Hacker News Reader

Comment by WAHa_06x36 | Hacker News Reader

That really doesn't resolve anything, and just further demonstrates the really weird relationship with race and nationality that Americans have.

Namely: Why would it be called "white EUROPEAN" when basically none of the people it is applied to are European in any reasonable sense of the word? They may have great-great-great-grandparents who were European, but that does not make them European.

Americans do this all the time - they call themselves "german", "irish", or "italian", even when they are not born there, do not speak the language, have never even visited the country, and have zero exposure to the culture of that country.

View on HN

This is a debate about language conventions, I can assure you that 0% of Americans claiming to be European in this sense actually think they live in Europe or are actual Europeans. There are some that speak the language and have exposure to the culture, but that is not what they are saying in this context.

In America, a nation of immigrants, people are often proud of where their family came from. This can trickle down a few generations. There is an increasing number of people that identify as "American" instead of where their family originally immigrated from, particularly in Appalachia and the South, so this could eventually change.

I understand the frustration from a European point of view, but I just wanted to provide some context to the phenomenon.

> have zero exposure to the culture of that country.

Even when that’s true—-and it often isn’t--they usually mean that they’re part of a specific American subculture.

Italian-Americans, for example, traditionally celebrate Christmas Eve with a “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” This dinner isn’t traditional in Italy, but it’s also not common in other American cultures either. An Irish-American family might have a turkey instead but they’re more likely to “observe” St. Patrick’s Day by eating soda bread and corned beef.

Sure, those that have their own culture do exists, but a lot of times, it's not even that.

It's a weird mindset, and it's definitely tied in to the toxic streak of white supremacy that runs through all of American culture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com