this topic? Have you ever experienced racism? Which of the two approaches do you agree with more? 🤔👇

[@tdiamonds23ice82]

I remember when I was first asked about my race, I was asking the same questions. I didn't understand why my friends needed to know my race. I felt like they were going to say something I didn't like afterward. It was only a few years ago.

[@captain_context9991]

All they got is estimates in the US too, Feli. because every city, every university, every state, everyone collects data differently. Like your surveys everybody uses different key words to describe often the same things. So conducting any kind of statistics across states, becomes pure guesswork.

[@FreezyAbitKT7A]

I don't understand the "urine" culture.

[@panman1964]

I'm actually more surprised that you have never before been asked a Race question (although it makes sense why) than it being common in the USA. Even here in the UK on the census we are asked to select from the following categories & sub categories and these I have also seen elsewhere eg when registering at a Doctors Asian or Asian British (Indian, Pakastain,Bangladeshi, Chinese , Other Asian background) Black, Black British, Caribbean or African (Caribbean African, any other black background) Mixed or multiple ethnic groups (White& Black Caribbean, White & Black African, White & Asian, any other mixed or multiple ethnic background) White (English|Welsh|Scottish|Northern Irish|British , Irish , Gypsy or Irish Traveller, Roma, Any other white background) Other ethnic group (Arab,Any other ethnic group)

[@la_sn3ak3r19]

You have a lot to learn..

[@daliayassin3949]

I am an Egyptian who lived in Germany for many years. A few years ago, I moved to the US. When I first arrived, I didn't pay attention to people's skin color. I didn't even notice if the person I was talking to was white, Hispanic, or black. I didn't think it mattered. But over time, I started to notice and now I prefer the way things are done in Germany. I don't think constantly talking about race helps. I believe that if we stop making such a big deal out of skin color, racism will eventually fade away. Ultimately, people should be treated equally and hired based on their skills.

[@jonok42]

If you are speaking to someone, and actually paying attention to them, how do you not see the color of their skin? One would need to actually be blind to do so. Now, if you state you see them and who they are and their ethnicity/culture, but you accept them and appreciate them for who they are as an individual then that makes sense. We should all be seen for all the nuances of who we are, but accepted and treated with equality and respect anyway! In the US that is what many are trying to achieve. It is difficult, but we have to keep trying. One day I truly believe we can do that throughout the world. The world is a bigoted and prejudice place. This thread proves it.

[@krono5el]

unfortunately the USA was started by some super racist and christian europeans.

[@KS-xd6ql]

@@jonok42 You don't need to keep trying, you need to stop talking about it... A person LOOKING like they belong to some culture because they have a certain skin color or features, now that sounds racist to me. You can't see culture, you are guessing based on experience, you are the bigot here. The problem in the US is that race, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, crippling childhood trauma, etc is being used to stand out and that doesn't help when you actually want to blend in...

[@morganmcallister2001]

@@jonok42 It's not that they don't see the color of their skin. They just don't draw any conclusions from it and don't force into a topic of discussion. You don't have to know their culture to accept them as a human being. As an American I find it mind boggling that I have to be aware of every single slur and stereotype a people have so that I can actively avoid using it. Why do I have to learn racism to be non-racist? A politician in Maryland used a word that he did not intend to be a slur and I would venture that the vast majority of Americans were unaware the word was a slur, but it cost him a primary election because he wasn't aware that so many of his constituents would take offense to the word that he used in a completely different context from how they understood it (David Trone in case you care enough to ask and no I won't repeat the word).

[@Caballaria-sc2sj]

@@jonok42 As a non-American (Italian to be specific), I've always suspected that the reason Americans seem obsessed with race to us Europeans, is because in America there is a racial group that has its own dialect (AAVE, also known as Ebonics, spoken by blacks). It took me a long time to figure this out, but when you do, the difference between the old world and the US is striking. There is NOTHING like that over here in Italy. Immigrants speak with the accent of their home country, and their children who grow up here, INVARIABLY, speak the same as everyone else. Black Italians (or Asian Italian, or anyone else, as long as they grow up here) sound exactly like everyone else, they don't have an accent. I honestly think that explains all the problems with race the US has that Europe doesn't have. It's harder to treat a group the same as everyone else when they speak in a different way.

[@j31b]

As someone who grew up in former Soviet union, I was extremely confused by the term "Caucasian" used in USA as a synonym to those of European race. In Russia and some other ex-Soviet countries this term is used to describe people native to Caucasus region, such as Georgians, Azeris, Armenians, Chechens, etc. In the 1990s there was a lot of prejudice against Caucasians in Russia (and there still is), they were stereotyped as criminals and terrorists, would be attacked by neonazis, profiled by police, face discrimination and were not considered white, some common racial slurs were based on their perceived "non-whiteness" (by USA standards majority of Caucasians would be considered white). Racial definitions can vary a lot in different regions based on various historical factors, and can make no sense outside those regions. So for someone outside USA American racial categories can look very strange and illogical, and so does American preoccupation with race and categorizing people based on it in general.

[@damonmelendez856]

Another example of Americans trying to export their historical problems and issues to the rest of the world.

[@damonmelendez856]

In America, you will still be classified as an ‘oppressor’ no matter that your family has no ties to ‘slavery’ or the historical American issues.

[@HeatherLandon227]

As someone who grew up Knowing that the Caucauses Exist, I find it soo disheartening. Here in the US they profit on people's ignorance.

[@wohlhabendermanager]

When I started watching TV shows in English I was confused by that term as well. "Caucasian? Huh? Why are all those people from the caucasus region? I don't understand...?" Took me quite some time to realise they meant "white".

[@louise_rose]

I'm from Sweden, and I think in the US, race is often used as a veiled and lopsided way of talking about issues of class - because discussing straight in terms of class, the entitled vs the poor (even working poor) is seen as un-American.

[@merlehendriks5750]

I was on vacation in NYC in 2019, we were in the metrostation when a man next to us had an epileptic seizure and fell on his head. Blood started to flow out of his head so we went to the nearest emergency pole and called 911. My brother explained what happened and the first question that the dispatcher asked was ‘is he white, black or hispanic?’. The man looked Latino, so my brother said hispanic. (We’re dutch, btw) At first we thought it was for identification, but soon realised that the metrostation was nearly empty (it was late in the evening) so there’s no way they wouldn’t have seen the guy laying on the ground with a pool of blood around him. When they finally arrived 15 minutes (!!) later they only brought a first aid kit and walked over to the man in the slowest pace ever. That was not to ‘eliminate’ racism, that very much was racism. If your first question is what is the persons ‘race’ and not for example ‘how long ago did it happen?’ or ‘how much blood did he lose?’ or anything like that then it really sounds like racism to me.

[@JohtoMaster_Gold]

Racism has never left the USA😞

[@krissy012p]

That is awful. 😮

[@steves4533]

It was for indetification. How would the dispatcher know the station was empty? You're being an idiot.

[@phoenixfreefall]

911 dispatchers are trained to ask for race for identification purposes. They don't know who will be present or how confusing the scene may be when help arrives. I can't speak for the slow response of the EMTs in this case, but the question from the dispatcher was for identification.

[@Rokiotop900]

​@@phoenixfreefallIn latin america exist a diversity of races and never ever a medic will ask you about your race

[@spacecavy]

As someone who is mixed race and white passing I've found these questions nothing but confusion and pain. I always try to put "decline to state" but then an employee will return the form to me and demand I pick something else. No matter what I select I feel like I'm lying and betraying a part of myself. Do I put "white" and deny my Mexican heritage? If I put "hispanic" am I denying the white priveledge I have as a white passing person? And then there's the obnoxious time-wasting questions from strangers if they can't put you into a box. "Where are you from?" "California." "No . . . where are you FROM?" "California." "OK, where are your parents from?" "CALIFORNIA. Will you please take my fare and let me on this damn bus!?" (actual interaction I had when I was a teenager)

[@tovarishcheleonora8542]

Why do they even have a decline option then? lol I mean, what's the point of that option if they will demand you to not decline it.

[@rossjaron7309]

This happened to me too. I'm born and raised and have lived in Pittsburgh my entire life. I've had people argue with me about where I was born because I'm Jewish.

[@Baalaaxa]

Understandable. Put your "white privilege" to good use, and keep fighting these stupid racist questionnaires by declining to answer. We should not tolerate nor submit to racism. We need to treat people as equals, no matter where we are from.

[@TickleMeChelmno]

rossjaron7309 So you’re saying jevvish is more than a religion?

[@krystalneko4094]

Mexicans are also white usually, I mean weren't the Spanish one of the peoples that invented this categorization for their very mixed colonies? The initial white/black/Asian/native question + a separate question for Hispanic heritage is what usually see on forms.

[@54032Zepol]

It does feel weird why I as an American have to sign off for what ethnicity or race I am for employment, it should not be there for any reason.

[@danielleschmidt2954]

The reason for this is probably things like making sure there is enough diversity within the company. As a white person this actually worked in my favor ONCE. I used to work at a Walgreens in Orlando and I was literally hired because I was white. I was the only white person that worked at the whole store. Not that I think there is anything discriminatory about this. I think its a good thing to have intentional diversity. Its just not usually something that benefits white people, because of white privilege.

[@aaronbrandon6729]

If you belong to a group that is historically not denied equal opportunity, it can feel that way

[@georgejackson2631]

Because of “white privilege”. Anti-White discrimination in enforced by the American state.

[@georgejackson2631]

They get every benefit and advantage in hiring, promotions, admissions, scholarships, grants, loans, layoffs, mortgages, down payments, dorms, federal contacts, and relief aid.

[@TakenTook]

It's an attempt to try to make up for the discrimination of the past by making sure that employers do not have a pattern of only hiring certain ethnic groups

[@wilynoppen1827]

Article 1 Dutch Constitution “All those in the Netherlands are treated equally in equal cases. Discrimination on grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or on any other grounds is not permitted.”

[@Pikawarps]

America’s founding documents say the same thing, but we 100% are treated differently by the government based on our race/skin color/family backgrounds

[@petercollingwood522]

When was that constitution written?

[@onnasenshi7739]

@@petercollingwood522 when i'm right it must be 1964 the Civil Rights Act (sry when i'm wrong, i am german)

[@MrPip9999]

They wrote the same thing in the American constitution eg. "all men are created equal ...". However the guy who first said it kept more than 100 slaves in his Virgina family farm His name was Washington.. They ask people about their racial origins because they classify them and put those who are of the same skin colours together whether it's about housing, theater seats, work place, schooling seats in classrooms etc ...

[@AH64Gunship]

US Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 14th Amendment Section 1: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." 15th Amendment: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Among the civil rights acts and many other laws

[@schildkroete]

As an Asian kid growing up in a predominantly white community in the US, it wasn't my parents or teachers who it in my head that I was racially different from everyone else. It was actually white kids in my own school who were parroting racist sentiments they heard from their siblings or parents who told me that I was Chinese or Japanese, as they were making fun of me for my "slanted eyes". No labeling of my race could have contributed to the racism I experienced in elementary school. If your society already has people who harbor racist attitudes that manifest themselves as actual poorer treatment of minorities, then documenting race in order to track those disparities in quality of living is more beneficial than harmful.

[@James-pl5uc]

You think so? Seems like the use of such data is one sided, meaning that when the historically disadvantaged group is doing worse than that historically privileged group, that is used as evidence of unjust treatment. But when then historical privileged group is doing worse than the historically disadvantaged group, no comment is made about it. Seems like nowadays most of the use of this data is to generate anger and resentment and sometime used to discriminate against members of the historically groups. It’s not clear to me that the benefits outweigh the harms.

