Black People of the U.K., what are your views on culture and black people in the U.S.A? (Source: Reddit)

This question caught my attention from r/AskReddit

 Top comment:

[–]ceilingkat 3461 points 5 hours ago*

Black female. I was born in London and now live in the US. (spent a good amount of years in the Caribbean in between though, so bear with me).

I didn't feel nearly as much racial tension in the UK as I have in the US. It's definitely not been overt, but I do feel people are much much more apt to tip toe around racial issues here than in the UK which for me is a sign of unease. And unease doesn't usually signal acceptance.

A lot of white people in the US seem terrified to say the wrong thing. In the UK more people talked openly about it if on the rare occasion it came up.

I noticed that in England, if you're British you're British and you happen to be black. In the US there's "African American" and "Asian American" but no one calls white people "European Americans" so that was a confusing one for me.

In general interracial couples aren't something unusual. There's tons of books and TV shows where a black female might be the major love interest. Even in the opening ceremony for the Olympics in London it featured a black teen couple in the sort of "play" they put on. I was watching it with some black American friends, and they thought that was commendable. It was difficult to explain why it wasn't some huge cultural achievement.

And of course, most black people in England are immigrants from common wealth countries like in the Caribbean so they already have strong cultural identity. I find more black Americans have a chip on their shoulder about race than other black people across the world I've encountered. Even being here for the past 5 years I'm much quicker to think someone is being prejudiced than just simply being an asshole.

All in all, I think England was privileged to not have to deal with slavery in their back yard. Even though they obviously participated in the slave trade and absentee planters owned plantations, they didn't have to deal with it directly. So I guess they don't have the same deep seated issues with race.

Edit to clarify a few FAQ:

• My experience is from London, NYC/Philly
• When I said "slavery" in that last part I was referring to Transatlantic African Slave Trade. Sorry for not specifying
• All this is in my experience. I did not mean for any of this to be hard and fast truths
• And when I said using "African Americans" vs. using "European Americans" I meant on likegovernment forms[1]   or on the news etc. I definitely agree people use the terms "Italian-American," "Irish-American" etc. but it just doesn't seem as prevalent in my experience. Note on the census "white" is used without further elaboration, whereas other ethnic groups are broken down more.

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