4 ms·
It sounds like a study of nothing. It sounds like a question nobody cares about, but that could easily be misused in the service of racism. I take very strong e
by dreyfiz 15y ago
It sounds like a study of nothing. It sounds like a question nobody cares about, but that could easily be misused in the service of racism. I take very strong exception to the idea that there’s nothing wrong with this kind of passive-aggressive hate speech, and that I only think there is something wrong with it because (you think) I grew up in America instead of that part of the world. I’ll give you a clue: in the USA, I’ve actually heard the phrase "I ain’t Iranian" from a redneck, who was trying in his inarticulate bigoted way to convey to me that he wasn’t going to cheat me. Reading this bug report was like having to listen to an embarrassing and pathetic fool of a racist relative going on and on. I would think this racist fool was pathetic and embarrassing for saying things like that no matter where I grew up.
There are lots of reasons why someone might call himself or herself a hyphenated American. I called myself an Arab-American to establish bona fides for my confident statement that Achmed is not a name, nothing more. You don’t actually know anything about me because I said I’m an Arab-American. That might mean I’m culturally American, culturally Arab, some mix of varying degrees of the two, or even fully both. I may simultaneously consider myself fully Arab and better at being American than most 10th-generation Americans. Who are you to say different?
What is the point, anyway? So what if my opinion of this speech is determined by where I grew up? The tasteless racist caricature I’m criticizing is what it is and would be that whether I even existed or not.
- gojomo 15y agoI don't know you, so my observation did not include, nor does it rely on, any ideas about where you grew up or in which cultures you can seamlessly operate. If that wasn't clear from the generic wording of my first comment, it should have been clear from the second, where I clarified this is an observation over many nationalities (unrelated to you and your declared identity), and that one contributor to this "offense gradient" could be that it is a reasonable reaction to discrimination faced as a minority. The point is that I find it interesting how much the tendency to take offense over racial/national stereotypes varies by culture/language, and that the American/anglophone culture seems most likely to take (or worry about giving) offense. This is an observation independent of any judgement about the right level of offense. (And while it would be interesting to further understand these cultural differences, my quip about a study was a mock-serious response to the parent's sarcasm.)
- dreyfiz 15y agoI retract that response. It was clouded by passion.