4 ms·

I find it hard to believe that someone would say something similar about any other aspect of cultural identity and not be instantly flagged for it. Are you tru

I find it hard to believe that someone would say something similar about any other aspect of cultural identity and not be instantly flagged for it. Are you truly advocating that people should no longer be proud of their cultural identity? Are you applying that to all the folks in tech who proudly identify as Christian or Jewish? Does it apply to Italian Americans and Indigenous people? What about folks who are proud to speak endangered languages, like West Flemish or Romani?

mustyoshi 2y ago
Why can't you just be American? Both my parents were born here, they've explained our lineage, but I literally don't care. I'm an American, America is my culture and country.
- noirbot 2y ago
  Because my friend who just worked for years to become an American citizen after immigrating here and working for the US government still has other Americans tell him to "go back to where he came from" because he's evidently not American enough for them. A hell of a lot of people want to "just be American" and a lot of Americans won't let them.
  - phkahler 2y ago
    Some people are just angry and will direct it at whatever. Not saying it's OK, but once you really internalize the idea that people's reactions say more about themselves than about you life gets better.
    - noirbot 2y ago
      That makes the bold assumption those people aren't your boss or your customers or your landlord or the policeman stopping you on the side of the road. There's real risk, both financially and physically, to just assuming that "random anger" is something you can internalize and ignore. People who are "just angry and will direct it at whatever" can be very dangerous, as we've seen in the US even this week and in every school shooting and terrorist attack for years. This is, terribly, the American experience. It used to be the Irish and the Italians before we decided they were "White enough." It doesn't mean we should just ignore it and accept it. If you're mad, that doesn't give you a pass to be a racist asshole to the first person less pale than a porcelain plate you see. If anything, the fact that people have to know and cope with random Americans being this exact sort of racist asshole to them is the reason they form their own communities and see themselves as Black Americans or Asian Americans or any other sort of national or racial group.
  - ajsidcjdj 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      > It’s because many of those “Americans” do not try to integrate, want to bring their culture with them... That's okay, more varied culture enriches, and I enjoy the added richness. >...and have a “what’s in it for me” view of [insert anything here]. That unfortunately describes a huge share of human beings on this planet. > The label “X-American” (replace X with a foreign country) should not exist I disagree: I think it's totally okay for people to recognize a part of their identity (key words: a part of, since a person's identity comes from many sources), rather than being forced to hide it. > If you identify as this you are marking yourself as different from Americans. Each individual (Americans included) is different from all the other billions of individuals on this planet (other Americans included), and that's okay. It would be weird to try to be forced to deny that totally-okay fact. Thus, a self-described Hoosier or Floridian or Cheesehead or Californian or Plumber or Texan might differentiate themselves similarly without renouncing any "American-ness". Adding one of many possible identity labels (whether race or origin or sports team or profession etc) doesn't negate all others. > They will push for pro Indian initiatives (see H1B abuse, etc) at the expense of Americans. Ironically, this is also the cause of the discrimination they’ll face. Ironically, this claim is itself racist: Asserting that people of a certain race are coming to get you because of their race, and thus discrimination against that race is justified, is racist (and a tired racist trope at that). Unfortunately though, most racists I have seen are racist simply because they feel the other race is different from them, and feel that their victims are bad and/or deserve less than themselves. I've seen racists remark with nothing less than anger and disgust at baby pictures of children of other races. Babies, dude. For another example, I'll open up and share an unfortunate case I had with a family member when we were visiting a science museum: Upon seeing how many non-white people were there, said family member made several off-color remarks to me. But these people (many of them children) weren't abusing anything, they weren't doing anything "at the expense of Americans". They were just normal people, many of them likely citizens, learning and having a good time. Them being interested in science isn't a problem, and they weren't stopping anyone else from coming to the museum. It's just that they were disproportionately represented among the sample of Americans interested in science. Good for them, science is good.
- deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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phkahler 2y ago
>> Are you truly advocating that people should no longer be proud of their cultural identity? My take on the comment was that so long as a trait is relevant to some people, it will be dispised by some other people. Either it's completely benign or it's somewhat polarizing. There are few things that only range from neutral to positive without detractors.
naming_the_user 2y ago
All of the examples you give are unique in their own ways, I don't have the wherewithal to go through them all, but if I choose one: A person describing themselves as being Christian is only signaling that they are a follower of the Christian faith to some degree. They are different for that reason. Christian doesn't have a physical appearance associated with it (well, other than say vestments or pendants). All Christians are Christian. Not all Asian-appearing folk are culturally Asian, not all culturally Asian folk are Asian-appearing. Even the concept of "Asian culture" (I do of course accept that such a concept exists) is super general in a much wider ranging way than the Christian faith. Maybe that explains it better. To illustrate it in another way, imagine some LLM prompts: "Hi ChatGPT, can you make me a poem written by a Christian about their faith?" "Hi ChatGPT, can you make me a poem written by a White person about their culture?" There is just a fundamental... grammatical wrongness(?) about the last one in my mind, I'm not sure that I can explain it if it's not already obvious.
- pixxel 2y ago
  [flagged]
CamperBob2 2y ago
Are you truly advocating that people should no longer be proud of their cultural identity? (Shrug) If you didn't build it, what could possibly justify taking pride in it? Pride in inborn cultural identity gets you things like Nazi Germany. It's not a win for either individuals or societies, only for intermediate subgroups whose interests rarely coincide with either.

