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'It represents an underlying problem that isn't being addressed...i.e. London Riots, UK riots, Paris riots, etc.
They don't riot in a vacuum. It's a reaction to the dominant society that doesn't appear to see them.'
The recent riots in London WERE NOT race riots.
I was a witness of two race riots in Miami in 1979 and 1980, more than 20 killed. My neighbour, a very old man driving an old Impala, was taken out of his car and kicked to death. A trucker from Ft. Lauderdale was taken out of his truck and quartered, his tonge was cut off.
It was a race riot, I saw it......but now, according to modern day media and modern textbooks you read things like that:
"A couple or three of hundred angry youngsters coming from broken families and disadvantaged communities committed acts of vandalism (20 to 30 killings) because they were frustrated and angry at society at large".
Sure, London was a race riot, yes a few white punks took advantege, but it was a race riot as many others in the past.
We had race riots here in Spain, the last one 400 years ago in the mainland and some minor ones in Spanish cities in Africa, hope we won't see them again.
I've noticed that the whole "European ancestry" thing is more important to older Americans. My mother is very proud of being Danish (while she's only half Danish - her mother was born in the U.S. to Danish immigrants), my grandfather always talks about Ireland and his Irish roots, another grandmother will make sure I understand she's French and Irish... I just tell people I'm a Euro-mutt!
In a few generations, people won't even know what specific countries their ancestors came from. And with more interracial marriage, we'll probably look a lot more alike in a couple hundred years. My own kids are, to the best of my knowledge, Irish/Danish/French/Spanish/Native Caribbean/African. I doubt they'll be too concerned about their "Danish roots".
One thing I found interesting was that when I lived in Germany, people could just look at me and know I'm not German or European. Once you mix up people from different countries, you get a different look. I could tell Germans looked different from me as well, even though I'm white.
I'm an American of Irish, English, Scottish, German and French descent. Is it strange that I feel absolutely no attachment to it (or fondness for it) whatsoever?
Americans constantly describe their nationality according to their ancestral background, and I find this to be not only incredibly misinformed, but also somewhat disrespectful in relation to the U.S.'s historical attempt to break from Europe. Many Americans don't realize the general disdain that Europeans have for them (at least so far as I can tell), yet continue to believe that we're all one, big, happy "western civilization." Don't even get me started on the Europhiles of our political Left...
Anyway, are there any Americans who share my thoughts on this? Or, better yet, might there be any Europeans who care to validate my thoughts on this?
I think this became the fashion in the USA when the black Americans started to call themselves African Americans. So the "white" Americans whose families originally came from European countries started to identify themselves as being Americans from those countries.
Originally Posted by Montguy I'm an American of Irish, English, Scottish, German and French descent. Is it strange that I feel absolutely no attachment to it (or fondness for it) whatsoever?
Americans constantly describe their nationality according to their ancestral background, and I find this to be not only incredibly misinformed, but also somewhat disrespectful in relation to the U.S.'s historical attempt to break from Europe. Many Americans don't realize the general disdain that Europeans have for them (at least so far as I can tell), yet continue to believe that we're all one, big, happy "western civilization." Don't even get me started on the Europhiles of our political Left...
Anyway, are there any Americans who share my thoughts on this? Or, better yet, might there be any Europeans who care to validate my thoughts on this?
I recall an event which took place in my fifth grade history class; at the end of class our teacher asked the class what we thought our nationality was. Several class members, including myself, answered that we were American. He advised us that we were all wrong and to go home and ask our parents what our nationalities were.
We were all very confused and of course I did go home and pose the question to my mother and father, who both replied that we were Americans. Of course, as one may surmise, I returned to school and reiterated that I was American and I had confirmed from the dictionary that nationality was defined by *The status of belonging to a particular nation by origin, birth, or naturalization. He advised me and the rest of the class that the dictionary was incorrect and that our true nationalities were the countries our ancestors had come from.
