My Australian Aboriginal friends were confused by the quantum thing, like to them they were either Aboriginal or not, they didn't care much about percentages. And from the other comments and meme, I'm guessing most other people don't either
48
lauha @lemmy.world - 2day
In Europe it is mostly just defines by if you have ancestry or not since pure bloodedness really has bad connotations in Europe.
16
ThePyroPython @lemmy.world - 2day
I honestly don't know anyone but Americans who do this. Has anyone else encountered someone white who wasn't American boast about their mixed "genealogy"?
36
gray @lemmy.ml - 2day
I don't know if boast is the right word, but it is very common to disclose if you are half something. Half-french, half-polish etc.
29
ThePyroPython @lemmy.world - 2day
Oh yeah that's a common question about ethnicity usually an optional question filled out in case there's some legal process in the future trying to determine if there's underlying discrimination from poor treatment/service to a specific group when a legal complaint has been lodged.
I'm talking about the weird obsession some Americans have with determining what % of their genes originated from other countries.
The closest it's gotten for me is usually a conversation about family history which most of the time is usually "A country on my father's side and B country on my mother's side". But they've never broken it down into percentages before like it's some sort of eugenic recipe.
8
TheAsianDonKnots - 2day
So in the US, the joke is “I’m 10% Cherokee princess”, which is just a blonde white girls way of excusing their own racism when it inevitably falls out of their dumpster of a mouth (racists, not women).
I can usually disarm it with “yeah I’m half Japanese and half American, I can’t tell which side I hate the most”
I’m wondering if that Irish-German-Russian-Scottish is a similar “wide coverage” play? I don’t know, just guessing.
26
Basic Glitch - 1day
Somebody randomly told me a few weeks ago that the mystery flavor of airheads was never really a single flavor, just a random mix of the end of one flavor of taffy on the assembly line and the begining of a different new flavor. So even though this is a shitpost it's both accurate and oddly poetic.
It's like a metaphor for how the entire idea of race seems to have originally been a social construct with no real basis in significant differences other than providing a distraction and false justification for individuals at the top of a hierarchy to maintain inequality, exploitation, and social stratification. And since the human lizard brain loves a distraction and can be easily exploited by targeted advertisement, we see branding works because people keep buying it.
Anyway, merry Christmas/happy holidays and if we as a civilization make it into the new year and/or any years beyond that point, I hope we can start paying attention.
21
Droggelbecher @lemmy.world - 1day
My mum used to work in a town where they make a kinda popular chocolate in middle Europe, like small step up from store brand type stuff (milka, in case anyone's faniliar). She'd always bring home their factory shop 'mystery chocolate' that was very openly literally this: the bars right after they'd switch flavors, and they would be a non predictable mix between the two. I loved that stuff more than the actually store bought chocolate as a kid because you'd genuinely never know what you'd get. They came in these super non distinct plain white wrappers too, which added to the charm.
4
TomMasz - 1day
We're mostly mongrels in the US, even those with roots in Europe. I always thought I was 100% Polish, but discovered in the early 2000s that I had a German (possibly Prussian) great-grandmother on my father's side. My wife is likely fully German, so our kids are more than half German but have a Polish last name.
9
Multiplexer @discuss.tchncs.de - 1day
No contradiction here, a large chunk of former Prussia is now part of Poland.
7
Valmond - 1day
Yeah dig enough and you'll find almost anything. I mean where should you stop, it's genetics after all?
2
MintyFresh @lemmy.world - 1day
My great grandmother once gave an Irish carny a handie in exchange for a bag of peanuts and a look at an elephants bum ,(she was weird like that!). So ya... I'm basically Irish!
5
Droggelbecher @lemmy.world - 1day
You are 100% the person this post is about, and 100% American. Those are 100% of the relevant percentages.
1
Ricky Rigatoni - 1day
I am 101% tuna salad
5
Oaksey @lemmy.world - 1day
It is always really a case of how far back do you go for the snapshot of where your ancestors were at that point in time.
