this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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[–] geoff@midwest.social -1 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I ask mostly rhetorically to shed light on the idea that state mistreatment of ethnic minorities is a persistent human issue, and that it should be condemned wherever it occurs. The USA’s hands may be uniquely bloodied, but I doubt China’s are squeaky clean. I would expect any state of sufficient size and power to eventually be guilty of this.

I wonder if China’s population is more or less ethnically and culturally homogeneous than that of the USA, and whether this should be considered a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 7 points 13 hours ago

I wonder if China’s population is more or less ethnically and culturally homogeneous than that of the USA, and whether this should be considered a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.

the defining characteristic(s) of an ethnic minority is a artificial distinction that the culture you exist within conditions you to regard as important and it will be different from one culture to the next.

thanks to colonialism, some of it will have a superficial analogue to your own culture, but the ingrained distinctions stretch back for hundreds to thousands of years longer and most are imperceptible to foreigners; hence the entire "monoculture" assumption by westerners of the (mostly) non-melinated variety.

[–] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 23 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I wonder if China’s population is more or less ethnically and culturally homogeneous than that of the USA

Far, FAR from it; China is gigantic with many different cultures and ethnicities, much like the Soviet Union was. One of the reasons why they both made it work easily is because they focused on what made them the same rather than capitalism melting their brains and telling them to be as divided as possible. We have a huge cultural problem where people are beginning to fall for this stupidity about ethnic and cultural homogeneity being cornerstones in a peaceful society, forgetting entirely that WW2 is what happens when the only ethnicity and culture is white and some imagined white culture.

Different regions in China have their own cultural differences but you don't have a Chen Xiaopiro or similar crying about how this region or that celebrates that festival while most of China celebrates this other festival. I think even the government itself doesn't allow divisive rhetoric in the first place, which, you know, good; freedom of speech shouldn't be allowed to be a double edged sword.

Heck, Xinjiang maintains their own Uyghur language which is not only protected, but exists in their signs and apparently even the currency they use there has their (Arabic?) text on it as well. Tibet suffered unfortunately from some horrific cultural genocide during Mao's time, wherein slaves were given their freedom and slave owners were made to be equal to everyone else, and unfortunately modern day Tibetans no longer recall or value the glory days of slavery, but their unique Tibetic languages are still alive and spoken there, and there hasn't been this cultural erasure (short of ending slavery) that you got with Native Americans. I recall a discussion between a Uyghur and a guy in the states where he pointed out that Native American languages, many of them, were killed off and official institutions in regions where Native Americans live operate in English, whereas in the many different regions of China their unique dialects and languages are still alive and well.

Like I mentioned, the Chinese government itself also does what it can to stamp out divisive rhetoric, and honestly good; if we went a year with divisive rhetoric being stamped out, the division in our country would disintegrate. No more divisive rhetoric in the news, no more bigoted losers on youtube, straight up bans on all social media of people trying to divide the country, and the people grow closer again. The division that does exist however is entirely artificial; literally what cultural differences exist that would cause hostility? One group celebrates Christmas while another doesn't? One group likes mostly Mexican food while the other doesn't? The news and social media losers literally keep harping on and on and on about this nonsense and dividing people entirely artificially for political purposes, and they convince you that you came to your conclusions entirely on your own when in reality they never stop going on and on and on about this nonsense and trying to make you think this way of thinking is normal.

[–] QinShiHuangsShlong@lemmy.ml 2 points 12 hours ago

Chen Xiaopiro

陈傻逼肉

[–] Grapho@lemmy.ml 18 points 22 hours ago

Tibet suffered unfortunately from some horrific cultural genocide during Mao’s time, wherein slaves were given their freedom and slave owners were made to be equal to everyone else,

You almost fucking had me lmao

[–] Kefla@hexbear.net 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I lwonder if China’s population is more or less ethnically and culturally homogeneous than that of the USA,

It comes across as extremely insincere to just pose these questions publicly. If you actually wondered that, you would look it up. What you're actually doing is covertly implying an answer that you think is true and would never question, without having the spine to actually state that answer yourself because you know that you have no actual facts to back up what you're suggesting.

[–] geoff@midwest.social -4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I’m actually curious and wondering out loud for the sake of discussion. I have my own bias like everyone else, but I asked because I want to explore it rather than project half-baked opinions, so I pose the question for discussion. It’s a not a trivial question to get an answer for by googling.

[–] Kefla@hexbear.net 14 points 20 hours ago

It’s a not a trivial question to get an answer for by googling.

I literally googled "ethnic groups in china wikipedia" and "ethnic groups in the US wikipedia" and the results (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States) seem to immediately and unambiguously reject the idea of China as some kind of homogenous ethnostate that the US can't emulate because it has too high a concentration of melanin or whatever fascist bullshit you were trying to say.

[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 16 points 23 hours ago

I wonder if China’s population is more or less ethnically and culturally homogeneous than that of the USA, and whether this should be considered a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.

China isn't a more equitable system because of ethnic homogeneity. That "high trust society" shit is a dead end if you're really trying to figure out why the world works the way it does.