Yet another proud student from the public school system. Fortunately my parents taught us to think for ourselves and never allow ourselves to be intimidated by anyone, including a teacher.
Originally Posted by Montguy I'm an American of Irish, English, Scottish, German and French descent. Is it strange that I feel absolutely no attachment to it (or fondness for it) whatsoever?
Americans constantly describe their nationality according to their ancestral background, and I find this to be not only incredibly misinformed, but also somewhat disrespectful in relation to the U.S.'s historical attempt to break from Europe. Many Americans don't realize the general disdain that Europeans have for them (at least so far as I can tell), yet continue to believe that we're all one, big, happy "western civilization." Don't even get me started on the Europhiles of our political Left...
Anyway, are there any Americans who share my thoughts on this? Or, better yet, might there be any Europeans who care to validate my thoughts on this?
I recall an event which took place in my fifth grade history class; at the end of class our teacher asked the class what we thought our nationality was. Several class members, including myself, answered that we were American. He advised us that we were all wrong and to go home and ask our parents what our nationalities were.
We were all very confused and of course I did go home and pose the question to my mother and father, who both replied that we were Americans. Of course, as one may surmise, I returned to school and reiterated that I was American and I had confirmed from the dictionary that nationality was defined by *The status of belonging to a particular nation by origin, birth, or naturalization. He advised me and the rest of the class that the dictionary was incorrect and that our true nationalities were the countries our ancestors had come from.
Yet another proud student from the public school system. Fortunately my parents taught us to think for ourselves and never allow ourselves to be intimidated by anyone, including a teacher.
Your teacher was correct from the "Old World" point of view. He was incorrect from the "New World" point of view, because the "New World" has a different concept of what "nationality" is.
It's sort of like the Old and the New Testaments; what was "true and correct" for the Old one, was not necessarily "true and correct" any longer for the New one.
Your teacher was correct from the "Old World" point of view. He was incorrect from the "New World" point of view, because the "New World" has a different concept of what "nationality" is.
It's sort of like the Old and the New Testaments; what was "true and correct" for the Old one, was not necessarily "true and correct" any longer for the New one.
Thank you for that point erasure and I certainly agree with your assessment of the teacher's Old World point of view, however, as such and as the teacher he should have expanded his knowledge of such matters. In light of the fact that we were fifth grade students and he was in a powerful position to enlighten us and provide exposure to such matters...don't you think?
In light of the fact that we were fifth grade students and he was in a powerful position to enlighten us and provide exposure to such matters...don't you think?
Don't get me started on a quality of American education in public schools. As a mother of a ( now) high school student I've seen enough of it.
The U.S is the country with the highest contrasts possible, so you have extremelly good public schools and extremelly bad public schools. In all depends on many factors.
You, as former Soviet citizen, should know. It was not the same going to your round of the mill Makarenko school or going to a school for the offsprings of the nomemklatura, privileged foreigners or to the famous academies out of the reach of 99,99 percent of the USSR population.
Just to return to the question posed by the OP:
There are two schools of thought:
IUS SOLIS: You are from the place you were born.
IUS SANGUINE: You are from the place your blood is.
I'd say that most common European folks believe in IUS SANGUINE (stripping away any PC ideas in fashion nowdays).
Any American of European stock that can pass as European and behaves correctly is one more of the general tribe.
I mean, if you place some American that looks like a Swede or Northen German dressed like a tourist in some remote Castilian town, people will say...."he's a "guiri". A guiri in any tourist from the North that get as red as a lobster with some sunlight, so he will be considered a guiri, European. If you place some American that looks French or Italian, they will be considered European tourists from somehere and the fact they are American won't make any difference.
There's a trend to pile English, Americans, Australians and Irish as "Anglosaxons". Anglosaxons are more or less European. I don't think that Irish and Scotts like such a classification.
If Americans could wear tennis shoes without white socks and get rid of "mariconeras" (those kidney poaches), they could pass as regular Europeans.
