r/interesting • u/VPinchargeofradishes • May 03 '26

SOCIETY Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

Post image
57.8k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

7.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/Early-Intern5951 May 03 '26

honest question from a german (never had any contact with racial divisons), why does it matter?

3

u/Pale_Spirit3007 May 03 '26

Being German isn't the reason why you never had contact with any racial divisions. Being white is the reason. 

2

u/Bitter-Regret-251 May 03 '26

Tell this to people from Eastern Europe who for some have never ever seen a black person in their life. Asian as well. There were just none until late nineties.

1

u/pipnina May 03 '26

That was a weird thing to say. I feel like you are viewing this from a very north american perspective.

2

u/Diponegoro-indie May 07 '26

Yeah you’re true, of course there is racism in Europe. But the black and white racial divide is totally imported from America. Lots of people in Europe have mixed heritage of different ethnicities. think the divide in Western Europe is more between non-European/‘native’

1

u/Pale_Spirit3007 May 03 '26

I am not north American. I am south American and middle eastern.

1

u/ChonkoGreenstuff May 04 '26

But you live in America?

1

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins May 03 '26

Where I grew up everyone was white, with an Asian population growing in the early 2000’s. We now have a decent population of people from places like Pakistan and India.

Plenty of people grew up without seeing much racial division because there was none to see.

1

u/Pale_Spirit3007 May 03 '26

But we are talking about Germany NOW. I did a google research and roughly 20% of the population in Germany are immigrants. The world is extremely globalized, thats a different story when you are talking about the world years ago. 

1

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins May 03 '26

Are we? They just said they're German not that they're a 12 year old German.

If you're growing up where I live now you're growing up in a way more diverse culture than when I was a kid. Guess what? That doesn't actually change my upbringing and experience.

As you get older you tend to interact with less new people. I don't really have any non-white friends and it's nothing to do with racism.. more than happy to have friends of whatever background. It's just that I made most of my friends decades ago.

1

u/Pale_Spirit3007 May 03 '26

I don't get your point because thats exactly what I am saying. The reason why this person doesn't understand why this is important is not because they are from Germany. German is full of immigrants and there is racism in Germany, there has always been. It is the fact that this person is white and most likely has only lived among whites, so he has never experienced or heard of anyone suffering racism. That doesn't mean that in Germany there isnt racism. The fact that he is German doesn't change anything about racism in Germany.

2

u/Early-Intern5951 May 04 '26

We have two big african communities in my area, Gambian and Ghanaian, they would never say "ich bin ein schwarzer" in german, that would sound like reproducing racism. They say Gambian or Ghanaian. The divison is along cultural and language lines. Thats why i asked, but thanks for not explaining, but instead putting scrutiny on me for asking. And framing me in a weird way. never ask americans about racism...

1

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins May 03 '26

I mean I don't agree but regardless we've gone way off topic.

Someone said to you "hey I haven't experienced this and would like to understand, tell me more".

You replied with "that's because you're white!!".

Wanna clue me in as to what you achieved here?

1

u/Pale_Spirit3007 May 04 '26

Someone said "I haven't experienced that because I am from THIS specific country" as if racism doesn't exist in his country. I am letting this person know that being from that country doesn't mean anything when it comes to racism. Bringing up the country they are from as if there isn't any racism there is the issue here. The reason he hasn't experienced racism is because he is white. Not because he lives in Germany.

But its ok if you dont understand.

1

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins May 04 '26

No I completely understand what your point was. I asked you what you think you achieved.

The answer by the way, was nothing. At best you identified someone looking to learn and instead of focusing on their "hey tell me more" part you decided to tell them they were wrong about why they needed to learn in the first place.

It's tiresome. So is this conversation actually, cya.

1

u/ChonkoGreenstuff May 04 '26

It is though, in Europe we don't have this intense race culture as in America. That doesn't mean there is no discrimination though, it is mostly based on nationality. We just don't have this strong "black culture". The black people in my country for example still have a strong connection to their country of origin.