mustyoshi 2y ago

Why can't you just be American? Both my parents were born here, they've explained our lineage, but I literally don't care. I'm an American, America is my culture and country.

noirbot 2y ago
Because my friend who just worked for years to become an American citizen after immigrating here and working for the US government still has other Americans tell him to "go back to where he came from" because he's evidently not American enough for them. A hell of a lot of people want to "just be American" and a lot of Americans won't let them.
- phkahler 2y ago
  Some people are just angry and will direct it at whatever. Not saying it's OK, but once you really internalize the idea that people's reactions say more about themselves than about you life gets better.
  - noirbot 2y ago
    That makes the bold assumption those people aren't your boss or your customers or your landlord or the policeman stopping you on the side of the road. There's real risk, both financially and physically, to just assuming that "random anger" is something you can internalize and ignore. People who are "just angry and will direct it at whatever" can be very dangerous, as we've seen in the US even this week and in every school shooting and terrorist attack for years. This is, terribly, the American experience. It used to be the Irish and the Italians before we decided they were "White enough." It doesn't mean we should just ignore it and accept it. If you're mad, that doesn't give you a pass to be a racist asshole to the first person less pale than a porcelain plate you see. If anything, the fact that people have to know and cope with random Americans being this exact sort of racist asshole to them is the reason they form their own communities and see themselves as Black Americans or Asian Americans or any other sort of national or racial group.
- ajsidcjdj 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    > It’s because many of those “Americans” do not try to integrate, want to bring their culture with them... That's okay, more varied culture enriches, and I enjoy the added richness. >...and have a “what’s in it for me” view of [insert anything here]. That unfortunately describes a huge share of human beings on this planet. > The label “X-American” (replace X with a foreign country) should not exist I disagree: I think it's totally okay for people to recognize a part of their identity (key words: a part of, since a person's identity comes from many sources), rather than being forced to hide it. > If you identify as this you are marking yourself as different from Americans. Each individual (Americans included) is different from all the other billions of individuals on this planet (other Americans included), and that's okay. It would be weird to try to be forced to deny that totally-okay fact. Thus, a self-described Hoosier or Floridian or Cheesehead or Californian or Plumber or Texan might differentiate themselves similarly without renouncing any "American-ness". Adding one of many possible identity labels (whether race or origin or sports team or profession etc) doesn't negate all others. > They will push for pro Indian initiatives (see H1B abuse, etc) at the expense of Americans. Ironically, this is also the cause of the discrimination they’ll face. Ironically, this claim is itself racist: Asserting that people of a certain race are coming to get you because of their race, and thus discrimination against that race is justified, is racist (and a tired racist trope at that). Unfortunately though, most racists I have seen are racist simply because they feel the other race is different from them, and feel that their victims are bad and/or deserve less than themselves. I've seen racists remark with nothing less than anger and disgust at baby pictures of children of other races. Babies, dude. For another example, I'll open up and share an unfortunate case I had with a family member when we were visiting a science museum: Upon seeing how many non-white people were there, said family member made several off-color remarks to me. But these people (many of them children) weren't abusing anything, they weren't doing anything "at the expense of Americans". They were just normal people, many of them likely citizens, learning and having a good time. Them being interested in science isn't a problem, and they weren't stopping anyone else from coming to the museum. It's just that they were disproportionately represented among the sample of Americans interested in science. Good for them, science is good.
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago

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phkahler 2y ago

>> Are you truly advocating that people should no longer be proud of their cultural identity? My take on the comment was that so long as a trait is relevant to some people, it will be dispised by some other people. Either it's completely benign or it's somewhat polarizing. There are few things that only range from neutral to positive without detractors.

naming_the_user 2y ago

All of the examples you give are unique in their own ways, I don't have the wherewithal to go through them all, but if I choose one: A person describing themselves as being Christian is only signaling that they are a follower of the Christian faith to some degree. They are different for that reason. Christian doesn't have a physical appearance associated with it (well, other than say vestments or pendants). All Christians are Christian. Not all Asian-appearing folk are culturally Asian, not all culturally Asian folk are Asian-appearing. Even the concept of "Asian culture" (I do of course accept that such a concept exists) is super general in a much wider ranging way than the Christian faith. Maybe that explains it better. To illustrate it in another way, imagine some LLM prompts: "Hi ChatGPT, can you make me a poem written by a Christian about their faith?" "Hi ChatGPT, can you make me a poem written by a White person about their culture?" There is just a fundamental... grammatical wrongness(?) about the last one in my mind, I'm not sure that I can explain it if it's not already obvious.

pixxel 2y ago
[flagged]

CamperBob2 2y ago

Are you truly advocating that people should no longer be proud of their cultural identity? (Shrug) If you didn't build it, what could possibly justify taking pride in it? Pride in inborn cultural identity gets you things like Nazi Germany. It's not a win for either individuals or societies, only for intermediate subgroups whose interests rarely coincide with either.