But the cultural distance I enjoyed as a Briton in a foreign country felt like a blended veneer of invincibility and invisibility. I thought of myself less as a participant than an onlooker. While reporting from rural Mississippi in 2003, I stopped to ask directions at the house of an old white couple, and they threatened to shoot me. I thought this was funny. I got back into my car sharpish and drove off – but I never once thought they would actually shoot me. How crazy would that be? When I got home, I told my wife and brother-in-law, who are African American. Their parents grew up in the South under segregation; even today, my mother-in-law wouldn’t stop her car in Mississippi for anything but petrol. They didn’t think it was funny at all: what on earth did I think I was doing, stopping to ask old white folk in rural Mississippi for directions?

LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Race_riots_in_England

Worth noting: Black British make up 3% of the population of the UK, while African Americans make up 17% of the US. Numerically, there are 2 million Black British and 55 million African Americans. There are as many African Americans in the US as there are white people in the UK. So when you look over these incidents, throw in a little math.

Race in the US is deeply messed up and minorities get the shaft in every instance. But this trend of foreigners pointing fingers while legit Nazis are on the rise over there in the "civilized" world grinds my gears.

posted 3234 days ago