heard this claim - is it substantiated or propaganda?
It more tends to be generic stereotypes than the kind of Blood Libel shit Americans work themselves up into.
Saying the only detraction is “yea but there is racism everywhere” is missing the point. The degree to which black people in china would experience racism is different. Black people travelling to China often comment about getting starred down when walking the streets and or experiencing microaggressions. Guess what, not a utopia. Sorry to burst the bubble for anyone who thought that existed. That’s not the same thing as the racial terrorism and material dispossession faced by black people over generations in the west.
We have a thread of Hillary Clintons saying “sure you can’t amass multigenerational wealth, but is that going to solve racism???”
Well, not exactly.
In the early stages of COVID, a rumor spread that a black man from Africa brought COVID to China. A few businesses didn’t allow black men in for like, a few days. The government intervened and told them to cut it out, however.
The PRC, for it’s entire history, has cooperated with Africa and other colonized regions. The reason China is recognized as China and not Taiwan alone is because African countries voted for them in the UN vote. Chinese universities often have black students, because they make colleges for Africans much cheaper. (perhaps to give them the education to develop the material conditions in their home country which gives them socialism)
In summary, not exactly. The Chinese internet doesn’t let racism get too far, either. (After the Muslim terrorist attack in Shanghai in 2014, the Chinese internet supervisors didn’t let Islamophobic slurs be spread)
This is the case. It is also the case that most people in China do not ever meet black people in their daily life and so there is an automatic reaction to these new people that is not deeply held and different from racism in the west. It is informed by very little knowledge or experience. This is not a unique problem to here either, it is common in Asia where black people are less seen. It is also I think becoming more weak as the youth are becoming more exposed from foreign content.
I’ve seen no reason to believe that the state is institutionally racist.
This is a bit broad, i would say that an argunent could be made that the state has treats its internal minorities in a racist manner, but that’s a different conversation than the government’s attitude toward Africans and such
Here’s the response.
Two months ago, a group of Guangdong landlords & shop owners evicted a group of African migrants. In response China:
- mass arrested the racist actors
- apologized to African Union
- paid for hotels and meals for the affected African migrants
- created laws & police force to punish discrimination
- passed a huge series of anti-discrimination laws
- spent weeks going to all restaurants, landlords, & taxis to warn them of the law
- created a permanent special police force & hotline to protect African migrants from discrimination
- plastered notices across the entire province warning of punishment for racism
Here is the news article covering these actions: http://chinanews.com/gn/2020/05-03/9174472.shtml
Unsurprisingly China’s quick actions to address discrimination by a group of private landlords & shopkeepers in one province has been ignored by Western media. Instead inflammatory false reports of China “persecuting & imprisoning” African migrants continues to dominate headlines.
We decided to share this info on China’s addressing of the Guangdong incident because Westerners continue to equate the US’ 400 years of oppression of Black people to this one incident to argue that the US & China are the same & have the exact same system of “systemic racism.”
Systemic or institutional racism doesn’t mean just individual acts of racism. It means that a society’s entire existence & capitalist economy requires racism to continue existing and thus enforces a macro system of racialized exploitation that permeates every corner of society.
Qiao Collective has curated a short reading list of articles, papers & books on China & Africa’s relationship that challenges the West’s propaganda on China’s relationship with Africa and challenges the narrative of Chinese “neo-colonialism” in Africa.
Lastly, given the far more important events happening in the US, we would rather not have had to address this, but we’ve received a huge wave of alarming comments that China is putting Africans into “camps” & is committing “genocide” against Africans in Guangdong—which are false.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oeo4OVLUlWDk2NZI3UO6rl6bzVdiSQOdJYRukPffJA4/edit
every society has racists, and it will probably never go away entirely. however, we can make it so there isnt systemic racism, and china appears to not have systemic racism.
tbh i kinda hate the family structure in most of the world. i think we’d have less issues of racism if we communally raised children in ethnically diverse environments, as i think these family structures are part of why racism exists.
The State of China can be argued as racist because it puts an emphasis on the surveillance of ethnic minorities / tourists over the Han population. But that’s about it.
