Some random observations on my return from Italy:
I'm not going to really talk about the stuff we went to see, because it's all been done.
How many different descriptions can you read of the Sistine Chapel, David, the Colosseum, etc.?
If I think of something new to say, I might post about it separately.
What I want to write about here is some social things I thought might interest DUers.
First: Don't go it Italy if you don't want to wear a mask. Masks are required EVERYWHERE. The only time you can remove your mask at a business is a restaurant. And don't put it on the table! You will get scolded!
Social distancing indoors is strictly enforced. Small stores only allow 2 customers inside at a time.
Pharmacies tend to have a line out the door.
I saw many instances of bias based on skin color. On public transit, I noticed light-skinned people actively avoiding being near to dark-skinned people. This was especially prevalent with older, light-skinned people.
Just one case in point: two young Black men got on a train, and sat next to a group of four, older white people. The white people got up and moved away. This sort of thing happened a lot.
We went to Venice, Florence, Pisa, Sorrento, and Rome. Every community had many, many closed storefronts.
Even long-standing businesses, recommended in guidebooks had closed.
Many businesses we patronized BEGGED us to give them good reviews on Trip Advisor and Google.
I was panhandled much less than I expected to be. (Based on previous experiences in Europe).
I was told to expect and watch for pickpockets. I never once was in a situation where I was concerned about it. My speculation? With no crowds pickpockets have a harder time working?
I can't wait to go back. Planning to return in 2023.
= new reply since forum marked as read
of the Italian man turning the pages of the newspaper's obituary section at the beginning of the pandemic when Italy got hit so hard. There were 10 pages of obits! He said that usually there was one. 
I was taught not to even put your used napkin on the table. If you have to leave the table, sit it on your chair.
Sound like a lovely holiday! I would love to go to Italy.
I thought I would lose weight with all the walking, nope!
I don't understand how everyone in that country doesn't weigh 800 lbs!!
They give you SO MUCH! And it's SO GOOD!!!
Next time, I'll bring more skirts and less pants and more stylish tops.
I only brought one skirt, but I ended up wearing it a LOT! Thank goodness for my travel laundry kit!!
And to think: he hated every minute he spent on it.
I love museums, so we'll likely do the whole day
My daughter is a classical pianist. She went to Italy (La Spezia/Arcola area - i the Genoa region) to go to musical/arts high school and work with an outside music school to do all of the preparations needed to apply to piano conservatory.
BTW, my ex-husband is Italian and his family still lives in Italy, so my daughter is in the care of her aunt and grandma which I thank goodness for everyday.
Again, thanks for all of your very helpful info.
I play both piano and guitar poorly.
That is so great that she gets to stay with relatives. I would feel the same in your shoes.
Have a wonderful time with your daughter (I'm sure you will)!!
What "low level" in the U.S.?
How many "Karen" videos have to be posted that managed to actually get recorded and put on social media and then make it to some mainstream media outlet to show it's anything but a "low level"? 
You still have whites here (in the U.S.) who are horrified to have black children in their pools, who will follow black people around a store and harass them (a video of that type of nonsense was just posted a couple days ago on DU - https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017667366), who will walk on the other side of the street when a group of black pedestrians are coming from the opposite direction.
It is persistent, it is ugly, and it is something that descendants of both Europeans and Asians do right here in the good old U.S.A. against black people. And then when blacks start lashing out (as you sadly see with the black on Asian attacks), then no one should be scratching their heads as to the reasons why. It's been centuries in the making.
Bottom line is that the sentiment was put out there, worldwide, that Africans and their diaspora are "inferior" and much of that started not long after European colonization and later, occupations of certain countries by those same Europeans during the World Wars, and has been reinforced through the media, the literature, and the arts ever since.
There's an old saying and it got memorialized in an old blues song -
And unless you are a black person in the U.S. who experiences it first hand, day after day in the U.S., then you cannot make such a cavalier assessment.
(including as a federal employee to boot).
And since so much of what is "history" has been the European versions of it, it misses cultural biases by non-Euro cultures against "others" - i.e., where some African cultures considered (and still consider) "white" as "death".
But this is not what I am talking about here. I'm talking about a "system" that was codified into modern law in multiple countries INCLUDING the U.S., and that codification was done by Euro-descendants, and it used an entire convoluted pseudo-biological manufacture of "races" and "bloodlines" and other nonsense. Which was highlighted in what happened with the infamous Plessey vs Ferguson case, where this guy was declared a negro because of a distant relative -
This nonsense wasn't something that Africans cooked up. The colorism is a part of it, but the insidious piece of it comes from the BEHAVIOR that was taught over centuries, with tall tales that were designed to maintain white supremacy and keep slaves in check.