4
Furbag @lemmy.world - 1day
We all came from the same slimy creature that slithered out of the primordial soup and never looked back.
iamdisappoint in lemmyshitpost @lemmy.world
Sweet ancestry
When someone goes "I am x% (insert European country here)"
it's actually convincing proof that he is 100% American.
This obsession probably comes from America's blood quantum laws, but also we are really a melting pot in many ways.
We have no real history or traditions so we look to our genetic makeup to help us build an identity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_quantum_laws
My Australian Aboriginal friends were confused by the quantum thing, like to them they were either Aboriginal or not, they didn't care much about percentages. And from the other comments and meme, I'm guessing most other people don't either
In Europe it is mostly just defines by if you have ancestry or not since pure bloodedness really has bad connotations in Europe.
I honestly don't know anyone but Americans who do this. Has anyone else encountered someone white who wasn't American boast about their mixed "genealogy"?
I don't know if boast is the right word, but it is very common to disclose if you are half something. Half-french, half-polish etc.
Oh yeah that's a common question about ethnicity usually an optional question filled out in case there's some legal process in the future trying to determine if there's underlying discrimination from poor treatment/service to a specific group when a legal complaint has been lodged.
I'm talking about the weird obsession some Americans have with determining what % of their genes originated from other countries.
The closest it's gotten for me is usually a conversation about family history which most of the time is usually "A country on my father's side and B country on my mother's side". But they've never broken it down into percentages before like it's some sort of eugenic recipe.
So in the US, the joke is “I’m 10% Cherokee princess”, which is just a blonde white girls way of excusing their own racism when it inevitably falls out of their dumpster of a mouth (racists, not women).
I can usually disarm it with “yeah I’m half Japanese and half American, I can’t tell which side I hate the most”
I’m wondering if that Irish-German-Russian-Scottish is a similar “wide coverage” play? I don’t know, just guessing.
Somebody randomly told me a few weeks ago that the mystery flavor of airheads was never really a single flavor, just a random mix of the end of one flavor of taffy on the assembly line and the begining of a different new flavor. So even though this is a shitpost it's both accurate and oddly poetic.
It's like a metaphor for how the entire idea of race seems to have originally been a social construct with no real basis in significant differences other than providing a distraction and false justification for individuals at the top of a hierarchy to maintain inequality, exploitation, and social stratification. And since the human lizard brain loves a distraction and can be easily exploited by targeted advertisement, we see branding works because people keep buying it.
Anyway, merry Christmas/happy holidays and if we as a civilization make it into the new year and/or any years beyond that point, I hope we can start paying attention.
My mum used to work in a town where they make a kinda popular chocolate in middle Europe, like small step up from store brand type stuff (milka, in case anyone's faniliar). She'd always bring home their factory shop 'mystery chocolate' that was very openly literally this: the bars right after they'd switch flavors, and they would be a non predictable mix between the two. I loved that stuff more than the actually store bought chocolate as a kid because you'd genuinely never know what you'd get. They came in these super non distinct plain white wrappers too, which added to the charm.
We're mostly mongrels in the US, even those with roots in Europe. I always thought I was 100% Polish, but discovered in the early 2000s that I had a German (possibly Prussian) great-grandmother on my father's side. My wife is likely fully German, so our kids are more than half German but have a Polish last name.
No contradiction here, a large chunk of former Prussia is now part of Poland.
Yeah dig enough and you'll find almost anything. I mean where should you stop, it's genetics after all?
My great grandmother once gave an Irish carny a handie in exchange for a bag of peanuts and a look at an elephants bum ,(she was weird like that!). So ya... I'm basically Irish!
You are 100% the person this post is about, and 100% American. Those are 100% of the relevant percentages.
I am 101% tuna salad
It is always really a case of how far back do you go for the snapshot of where your ancestors were at that point in time.
We all came from the same slimy creature that slithered out of the primordial soup and never looked back.
Mistakes were made.