Hi I’m from Europe and unfortunately in the past few years I realized how much racism there is in the world which really messes up my mind since that concept didn’t exist for me as a kid and I thought it’s normal that people look different.
Having very pale skin and not having visited too many countries I was wondering if I might encounter any problems in America because of my skin. Can I just talk to anyone or will people reject me because of my skin? (I have blond hair too)
The racism you see on the news certainly exists, but remember what you see on the news is news because it is rare. You don’t see every obituary and car crash, because such common occurrences aren’t news.
It is something I wouldn’t put too much thought into regardless of your race.
So do Americans actually label people with different skin types as different “races”? That sounds a little radical
Categories most would recognize are ‘asian’, ‘black’, ‘white’, and sometimes ‘hispanic’ or ‘middle eastern’. Most people aren’t going to get much more specific than that.
Oh okay. I would call these ethnicities
Well… since “race” isnt a real thing, it is that too.
In my usage, ethnicity refers to somewhat socially-defined regional identities. Basically, what country/group is your ancestral origin. You might call this a nationality, but, to me, that implies I’m assuming you’re not a US national/citizen. This also gives a leeway to include ethnic groups not restricted to a particular country such as certain groups of Jews, nomadic groups like Romani, or sub-groups of countries like Sicilian.
But I really don’t ask often because it’s not really important and can easily be taken as an insult.
Yes that’s why I’m asking because I personally don’t look at people at how they look and just wanna make sure it’s the same in America because here in Europe I think they have quite a lot of racism and I’m not too sure about America
If it’s a US city you’ve heard of, racism probably won’t stop you from living there. You might find pockets, but larger cities should be ok overall. Often they’ll have pockets of people that might hate you for a myriad of reasons. Maybe their ethnicity already hates yours back home. Maybe you’re part of an immigration wave that happened at the same time as there’s, making the two hate each other to step on the other to lift their own (NY Italian and Irish in the early 1900s). Maybe they believe immigrants are consuming all the resources and you’re the reason they’re poor (general hate from whites across the country, but localized majorities do it too).
But, overall, cities will generally have less meaningful racism because, as it turns out, if you spend your life next to other races/ethnicities, you realize we’re all human living the same struggle. Urban/suburban metro areas surrounding them will be similar. Sometimes there’s simple cultural misunderstandings, but once you see the first generation children raised in the local area, you see it has nothing to do with race after all.
But this is not a guarantee it’ll be all dandy and magically happy. I don’t know your ethnicity and I don’t know where you want to go. Even if I did, I don’t know everything.
American here: there’s a LOT of racism in America. And in certain regions, it’s a lot worse. Even in some neighborhoods of “good” places, it’s worse. Be careful if you’re not white. Be especially careful if you’re in any of the southern border states and you look even remotely Hispanic.
Some do. Some do not care. Of course some in europe would label German and French different - in the us both are white.
Depends on where you go, really. Generally if you stick to cities and tourist areas you’ll be fine. But if you want to wander into small towns….
No, it’s a small enough problem everywhere in the US that putting any real thought into “will people reject me because of my skin” (as OP asks) is overthinking it.