Tony;
did i say that europeans never have been racist, and ain't racists
today? did i say that europeans didn't build Auschwitz, kill jews,
gipsys and about every other ethnic group they could get hold of? did
i say that european skinheads doesn't harass and kill people of other
races today? if i did, i'm terribly sorry, and i'll never do it
again. of course i'll never do it again, 'cause it's pure bullshit....
what i did try to say, was that for one specific period of time,
after WW2, american jazz musicians of afro-american origin were met
with considerable less open racism than often happened in the USofA
in that same period.
why? i'm not sure, but i think maybe:
- for one thing, everything that came from the US were viewed as
superior to almost most everything: therefore even american negros
were superior to europe's own "inferior" races. ;-)
- i addition, black people were often viewed as exotic (i know, that's
racism too, i know and i don't claim anything else...). (there's been
so few of that race in Europe that we never really got around to
institutionalizing our racism against people of african origin; quite
a few european countries tried to ban jews from their land (Norway
was one of them, from 1814 to 188?), and of course jews and
people belonging to other ethnic groups would be denied access
to restaurants and things like that, esp. in the years prior to WW2,
but europe just never had many africans/black people to discriminate
against)
and,
- for some years just after WW2, open racism (mind the word "open")
was in a lot of ways not exactly seen as the most hip of ideologies,
at least not in western europe.... (killing the negros at home, now
that was something completely different, of course ;-))
the result of all these things combined was, among other things, that
american jazz-men experienced less racism in europe at that time,
than they did at home. at least that's what they kept saying
themselves... (but that may of course have been just to please us
silly europeans and sell more records?)
so i'm terribly sorry i expressed myself so clumsy. of course european
history is just as bloodstained as american (much more so as a matter
of fact, as european history is so much longer than (WASP)american
history... dammit, europeans used to go to america to get away from
all kind of prejudice at home, some of them of course going on to
become good old racist in their new haven....)) i did not try to or
want to hurt your american feelings, Tony! ;-)
have a nice day :-)
tb
* ----------------------------------------------- *
\ Trond Buland \
\ e-mail: trond.buland@ifim.sintef.no \
\ phone:+47 73 59 25 65 home:+47 73 52 78 21 \
* ---------------------------------------------- *