[@norwegianblue2017]

Good thing there is no racism in Asia! LOL

[@chazlewis8114]

As an Asian-Australian I completely disagree. I wish for a colorblind society where no-one talks about race at all. But I can understand how different opinions can form based on one's individual experiences.

[@topherh5093]

Why did you call the European American kids white?? Sounds very racist. Funny how you were upset by them mentioning your differences but find it perfectly ok to call them by theirs.

[@FelifromGermany]

Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience! 🙏

[@Alejojojo6]

Im from Spain, and that adds a whole new layer when you need to fill the survey. I am very "white looking" im blond, tall, green eyes, blond beard etc so I am confused as German or Anglo. Since I am Spanish I was born in Europe. Thus on the census It's always confusing if I should mark Caucasian White, White Latino etc... according to the Census you are Latino (which also includes Brazil) or Hispanic only if you are born in Spanish Speaking America but if you are born in Europe you have to write Caucasian White. So Spain's position is very odd in the census and in reality you can mark what you like since it contradicts itself, at least in the case of Spain. It doesnt help I am Basque which we do not speak a romance language or are necessarily Latin culturally.

[@XY-uc1tw]

well there is always some exception, but Spanish people mostly does not look white.

[@josemanueld5413]

​@@XY-uc1twAre you saying Mediterranean or Southern Europeans like Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Greeks, Israel are not white?

[@XY-uc1tw]

@@josemanueld5413 yes, most of them are not white, but brown. Except in northern Italy, where some German minorities live and Israil has many Russian like people.

[@martaotita]

Hahahhahahaa brown? Hahahhahaha you mean tanned😅 these people

[@FelifromGermany]

So true!!

[@darthzayexeet3653]

As a polish guy in Berlin, when I was in school our class was naturally very diverse and no one said anything about it. We had black, asian, slavic, native american and arabic people there but “race” was never an issue or even a topic of discussion. It was way more important which country you’re from or grew up in. Like I remember having conversations with classmates where they were from and they proudly identified themselves being from a certain country (e.g. Ireland, Cameroon, South Korea, Russia etc.) but never their “race”. I never really thought about that either. Concepts like White/Caucasian and Asian are therefore pretty confusing to me bc they’re so wide in their scope and definition. I always thought more in terms of country of origin, rather than race or ethnicity

[@TickleMeChelmno]

Uh huh. Marriage types says otherwise.

[@jamesmedina2062]

Yes the country of origin affects behavior and culture more directly than race does. I think conserving race data allows for discrimination but people can conserve "racism" if they want to because people intrinsically are interested in history. We seem obsessed with where a person "grew up" in the US.

[@sebastianbauer4768]

@@jamesmedina2062I disagree, you care about the colour of their skin, otherwise you wouldn’t ask about it. For example Elon musk, an actual African immigrant, faces far less racism than an African-American whose family has been in the US for generations. That’s because you do not care where they “grew up”. If I see a black guy in Germany it matters a great deal whether he is from central Africa or the US. With the American, as we would refer to a black US citizen, I know that I will most likely have all the important values in common. I know there will be no language barrier and that he in all likelihood won’t be a criminal. For the African man there would be a lot more prejudice to overcome. Skin colour tells you absolutely nothing about a person. Country of origin and how someone got to where he is now on the other hand … it’s not even racism. Just being wary of strangers, and people from the US are less strange than people from a wholly different culture you can’t even properly communicate with.

[@Habakuk_]

@@sebastianbauer4768 Elon Musk is a bad example 😅 If a black man was as rich he wouldn't have any problems.

[@sebastianbauer4768]

@@Habakuk_ Nice theory, unfortunately we can’t test it as it’s impossible for a black man to get that rich due to the racism :D.

[@barrysteven5964]

I've heard several stories of black British people visiting the USA having to explain that they thought of themselves as British first rather than African British and were definitely not African American as some insisted they must be. I don't think of myself as white British either. I'm just English or British. Or Geordie!! It is illegal in the UK to ask for somebody's ethnic background on a job application. Also I remember a funny video made by an American (African American) living in London giving tips to American visitors. One of the things he told his viewers was that the Brits would not regard different coloured Americans as being different from each other. They're all just 'bloody yanks'. 😂

[@FelifromGermany]

That's exactly how I felt! I never consciously thought of myself as "white" before I came to the US but maybe that also means that I never realized the white privilege I've experienced my whole life? I don't know 🤷‍♀️

[@DavidZ4-gg3dm]

@@FelifromGermany What privileges do you have due to being white?

[@barpoe]

@@DavidZ4-gg3dm police profiling comes to mind

[@sherryware]

Hopefully, someday, the US will be as wise and modern as Germany regarding the "Human" race.

[@AC-cg4be]

I used to work with a white African American. People would be quite shocked when a white woman who was literally from Africa would show up and you could see the wires not quite completing an entire circuit.

[@wynterseymour1471]

Black woman, born and raised in the US. Can confirm I didn’t learn I was black from watching my mom fill out forms. I was told I spoke well for a black child when I was really young. Additionally wasn’t invited to a sleepover because, you guessed it, black. I had to hang my head in shame. I would have preferred seeing her check a box and proudly explain what it means to be a black person without the humiliation of finding out through racism first.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Both the bogus forms and the social exclusion are forms of racism, and it is absolutely NOT OK!

[@randolphchristensen6428]

So sorry that happened to you. I hope I can teach my children to invite ALL their friends to have fun with them.

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

No idea what happened to my comment? Did I offend some white supremacist at KZbin?🤣

[@AMonteiro4]

Sorry you went through that . That's horrid & you arent the one that should feel shame ❤

[@Alejojojo6]

Are you sure its related to racism? Cause what you may perceive as racism is sometimes simply not so. I mean many blacks speak sadly with a peculiar accent or badly due to socio-economic reasons, so it's ignorant to say/tell someone that, but I do understand why they might want to be polite and tell you that. Not inviting you to a sleep over doesnt necessarily mean its done because of racism, maybe those girls didnt like you for whatever reasons. Something I see a lot in the US is that any little rift they have with someone they automatically blame it on their race and racism which is not really the case a lot of the time. When you see through the lense of race you perceive everything as racism. That's something I really see in the US compared to other places.

[@fallen-il8ze]

As an asian grown up in Germany, I wish that there were some more awareness regarding racism. In school, I was mobbed because of my asian looks and if I were trying to search for help, teachers didn't really do much and didn't even clarify why the mobbing kids are wrong or should not say the things they did (or even think in this way, but that's hard to change if you were grown up in such an environment, but the more it is important to teach students beginning from a young age on). The only thing I was told everytime was "he/she did not mean it maliciously" or "don't take it too seriously" and I was sent away sometimes without even talking to the mobber (I mean, sometimes there were teachers who were also racists and that was a horrendous time..., but also the non-racists were like that because they didn't experienced mobbing or don't know how it would feel like missing kind of an empathy as a social educated teacher). These early days shaped me so drastically in a bad way, and the worst part is that those (former) mobbers and teachers or any other people related to this do not recognize it...

[@alextaws6657]

ich glaube dir sofort! so sorry, you had to go through that! racism/xenophobia is very much pervasive in germany, from my experience especially in smaller places. i was also a migrant child but look "white", so blend in quite easily. that was and is a huge advantage. i just felt like a foreigner in the very small village i grew up in. people there didn't make much more of a distinction between "foreign as not from this village" and "foreign as not from germany" 😅 (mostly, at least). my mom experienced quite a bit of xenophobia though (even though she, too, looked "white"). but right next village over there was a huge neo-nazi problem with mass brawls between them and groups of russian immigrants or turkish immigrants at almost every bigger event (Kirmes). and between russian immigrants and turkish immigrants. ... geze, i forgot how much shit was going on there, i'm so happy to live where i live now. ok, i'm losing my train of thought and am gonna end this comment on this 😅

[@stanislavbandur7355]

That is a problem of Europe in general - we are so righteous, that we are not able to say anything. As highest peak can be used something like "immigrant" or "other ethnicity". And while we do not handle this kind of topics, people are rose with wild handling manners. Plus as cherry on the top, media (of particular kind) make this much worse. friend of mine is full of bu..sh.t and hates immigrants and liberals and so ... He is living abroad (other EU country) and in fact, he is immigrant there (respond is always - "that is different thing") - and of course, while he want to be handled equally there - he is liberal too. We hate each other more and more day by day. It is crazy how political correctness does not allow even talking about these topics, nor educate people and same political correctness allows content creators (individuals, or print media or .... any type of media) to speak freely lies (desinformation) or share and spread rumors (misinformation) and of course if here is no education so people cant critically review content they later adapt. All is wrong. My cousin's neigbour is Pakistani, my tenant is Palestinian, My coworkers are Ukrainians and one is Tunisian, one welder is Vietnamese I buy my loved Kebap from Turkish and we have here a lot of Koreans and Chinese (KIA factory is here and a lot of their suppliers) and so on. How that matter, yes if here is some census, ok. Everybody can pronounce their cultural backgrounds, but other way this social construct has to be deconstructed. Again, we have here lack of education and people take same way social and biological definition. Most times it is - it is proven, races are here, look at dogs. I am looking and looking and in same breed dogs can have different colour of fur, but never seen human race wit different heads (so different, that should to matter), different sizes or differently shaped body parts. Maybe I am wrong, but I agree, that for governing purposes is good to know that here is criminality caused by people from there or there (standard russian mafias in 90's) and law enforcement needs to put an eye on some more likely risky groups/areas, but it is more like opinion groups than ethnicity/race (religion, nazis, xenofobic, chauvinistic ....) and individual idiocy. I am trying hard to not put people into bags, but think on individual bases and I always say that somebody is idiot because he is idiot, not because he speaks other language, worship different god or was born beyond virtual line on the map. Of course same can be applied for "they". Here exist people moving to Europe thinking that "we" are weak, will do nothing to "them", will feed them and "they" take our women, but it is minimum. Stereotypes are dangerous. Here, most of population, see gypsies as poor,crazy, dirty, irresponsible lifestyle living group, but in fact only 13% of Gypsies are living that way and other gypsies are ashamed by behaviour of those people. I had gypsy friends on university, in previous work I have colleague with university degree education and worked with gypsies a lot, yes some are not educated well, but they work hard (it is for sure some systematic problem with higher rates of well educated people of this group - they are "African Americans" of our country). We still trying (country I live in and people I meet time to time) to find differences. We are use it as excuses for saying we are better. We are lazy to think in details and simplifications can cause disaster on the end of the day. Yes, this guy broke rules he will go to jail or be bannished - how it matters if he is Caucasian white from Crimea or coal black from Zambia or Light brown from Somalia (or other different local african ethnicities - include egyptians, north africans and pale south africans+bambjillion other ethnic and religious group around the globe)? That guy is an idiot breaking rules we are used to (and made our law by such norms). For all people on both sides of this barricade - Hey, we are all people and we have this civilization because of cooperation, wake up!

[@EHonda-ds6ve]

What´s your race? Formula 1.

[@arnodobler1096]

👍😂

[@miskatonic6210]

I feel threatened by Formula 1 and don't want that race in my neighborhood!

[@Eargesplitten-Loudenboomer]

Professional racist

[@steve41557]

HA! Indeed!

