[marcus_holmes]

It's massively irritating because it's the usual US blend of total ignorance and massive arrogance.

I used to do re-enactment in the UK, and after almost every show I'd have some idiot wander up and say "I'm a Saxon!" and blather shite at me about what that meant about their identity and culture.

If I asked if that meant they weren't American, then obviously they'd react in horror at the suggestion.

The idea that my culture, my history, can just be co-opted as part of someone else's cosplay identity, is tiresome at best. But then they walk up to me and expect me to recognise them as a fellow Saxon? No. Fuck off you annoying fucking wanker.

And I notice that none of them claim to be English or even British. Oh no, too much Braveheart and The Patriot for that.

[henrikschroder]

The weirdest part is that they stop tracing back the second they hit someone interesting, as if nothing interesting happened before that person. If their great-great-grandfather was Scottish, they then assume everyone before him was 100% super duper Scottish, and that that has conferred "cultural traits" through some weird-ass blood magic or something.

But Europeans are diverse mutts as well.

I'm Swedish. But my last name is 100% German, easily recognisable as a German name, super common. Because my paternal ancestor immigrated from Germany in the 1600's and brought the name with him. My mother's maiden name was Czech, also very easily recognisable as such, and my uncle and my cousins have that name as well.

But I would never in a million years call myself German. I am not German. I am not Czech. My cousins aren't Czech. All of our parents were born in Sweden. All of our grandparents were born in Sweden. The vast majority of our great-grandparents were born in Sweden. We are all 100% Swedish.

The idea that I would call myself German because of my last name is completely ridiculous, but that is exactly what these cosplaying Americans are doing, even though they don't speak German, and I do. My dad speaks fluent German. My maternal grandfather spoke fluent German. I have so much more claim to "German-ness", whatever that is, than these cosplayers, and I wouldn't dream of doing it.

And then they bleat about how their great-great-whtaever was German, and because of that they "feel so connected to the Alps".

[hyppopocriaas]

What's funny about those Europeans gatekeeping European ethnic identity from Americans, is that their tune will change immediately if we ask them if an African who has been there for 5 years is English or German.

See the response from marcus_holmes about "Irishness" in this thread. It's essentially the position of ethnic nationalist parties like Restore Britain. But in a different context he'd be ranting about civic nationalist parties like Reform UK or One Nation...

Basically, if an American is claiming to be whatever, you can use a purity standard close to the Nuremberg laws to exclude them. But an Indian or African who arrived 5 years ago is a true blood Aussie mate, because saying anything else would be doing a racism.

[defrost]

The AussiemBerg cultural test ain't that hard cobber .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkcOzCjuuU == 100% True blood Aussie.

[marcus_holmes]

'kin oath

[henrikschroder]

> those Europeans gatekeeping European ethnic identity

No no no, no-one is gatekeeping ethnicity. If you have Irish heritage, you have Irish heritage. That's a fact.

We're gatekeeping cultural identity and nationality, because these cosplaying Americans seem to think that their ethnicity confers culture and nationality by weird blood magic or something, and that's not how it works.

> if we ask them if an African who has been there for 5 years is English or German.

Someone who is not ethnically German, but has immigrated to Germany and speaks the language, is way more German than a cosplaying American whose parents and grandparents were all Americans, doesn't speak German, knows nothing about German culture, has never lived in Germany, but who has one ancestor who came from Germany.

If you're a first-generation immigrant, you get to choose what you identify as. If you speak the language of your new country and if you've become a citizen, sure, you can call yourself that. I don't think a lot of people will object to that.

Because, and this is the fuel for this clash, we care the most about culture and nationality, instead of heritage and ethnicity.

> Basically, if an American is claiming to be whatever

Because they're not, their culture is American, their nationality is American, they're American.

> But an Indian or African who arrived 5 years ago is a true blood Aussie mate, because saying anything else would be doing a racism.

No they're not, no it's not, and my what a lovely strawman you made up there.

