Immigrants as scapegoats

[Dill]

(01-09-2019, 06:23 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: You are right, I certainly have seen it in action in the Philippines when I pay more for something than the locals do. The locals call it the "Kano Discount". And I can not own land there, but a Filpino can come to the US an buy land.

Give me your examples of "white privilege". I bet most of them are just stereotypes and racism, but amuse me.

"Just" stereotypes and racism??  

Couple off the top of my head:

1. Before I could work in Qatar, I had to go to a hospital for blood tests. I was led up a back stair into a room where a nurse took my blood, but through an open door I could see a large glass window with 50-60 brown people behind it waiting for blood tests. I had been taken to the head of the line.  Same thing several years later when I was treated in a hospital--head of the line for white (British, German, americans).  Later a brown-skinned American colleague (born in Bolivia) was led up the back stairs of the same hospital and the people behind the glass practically rioted when they saw him. American or not, he had to go to the back of the line.

2. I flew to India in 2009 on Jet Air. I was in economy class, the only white guy, and an Indian stewardess asked me to come forward to Business. There was a spare seat and she led me to it.  I asked her to give the seat to a woman in economy who had a baby, but she said no.  I got the seat or no one did. (I should add that I paid more for cultural artifacts in India than locals did; but I don't misunderstand the term so badly as to call cheaper prices for locals "Indian privilege.")

I have lots of such examples of systemic preference for whites across a number of developing countries. It is baked into some former British colonies for sure. White Americans White Germans White British get special treatment in many countries when they must interact with local bureaucracies--even if they can't vote there and don't have the same rights as citizens.  Stereotypes are certainly involved--of superior white North Americans and Europeans.  Filipinos in Qatar have no "Asian privilege" that's for sure. If they are assaulted or robbed by a Qatari, they may be bundled unceremoniously out of the country.  That won't happen to an American, or Brit, Or German, or Italian.

I can't buy land in Qatar either, but that doesn't establish some Arab or Qatari "privilege" if you understand how the term is used here. Doesn't mean the legacy of colonialism doesn't continue to more favorably balance my relation to the state and private institutions than that of browner foreign residents.

If you are murdered in the Philippines, will it be a bigger deal (press coverage, embassy attention) than if a Filipino is murdered there, or in the US?  What are your thoughts on that?