[@dn3087]

Yello

[@Gnatz09]

what is always confusing with the word "caucasian" is that this region " the caucasus" is not even european^^ its located between the northeastern border of turkey, near russias south border where armenia, aserbaidjan and Georgia (not to confuse with the US State) are located. :D

[@Pidalin]

It is on border of Europe, but people there don't look like you mostly imagine a typical "white person" so it was always weird even for me why they call it like that. I don't think we learned about some "caucasian" race in Czech schools, but there were still things that could be considered racist in these days when I was visiting elementary schools. But funny is that even people from India are part of "europoid" race by our teachbooks even when they are obviously not white, so everything they teach in USA is just weird for us, like they have some "latino" race etc....bizzare stuff.

[@stiegelzeine2186]

technically they are both i mean all of europe and asia except for india is a single continental plate, only difference is that someone set a border there once and though yeah thats it georgians identify as european, armenia considers itself asian and azerbaidjan identifies as arab wich technically should also be considered its own continent if we devide eurasia by cultures because arabs are far from japanese or chinese people culturally

[@Pidalin]

@@stiegelzeine2186 I found it recently that Europe pretty much doesn't exist as a continent, it's just a cultural or political border.

[@bigF94]

The classification comes from an old racist classification of people in caucasian mongoloid and negro. Caucasian being everything from white to Indian. It doesnt make a lot of sense and is a good reason to toss out the word caucasian aswell as we have the other two. Edit from Wikipedias Page about Caucasian Race : "Introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history,[b] the term denoted one of three purported major races of humankind (those three being Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid)."

[@prospero4060]

I was once told that this is because, in terms of evolution over the past 28,000 years, it is thought that light skin evolved first in the Caucasus mountains.

[@dragonhero14]

People may be confused as to why the US has collected racial/ethnic data. As an African American, part of this stems from the denial of bias. Even before slaves were freed, white immigrants faced different circumstances based on which country they came from. If you came from Great Britain or German you were given better treatment than if you were from Ireland or Poland. This has happened to most racial groups in the USA. One of the big points made during the civil rights movement here is that by denying the difference of peoples, it allows policymakers, businesses, and communities to turn a blind eye and ignore large bias in treatment. The results of this tracking have allowed data to be collected that allows us to fight racism. A great example of this is redlining in the USA. You wouldn't have the data to prove the bias if it wasn't tracked. Same with banks giving loans, education, healthcare, etc.

[@celinepa8246]

Thanks for this!

[@HeyMySock]

Thank you for explaining!

[@skramzy6628]

Yes, very true. This is one of many reasons I prefer the US method.

[@opinionsandfaxc]

it is more relevant to the USA but a lot has changed for the better. Doesn't mean discrimination doesn't happen at all but it's less common indicating there has been a change which means needed adjustments such as getting rid of race questions. having to state your race still in 2024 is racist. responding to racism throughout history by being racist still means there is..wait for it....RACISM. and frankly making a race always a factor for decisions and conversations ultimately one way or another leads to some sort of profiling based on race. A lot of racism is not even real and is making assumptions via talking about race and just conversations. Morgan Freeman said "stop talking about it."

[@user-fg9hs5ue7w]

Hang on. You're telling me you guys fight racism by being racist?

[@robw0127]

This is a thoughtful, well-produced video. Thank you, Feli (and others who had a part). We don’t always realize the amount of work that goes into making something like this. Well done!

[@inyobill]

03:54: Anthropologists realized about 150 years ago that trying to give race a scientific definition is impossible.

[@MariAsherahRose]

As an anthropologist, I concur. Race is a social construct.

[@snorristurluson5849]

​@@MariAsherahRose No it absolutely isn't. You don't have to be a geneticist, anthropologist or biologist to know that race is in fact definitely real

[@qr3579]

@@snorristurluson5849 Well, what MariAsherahRose probably means by " Race is a social construct" is that the way how people are cathegorized into racial groups (in the USA or elswhere) in the public/political discourse is not based on scientific evidence and is highly arbitrary. As a prime example of that, at 2:13 - Pakistanis are in a different cathegory then Indians while lumped together with Hmongs and Cambodians. I might not be a geneticist, anthropologist or biologist but I can tell you that Pakistanis are much more closely related to Indians than to either Hmongs or Cambodians, both genetically and by physical appearance. In short this whole race thing is driven more by politics rather than by science.

[@MellonVegan]

@@snorristurluson5849 Ethnicity is a thing. Heritage is a thing. Genealogy is a thing. Races are not. Not for humans, anyways. It's not that you couldn't arbitrarily group people by their ancestry, it's that the concept of race (as used and applied) doesn't reflect reality very well. It changes based on context and bias. Ethnicity is right there, just use that. Or say phenotype if you want to keep dividing people by how they look, have fun with that. Just word it properly, please.

[@valorie444]

​@@snorristurluson5849 i am someone with a mixture of different European, African and native American ethnic groups what am I if not multi ethnic? I don't belong to a particular "race" of people lol, you're just a racist.

[@gmalcolms]

I am an American, originally from New York City, who has lived in Japan for 24 years. Observing from afar, it seems that America has become increasing focused on race the past decade, which is sad. For most racial groups in America, there used to be a much stronger identification with one's ethnicity than race. Koreans, Vietnamese, and Indians, e.g., didn't have much solidarity because they were all Asian, and even among Latinos, they placed more importance on which Latin American country their ancestors came from. Among whites in NY, this was true as well, with people regarding themselves as Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc. It was only mainly among blacks (who had their ethnic distinctions erased by slavery) and whites who had ancestors from NW Europe who immigrated 100s of years ago (mainly found in the South and Appalachia) where you would see strong racial identification. Growing up I saw myself as Sicilian, German, and Slovak, and while I knew I was classified as white, it had no importance to me, and I felt no affinity for someone else just because they were also white. Living in Japan is a totally different experience. 99%+ or the population is East Asian and 98% is ethnically Japanese, so you don't have racial tensions. Instead, the division tends to be between Japanese and non-Japanese (just broadly called "foreigners"), and discrimination is pervasive.

[@kylezdancewicz7346]

Japan is actually very racist sometimes especially to blacks even if they are still ethnic Japanese

[@Jz-vz8ky]

Acting like racism doesn't exist causes more racism and unintentional bias

[@TickleMeChelmno]

Funny how Japan got to keep their ethno state despite doing exactly what Germany did.

[@Alejojojo6]

I lived in japan and the discrimination is "we native" vs the "foreigners". Other Asians such as Koreans might have it harder but they also blend much easier than whites or blacks. The discrimination in Japan was weird since it was done in ways you would never see them in the west (Not been allowed entry because of race, in the subway, yelling at you on the street etc...) but not all Japanese are like that. So I would never blame a whole country/society ever. There are black who are racist, there are Japanese who hate foreigners, there are Asians which are good people, same for Blacks and whites and some that arent. A group doesnt determine you personality, traits and ways of doing things which people massively fail to understand.

[@Alejojojo6]

@@Jz-vz8ky Quite the oppodsite. I am more racist since race matters more and I have to hear people say BS all the time. Before this time and age, race didnt matter much we were on the path of simply judging people by their personality and not their looks regarding race or features. But modern America has become a country of Karens where every small thing needs to be amplified so they feel special. The more you speak of race, the more importance you give to it, the worse it will divide people. You are literally putting a barrier "Them" vs "us" based on skin color.

[@Sheepybearry]

As an American, I think the obsession with race is stupid. If we stop talking about race or whatever, racism will stop. Ofc people should celebrate their culture and such whether you are English, or Spanish, Navajo, or African American, but it should not be a part of literally everything.. there is no reason why you need my race to give me any service, it should literally be are you born in this country or not.. if anything. People talking about race lead to the ideas that make more racism.. and leads to theories that say, "you can't be racist to [race]", or whatever.

[@Jesse-ri5ud]

i understand why you feel that way, but talking about race and racism is extremely necessary because racism isn't just a few crazy people saying or doing bad things. racism is built into the government, schools, laws, and culture of the usa and it remains deeply rooted in these institutions. if we don't talk about those things, they will never change, they'll just keep hurting people

[@cisium1184]

@@Jesse-ri5ud That's a load of horseshit. The media and politics sow divisiveness to control us, with the aid of useful idiots like yourself. You are sick inside, and you must reject politics or you will never become healthy.

[@norwegianblue2017]

@@Jesse-ri5ud Oh please. Nobody actually TALKS about racism. It is a very one-sided conversation where the opposing side is shouted down by the mob. Say the wrong thing and you are out of a job.

[@crss29]

In Spanish we also use the same word for race and breed, "raza". Which obviously has the same root as "race" and "rasse". And as a correction, the two blues are different colors in Spanish, the light blue is "celeste" which also means "celestial" (obviously has the same root) and the darker one is proper blue. The exact same way pink and red are different colors in English, and Spanish. Not entirely different, everyone knows both are lighter versions of the 'main' color.

[@fabianmaciel]

Tenemos muchos nombres específicos para tonos, pero no deja de ser azul.

[@ivanott7196]

I visited US a few years ago and I only stayed for 2 weeks. Within those 2 weeks, I was asked EXTENSIVELY where I'm from multiple times. When I said, I'm from Australia, and then they started asking where my parents are from until where's my great grandparents are from. Seriously, I'm a native Australian and I really don't know any further than where's my grandpa is from.

[@residentzero]

It's because Americans deep inside are keenly aware of their colonial history which goes back just a few generations, and they don't have deep roots in their own country, and thus feel a need to establish their identity as descendants of immigrants of every corner of Europe (unless they're black) then hang on to their particular ancient heritage to set themselves apart from other groups.

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

@@residentzero You know what I find funny about that? It never comes up in movies, especially not wester movies. I mean it usually takes two or three generations until the original culture starts to vanish. Even traces from the parent's or grandparent's culture could give a character interesting quirks. Though I have missed the same in pirate movies. It's not like they were born as pirates or came from the same country. Even the fighting styles from Spain and France would be different at the time.

[@inyobill]

Here in Germany I get asked very often where I'm from. People are just curious.

[@jamesmedina2062]

I think it's a double-edged sword. Its often a gear thing that stimulates talk and curiosity about our origins. Other times it can pigeon-hole you and people will undoubtedly discriminate towards you. I find when parents are adamant about continuing norms they will teach their kids to be judgemental and to conserve the norms taught being taught to them. So often this cultural pride ends up being quite a bit discriminatory toward others. At the same time it is good to cherish you ancestors and history. So its complicated

[@UtamagUta]

@@residentzero which is truly sad because everywhere else You (not OP, but persons in 1st comment) are nothing more, nothing less - an American. With white teeth, white sneakers and loud voice. I feel bad breaking it for immigrant Americans to, for example, Germany being proud "for coming back home". No, honey, no... Also quit the whole expat thing, we all know emmigrant goes away, immigrant arrives. It's not a slur, no need to feel embarrassed.

[@kipburnett1403]

It is odd to me as an American too. I thought we would be past this back in the 1970's. It looks like it will be forever.

[@gunkulator1]

There is progress but there's still a long way to go. Every major institution in America still has a large overrepresentation of white people controlling it. So either 1) Racist theories are correct and people of color really are inferior or 2) Systematic racism still exists in America.

[@elinars5638]

As a white person, I only answer the question about race because I am also disabled.

[@Lensmaster1]

There are plenty of bigots out there. We did not get past it. Many just got quieter about it. In the past 8 years, many have proudly come out with their bigotry.

[@anotherperspective6247]

Democrat party relies on racial grievance for their continued existence.

[@krono5el]

As long as there are european christians in the American continent there will always be poverty and racism.

[@SlideRSB]

As an American, I think Germany is handling fighting racism better than the US.

