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Originally Posted by Marie Monday
There's a pretty common right wing idea in northern Europe that southern Europeans are lazy garlic eating people who leech off north European money in the EU.
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Ok, sure, and if you'd have formulated your original statement to say "some right wing Northern European nutters discriminate against Southern Europeans", I wouldn't have objected, otherwise it seemed you were saying most Northern Europeans discriminate against Southern Europeans or that such discrimination or attitude is widespread which I think isn't the case.
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Its very naive to think that people can't enjoy a place while being racist towards its inhabitants at the same time.
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Sure,
some people may travel to places whose inhabitants they dislike, but I would say most people travel to Southern Europe and especially Spain not just for the sunshine and the beaches but for the culture and the people.
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Of course I realise wealth disparity plays a role in racism, but it's not the entire picture. The fundament behind racism is a hatred of things that are different from you. Take Jewish people, who weren't poorer than other ethnic groups in Europe but were discriminated horribly. If all Latinos become rich, racism isn't solved. It's also the other way around: history of racism has led to wealth disparity which further reinforces racism.
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Yup, absolutely aware of that. But our discussion is limited to West North vs. West South of Europe, which have very similar culture (in a global context), Christian, predominantly white etc. Your statement above basically confirms that the main reason for discrimination towards the South by the North is economic.
Same issue exists on a more regional basis, inside Spain, Italy, even Croatia, the developed north discriminates against and looks down on the less developed south.
But coming back to the original point, OH, who is Irish and not British, was not discriminating against the Spanish and this is not a common thing in Europe. In my opinion and personal experience. Certainly not anything comparable to the racism Latinos experience in the U.S., which I think is what Charles thinks is happening. Spaniards=/=Latinos.