Ethnicity, Race, and Black People in Europe 30 Stephen Small

Ethnicity, Race, and Black People in Europe 30 Stephen Small Contents Introduction ...................................................................................... 514 Racial Discrimination in 1968 and Ethnic Murder in 2016 .................................... 516 Distinct Ethnic Differences in Black Populations Nationally Across Europe . 517 Striking Racial Similarities in Black Populations Europe-Wide ............................... 522 Historical Background to Black Presence in Europe ........................................... 524 Discussion ....................................................................................... 528 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 532 References ....................................................................................... 533 Abstract This chapter provides a definition and examples of the concepts of ethnicity and race, by describing and explaining the presence and experiences of black people in Western Europe at the present time. And it provides examples of the range of ethnic differences in the white population of Europe at a time of increasing national and populist movements. There are currently just over 7 million black people in the 46 nations of Europe, the majority of whom are born and raised in Europe. The black population reveals a wide range of ethnic differences in terms of religion, language, national origins, family format, gender, as well as in music, film, literature, and food. At the same time, regardless of their ethnic origins, all black people in Europe share three common experiences that result from racial stereotypes and discrimination. These are ambiguous hyper-visibility, entrenched vulnerability, and irrepressible resistance and resilience. It is argued that race, ethnicity, and other variables such as economics and gender are intricately entangled with one another in both populations in ways that make it difficult to predict outcomes for different populations. S. Small (*) Department of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 513 S. Ratuva (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_169 514 S. Small Keywords Race · Ethnicity · Ambiguous hyper-visibility · Entrenched vulnerability · Irrepressible resistance and resilience Introduction Europe is currently experiencing a series of intense and enduring problems with increasing demands on its politicians and increasing anxiety and reactions among the general population. At the forefront of these issues is the rising threat to the existence of the Europe Union precipitated by extensive financial and economic worries, anti- globalization movements, the ascendancy of right-wing political parties, the Brexit vote, and the increasing divergence of goals and priorities between Europe and the USA, including a trade war. Donald Trump’s unexpected rise to the US Presidency in 2016 – and his erratic, contradictory policies and statements while president – has increased tensions. Politicians and the public are worried about high levels of unemployment and low economic growth, exacerbated by the political precarious- ness of the Eurozone. Economic austerity has been embraced by several governments with widespread adverse effects, especially for the unemployed and those in poverty. Migration across the Mediterranean is a major issue, too. Many political groups and individuals are motivated by xenophobia and racism for the pursuit of political advantage or electoral gain. Right-wing and populist movements have dramatically increased their share of the vote in many Europeans nations, and a number of right-wing groups from France, Germany, and the Netherlands met in Koblenz, Germany, in January 2017 to savor the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory and to proclaim the year 2017 as the year of far-right reawakening. Since then, they have increased in strength, with the governments of Austria, Italy, and Hungary the most visible. Hostility to Muslims in Europe – and to Islam in the Middle East – is widespread, deeply entangled with other political and economic issues that are worrying non-Muslim populations. Violent atrocities in Paris in November 2015, the horrific attack in Nice in July 2016, and in Germany have raised anxieties tremendously. In this context, ethnic, cultural, and national differences among whites in Europe have become far more salient, as more and more Europeans at the national level talk about protecting “our own people.” In England, British people don’t like white immigrants (like Poles and Romanians) and talk about Britain for “white British.” In Sweden there is antagonism toward Finns, in Germany and Spain toward Romanians, and in Greece toward Albanians and Bulgarians. Nationalist and populist groups assert their wish to keep Austria, Austrian; Denmark, Danish; Britain, British; and Italy, Italian. One group typically absent from these debates and headlines – with a few exceptions – is black people of African descent. There is very little talk about black people, especially black citizens, even though the vast majority of black people in Europe are citizens and legal residents. Yes, black Europeans appear in the news 30 Ethnicity, Race, and Black People in Europe 515 in highly stereotypical ways, for example, as illegal immigrants dying in the Mediterranean, black women victims of sex trafficking or drugs, and black men as criminals or thugs. Typically called sub-Saharan Africans, the majority of the black population in Europe traces its origins directly to West, East, and Southern Africa. Most of the rest are from the Caribbean, and South America, themselves the descendants of Africans kidnapped, transported, and enslaved during the several hundred years of the European transatlantic slave trade. Significant numbers of black people have been in Europe only since the 1990s and many others from the 1950s; and small yet symbolically significant black populations – and communities – go back several centuries, for example, in the port city of Liverpool, England. While they are not at the forefront of discussion, a description and assessment of black people in Europe highlights a wide variety of issues of ethnicity and race. Ethnicity and race are often used popularly as interchangeable terms. Many social scientists – myself included – argue that although they are frequently intertwined in practice, analytically we get greater insights by keeping them separate from one another. But what are race and ethnicity? While there is no clear-cut and universally accepted distinction between the two, the idea of race tends to highlight physical and mental issues, often regarded as permanent and unchanging and always organized hierarchically in terms of superiority and inferiority. Historically, this is how Europeans, who defined themselves as white (and Christian), defined and treated Africans and their descendants (whom they defined as black and barbarian). Racist ideologies that originated and were disseminated in Europe attributed and imposed such beliefs on Africans and established political institutions and labor systems (via slavery, colonialism, and imperialism) to do so. In contrast, ethnicity typically highlights social and cultural issues, usually regarded as variable (you can change your religion, language, music, and food tastes), not always regarded in a hierarchy, and often embraced by different groups. Such ethnic differences – in terms of language, religion, family structures, and political values – have been at the heart of Europe even before Europeans came into contact with Africans (or other peoples across the world). Complicating things further, ethnicity and race almost always operate in ways that intersect with, and are often greatly affected by, other variables, including economics and class, religion, nationality, and especially gender. Issues of ethnicity and race are complex; they are not mutually exclusive and are best regarded as situational, contex- tual, and contingent. We need to pay attention to these complexities. In this chapter I describe and assess black people’s presence and experiences in Europe today in order to discuss the relationship between ethnic and cultural differences on the one hand and racial differences on the other. In Europe today, we can find fascinating examples of these complexities. Comparison of different types of ethnic, racial, and national differences – including discrimination – raises impor- tant questions about the nature of ethnicity, ethnic difference, and ethnic conflict and about the nature of race, racism, and racial conflict. What is the relationship between ethnicity and race? How does cultural difference and nationalism intersect with ethnicity and race? We also see some of the ways in which attention to gender complicates matters even further. 516 S. Small Racial Discrimination in 1968 and Ethnic Murder in 2016 In England in the late 1960s, a large-scale empirical study took place on racial and ethnic discrimination. The results were published in the book, Racial Discrimina- tion in England (Daniel 1968). The study tested the attitudes and behavior of British-born white people toward black immigrants from the Caribbean, Indian immigrants from India, and several white immigrants from Europe. The goal was to assess the extent to which discrimination was based on race, culture, or nation. The

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