[@JRyan-dz4fd]

They both are beholden to Chinese interests. Trade has always been the name of the game, and today China increasingly is holding all the cards. Identity politics are increasing everywhere. Europe & North America are taking moire of a "backseat" While it may not be skin deep ... it goes much more to identity and skin color is just one starting point to "identifying" category within "identity politics". Germany & The U.S. ? - no It's a global situation as old as consciousness.

[@TonyMontanaDS]

In Europe they might judge you based on the country you are from but very rarely do they care about race. This is an American obsession.

[@JRyan-dz4fd]

@@TonyMontanaDS In other places they perceive race as nationality all under the umbrella of "equity,equality".

[@TonyMontanaDS]

@@JRyan-dz4fd No they don't. They don't think a French has a different race from a Russian.

[@williamjones4716]

Your thoughts reflect a notion that Germany is homogeneous, it is not. the greatest discrimination against migrants in Germany comes from the north (Lower Saxony/Schleswig-Holstein) and the east of the country (former DDR).

[@mattgooding8045]

As an american who descends from German immigrants and who has spent considerable time in Germany, I want to congratulate you on your thoughtful and sophisicated presentation on race in both Germany and USA. Well done!

[@petrabeschorner459]

When I (I'm german) lived in the US, I always answered this 'race' question with "human". I never cot any reaction😅

[@inyobill]

Perfectly acceptable, given the optional nature of the question. Note that "race" is asocial concept, not a scientific reality. Race is an illusion.

[@KristopherLee1]

I do the same - Born in the U.S.

[@AsterFoz]

try 'i'm not a dog' next time

[@sabinedouble07]

😊❤

[@sabinedouble07]

​@AsterFoz 😂

[@max_the_german4989]

Her thinking shows that she grew up in a „Kulturnation“, in which the affiliation to the nation‘s people is defined by sharing the same culture. This makes it easier to integrate persons with different ethnicities, but harder for persons with a totally different cultural background.

[@colbymcarthur7871]

I think this makes a lot of sense, in the US where the nation is (ideally) defined by values like democracy, we have to come up with some way to distinguish between people, and race is an easier way to do this than ethnicity or religion with a quick glance

[@eri_sama]

​@@colbymcarthur7871and germany isn't a defined democracy???

[@domenigo97]

​@@colbymcarthur7871Why do you have to distinguish between people? Why is an ID not enough? What does it matter what color my skin has? This just seems like a leftover from the time of segregation.

[@hy3na739]

I'm Swiss and we are historically not a Kulturnation but a Willensnation. You don't need to group people into boxes based on a socially constructed and wrong system like race. That's just racist. Someone who grew up here and went to school here is Swiss... Their skin colour does not change that. No matter how much racists think it does.

[@hy3na739]

​@@colbymcarthur7871The whole point is to not distinguish between people based on attributes that can tell you about as much abou the person as their eye colour. I'm from Switzerland, arguably the most democratic country in the world. Of course there will always be racist people, even here. But that old, artificially constructed system they base their discrimination on, has no merit. Someone who grew up and went to school here is Swiss, no matter how much racists would like to not be true.

[@twalrus1]

The main reasons for asking about ethnicity is for reasons opposite of racist reasons. It's for statistical reasons to find out "problem areas" such as racism. For example, if a city or region has 12% Black, but Blacks are being arrested at a 40% rate, you night want to look into that to see if there are racist reasons for the discrepancy. It's also to make sure races aren't getting their votes watered down by gerrymandering so that they are less represented in Congress. For the most part, the government asking for your race and/or ethnicity is to have a database from which to find the problem areas that need fixing.

[@lynnhettrick7588]

Yes, you can’t fix a problem unless you’re aware of it. Collecting data is one way to be aware of the problems.

[@umka7536]

@@lynnhettrick7588 You must collect the appropriate data. How is race related to crime rate? There is no relation. What matters is how people leave, in what environment they grew up and what families. How is race relevant to that?

[@vashsunglasses]

@@umka7536 Because racist police officers target black people for arrest and then racist prosecutors, judges, and juries target black people for incarceration. Obviously! Did you think that racist people all stopped existing?

[@lilg2300]

Unfortunately the data can be used by racists as well.

[@Rokiotop900]

It is still racism. In other countries with multiple colors on people they dont classify and put persons in boxes depending of their color. "Yes you are american but a different type of american" "Diversity but separated" That classification system should be abollied

[@ironic_ant]

I've read before about languages that use cardinal map directions instead of "left" and "right", and as a result those speakers tend to have an excellent sense of direction. Having words for things in your everyday vocabulary means you're more likely to recognize and be aware of those things, for better or worse.

[@RoxyArietis]

I find it interesting that those qualifiers exclude so many details as well... For example, I'm latina, but I'm a white Latina, there are native Latinos, black latinos, even Asian latinos, but then it feels like when you say latino you only think about a certain group and it excludes all other things that makes us different. A Gaucho will have 100% different life experiences from a Native from the US, same as a black person from Colombia, so I find it all a bit confusing and innacurate.

[@georgejackson2631]

I don’t believe there are much White Latina’s in the country. America has a very small Spanish population.

[@JTheVisionaryVA]

I used to be confused by this until I realized that ethnicity and race being separated meant that I could represent my indigenous and African ancestry by checking all relevant boxes. Could someone looking at my paperwork confuse me for a more traditional biracial person? Sure, but as a Puerto Rican, that’s still technically what I am.

[@SnakeitySpoonGilmour]

​@@georgejackson2631 Wrong. I'm from New Mexico and there are a ton of white Latinas. I'm one of them. Latino/a is an ethnicity, not a race.

[@SD-ed8is]

But people from Spain are not latinos, are they? So what does the spanish population has to do with it?

[@scottmartin5990]

Most forms use the term "Latino or Hispanic origin"

[@Progressive_Canadian]

In Canada, asking about race or ethnicity in a job interview is highly discouraged and can be seen as discriminatory. The Canadian Human Rights Act and provincial laws prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and other grounds. Focus interview questions on qualifications, skills, and experience, not personal characteristics. If race or ethnicity information is needed for diversity purposes, it should be collected separately and voluntarily, not during the interview. Candidates can file complaints with human rights commissions if they feel discriminated against.

[@peterzavon3012]

Yes, in the US race or ethnicity information must be collected only after the job offer has been made, and is usually done when completing the forms required to connect your pay to taxing and social security processes.

[@jongordon7914]

Canada is so far gone at this point. A native Torontonian is now Indian and Canada's immigrants despise White Canadians.

[@pwnmeisterage]

The "Canadian Human Rights Act" etc may be designed to prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc ... But in practice, every government office strives to have "one of everybody" on staff to maximize their diversity. While this may seem to be creating opportunities, it is doing so by taking them away from others - it is in fact a form of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, etc.

[@claudiobeachball]

@@pwnmeisteragehow do you know the “one of everybody” isn’t just as qualified?

[@micahbonewell5994]

It is also illegal to ask about Race or Ethnicity in the US in an interview as it is a protective class. Not sure where you are getting your assumptions from.

[@ritajaklitsch7559]

Thank you, Feli, for bringing up this topic! I will never forget our first trip to the US (from Vienna/Austria). We had to fill out our entry-forms on the flight to NY, and my little daughter, who just had learned to write, was eager to manage her own form: Name, date of birth, Passport-No., citizenship, etc. and suddenly got confused by the ethnicity-question. I tried to explain that it is about the colour of her skin, so she decided to fill in: "pink".- Of course this was no option there, and when she asked, why she was supposed to queck "Caucasian", I was not able to explain it to her (or to myself, as a matter of fact). I really appreciate your video!!

[@MikeS29]

These are the kinds of videos I originally subscribed to your channel for; educational, interesting, informative differences between the two places where you have spent a lot of time. Your in-depth research, honest analysis, and thoughtful presentation are the things that keep me subscribed. I realize there are subscribers who just want to see you dance around in a dirndl, but those seem like cheap clicks to me. I'm just glad that you continue to make these types of videos.

[@pierreabbat6157]

The US census asks "Hispanic or Latino", but those aren't the same. I am Latino but not Hispanic; when the census asked "Hispanic", my mother, who was Salvadoran, said no, because her Romance ancestry is mainly French, not Spanish. An Equatoguinean with some Spanish ancestry is Hispanic, but not Latino, because it's short for Latinoamericano, and he's African.

[@gmalcolms]

They're not the same, which is why they include both terms and an "or"

[@Alexs.2599]

Yeah.Hispanic or Latino is not an ethnicity, nationality or race. The whole term is stupid. Latin Americans are of different races and origins. And they're not all the same people either.

[@sphhyn]

As a European the whole Hispanic/ Latino thing is super confusing. If they have to put a label on people why not call them South Americans when they are from South America and European when they are from Spain.

[@peterkoch1676]

@@gmalcolms yes, but they "put them into the same pot" as per the the German saying. So the census doesn't care about those differences.

[@abandonedfragmentofhope5415]

Changing Hispanic or Latino to a race in 2030 will be insane. Latinos can be any race and Latinos aren’t a race in of itself. Cause most Latinos are a mixture of many races. Treating Latino as a race will erase White, Black and Asian Latinos.

[@TheAlaskaMom]

I always write in human when it asks for race on any form. I’m American.

[@jamesmedina2062]

The Navajo talk about the five fingers. If you have five fingers you are human. But I have a friend born with six fingers. Was that less human?They chopped off her sixth finger when she was small.

[@jattikuukunen]

@@jamesmedina2062 I have ten

[@sebastianbauer4768]

@@jamesmedina2062that kind of generous classification is more common with people that had no exposure to apes. Most apes are clearly animal, not that different from a coyote or bobcat. The great apes though? Gorilla, orang utans, chimps etc … man if you see them up close they blur the line. It’s the eyes and the face. My first thought literally was: that ain’t no animal looking back. Not quite human, but not an animal either. Deeply unsettling. It was most pronounced with the orange utans.

[@bened22]

@jattikuukunen: Thank you, that comment was required. 👌

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

Well there used to be more human races, but the only one left now is homo sapiens.

[@AmyThePuddytat]

A shadow is the visible and generally quite distinct shape of an object. Shade is shelter from the sun. If you shine a torch on your hand, you can make cute shadow animals against the wall. A parasol or tree -- or even your house -- provides you with shade. When you stand under a tree, you might be able to see the shadow of the tree or individual leaves on the ground. Shade isn’t on the ground. The entire cool area in which you’re standing is the shade. You could even place your feet on a visible shadow on the ground and yet not be standing in the shade because the sun is hitting your face. Basically, the two words have virtually no overlap.

[@dpsonnenberg4537]

Thank you for the video. I can't wait for the next show.

[@3.k]

I am a white German in Germany. My mother told me a story from when I was very little, and she was holding me while waiting at a bus stop. I saw a black woman standing next to us, and this was probably the first black human that I've ever seen. Little me reached over to the woman, touched her arm with a fingertip, and said "brown", just like little children point at things and name them if they can. My mother was embarrassed, but the other woman was laughing. I don't think that I can remember this, but I do know that I liked the color brown a lot as a kid, and I'm sure that I was fascinated by the beautiful skin tone. But the story also showed, that growing up among mostly white people, non-white skin tones have always occurred to me as something different. I'd like to know how it would be if I would have grown up among people with an even distribution of colors, or if I would have grown up as the only white child among black children.

[@ichan1107]

In America your Mom would've made sure you grew up being afraid or you grew up hating people with brown skin. At least people who live in the South parts of America are like that. Police in America treat White people differently than brown people. It's disgusting. You can watch it online. In Florida they passed a law where teachers can't teach children the truth about slavery, they passed the "DO NOT SAY GAY LAW" for schools and teachers. They have banned many books from public and school libraries. In the South they have started an indoctrination of our Children. I ask people from Germany, what does that sound like? What does it remind you of?

