I agree with you that the US has a weird fixation on race. As a German I always cringe when I hear the term, because nobody (even strongly bigotet people) would use the term for humans since the 40s.
And there is really no biological justification. Skin color does not correlate with genetic differences, in other words two people with different skin colors can be much more similar to two other people with the same.
That doesn't mean that there isn't racism and I'm not sure if a country like Australia has "racial blindness" (whatever that means). Australia has huge issues with xenophobia and attitudes which would be called racist in the US are widespread, they just don't focus on race but on ethnicity instead (which IMO is a much better term)
> That doesn't mean that there isn't racism and I'm not sure if a country like Australia has "racial blindness" (whatever that means). Australia has huge issues with xenophobia and attitudes which would be called racist in the US are widespread, they just don't focus on race but on ethnicity instead (which IMO is a much better term)
I completely agree Australia has serious issues with xenophobia, and ethnicity-based racism – indeed, my comment to which you are replying mentioned some examples I've witnessed first-hand: anti-Italian prejudice and anti-Lebanese prejudice. But those don't fit well into an American understanding of "racism" which focuses on race rather than ethnicity.
I suppose my point about "blindness" is this – if by it someone means "I don't see prejudice/discrimination/xenophobia/etc", then I agree that is problematic. On the other hand, if someone says "I'm not sure what races are, how many there are, or who is what race; cases of prejudice/discrimination/xenophobia I have personally observed can be understood in terms of language/culture/ethnicity/religion/nationality/etc not race per se" – is one "seeing race"? But even if one is not "seeing race", one is still seeing prejudice.
And there is really no biological justification. Skin color does not correlate with genetic differences, in other words two people with different skin colors can be much more similar to two other people with the same.
That doesn't mean that there isn't racism and I'm not sure if a country like Australia has "racial blindness" (whatever that means). Australia has huge issues with xenophobia and attitudes which would be called racist in the US are widespread, they just don't focus on race but on ethnicity instead (which IMO is a much better term)