[vintermann]

It's not Americans doing these things. I've met plenty of Europeans with exotic identity claims, romanticizing some past culture instead of the living culture around them - Viking metal rather than folk music, to put it like that (there are also of course responsible ways to enjoy exotic metal genres).

By making it into Americans vs. Europeans you're doing a bit of what you're criticizing yourself. Yeah sure, we all agree someone walking up to you and saying they're Saxon is embarrassing, but that sweet old lady from Minnesota who's done rose painting (a national romantic fad around the time her ancestors immigrated) for 20 years is part of a living culture, which isn't simply "American", even if she has outrageous Norwegian pronounciation and otherwise isn't someone you'd like to identify with.

[JuniperMesos]

Viking metal is a folk music tradition of Europe! Just a very modern one that postdates the invention of the electric guitar and Tony Iommi losing his fingertips in an industrial accident :)

A lot of Viking-themed metal is pretty historically uninformed and cheesy, although that's true of lots of metal and for that matter lots of other art.

[vintermann]

Yes, I'll accept that it's a modern folk tradition. And I'm actually OK with cheesy too, as long as something doesn't pass itself off as more historically accurate than it is. As Farya Faraji pointed out, we don't know what Norse Viking music was like, but it's unlikely to have included throat singing, and we know they liked pan pipes. (Invading England to a George Zhamfir soundtrack?)

[henrikschroder]

> that sweet old lady from Minnesota who's done rose painting (a national romantic fad around the time her ancestors immigrated) for 20 years is part of a living culture, which isn't simply "American"

I 100% agree with you.

Men hun er faen meg heller ikke norsk.

[vintermann]

Hvis hun ser på seg selv som norsk, så har ikke jeg noe problem med det.

If she sees herself has Norwegian, I have no problem with that.

We should let people identify with whatever they want. Identity is deeply personal - that's kind of the whole thing with identity - and as long as you don't use your identity to argue for something that's objectively wrong (such as rewriting history to suit it) then it's fine. If someone wants to identify as the same kind of thing as me, I may be flattered or embarrassed or worst case offended, but let's go for the facts, not with the identity.

[Throaway1982]

top post, end thread

[brigandish]

> But Europeans are diverse mutts as well.

Speak for yourself, because

> If their great-great-grandfather was Scottish, they then assume everyone before him was 100% super duper Scottish

That is, indeed, the correct assumption to make. I would recommend having a look at the work done on population genetics at Oxford University’s People of the British Isles project[1]. Even their homepage should relieve you of some misconceptions:

> The People of the British Isles (PoBI) project was initiated by Sir Walter Bodmer in 2004, in an effort to create the first ever detailed genetic map of a country. The United Kingdom’s history bristles with immigrations, wars and invasions, so the PoBI researchers faced a tremendous task in investigating how past events impacted the genetic makeup of modern British people.

> Results included a map (image below) showing a remarkable concordance between genetic and geographical clustering of our samples across the United Kingdom.

[1] https://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/

[marcus_holmes]

haha, great point about the language. An Irish friend of mine would speak Gaelic to any American he met who claimed to be Irish. Obviously none of them spoke the language, and he'd ask why not? Great question.

[Throaway1982]

Wow. So I guess that the 60% of Ireland's population that don't speak any Gaelic are't Irish ether. And neither were the 94% that couldn't speak any (beyond "craic" & "uisce") 10 years ago. Please tell your friend that the majority of Ireland's population is English, not Irish. After all, if they were Irish, they'd speak the language, right? And not just in school when they're forced to.

WTF is wrong wth you people?

[_DeadFred_]

Maybe because our family were forced to flee from Ireland to survive. My irish grandmothers (on my mom's side) arrived in the US child orphans (their families died on the boats) and were adopted by German families. God they are losers for not keeping up the linguistic tradition, right? We should give up any connection to the past because those little orphan girls ended up speaking english. So superior, your Irish friend, over people just trying to have some sort of connection to the world. You are some hateful petty ass people that you come at people just trying to connect.