Last edited by cojoncillo; 07-30-2012 at 05:04 AM..
The U.S is the country with the highest contrasts possible, so you have extremelly good public schools and extremelly bad public schools. In all depends on many factors.
You, as former Soviet citizen, should know. It was not the same going to your round of the mill Makarenko school or going to a school for the offsprings of the nomemklatura, privileged foreigners or to the famous academies out of the reach of 99,99 percent of the USSR population.
Just to return to the question posed by the OP:
There are two schools of thought:
IUS SOLIS: You are from the place you were born.
IUS SANGUINE: You are from the place your blood is.
I'd say that most common European folks believe in IUS SANGUINE (stripping away any PC ideas in fashion nowdays).
And until when one considers his nationality is that of their ancestors? Because the second or third born american generation of europeans inmigrants, for me, are more americans than europeans.
The U.S is the country with the highest contrasts possible, so you have extremelly good public schools and extremelly bad public schools. In all depends on many factors.
You, as former Soviet citizen, should know. It was not the same going to your round of the mill Makarenko school or going to a school for the offsprings of the nomemklatura, privileged foreigners or to the famous academies out of the reach of 99,99 percent of the USSR population.
Of course as a former Soviet citizen I DO know, that's why I can tell you right away that you are simply projecting things and you've got it all wrong.
I was going to one of the best schools in Moscow, with plenty of children from "nomenklatura" - i.e children whose parents worked in Ministry of Foreign affairs, diplomats, famous athletes and even cosmonauts, lol. Now when I think about it - we've had even a foreign boy in our class in earlier grades - he was from Iraq; ( don't remember who his parents were.) However there was nothing different in our school in terms of academic program - we were given access to the same knowledge that any other kid in Moscow school was, we were all going by the same program developed by the Academy of Science and Pedagogy and we were all using the same text-books from the first grade on. That's why the quality of education in ANY school didn't depend solely on the quality of teachers, as it's often a case in the US; some teachers in our school were excellent, some mediocre and there were plenty of good teachers in any other "non-privileged" Moscow school. The most important thing though - all of them had to follow the standard academic program and the same text-book for everyone, for privileged children and non-privileged alike. What those teachers wanted to add on top of those text-books was their choice, but even if they didn't, those text-books written by specialists were already good enough as far as I'm concerned. Sure enough we were not taught on the basis of some "news-paper clips" and some ridiculous copies of "word puzzles" crap and other hand-outs, as it's done in the US. My poor American-born son can only dream about the kind of education ( in academic sense) that Soviet public schools were giving ALL children for free.
The only difference in our privileged school I have to admit was the teaching of the foreign language. In regular schools the foreign language was taught from the 5th grade, in specialized schools - from the second grade, but our school was experimental, so they've started us on it even earlier. Since it was school for the privileged, unofficially of course the diploma of our school was sort of a green light to places like University of Foreign Languages and University of International Relations. However point number one- half of the children in our "privileged school" were children whose parents worked on the near-by factory, point number two our school was not the best when it was coming to math and science - there were better schools in Moscow in this respect, and totally not for the "privileged," because no rank in the Communist Party could automatically produce gifted children in math and science from "privileged families"; it's something you have to be born with. And the third point lol - in spite of all our experimental program in English, a lot of children were quite mediocre and didn't learn much; there were probably 6-7 students out of 30, who were fluent in English by the tenth grade, that's about it. A lot of them were still accepted though into high-ranking Institutes, because they were after all the children of the privileged families. That's where the Soviet system of "class division" was already at work, but not at the level of school education, as it is in the United States, where the quality of school education depends on income and kind of neighborhood, if I put it in standard terms. If, however, I'll put it in non-standard terms, the academic requirements in average American public schools are at least two grades below the average Soviet school.
PS. Sorry for the off-top, but you kinda brought this subject yourself.
Last edited by erasure; 07-30-2012 at 10:42 AM..
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