[@anna-ranja4573]

Nearly the same in my family. We grow up with the book Struwwelpeter. My eldest sister was 3 or 4 years old and met a person with very deep dark teint at the bakery and shouted out enthusiastically, look mummy a charcoal black / kohlrabenschwarzer Mohr/ N.... Innocent child which loved the lyrics and stories of the book. My mum wished a hole in the ground to disappear.

[@joannebarber4845]

As a brown woman from US I love your story. Tell mom she should be proud. She raised you correctly. You weren't scared or disgusted by your new brown friend. You just like brown. I find that sometimes I'm the only brown person hanging out with many peach friends. We are all having a good time and it is fine. I think you would be the same thoughtful person you are now regardless of the other kids you played with.

[@JEREMY99218]

America is NOT "obsessed" with race. Leftist, neo-Marxist Americans are obessed with race.

[@zh2184]

Wow! Instant flashback! I am a White American who went on an educator exchange trip to Ukraine in 2006. Standing in line outside of the opera theater in Lviv, my African-American colleague was fascinating to the children around us, who approached her and gently tapped their little fingers to her skin, much to our amusement.

[@Thoringer]

We distinguish the race of our sausages instead: Frankfurter, Thuringian, Vienna (well, that's Austrian, but sticking with language, it's still German), Bavarian White...

[@jamesmedina2062]

what is a frankfurter like? There was a food place here that sold them here next to hamburgers but I am not sure if they were authentic.

[@Thoringer]

@@jamesmedina2062 iirc, similar to a Vienna but smoked slightly more.

[@jamesmedina2062]

@@Thoringer Ok thank you soooo much for sharing!! A family here owned a place called The Charcoaler and served these things called frankfurters but then a company bought it and turned it into a shadow of its former self. The frankfurters used a type of wiener that was cut open and grilled and the sauce was always a peppery catsup with chopped onions inside a white bun of bread. I loved it!

[@j.a.1721]

​@@jamesmedina2062 at least as an Austrian I have never heard of anything like that. Sounds like a weird mix of a Bosna (long bun with a Bratwurst, ketchup, mustard, raw onions and curry powder) and a hotdog. Also I thought Wiener and Frankfurter are the same, just different words used in Germany and Austria.

[@hypatian9093]

@@jamesmedina2062 Fun is: these definitions can change depending on the region. A "Braunschweiger" is different in my home town than it's in another part of the country.

[@user-bg6gc6ry7y]

Interesting video! Never thought about the race questions before because its just so prevalent that its normal. The first time I ever remember being asked about race, without having someone answer for me like a parent, was in 3rd grade (8-9yo) during state testing. It was probably asked in testing before that, but that's the earliest I can remember ever seeing it. It may depend on the state, but where I live you see it on every state test, every year.

[@o__o7]

when I was learning English and found out about the word 'race' I thought it was extremely weird, to me it sounded like they were talking about people like dog breeds. Now that I'm already fluent I've become desensitized to it and it doesn't call my attention anymore but I do remember that first impression

[@Mifbd]

Appreciate your hard work. The information are really fascinating.

[@DFWTexan42]

Alternately, as an American, I was shocked to hear US expats living in Germany describe how they were required to disclose their religion to the German government, so they could be taxed on it. Such a demand over here, would cause an outrage which would, at the very least, get the government officials involved hounded out of office, and maybe even sued.

[@1Apep1]

The Lutheran and the Catholic church in Germany have an agreement with the federal government that their "membership fees" are levied as a tax. It is a topic of contention, but there is not really much political will to change it. The advantage is that they can charge you based on income without getting any actual income data and they don't have to run the administrative infrastructure to take actual membership fees. The simple solution is to just say "no denomination" and believe whatever you want, unless you plan to use any special services like a wedding ceremony or a confessional kindergarten. They don't check your ID, when you just attend a service.

[@comvnche]

As a German I find this outrages as well. But it even goes further: I never chose to belong to the Church and consider my self an atheist. I still got taxed when I started working because my parents baptized me as a baby! And I couldnt just leave Church immidiately because there is a cancelation period of three month in the contract I never singned.

[@timvoth4106]

And even if you leave you still pay as they give some of tax money to the church by default. At least we get every sunday work free for that

[@birgitlucci9419]

The fact, that church taxes are collected as a percentage of the income tax only applies to the Catholic and the Protestant Church and simply has historical reasons. Germany was not a State before 1872. It consisted of a number principalities ( Fürstentum) with different churches. After a major loss of land on the left side of the Rhine, they were granted the right to confiscate the properties of the regional churches . As a compensation the churches were granted the right to impose taxes. After WWII this tax privilege was enshrined in the new constution of 1949. On the other hand the 2 Christian Churches have offered a lot of services to the people like hospitals, nursing homes, kindergardens. Now, that more of half the population is not a member of the churches anymore there will be discussions but the constution would have to be amended.

[@cymortevaale2514]

I'm so hoping for this bs to change soon. I absolutely understand how it got to this point but I also think we should've started separating politics and religion at least 10 to 20years ago.. (random numbers from a gut feeling, not trying to make a scientific elaboration here)

[@shanwyn]

I'd like to share a story related to your question at the end of your vid. I am a 49 yr old white swiss. My background, like mayn swiss, is very mixed culturally. Mostly italian and swiss with some flavor from austria, spain and france and religiously my family is all over the place, from protestant and catholic christianity to jewish most of my generation is now either agnostic or atheists. My maternal aunt was not able to get children due to an accident in her late teens. So she and her husband decided to adopt. I was 6 when they adopted a boy and 9 when they adopted a girl. Both of them were from Sri Lanka and their skin was very dark. Yet I never saw that, for me, they were simply my cousins. We grew up and over the years we met to get a drink or come together at family gatherings. Of course, like so many others, we saw the news from the US and other places, the heightened tensions in the internet about race and all that. Still, I never saw them as black and they both told me they never felt not swiss. I should mention we grew up in a very suburban area where many children had different background. Filipino, italian, Brazilian and many more, most of were mixed race.. so we never really saw each other in a racial sense. A couple years ago I got invited to a gathering from a student organization. Turned out one of my cousins was invited too. We sat down next to each other, chatted and waited what the topic was (the student organisation often had interesting topics and lecturers from all ways of life so neither me nor my cousin looked closer at the schedule that day). To our surprise it was a lecture exactly about this topic. Various black and asian students told the audience their story and how they feel forgotten and overlooked in many ways. And then the speaker was a human rights expert, calling for a change in the swiss way of dealing with such topics to, as you pointed out, fight against racism. I understood what they wanted to achieve, and in general I agree with doing our best to fight stereotypes and racism. But for me and also my cousin (we chatted about that often since then) something else happened. For the first time I consciously saw her as a black person and she saw herself as different from me. Just briefly.. but it made a huge impact on her and me that day. I am close to all my family members, including my 'black' cousins.. and so we openly talked about it with each other later. And we both, and to an extend her brother and mine (we included them) feel like we los some part of the innocence for each other. And I don't know if that is good or bad, I feel a bit betrayed by this student organisation. In conclusion, I think the german way is better than the american. As you so elegantly said at the beginning, there is just one race, the human race. Judging or categorizing people by skin color is as useful as doing the same for eye color. And sometimes, no matter the motivation, if we try to do something for the right reason, we also might cause harm doing so. I don't know the best way to deal with such topics but I wanted to share this to show how complicated this can be. If you never thought about race or dealt with it personally, it can be a blessing that you see the human before the difference in others.. or it can make you overlook the struggles others have.

[@BGCflyer]

Thank you for sharing that

[@CanaryCaia]

You are right in feeling that way. Ideology is destroying the natural way of dealing with life. Today they aim to convert people in victims so they can be more easily manipulated. Maybe that people complaining they felt forgotten never really felt that way until someone approached them with that agenda.

[@chronischgeheilt]

It somewhat scares me when I see how all this racial privilege discussion is spilling over to here in Europe. Why? For one, there is literally an immeasurable amount of structural and social challenges a human can Go through and it doesn't Help to divide Humans by it, the only thing that helps is to actually care about fellow human beings and See them as such. One common example, the unwanted touching of black peoples hair. Quote Afrozensus: "It's othering and exoticizing." What Help is that lingo? And is that REALLY the issue at Hand Here?? My immediate gut reaction when I read their statistic was not "that's so racist/othering/exoticizing" but "Dang, that's really messed up to infringe in someones bodily autonomy Like that. Just treat people decent, man!!" Just treat people decent, THAT is what we need (and REALLY should work on in our lives and in politics), not dividing ourselves from each other. The Person in the example probably was just innocently curious. That's a human modus operandi to relate to each other and thus a very GOOD thing. BUT the person didn't treat the other person decent, respecting their bodily autonomy regardless of how curious I am. If we would put human decency and being fellowly towards each other in the foreground and model that (instead of talks of sociological concepts) we would actually start seeing and appreciating the fellow human, we wouldn't need censuses asking these questions because we would learn about these experiences from our fellow Humans.

[@StormCrusher94]

This post shows how actually trying to "bring" awareness to the cause is what makes us more divided. My country is still predominantly white and only recently have been there an influx of POC (hate that term). I don't pay them any mind, and as long as they integrate into our society and norms there shouldn't be an issue. What I'm trying to say is, with shouting about race on every corner people are actually more racially divided as we actually start to looking at the person as someone from a different race than a fellow human.

[@ZipplyZane]

And yet the Swiss way of dealing with things was clearly not working for non-white Swiss people, or they wouldn't have had to bring it up. I don't get why realizing someone is a different race than you creates division. That seems like the problem that needs to be fixed. Noticing differences should not make you feel less connected to someone.

[@ice8348]

I really like the switch in style into video essays.

[@junowood5951]

Finds gut wie sensibel du das Thema erklärst

[@luckynumbersev]

i grew up half-taiwanese, half-white in the us. as i got older, i started to feel that in my head i didn’t fit socially in either category (white or asian) and it led to lots of questions about self-identity. now, i’m in college and have found a club where mixed asians meet and i feel like i have found people who understand my less common experience.

[@robertwilloughby8050]

The British tv presenter Chris Choi (a quarter Chinese) always has expressed a mild annoyance about people assuming he was "White" based purely on his looks - ginger haired, pale.

[@luckynumbersev]

@@robertwilloughby8050 quite interesting. i’ve always assumed that i looked white so i act as under my own assumption, but people have told me that my features make me look more asian than i perceive myself as. i’m curious as if it’s the opposite for him.

[@miskatonic6210]

I'm quite sure a US problem.

[@CarlAlex2]

Your experience sounds wierd to me. Its as if to you being white and being asian both come withe some huge monolithic cultural values you are supped to share rather than both being very diverse compromised of people with all sorts of different values found among both whites and asians alike. Sure, there may be some genetic differences, likelyhood of being able to consume milk as adults, having dminished ability to metabolize alcohol etc., but is that really all that important? I have a Jewish great-grandmother and a French great-grandmother - I feel entirely Danish..

[@geertvlaenckx9942]

So you self-segregated?

[@RayWhiting]

Thank you for this video. I love exploring words and differences in the way people speak. Your experience as a German living in America offers a different perspective and gives me something to think about when it comes to race, ethnicity, and other similar issues. I'm a basic white guy (mostly Western European descent) living now in Texas, almost 70 years old and trying very hard to expand my perspective and understanding.