Edit: Funny I replied the answer to "Obviously none of them spoke the language, and he'd ask why not? Great question."

Why did you just move on? You should be happy to have your 'great question' belittling my family answered. It's because of death, and survival, and scraping by to survive, lots of pieces got lost. That was your ownage. That our families were broken people just surviving and sometimes language was one the the pieces we lost. Pieces we are excited to maybe explore when we visit europe, (until we run into people like you). I have an old family bible with Gaelic that my family wrote in it. But that isn't a connection, right?

[henrikschroder]

Stop straw-manning, no-one is denying your heritage or your connections. Your grandmothers were Irish.

But you're not. You're American, with Irish heritage. You were born in America to American parents. You are super welcome to learn about Irish culture, about your heritage. You are super welcome to visit Ireland, visit the place of your fore-mothers and other ancestors. You can enjoy Irish culture as much as you want. Learn riverdancing and blast Michael Flatley all day long. You can even enjoy the bastardised commercialised version that is the totally fake US retail holiday "St Patrick's day". Wear some tacky green beads, put on a green hat, drink fifteen pints of Guiness! Sláinte! Have fun!

The one thing we're specifically asking you not to do, is to call yourself Irish. That's the only thing we're gatekeeping. You're Irish-American. You have Irish heritage. You have Irish ancestors. You have Irish family heirlooms. But you're not Irish.

[vintermann]

Why the hell is that so important to you? I'm personally a lot more annoyed with faux "Norwegian" paraphernalia (a lot of which I see every day, because I live in a tourist town which wants to sell them what they want) than what people call themselves.

[henrikschroder]

Because it encourages the weird cosplayers, who will then claim to be "more Italian than the Italians", which is complete nonsense.

Because it's weird fetishisation of European cultures that are both seen as superior to American culture, but also at the same time as inferior.

Because it's rooted in weird beliefs in blood magic; that DNA somehow confers culture.

[_DeadFred_]

Replying to ""Obviously none of them spoke the language, and he'd ask why not? Great question." with the reason is straw manning?

Don't worry long ago I had my naivety removed by folks like you and no longer feel any fondness or interest for ireland or irishness, and passed none of it down to my kids. Ireland has never been brought up for a vacation destination where as I convinced my mom to gift me a trip to all of the UK upon graduation. Hopefully you will be relieved of the burden of having to deal with Americans with feelings of common bonds (like I used to have) after my generation passes.

I'm sorry your people have had to endure this wanting to connect from Americans and them trying to figure out if the weird/quirky things their family did come from your culture.

[henrikschroder]

"Fine, I won't connect then!1!!"

What's wrong with you, you're responding to literally the opposite of what I said? You are free to connect, to seek your roots, figure out weird quirky things from the culture of your ancestors, and nurture as much fondness for Ireland and Irishness as you please. No-one in Ireland (Note, I'm not Irish!!) is gonna object to any of that.

The one thing, the ONE FUCKING THING we're asking you not to do is to call yourself Irish, because that will guaranteed piss off everyone you meet in Ireland.

How is this difficult to do or understand? We're asking one thing.

Everything else is up for grabs. You can appropriate as much culture as you please, real, fake, stereotypical, exaggerated, whatever. Grab it, use it, do it, perform it, that's fine. You don't need to excuse yourself or justify yourself or claim ancestry or heritage or anything. Absolutely no-one will gatekeep the culture. Enjoy it, all of it! Do this one thing, and real Irish people will be super happy to share their culture with you.

[marcus_holmes]

I don't think anyone has a problem with saying "my family came from Ireland", or even "my family was forced to flee Ireland because the British are bastards". Or even "Irish American" would be OK.

