These Turkish "success stories" involve people whose grandparents, and even parents, were not born in Europe... They are what we in Europe call second-/third-generation immigrants (with or without German citizenship). How did the children and grandchildren of your black slaves fare in the early 1800s?
They were slaves like their parents. Once you entered the slave system in the US, it was very difficult to become a freeman.
It'd be great indeed for today's Europe to boast black, Turkish, and North African, Brigadier-Generals, CEOs, bankers and other celebrities --other than soccer players and pop singers-- BUT THAT WOULD BE FOR EUROPE TO ACHIEVE IN 50 YEARS WHAT TOOK THE US of A 200 YEARS TO PULL OFF!!!! You didn't draft your Civil Rights legislation in the late 1700s, and if Rev M.L. King had been born in 1800 and started rabble-rousing his fellow Negroes in the 1830s he'd have been lynched pronto --dreamless.
Look.....you just don't get it. Up until the 1950s, the US was behind Europe in terms of racial relations. American entertainers and sportspeople frequently when to Europe to do their professions because discrimination was so bad here.
Then in the 1960s everything began to change. There were sit ins, riots, racial busing and new legislation. Many southern Dems. jumped to the GOP because the Dems were promoting equal opportunity legislation. By the 1980s, the enacted legislation began to have an impact. Reagan tried to stop it but failed. Since then, slowly but surely we have become more integrated; less biased.
In the meantime, during the 1950s,'60s, and '70s, Europe began to let go of its colonies or began to treat them as equal partners. That led to an influx of people of color and ethnicities. Whereas in the past there were only a few Muslims or blacks, there were more. Suddenly, Europeans began to feel uncomfortable. It was fine when there were only a few people who were of a different color or ethnicity but as their percentage began to approach 5% and then 10%, Europeans began to be much more conscious of race.
Skinhead groups emerged, harassing the new minorities. New laws were passed. Barrios began to grow up in certain parts of the cities, or in the case of Paris, in a particular suburb. People were not so supportive of interracial marriages. Suddenly, there was talk of not enough jobs for the native people, let alone immigrant groups from Africa or the ME. Immigration quotas became de rigeur.
In other words, as the US became more racially tolerant; the Europeans more intolerant. If drawn on a graph, the two lines would have crossed probably some time in the late 1980s.
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