Persons generally use ancestry to determine that they have native heritage, not “DNA tests”.
“Lawyering” is a polite term for Sophistry.
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OK, but I was quite careful not to give this impression, and it illustrates my point about coming to a discussion ready to listen to what someone is saying rather than fitting them into the box that they appear to fit at first glance. It is something I care about in general, as I value genuine interactions with people and nuance – which I’m sure is used as a dogwhistle for “covert racism”, but I really don’t mean it that way.
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If you can find a copy and can afford it you might find this book interesting:
While it talks about self-justification for more serious things, the general cognitive behavior of self-justification is something worth understanding and recognizing. If you make a mistake, esp. one that’s just a misunderstanding, it’s good to acknowledge that you made a mistake, apologize appropriately if merited, and learn from the mistake. The behavior of self-justification creates a downward spiral of misery for yourself and those around you. It only leads to problems.
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In other news, haters are freaking out about the mall in MN Santa Claus being Black.
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They’re just concerned for their culture, y’see…
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“Not being able to” there was “not being able to because their negative feelings about doing so get in the way,” or alternatively, “not being able to because the thought doesn’t occur to them.”
I think a lot of people in minority groups spend a lot of time explaining discrimination to people who don’t understand it. It takes up too much of their day. On top of that, at least half the time if someone asks you why you do something or feel something the first thing that will come out of their mouth after you explain yourself is an attempt to refute whatever you said, so being asked to explain themselves makes people defensive.
I think you ask because you would like to hear from people why they feel the way they do, but ultimately if you just google “articulate black person” you’ll find all the issues spelled out. That doesn’t give you the unique perspective of the person you were talking to originally, but it does give you the history of the issue.
I don’t think a lot of people are determined to take offense. I think a lot of people like to nitpick every bit of every sentence to look for something they can disagree with so that they don’t have to agree with someone on the internet (which appears to be a mortal sin?). But nothing in this conversation could possibly change the fact that most people just aren’t worth talking to.
I do dispute the idea that “Zionism” is a perfectly understandable word, though. Again, not being facetious, I really don’t know what you or anyone else means by it (that’s not really true, but the only time I feel definitely sure about what someone means by that word is when they very obviously mean “I hate Jews”). And to me, “articulate” had kind of always had a back-handed complement feel to it. Almost like if someone called me “coherent.”
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Just…wow. I have lost all my evens to can’t.
Yeah because Muhammed Ali is just a fictional amalgam of endless mythos, reinvented from country to country for hundreds of year.
Sheesh.
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This script works with any faux pas, really. And it was hard to do the first time. And even the second time. But once I realized that people don’t think less of me when I own up to my mistakes, it’s become a lot easier. Sure, it sucks to admit that I was wrong, but ultimately people’s impressions of me improve when I demonstrate that I’ve learned from my mistakes.
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Turkish, actually.
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Meanwhile, in Toronto…
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The Mall Of America always seemed like a strangely racist place to me. Their rent-a-cops will profile anyone who doesn’t look white white. They hired their first black Santa and now their customers are freaking out. Go figure.
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Yep. Santa was based off of a Turkish man named Nicholas who dropped bags of gold down young women’s chimneys so they wouldn’t have to sell themselves into prostitution. Santa saying “ho ho ho” is probably just a wild coincidence 
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I’ve never even been to Minnesota, but that doesn’t surprise me.
Wow, at the willful stupidity; to not realize the difference between actual people and fucking fictional characters.
But then again, there are people who constantly demonstrate that many aspects of life are not ‘real’ to them. I guess that includes other human beings as well…
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Also there is a black Christmas character that gets played by white people all the time.
Black Pete
That’s it’s own giant can of worms but it’s hard not to bring up such an obvious counter example.
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It’s abstractly fascinating, and certainly speaks to tribalism that Jesse Jackson (surprisingly not followed by Al Sharpton) is the first person who comes to mind as if he is Lord High Representative of the people.
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Of course it’s the black guy who has to be the villain.
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Yes, Zwarte Piet;
Weird how the Dutch can never seem to find an actual Black person to portray him.
I guess there just must be “no Black people in those regions, at all.” Oh, wait…
``
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More servile, no?
A throwback to Dutch colonialism/enslavement?
He comes over “on the boat” to serve after all.
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I did see a couple of actual black people dressed like Pete for Christmas but my area was a tiny bit more diverse because of the university. The cartoon hamsters that were the mascots for the grocery store wore some pretty questionable costumes for the holidays. There was a good mix of the actual blackface and the more toned down ash smudges in my area.
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