The problem we all see is that you're saying that you are Irish. If you weren't born in Ireland, your parents weren't born in Ireland, you don't speak Irish, you don't pay taxes in Ireland, you can't vote in Irish elections, you wouldn't join the Irish military, you don't understand Irish culture, or know anything about Irish history, then in what way are you Irish?

You're not. But you have redefined "Irish" to mean something else. And that's what pisses people off. There are actual Irish people out there. Invent your own identity.

[453yuh46]

So, if you are living in London and not paying taxes(to Ireland), you are not Irish? Dude, you are clearly mixing ethnicity and nationality. Plenty of Irish in UK, that does not know Gaelic - same situation in Ireland. There are in fact more Irish Gaelic speakers living in USA/Canada than in Ireland.

And Americans are claiming ethnic ancestry - not national ancestry. And many Irish migrated out of Ireland, when it was not a country - and paying taxes is irrelevant in this gatekeeping of identities.

[453yuh46]

That is your right to not claim your German ancestry, as generally it is a viable solution to just not stand out and blend in with crowd, but frankly that is also your right to claim your ancestry and seek refuge in German speaking countries, if things go south in Sweden and Caliphate is established there or some Finns invade and makes your life impossible, so generally - this is not your gate to keep, as these can be considered as an open choices. And I would think that current age of open borders that we have now might end and claiming different identity might be the only viable option to migrate somewhere else.

[henrikschroder]

Holy racism, Batman!

[brigandish]

Ethnicity and nationality are not the same, though they have until very recently overlapped to an enormous extent. Someone might well be of anglo-saxon ethnicity and be American.

Being British myself, I find it fun to tease the yanks about all manner of things, but actual animus of the kind you’re displaying just looks like a massive chip on the shoulder.

[_DeadFred_]

Sorry when your ancestor's ran mine out we survived and chose to keep a bit of identity, some concept of self. You're right, we should have surrendered every right to it, every notion of those that came before us. Ungrateful us not to have submitted in a second way (the first was not submitting and, you know, surviving).

[marcus_holmes]

You became American.

[_DeadFred_]

Identity doesn't work that way. Doesn't change where my family came from, my families traditions, what identity bits my family chose to hang onto, or how we try to understand the world.

Good job keeping up your culture of being petty judges of us though. At least when your ancestors did it we were your neighbors and you had good cause (we were the wrong religion or whatever your ancestors hated in us and your family got to live and stay and mine had to flee and die). It's kinda pathetic to care after you ran us off to still try to tell us how to be and to define us instead of letting us define ourselves.

Wild to see you so proud to be petty, small, and hateful of people that did nothing to you all but want to be friendly.

[marcus_holmes]

Hey, so I had a conversation with my wife last night about this. Really interesting. She challenged me on this, and pointed out that this is the exact same argument about trans folks, and that I was taking the same position as J K Rowling.

Now, while I think she made some good points at times, I don't agree with her, and it made me stop and think.

So, yeah, I've changed my mind on this. Go call yourself Irish if you want, or Saxon, or Viking, or whatever. Be whoever you want to be. Good luck to you.

[_DeadFred_]

Cool on you for re-examining your position (irregardless of the outcome of it). Sadly I'm past the point of being that person who felt kinship/a bond with Europe/Europeans, and didn't instill it in my kids. Like I said it'll probably be a moot point when my generation passes so guys won't have to deal with it forever.

[aicnic]

JKR is correct though. "Woman" cannot merely be an identity for men to appropriate as they please. We exist in a social, historical and legal framework in which it is understood that women are female, and that men who call themselves women are just pretending.

[_DeadFred_]

Bro you made an account just to post this? We live in a society where the people that push the view you are are unserious ideologues that excuse/hide/ignore the Epstein files among a multitude of actual other real issues, that continue to vote in politicians with numerous scandals more serious than your 'identity definition' bs here. Focus on something actually important like 'the meanie Irish poster hurt my feelie feelz online' like I do. Or all the messed up stuff people who claim to care about/protect society are doing while they distract you with 'but the trans'.