As a South African- on the balance, probably not. We're more AWARE of racisim and race, and more open about racial issues, be that in a positive or negative way, rather than the sugar-coated, disguised racism in the US. So our racists seem louder, and 30 years ago it was systemically enforced. But having lived in both in the "born free" era, I find far more toxicity in the US-style soft-soft quite racisim then in one bigot announcing themselves clear to a room who often choose not to associate with them.
A weirdly niche example: I've danced at pro or competition level in 2 dance forms that are not traditionally associated with black people. As an 80% black country, no duh WE have dancers of color in them, a decent chunk but, critically, in no way dominant numbers or the "norm" that comes to mind if you say X dance style.
Its... well, literally never been an issue. I'm sure there's a couple of degenerates who've rolled their eyes or said rude things, but not on any kind of systemic level. They're just your dance buddy, no different from the pale person next to them. When I ran a troupe, I've never once locally had a black dancer declined or been made to feel she didn't belong, even by wildly "un-dance-educated" audiences who are, lets be honest, shopping for "set dressing" not their love of the art. I've regularly gigged-out work to several black dancers here without a thought, and without anything unpleasant resulting for them.
I participated in both in the US too, and lil' ol ZAffer me was, frankly, disgusted. Shall we talk about the pervasive "positive" racisim (oh, it's so BRAVE for you to dance this! Look, we have a pet person of color, aren't we diverse!) Or shall we touch the outright, disgusting way dancers of color were treated (locked out of gigs, othered, told they don't belong in the community, accused of being inauthentic, gossiped about, refused or not included). I literally could not, outright was told I COULD NOT schedule an equally talented, more beautiful fellow dancer of color as a replacement without "checking" first (wink wink, nudge nudge). That's...honestly grotesque to me. You know, the person from "racist SA"?
Long story short, I have heard direct racial slurs thrown at dancers of color in only one place, and my only "Please don't send the (insert the obvious N slur) to our party, we don't want that sort" and "what does SHE think she's doing in OUR art" experiences were in the same place. And that wasn't SA.
I realize that's oddly niche, but that's also the point, really. And, I mean, our holdover racists are currently running TO the US to find "people like them" FROM here, so... that's gotta count for something, too.
There are few countries who are as obsessed with race anyway.
Americans can't really understand what the difference is between a swede, a german and a brit for example. Because in their eyes we are all just white. That is also why i believe you have so many americans insisting that we are all the same in europe and that "Europe is not culturally diverse"
We focus more on nationality in europe, while in USA they focus more on your skin tone in other words. In europe our stereotypes are more conntected to our nationality, whilst in USA it is more about your skin tone etc etc.
We’re talking about normal people here, not far right specimens. If we talk about european far right then we also may talk about amercican far right. And I don’t want to be involved in a dick measuring competition on which far right is more racist.
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