[@nachbarslumpi7093]

Da haste dir aber wieder sehr viel Arbeit gemacht. Sehr gut danke.

[@dshire71]

I lived in Germany in the 80s. My experience was much different from what you are describing as your own experience. There was a distinct separation of people by ethnicity, race, etc. I was so shocked by it, I made a point to sit with non-whites on public transportation. The last year I was there it was Hitler’s 100th birthday. People were on high alert, but I didn’t witness anything personally. I hope things have improved since then. It was discomforting.

[@Fluxwux]

I reacted to that too, Europeans and Germans are in many ways a lot more racist and exclusionary compared to Americans, especially back in the 80s when Europe was a lot more homogenous and most people openly for example used the N-word very casually to refer to black people (even if that word had a way less negative connotation/intent compared to the US back then, it still shows that Europeans classify people on race) - Europeans just do racism more subconsciously and less open than in America and in many ways don’t see people with a non European ethnic background as equally German (and other nationalities) for example, even if those people have lived in the country for generations or are 100% culturally and linguistically assimilated to the majority culture. Europeans will still see them as some type of “Foreigner” in some way - even if nowadays the cultural affiliation is the overwhelming way of identifying someone regardless of skin, but racial bias still exists and is strong which for example European politics is a clear indicator of due to actual openly racist, xenophobic and sometimes fascist political parties (That makes the US far right look like total hippies in terms of racism) are gaining a lot of ground in Europe at the moment In America due to the history and melting pot culture - people do see color more openly, but everyone is included and I believe racism is in fact much lower than in Europe.

[@TheSkinnyZ]

I very much share your lived experience. I’m a boring ass white German who grew up in rather rural areas in the west of Germany and „race“ never played a big role in my head until I dove in to the „US-centric“ internet and social media world. I was aware of „Ausländer“ mainly because I found it cool when kids spoke more languages other than just German and I also was aware of kids of different religious backgrounds, especially since people got split up in secondary school for religion/ethics lessons, but I wanna say that still didn’t mean much to me. I was friends with whoever I clicked with. That included a Turkish kid, an Albanian kid, a Polish kid, an Indian kid, etc. BUT! I also wanna say that „Ausländer“ was a loaded term that was often used in a demeaning way. By teachers as well, which is disappointing and unacceptable! Speaking of: The polarization and the growing approval of right wing parties in Europe scares me! We need to go vote for every election possible, including the upcoming European elections!

[@damonmelendez856]

It’s unfortunate that you think you belong to a ‘boring ass’ culture. Seems to be pretty common trait among Germans.

[@jongordon7914]

"I'm a White German who grew up in rural areas in the west of Germany where it was 99% White Germans." Do you find it strange that people in tropical climates aren't concerned about snow, blizzards and freezing to death? Do you think the people in polar climates have an irrational fear of cold weather? The people in tropical climates don't even think about it, ever. What could possibly be the difference? Left-wing Germans and Europeans in general are so terrified of even the appearance of loving themselves that they went from AH in the 1930s to swinging the pendulum completely in the other direction. YOU and your ilk are the sole reason for the growing approval of normal-thinking people, aka "right-wing parties." You've convinced yourselves that the only way forward is to completely surrender your home, culture, values, etc., and import people that loathe your very existence. There's this new thing that all the kids are doing called finding a middle ground. You can love your race, your culture, your ethnicity, etc., without hating anyone and/or inviting them to live in your country en masse. Germans and German culture exist because Germany is majority German. That's such a normal thing and yet you want the country to be multicultural, which is just mind bogglingly ridiculous.

[@noahotte2960]

I wouldn’t say you’re boring because you are a white German by any means. You don’t have to put yourself down to lift up others. But I understand what you’re saying, you weren’t aware of racism or xenophobia when you were younger and now you’re eyes are open and that is a wonderful thing! When you said “right-wing parties” I think it would be better to say “far-right parties.” Be careful not to stereotype all political conservatives as racist or hating immigrants. Some are POC or immigrants themselves.

[@damonmelendez856]

@@noahotte2960 Americans are trying to export their historical issues to the rest of the world; a new twist on a the previous ‘American exceptionalism’. My family has only been in the USA for ~50 years so I’m not really interested in the whole ‘slavery’ or ‘North vs South’ issues.

[@psyckwhoever4197]

Very underrated comment! Thanks for sharing your insight and the call to vote. Du sprichst mir aus der Seele 😁👍

[@andyx6827]

Wollte dir einmal DANKE für deinen Post gestern sagen und dafür, dass du so eine wunderbare Repräsentation einer gebildeten Deutschen mit Herz am richtigen Fleck bist. Danke, dass dieser Content von einer level-headed Person wie dir gemacht wird ❤

[@torstenheling3830]

Ich bevorzuge das Wort Ethnizität und ich wende das Wort, „Rasse“ niemals in Bezug auf Menschen an. Aber, Bemerkungen über die ethnische Abstammung einer bestimmten Bevölkerungsgruppe, die in eine Volkszählung, z.B., eingegeben werden, sind völlig in Ordnung. Warum nicht? Daran ist nichts verwerfliches. Sie versuchen einfach Statistiken über die Bevölkerung in einer bestimmten Gegend zu sammeln, und das hat einen angemessenen Zweck. Besonders bei Ärztinnen und Ärzte sind solche Einträge in Krankenakten oft wichtig, um rauszufinden, ob die Patientin / der Patient eine genetische Veranlagung zu bestimmen Krankheiten hat. „Ethnizität ist eine soziale Kategorie, die auf wahrgenommenen kulturellen Unterschieden zwischen Gruppen von Menschen basiert. Sie kann auf gemeinsamen Merkmalen wie Sprache, Religion oder Traditionen beruhen und hat erheblichen Einfluss auf menschliche Aktivitäten und Bewegungen“.

[@marietgagliardi]

I'm an American and I think America's focus on race is bizarre

[@andreas.8647]

I am German and I am working in clinical trials. Questions about race or ethnicity are common in this Business as well, but I can definitely understand your feelings when being asked about it. I felt the same when reading these the first time in a case report form. And it wasn‘t even about myself! I had to verify the answer against the patient file. However, German patient files rarely contain this information. So they had to add it for their trial participants.

[@jandexler9118]

Wow! Great job addressing this topic in an informative and balanced way while supporting all the views presented not just with personal accounts but extensive research. Kudos! Please keep these unique topic videos coming!!!!

[@berradengrymme2789]

Hearing you as a German speak about "The Holocaust" in the way you do, give me hope for the future, So thank you.

[@saburo6042]

You have it down to your bones when you hear it every year in History class in School so yeah

[@robertvenegas6113]

She's done a whole video about it and how Germans are educated on the subject. Worth a watch.

[@geddinixan255]

​​@@saburo6042its on the schedule once in 9th grade(realschule) but ok. I was rather shocked by the stories my grandma told me when i was little. They were 13 sibblings of whom only 4 survived the war.

[@laurafaehnrich4261]

It really depends We had ones really thourow (right word for that?) And then every ones in a while when it had something to do with the current topic. For some reason we talked alot about the French revolution. Or maybe I remember wrong (I'm in my early twenties) But a friend of mine on another school had basicly only WW2 and a bit WW1 every Single year. But I never heard of one person going to a german school after 2000 that doesn't know a lot about the WW2 and WW1 and the german part. On the other hand I know some people that know nothing about the history with german colonies because they had it not in school. That really depends on the teacher and the book you use. The first time We had this topic We only talked about the British, french etc. Colonies but they were acting as if Germany did not have colonies at all.

[@geddinixan255]

@@laurafaehnrich4261 the colonies are part of the schedule for the kaiserreich and WWI next is third reich and WWII. And you are right we spent the whole 7th grade with french revolution and the causing events.

[@Benwut]

I would say that I don't like how in australia, we on most forms have to tick an "Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander" box or a "Non-Indigenous" box, with no other options, since all that does is alienate our indigenous communities. Of course, it's important to do so, as indigenous australians have access to special programs that take into account their disadvantage brought about by intergenerational poverty and trauma, but it also subconsciously makes people actually only consciously notice if someone is indigenous or not, which I feel makes it kind of a polarity that leads to subconscious racism. In contrast, the country I was born in, Tunisia, usually makes you choose between roughly 3-4 options, those usually being stuff that roughly would translate to "Arab", "French or Other White Nationalities", or "Other", sometimes with an additional option "Zenati Berber or Tuareg", as those are two other significant minorities in the nation (Especially in the rural town I grew up in, Dehiba, which has a population of roughly 30% Zenati Berber individuals). This leads to less catogorisation subconsciously. Though of course, there is significant racism towards white people who kind of get blamed for everything (Particularly the french, mainly due to their brutal colonisation).

[@ozdreamtimewizard1329]

💯

[@Andrew_Young]

This was such an interesting video! I'm Canadian and we are very similar to the USA. I've known that race is a social construct for some time, but hearing how differently other countries view it really helps me understand that in a new way. We should really think about the German model! It would be cool to get some studies done on both Germans and Americans and see how these different views affect people.

[@jensschroder8214]

In German law, race only appears in one place. § 3 of the German constitution states that “no one may be disadvantaged or favored because of their gender, descent, race, language, origin, faith or political opinion. No one should be disadvantaged because of their disability.” The German state is therefore not allowed to ask about race or skin color.

[@tiffanyellen82]

The one word that distinguishes the American constitution from the German one is "favored." We only prevent discrimination based on these things. We actually have lots of ways people can be favored for them. Scholarships, small business grants, etc.

[@Pikawarps]

@@tiffanyellen82 i believe the phrase you meant to say is “punitive discrimination is illegal” but “favorable discrimination is common” followed by your examples :) both forms are still discrimination, so the wording of your comment isn’t as clear as it could be

[@JonathanRiggall-ff2ym]

Since June 1945 right

[@tiffanyellen82]

@@Pikawarps no, I think I said exactly what I meant. I can't believe I'm giving a vocabulary lesson on KZbin but here goes. The definition of discrimination: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.

[@WestleySherman]

@@tiffanyellen82 Scholarships or business grants (only) for white people are definitely not allowed in the USA. So it's not about favoring or disfavoring a particular race. But some people in the USA prioritize dispensing justice at a collective racial level over equal rights in the classic sense of ignoring an individual's racial classification. And most people in the USA would be OK with rejecting Reese Witherspoon for the role of Malcolm X on the basis of her race and gender, which is to say that most people in the USA are not equal rights absolutists.

[@norarodriguez6539]

Thank you so much for this video. As a fellow German growing up in Germany I have the same experiences and thoughts as Feli. It is however very useful to get another perspective and helps me understand the American aspect and reasons behind it. Your video makes me reflect and think about this topic and it makes me happy as I feel more educated now!!