And it is still with us. For example, why did it take this long to finally get rid of fucking Aunt Jemima?
But the damage is done and the virulent nature of the U.S. racism is pernicious and continues to impact every aspect of black life.
Link to tweet
TEXT
@MadisonSiriusXM
Can you see what's wrong with this image? #culturalconditioning AT&T ad from 1993 @ATT
Image
7:20 AM · Jun 28, 2016
But isn't a reply to what I wrote 
Bias is as old as mankind. And in many spots on this planet, it's MUCH worse than here.
In many Eastern Asian countries, families won't let their children marry someone with darker skin. Watch some Central/S.American TV... every actor and actress look like Antonio Banderas and Shakira.
Look at the age of the Pharoahs, at their art. The darker skinned Africans were serving the Pharoah, pictured with lighter skin.
It's a fucked up world, inhabited by fucked up humans. Will we EVER live in color blind societies, judging people by the quality of their character?
In some countries, we've made quite a bit of progress, others not so much.
and recipient of the vitriol, then you cannot begin to critique my calling out of the insidious racism in this country and how it manifests and is seemingly dismissed. And unfortunately it took what amounted to a "snuff video" of the knee of a white cop on the neck of a young black father until the life was smashed out of him, for some people to finally wake up.
And the "problem" with what you describe in ancient Egypt was the Europeanized version of what was going on, by the assignment of "race" to what was depicted of different nationalities/ethnic groups that made up the various empires that ebbed and flowed in that area, wrapping all the way around to what is Somalia. They will only show you what fits the fictionalized events.
In fact, the whole idea of literally historically pulling Egypt out of the continent of Africa for supremacist purposes, in order to take credit for the kingdoms there, while calling those people "caucasian", was and still is obscene. You have actually played into this with this statement -
I've actually seen that art up close and personal in Cairo and Luxor and Esna, Edfu, and Abu Simbel and they only show you cherry-picked works, because there are thousands of years of it (and more still being uncovered every day). I've also seen the people who live in Upper Egypt (where the oldest kingdoms were established) and they are definitely "hidden" from the public for the very same supremacist reasons that they don't fit that pernicious stereotype of a white "Egyptian".
The closest would be to think Anwar Sadat (whose family comes from Upper Egypt) vs assigning some mix from the Arab, Greek, and Roman invasions into the fantasy about who and what ancient Egypt was.
And don't forget that Egypt was occupied by the British for some time, just like India. The main thing that is fucked up is the mess that Europe left behind after 2 World Wars and the crap they deposited here when "America" was their colony.
with a cell phone in their hands and they have recently, thanks to the prevalence of "social media", gotten into the habit of using it to broadcast a literal "day in the life" snapshot of things that they might run across in their daily activities.
The appearance of these recordings nowadays doesn't somehow preclude that the behavior being captured never existed before the invention of the cell phone, let alone the ability to record and upload video clips near real-time, for public consumption.
I posted in another thread that the equivalent of the "Karen" of today, portrayed in "To Kill a Mockingbird" almost 60 years ago -
Looks similar to this in a number of aspects -
I also posted this upthread, an experiment that shows the disparate treatment, dependent on race (and even gender), of how individuals engaged in the EXACT same activity, are perceived -
It is persistent and pernicious.
But the one thing that has been heartening to me the past year, is that a whole lot of people had the blinders ripped off, made some noise, and made their disgust known, which helped to get some shit done that was previously unfathomable and unattainable in the past. And as much as the media wants to cherry pick some black faces out of literally tens of thousands of people who marched in support of of George Floyd and BLM, the vast majority of them out in the streets this go around during what became the start of a new civil rights movement, WERE this country's "majority" - whites.
or it would be so much worse 
Charleston is 60% white and 26% black - https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/charlestoncountysouthcarolina
On the other hand, North Charleston, which has around the same population, is 46% white and 45% black - https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/northcharlestoncitysouthcarolina
(defacto segregation that probably evolved from dejure segregation)
One of my BILs has an old old friend who lives down there and he and my sis go down there to visit him and his family every once in awhile (and to go to Hilton Head with his brothers and their families).
It was quite exciting both nights!!
