Every time I see someone go on about how, apart from social issues, US liberals (or even US leftists) would be center-right in Europe, it's like ... damn is "social issues" doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
So: Would you consider a conservative, bigoted communist dictator left-wing? Because I would and I suspect you wouldn't, though beyond what terms to use our opinions on the politics would presumably be similar.
I again can't speak so much for Europe but one problem with comparing the US to Australia is that we're less varied between states and regions, so the range of opinions tends to be smaller.
Still, bearing that in mind: I would say we do roughly similarly on treatment of cis women, a bit worse on treatment of lgbtq people (we took longer to get any same sex marriage and the laws are still pretty bad), disability is a mixed bag, and we are SO MUCH MORE RACIST. Which I have to admit even I was in denial about for a while, until I sat and stared at the evidence for a while.
Like...you guys can't ignore race very easily (though people try). With such a large POC population, what racism exists is RIGHT THERE ALL THE TIME because the people who experience it are right there all the time.
But Australia is like 90% white. As a direct result of something called The White Australia policy that ended in the seventies. People act like POC don't exist at all. And then white Australians see online racism discussions about, like, being awful to Black Americans, and go "Well I've never been awful to any Black Americans!"...because they've never met any. But if you asked them their opinion on Indigenous Australians, well D: Afaict the effect is often similar if you ask a 'there's no racism here' European about Roma. And the attitudes towards Black Australians of African descent, Asian Australians and even Greek Australians etc are also terrible.
When I first got into racism discussions online in the mid 2000s, I considered myself, and was considered, a Good Australian Anti-Racist. And the bar for US-based discussions was SO MUCH HIGHER. Some of that was genuine cultural/linguistic difference, with Americans not accepting that while racism is global the specifics differs, but most of it was just...there being actual POC in the conversation. Who the white Americans absolutely didn't WANT to listen to, but there were enough POC to make themselves heard anyway. Meanwhile even supposedly anti-racist stuff here tends to be run by white socialists whose really only care about their own pet issues.
SO YEAH.
Edited (edited to remove a line of dating sim dialogue I had saved for unrelated reasons lol) 2021-12-11 13:53 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this, and I'm not sure whether I would or wouldn't ... a generally conservative communist is an odd enough concept to me that I'd probably at least try to find a different term. I do think our politics are similar otherwise, though :)
What you say about Australia vs the US is really interesting, because in some ways, it reminds me of the corner of the US where I live, which is majority ~progressive but also very white (around 80% iirc). My best friend (who moved to a much more diverse area) often talks about how people here will pride themselves on how they're not racist to Black people ... and then it turns out they've never interacted with any, mainly because of historical anti-Black and anti-Indigenous policies that led to the region turning out the way it is, and meanwhile, their takes on Latinx people are ... whew. It's less the case than it used to be, though, or at least people are talking about it in a way that's closer to the rest of the country.
But yeah, more broadly, it has often seemed like a lot of people who go on about how conservative or center-right the US is by their standards a) have stunningly conservative views on race and immigration by contemporary US progressives' standards, and/or b) don't see those issues as very important, when they're defining issues for so many people. It's not that white US progressives deserve much credit for the differences, to be sure, but the discourse from a lot of more-progressive-than-thou types can make the claim pretty questionable IMO.
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So: Would you consider a conservative, bigoted communist dictator left-wing? Because I would and I suspect you wouldn't, though beyond what terms to use our opinions on the politics would presumably be similar.
I again can't speak so much for Europe but one problem with comparing the US to Australia is that we're less varied between states and regions, so the range of opinions tends to be smaller.
Still, bearing that in mind: I would say we do roughly similarly on treatment of cis women, a bit worse on treatment of lgbtq people (we took longer to get any same sex marriage and the laws are still pretty bad), disability is a mixed bag, and we are SO MUCH MORE RACIST. Which I have to admit even I was in denial about for a while, until I sat and stared at the evidence for a while.
Like...you guys can't ignore race very easily (though people try). With such a large POC population, what racism exists is RIGHT THERE ALL THE TIME because the people who experience it are right there all the time.
But Australia is like 90% white. As a direct result of something called The White Australia policy that ended in the seventies. People act like POC don't exist at all. And then white Australians see online racism discussions about, like, being awful to Black Americans, and go "Well I've never been awful to any Black Americans!"...because they've never met any. But if you asked them their opinion on Indigenous Australians, well D: Afaict the effect is often similar if you ask a 'there's no racism here' European about Roma. And the attitudes towards Black Australians of African descent, Asian Australians and even Greek Australians etc are also terrible.
When I first got into racism discussions online in the mid 2000s, I considered myself, and was considered, a Good Australian Anti-Racist. And the bar for US-based discussions was SO MUCH HIGHER. Some of that was genuine cultural/linguistic difference, with Americans not accepting that while racism is global the specifics differs, but most of it was just...there being actual POC in the conversation. Who the white Americans absolutely didn't WANT to listen to, but there were enough POC to make themselves heard anyway. Meanwhile even supposedly anti-racist stuff here tends to be run by white socialists whose really only care about their own pet issues.
SO YEAH.
no subject
What you say about Australia vs the US is really interesting, because in some ways, it reminds me of the corner of the US where I live, which is majority ~progressive but also very white (around 80% iirc). My best friend (who moved to a much more diverse area) often talks about how people here will pride themselves on how they're not racist to Black people ... and then it turns out they've never interacted with any, mainly because of historical anti-Black and anti-Indigenous policies that led to the region turning out the way it is, and meanwhile, their takes on Latinx people are ... whew. It's less the case than it used to be, though, or at least people are talking about it in a way that's closer to the rest of the country.
But yeah, more broadly, it has often seemed like a lot of people who go on about how conservative or center-right the US is by their standards a) have stunningly conservative views on race and immigration by contemporary US progressives' standards, and/or b) don't see those issues as very important, when they're defining issues for so many people. It's not that white US progressives deserve much credit for the differences, to be sure, but the discourse from a lot of more-progressive-than-thou types can make the claim pretty questionable IMO.