[@BarelloSmith]

In South Tyrol, Italy where I was born and grew up in, we have to assign ourselves to an ethnic group at age 18. We can freely choose between the three major ethnic groups German, Italian or Ladin. This practice was introduced due to the assimilation policy of Italy during the facist regime and until the early 70s. Italy "encouraged" southern Italians to move into the province of Alto Adige (South Tyrol) in order to outnumber the majority of German and Ladin people there and large companies mostly refused to employ non-Italian people. So after the "Second Autonomy Statute" was passed, the so called "Proporz" or "Sprachgruppenzugehörigkeitserklärungsgesetz" (and yes, that word is as German as it gets xD) was introduced that should ensure a fair representation of every endemic etnic group according to their relative size inside the province borders. That means as an ethnic German (not to be confused with a citizen of Germany) you should be about 3 times as likely to land a job in South Tyrol than an ethnic Italian since Germans make up for about 60% of the populace whereas Italians make up for about 20% and as an ethnic Ladin you should be almost ensured to be favoured when it comes to a job application because companies want to avoid penalties for under-representation of minorities. But I am talking about the theory here. I don't think it works so well in practice, since from personal experience, the ethnicities are still very unevenly distributed at workplaces and as I stated earlier, you can choose freely to which ethnicity you want to be assigned to, so of course most people will choose "German" on their form regardless of their actual heritage and regardless of their ability to even speak the respective language. A friend of mine who has Italian parents was even send to German schools in order to pass as an ethnic German, so he would have an easier time finding a job. In my opinion, they had a point to introduce the Proporz when they did but nowadays, it doesn't really make that much sense anymore. I would focus on uniting different ethnic groups, to embrace cultural diversity and to establish a common ethnic idenity rather than trying to keep us devided.

[@tubeworkshop]

Hey Feli, hab Deinen Kanal erst vor kurzem entdeckt. Very cool! Keep up the good work... Viele Grüße aus Heilbronn, GER

[@r.c.brousseau9655]

As a Canadian, I was surprised when I first heard the American Media report on voter demographics including “White College Educated Men” or “Suburban Housewives” for example. In Canadian, demographic reporting is generally either by geographic location, by men and women, or by age or language group.

[@therealkoolbeans]

I am a product of sin of the First Nations people I am a registered Alaskan native, but I cannot be a registered first nations because I have family sin of not being pure enough for the Canadian government as a first nation. I am only 25%.

[@TullaRask]

@@therealkoolbeans We have 2 major groups of people in Norway too. The minority group is othen categorized as native even though both groups are. We categorize native Sami as native based on language. They have to speak the language of Sami to be classified as a Sami.

[@therealkoolbeans]

⁠@@TullaRask OK so you lose your Norwegian heritage when you don’t speak, your language is what I hear am I wrong or is it a special rule for minorities that’s not wrong you just can’t place it on not minorities

[@TullaRask]

@@therealkoolbeans classifying it according to percentage of DNA results in a none-changable classification. If Sami wants the benefits of being Sami they just have to learn the language ;)

[@bremexperience]

This is not true. For your taxes reports you can identify as inuit or indian ;)

[@momo1234368]

I remember when I came back to America about 5 years ago, after being raised most of my life abroad, and the first time I applied for a job here and saw them asking for my race I was like "WTF???!!!!". I didn't know Americans ask this on applications, and thought it was pretty racist and insane.

[@carolinegrace3963]

Me too, when I was applying for an American online program. It was so strange, I thought "is this legal? Why are they asking me this?" And I didn't even know which race to pick.

[@Lonovavir]

Just write Human in the other box.

[@DENVEROUTDOORMAN]

​@carolinegrace3963 it is illegal just WOKE DEMONCRAPPERS Lies

[@mwduck]

You're not required to answer

[@momo1234368]

@@mwduck i know, I usually choose "prefer not to answer"

[@TypoKnig]

Thoughtful video - as always from you

[@MrNyathi1]

Race is still very much part of the official narrative in South Africa, too 😞 Here is a quote by Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, which eloquently shows why I wish we were living in his South Africa, not our current one: 'Against multi-racialism we have this objection, that the history of South Africa has fostered group prejudices and antagonisms, and if we have to maintain the same group exclusiveness, parading under the term of multi-racialism, we shall be transporting to the new Africa these very antagonisms and conflicts.'

[@heaththeemissary3824]

You did a very skillful job of handling an issue that can make people's heads explode. There were so many landmines that you pointed out, diffused, and cleared for everyone. Growing up in America, in the town with people of largely German heritage I was the "Italian" kid who probably carries knives. In the predominantly Polish and Italian heritage town I was the German kid, or the kid that wasn't Polish or Italian enough. 😄 It is interesting to follow the history of who was considered white in America. It was always a tool to exclude some and ensure the power of the capital class. My great grandfather's immigration papers from Sicily described him as "Negro of Italian Descent" solely because of his olive skin. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis put forth that our perception and thoughts were informed and limited by the words we have to conceptualize them. The idea is that if you never have to deal with something, you don't have a word for it - which makes it harder to think and communicate about. On the internment of Americans of Japanese heritage: Ssssshhhhh. We don't like to talk about that. We're the good guys. Those weren't concentration camps. They were just camps where the United States government ... con cen trated people because of their culture and heritage and ... ... look, we're just the good guys. Ok?

[@L0vely_b0nes96]

I'm so glad I found your channel 💜 I've been learning German on Duolingo and it's fun to learn more about Germany itself

[@tyrone2127]

I respect your genuine approach to these tough topics

[@gabrielstarlight9003]

I worked as a census enumerator in the 2010 census. In my training, we were trained to ask the person how they identify and specifically mention that they can write in any answer that they feel identifies them best. We had discussions and role played scenarios in the class about this topic specifically where the rest of the class was pretty quick and straightforward. I was impressed at the time.

[@lazyboy300]

Latino is not a race, it's just a place of origin: Latin America. Which is a very large and diverse place. Millions of white Latin Americans (of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian descent, mostly), millions of black Latin Americans, millions of indigenous Latin Americans, and even millions of Middle Eastern and East Asian Latin Americans. And of course, most of us mixed to some degree or another. Only in the USA the term Latino is used as race. It's weird and incredibly imprecise, and born out of prejudice against immigrants

[@Ethantreadway8483]

I always hear the "Hispanic Latino is not a race" narrative, yet, however: If you believe it so much, then why do so many Hispanic Latinos list "Hispanic/Latino" as their race when they are asked? For instance, every time you see a white looking hispanic, if you ask him if he's white he'll say "Hell no! i'm mexican homeboy" or "I'm Colombian Peruvian" etc. So you're the culprit of the misconceptions that you create. If you list White or Brown or Black instead of "Guatemalan" you would clear the air more.

[@LCdic09]

​@@Ethantreadway8483 Those are probably born in the US. Most of us actually born in Latin America, don't understand the question about race identity anyway, is not something we are asked about in our countries (or most of them that I know). And on top of that, asking us if we are Hispanic or Latinos, is very cringe. It's like telling us, you might be black or white, but the language you speak makes you different from other blacks or whites! 🤔 I could easily ignore the question, but that won't stop them from keep asking.

[@lazyboy300]

@@Ethantreadway8483 exactly what @LCdic09 said. the US is very race-centric. everything has to do with that. And when you speak spanish (and portuguese too) and get born in the USA you are indoctrinated to think you're not really white as a german descendant or a polish descendant. or that you are not as black as a nigerian, or even a black american. or worse: that you are not an amerindian as much as a cherokee or apache, for example. so you end up identifying as what the culture around you 24/7 tell you that you are. nobody migrates from south and central america calling themselves latino before getting cast as that in the USA. to most of us in south america the term 'latino' alone (without america) is mostly used to refer to the languages of europe that derives from latin (portuguese, galician, castelliano, catalan, french, occitano, italian and romanian)

[@Ethantreadway8483]

@@lazyboy300 I agree With you on everything except for the part where South Americans use "Latino" to mean only a specific set of Europeans. Nobody in south america knows what an "occitan" is. But again, the problem lies with hispanic/Latinos themselves using Hispanic Latino As their racial identity. they're contributing to the problem. In fact , it was spanish speakers in the USA of Mexican ancestry who came up with the term "latino", not the so called gringos. So do yourself a favor and stop saying i'm Latino if someone asks you your race or your family's birthplace or whatever. you just say "i'm a white guy just because i'm from mexico All my grandparents were born there doesn't mean i'm not white"

[@CanaryCaia]

They call it Latino but in reality they refer to Mexicans, Cubans and portorricans.

[@SteffenLachele]

This video is very complete, well researched and presented! Congratulations Feli !

[@randyroarums3928]

for the shade vs shadow thing, it is pretty odd, and i’ve never thought about that before! as an american, i think generally we perceive a shadow as an object, whereas we perceive shade as a place.

[@chisaki703]

Don't worry, the rest of the world is just as bewildered at US obsession with race. The fact they even use "caucasian" while refering to a broad group was confusing to me, since to me caucasian just means from Caucasus(Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). I'm asian but I have pale white skin yet I'm not white is so ???

[@lilypudd]

Very good video. Love that you included history and the use of language as part of the video. Very good.

[@anmaclemi]

Danke für die große Arbeit, die Du Dir zu dem Thema gemacht hast! 😃👍🏼

[@REDDERICH]

Off topic, as a russian i like your pronunciation so much! It sound so clear and understandable, just a pleasure for my ears)

[@johndoe-lp9my]

Try treating people as the individuals they are, rather than overly reacting to whatever kind of group you're inclined to classify them into. Drop the _White Man's Burden_ routine and focus on helping and protecting the rights of all individual citizens, at the same time, equally. The rising tide lifts all boats.

[@nihouma11]

Thanks for sharing Feli! I appreciate you tackling such a difficult topic earnestly and don't envy what you will have to slog through based on the comments I've seen already. I'm hispanic on my mom's side and white on my dads, and can tell you as a mixed person that this is a difficult subject (though hispanic isn't officially considered race in the US, it is defacto to the layperson, making me hispanic or mixed but rarely white to others). I have mixed feelings on the use of race and ethnicity in the US. My grandmother spoke Spanish as her first language (despite being born in El Paso), and while her English was never even close to fluent, she intentionally didn't speak Spanish with her children to spare them from the discrimination she faced for speaking Spanish as a first language, so my mom grew up speaking English only, and it caused a disconnect between younger generations and the older generations, as well as from our heritage. I remember as a kid wanting to learn Spanish as a kid so I could talk to my grandma, but my family told me I shouldn't learn it because people would discriminate against me for speaking Spanish and how it would make me do worse in school. I also remember having friends over one time and my mom made enchiladas and the kids complained the enchiladas were too spicy, so I told my mom how I hated enchiladas and why couldn't she cook normal food like meatloaf (something I regret saying all these years later). I appreciate how you touched on the being not white is less cool as a kid, but as an adult you realize there are generational traumas that you may not have had. As a person who straddles the two worlds of hispanic and white, I get that sentiment a lot from a lot of white people who feel that they don't have "cool" things like quinces or food or music but don't realize that they do as well because there are tons of white things that are just as cool but they don't see it because it is the default in the US (for example pizza or hot dogs or sweet 16s or bar-be-cues). I guess the grass is always greener on the other side! Also, I can safely say the vast majority of hispanic people love sharing their food and culture so long as people are engaging in it from a place of love :) I appreciated you talking on the shade/shadow and Schatten (sp?) difference in German (or the western languages on smells vs the Malaysian language). I'd love to hear more about these kinds of distinctions that are more difficult between the languages/cultures of the US or Germany :) Much love to you and all the other people of this small planet we share together!

