I hope this is not too stupid of a question, if it is I already apologize in advance.
Basically my girlfriend and I who are from Germany are planning to travel to the USA. We were hearing stuff that some Americans socially divide people by their ethnicity. I just wanted to ask online whether this is true and if there could be any concerns because my skin is very bright and my girlfriends skin is very dark.
Normally we never really cared or talked about this since at least in our community (where we are from) no one makes a thing out of it and we both just identify as German. But I heard that in some procedures in America you have to say what your ethnicity is? We even heard things like that in some places they divide people by “skin color” and base different cultures on that (we noticed that people from America even speak and behave differently based on whether they identify as “black” or “white”) and even have schools for primarily people with dark skin or so. And this concept is very new to us since our skin was never any topic for us and we are somewhat insecure that someone could say something since we look so different and are a couple and we don’t know if this could be “weird” for some Americans?
I assume that’s probably not the case and I’m somewhat misinformed, which is why we just want to make sure there isn’t anything that we have to know or potentially have to be concerned about.
Don’t listen to the people saying there’s an issue anywhere.
All this racist nonsense is just that - nonsense.
I’ve lived or worked for extended periods in numerous states, from Maine to Alabama, North Dakota, Washington, Texas, California, and all over the midwest, especially in rural areas (worked with trucking companies), and you really don’t see all the racism people claim on the internet, even in the trucker world.
Yea, you’ll find an ass here and there, but that’s very much the exception today. Far more so than even the 70’s, when being openly racist in a small town was tolerated a lot more (“the older generation don’t know no better” kind of stuff).
So come to the US. You’ll be fine anywhere except specific areas in certain inner cities (and that’s a general crime issue, not a race issue).
I personally know a lady that had to leave alabama after two run in with racists at gas stations in a couple months because her mixed race kid
this was in 2020
2016 in the mountains of North Carolina a girl was taken out of my high school because some of the kids were bullying her so bad for being a “n****r-lover” cause she dated one of the few black guys in the area
They had to learn that from somewhere and enough of the school was doing it that she and her mom felt she was unsafe there
Overt racism is still alive and real in more places in America than people want to admit
Yeah the Deep South still has problems. Especially in rural areas.
May I ask what race you are?