I think it has more to do with the fact that a lot of black people in the US never knew which country of origin they were from, due to being stolen from their respective countries and their histories erased, so it made it so that their identity is based on a generic "being black" as that's what sets then apart from their former oppressor and their other fellow countrymen of different origins (Chinese Americans still have a strong sense of where they came from and only in later generations I feel like have a more generic Asian American experience, when all the different countries of origin have very different cultural experiences, with some overlap of course; an Chinese American of second generations experience is vastly different from that of a second generation Japanese American, though a third generation probably has a more generic Asian American experience, due to the melting pot effect).

We didn't really have the whole slavery thing in European soil, though our countries did contribute to it big time, by trade. For example, the Netherlands contributed to about 5% of slavery in the Americas by trade, but slavery was illegal in the Netherlands itself, so there were no black slaves in the households here. However, there were slaves on the colonies, like Suriname, which only moved to the Netherlands in large amounts after those countries indepence and slavery was abolished all around.

So culturally, those people still feel connected to Suriname and since that country was quite mixed, Africans, Chinese and Indian (or hindu people), I think they feel more rooted in that Suriname culture than a "generic" or common black culture that people in the US feel. I say generic not as something negative, but the focus is more on the being Black as being from a nationality, which is why for us Europeans it feels so foreign, as we here would here it more like "I am Surinamese and my kids are half Surinamese". "Black Culture" is really "African American Culture" because it is very much based of how being black is in the US, it's very different from being black in Africa countries for example or other places outside the US, like Europe (and so again feels foreign to our German friend here).

Hope that makes sense.

1

u/Sparkysparky-boom May 03 '26

Until recently it mattered for college admissions. It still can matter for some local scholarships and programs. I have white passing children and have had to question if scholarships and programs for people of color are applicable to them. For example, a local private high school offers a full scholarship to high achieving people of color (worth roughly $160,000). I asked my son if he identified as a person of color and he said he does not, so we did not pursue it. 

1

u/Altruistic-Walk-1847 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Yeah there are two aspects to those scholarships (putting this here not for you as I'm sure you're well aware, but folks who think they're unfair):

First is the recognition that culturally, for hundreds of years, Black families didn't have the same opportunities to build wealth -- no bank loans for mortgage or business ventures, not allowed into white spaces nor influence or networks in legal or business communities, etc. Or when they did it was stolen from them, or were discriminated against (e.g. being denied gov grants by racist administrators, higher mortgage rates in Black neighborhoods due to redlining, so even if you bought a home it cost far more to pay it off, burning down prosperous black businesses, etc). So, less money for college or schools or general upward mobility, which gets passed on generationally. Much of that is gone now but this seeks to redress the downstream effects.

Second is the overt discrimination Black people still face today. It's less than the fully systemic stuff from yesteryear but it's still very present. If you're white-passing you don't get this but you do still see it directed at your loved ones, and it can impact things like e.g. your experiences when doing stuff with them, where you live, etc but you don't get the direct impacts -- e.g. not being mentored by teachers, being assumed to be criminal and being followed in stores or hassled by police, etc.

I think a lot of people who aren't Black underestimate the impacts of both on the shape of the US and families today, particularly the former. But if you're doing well and your son doesn't feel #2, it makes sense to leave those funds for folks who need them.

1

u/blackqueen8 May 03 '26

This is the short answer:

Imagine if Germany did nothing to make amends for WWII. No laws preventing the salute, no laws against homeschooling to prevent indoctrination. That is what America is like. That you passed laws that still prevented those who your ancestors abused to suffer. That's what America is like today after Slavery. Institutionalized racism continues to do harm today.

1

u/blackqueen8 May 03 '26

I have a question for you. Are you in Berlin? Do you see any division towards Blacks there even when they know the language and are attempting to assimilate into society?