[@FelifromGermany]

Thanks for sharing your experience! 🙏

[@danielzhang1916]

I think the prejudice is because it's too easy to just speak Spanish in the US, it's basically the second language, whereas Asians have to learn English, I think it's when people choose not to speak English even though they live in the US is where people get upset, and I agree that we all love "white" things like food and stuff, it's just that white people are not as connected to their heritage as Hispanics and Asians etc

[@dansiegrist1728]

I really appreciate how you approach topics like this in such a mature, objective, open, and emotionally intelligent way. You're doing amazing work, Feli. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[@andrezelvin3607]

I wrote the below before starting to look at the other comments and seeing just how many people struggle with the race questions on forms. I like hearing the your perspective. We can learn a lot about ourselves from this. I find it very complicated as a light-skinned Jew in the US. There's no guidance on how to answer this question and I'm sure we all make different decisions which sort of messes with the idea that the demographics gathered are totally meaningful. It might be argued that the average Jew in the US doesn't face discrimination in education or employment, so there is no need to gather that information. When my parents went to college/University in the 1940's and early 1950's many educational institutions had Jewish quotas, I guess because someone felt there were too many of us. I realize writing about it, I had no idea how they came about. There was also a lot of discrimination against them socially, in employment, and places open Jews couldn't live. So, possibly Jews from that generation didn't want to be counted for that reason, and were better off just being called "white". Darker skinned Jews are a small minority here, and I'm sure they face discrimination based on skin color, but they also wouldn't be counted because they likely don't fit any specific category that is asked about. But there are additional issues we face trying to answer the questions. One has medical implications. When demographic questions are asked in a medical/health context, European Jews in particular come from a very small and different gene pool than white Europeans. I think information valuable to us is lost when we aren't identified. If I check "other" and get specific, it's meaningless unless most people with my background do the same, and I don't think this is the case. One is the feeling of cultural erasure. I might have guessed that this might be the case for a lot of the white population, looking at other people being given categories that reflect their actual cultural or ethnic bakground, but in my experience a lot of white people don't have a problem identifying as such. Coming from people who mostly left Europe because of being persecuted as "other", having cultural references very different from the average white American, and personally, knowing my roots go back to the Middle East, and having no other ethnicity, I feel dishonest just calling myself white, and I'll answer that when I know the purpose is to document discrimination based on skin color, but I don't have a "white" identity. In the US many people are half Jewish and more than in other places we have people who religiously converted to Judaism so they do have other ethnic backgrounds which, I guess, is why, when I've said my ethnicity is Jewish or Ashkenizi Jew, I get asked "and what else". And there is nothing else and people don't understand. If they mean country from which the immigrant generation in my family came, or were born, the answer is all over Europe. The part of my family that is still in Finland are not ethnically Finish. Add to that equation the rise of anti-semitism here and there is both evidence of it's impact that is not being identified, but also reasons many of us feel increasingly more uncomfortable when we are identified.

[@FirstNameBunchANumbers]

In third grade (around 8 years old) I saw the race question for the first time on a state end of year test, and I called my teacher over to ask her what to put, even though my whole family and I are just completely white As a white kid in the US, I rarely thought about my race because I was the "default," but I know that every black kid in that classroom KNEW they were black because they had to to understand why they were treated differently, even when we were all that young I had the privilege not to think about my race or skin color, specifically because I was a white kid

[@runemagged21]

Great convo which reminds me: I played a sport in Malaysia, which is very multi-cultural. Here in the US, when we pick which player to select for defending, we identify them by announcing the # position in which they are standing along the line of scrimmage (left to right). I was appalled to instead hear "I will mark the "Malay" or I will mark the "Chinese" or I will mark the "Indian"" because I thought everyone was Malaysian and who could tell their nationalities from across the field anyway? It turns out that, while everyone is Malaysian by nationality, ethnicities were more emphasized. Native Malay (being largely muslim) were dressed modestly according to religious tradition, which was in contrast to the Indian players of similar skin color, which the Chinese players did not share. Indeed the lens I used was now more focused on these details unrelated to the game. That said, it was helpful to understand the power dynamic the Chinese players held, and in doing so, was able to push back against strategies that put Malay women in their headscarves at a disadvantaged position.

[@captain_context9991]

I was reading about when it comes to racial equality and universities, its a tricky one. Many US educational facilities such as colleges, universities stopped entirely having pictures and even the names of the students on applications. To combat accusations of a racist process. Hence switching over to purely accepting people based on their accomplishments... As a way to eliminate cultural biases. By simply removing the entire issue out of their hands and over to "the system". The result was a drastically diminished black representation in vast favour of Asian. So I think that was considered unfavourable too and was put an end to. While some university admission processes are almost purely laid out like an IQ test. Which is also widely considered a bad move.

[@tedgemberling2359]

Thanks. Shows the complexities.

[@danielzhang1916]

I don't think either is a good way, we can't ignore "race" and we have to consider all applicants fairly

[@captain_context9991]

@@danielzhang1916 So how should they do it. As I say above, they have tried different angles.

[@danielzhang1916]

@@captain_context9991 maybe some combination of "quotas" or "limits" of different races, not like exactly equal numbers, but a weighted consideration thing

[@AT-rr2xw]

Did it favor Asians more than before or was that just the prediction?

[@Dennisbackyardbbq]

I admire the fact that you tackle these topics!!

[@TubetakerBHV]

In my opinion this is one of the best videos you´ve ever done. Thank you very much.

[@travisgibson2960]

You did your research. Well done, and very brave of you.

[@dalemcmillen2065]

Brilliant video! You ask the most important, difficult, and poignant questions. Whether the German or the American approach is better is beyond me, but what is certain is that regardless of the approach, comprehensive efforts to underscore our common humanity through integration, cultural, and diplomatic exchanges are essential. Merely collecting (or not collecting) data is just one small part of our overall human experience; continually identifying opportunities to build bonds, affections, solidarity and to open hearts to each other in all aspects of life is essential. Thanks again for a great video.

[@mariehaskins7604]

You have such a wealth of knowledge Feli. You cover a wonderful diversity of topics!

[@reinholddienes4766]

Congratulations, Feli. Very good video. Thank you very much.

[@Ceciliex]

as someone who's dutch and danish I had never been confronted with this. It was a real shock when the UK University where I did my MA asked me about my race and sexuality during the application. it felt so strange to me to be asked that

[@billmashinter]

HEAVY topic and very well done video. Thanks.

[@josealfonsosilvalatorre1826]

Happy week, great video

[@JamesKanze]

I really appriciated this video; most of the videos on this channel have been very interesting, but on a somewhat superficial level -- this one wa much deeper and thought provoking. With regards to how Germans think of "race'; one of my experiences might be interesting. My paternal grandfather was born in Germany, and I have a German family name. When we moved from Stuttgart to Strasbourg, and I went to "abmelden", the civil servant taking the abmeldung commented to me: "Kanze, dass ist ein deutsche Name. Sie sind Deutsche". Also, my wife, who is Italian, looks it, and never really learned to speak German fluently, reported that she was treated very differently in contexted where she had to give her name (and so people supposed her married to a German). Just two additional data points.

[@audreyroberts4606]

Clinical geneticist here. Knowing a person's background helps us pinpoint disorders specific to that group. Like breast cancer susceptibility in Ashkenazi Jews or French Canadians. Not meant to be offensive or invasive, although it is often interpreted that way.

[@Baritone45]

The discussion about shades of blue and shade vs. shadow is fascinating! In English, we consider pink a very different color than red. But really isn't pink to red as baby blue is to dark blue? I believe, at least in the Midwest US, shade comes from trees and shadows come from just about anything else. Certainly people and anything artificial like a car or a house cast shadows. But a shadow from a mountain or a building might be considered shade -- if you are out on a hot day and looking for a cool place to rest. I think I'd say the key thing is the usage. Shade is used when you are seeking shelter from the sun, particularly from the shadow of a tree. While a shadow is the shade thrown by an object, when the key thing is you are looking at the shadow.

"Shade" means shielded from the sun. "Shadow" is a shape of an object caused by the object blocking the sun.

[@rosiefay7283]

As I see the word "pink" used, some pinks aren't all that pale (e.g. fuchsia, shocking pink). As for hue, it tends to be reds with a touch of purple, rather than reds with a touch of orange, that get called pink.

[@kc9scott]

I’ve heard that Chinese doesn’t have a separate word for pink. They just call it “light red”.

[@jattikuukunen]

Lamp shade shields you from the light by casting a shadow.

[@tyrone2127]

The whole history of language in relation to the perception of color is a very fascinating rabbit hole indeed. It can open your mind to how some things 'feel' like common sense but are clearly not always as they seem at face value. Rather, our perception is influenced by our cultural upbringings. Relevant when it comes to 'race'.

[@ashleymartsen9743]

YES PLEASE make a video on how language effects concepts. I'm learning a second language and have been for years, but I still struggle the most with things that the language thinks of as different that are the same in English are the things I struggle with the most. I think it's so interesting

[@justme98632]

I'm from the US. I grew up in WA state and moved to TX as an adult. In WA, it was as you described. People all hung out together. I do not remember "race" being a factor, and certainly people were never described by their race. At the same time, the number of people from diverse races was miniscule, meaning that there weren't enough people of different races to form whole groups. In TX I live in one of the bigger cities and I experienced the same culture shock when even in my college classes, people were discussed by their race. My oldest kids are "white" and told me that at their school, the kids mostly separated into groups that aligned with their race, and most of their friends had similar skin colors. My youngest is half East Indian. At school, he is in a friend group composed almost entirely of Indian and Pakistani kids, even though he has grown up exclusively with me, is atheist and has no cultural knowledge or experience of his father's family and values. My hypothesis has been that in places with large, diverse populations and continuing institutional and social racism, people bond together with other people who look like them.

[@Marcel-yu2fw]

22:35 Color perception is even weirder: Apparently, whether the language(s) you grew up with has or doesn't have a word for a color actually has an influence on whether you can SEE that color at all. So if your language didn't have a word for "blue" you literally couldn't tell apart a blue car from a green one.

[@genesavcell]

Such a great, well-researched presentation! You are so articulate and well spoken, much more so than most university professors I had. Thank you!! 😊

[@jrvegeeta]

From an African-American… Thank you for making this video. Our country is long overdue for a civilized and fact-based sit-down-and-talk about race.

[@damonmelendez856]

My family came to the USA in the 1950’s. I have zero interest in any ‘sit down’ or ‘conversation’ about race. Go after the people who profited, it shouldn’t be that hard to track down those families and companies. And leave the rest of the world alone, we aren’t interested in American internal historical issues.

[@claudiobeachball]

@@damonmelendez856do you think racism in the US didn’t exist in the 1950s?

[@damonmelendez856]

@@Gingerphile00 they want to have a ‘conversation’ but when it becomes ‘uncomfortable’ like discussing crime stats, they tend to want to shut down the conversation. Nothing can be achieved without an honest and open discussion.

[@anotherperspective6247]

@@Gingerphile00 lets not forget out of wedlock birth percentage and dependency on public benefits percentages as well. Nah can't talk about uncomfortable facts. Lets just make up narratives like young blck men are disproportionately killed by the police--which isn't true at all and no data supports it. But a feelings based narrative can lead to political power.

[@dharmachile999]

@@damonmelendez856 No need for you to participate. Just sit back and watch the adults converse.

[@ollymawson421]

The collection of ethnic background data is common in the UK as well, for the same reasons of reducing inequalities. Certainly in terms of medical data, it can help identify minorities or ethnic groups who may need greater support in accessing healthcare services for example. One thing that is noticeable is that we don't use the term 'race' - instead it is ethnic background and it can also apply to Welsh, Scottish, Irish backgrounds as well (although the wording is still "White British/Black British" etc). I absolutely agree about being cautious of how this data is used - I can imagine that this is felt quite strongly in Germany and other nations who have lived through regimes that have weaponised this data so I absolutely get your point. Used well, it can be a force for good - often some ethnicities have cultural differences about healthcare access or may perhaps need different methods of communication to support access to civil institutions such as Universities or Councils. Maybe it is about reframing the question - asking if they need any other support or providing a way to signpost to different support networks. Either way, maybe these decisions need to be put in the hands of the very ethnic groups that are being asked these questions. It's a big and very important topic!