That’s TURIN, for the perplexed…
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That’s always been my theory for the expansion of the British Empire. They had to go out and find some decent food…
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Books have quite literally been written about that.
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I honestly think the idea of “white” as a unified ethnic or cultural group is, itself, a toxic lie. White people globally share surprisingly few values with each other that aren’t shared with almost every other society and not all of those are even nearly objectively “good” values. Not only should whiteness not necessarily be something to move towards for those excluded from it currently, whiteness should not be an identity that has any cultural or social value on its own. If being white is what you’re proud of, you don’t have much to be proud of for some reason or another. I guess what I mean is aside from exploiting racism directly for profit there is no value in whiteness for white people either that I’ve ever been able to perceive. Whiteness just then becomes the excuse for ignoring everything wrong with oneself, one’s life, and one’s society because… at least you’re white. And I say that knowing that dismantling something like that could make life harder for a white person who is marginalized for other reasons such as my former self, but I really do think it’s the way forward.
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To add to that, I frequently see economic class used as a stand-in for white, and I think it’s just as bad. So many politicians pander toward what’s fondly called, “middle class”, tacitly accepting that its okay to have an underclass below that and an overclass above.
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Adding to your post…
I was nearly blown up twice by IRA bombs while living in London, so racist arguments about terrorists being Muslim or people of color really backfire with me. Absolutely, Irish sympathizers were rallying support – financial and otherwise – in the States for IRA terrorist activities. And yes, they were a terrorist organization, despite being white and Christian.
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“Creeping Islamization”? Their logic seems to be that the existence of a store that caters to Muslims is evidence of some “normal” store being forcibly converted to Halal groceries. That’s not how it works. The store exists because there is a community for it, you know. . . “market forces” at work.
Here in the USA I always point out that the population of Muslims is smaller than the population of Jews, and both are only around 1.5%. Should we be worried about “creeping Judaism”?
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You’ve lashed out at various Dutch things, but all sane people know it’s a blow that Netherlands.
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Pointing out her racism is great, but changing people’s minds would be even better. For example, In the US, there are a large number of people who share her views. If we don’t ultimately change their minds we will constantly seesaw between politicians like Trump and Obama on our way down the tubes.
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Um, you do realize that you need to understand something before you can change it? If we don’t point it out where it exists, we can never get to the point where it can be changed. Noting that this woman made an islamophobic statement is part of getting to the point where we can change such things… You don’t fix problems by ignoring them, you got to define them first.
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I have had nice meals in the UK.
But travel writers like to write phrases about UK cuisine like, "Has a reputation of meats that have been boiled until they are grey…’
It’s one of those stereotypes which should have died off, but staggers on zombie-like because people want it to be true, and want their preconceptions validated.
Let’s be honest, though. Food culture in these islands took a triple battering (stop it) in the 19th and 20th centuries with industrialisation uprooting people from their local existing food culture, the dire poverty of ordinary working people forcing them onto a diet of cheap processed food, then two wars worth of rationing which prioritised national survival over taste.
It’s taken a long time for food culture to recover from that blow- first there was the gradual assimilation of other nations’ food into the national menus, as variety and plenty returned. That led to an era of gastronomic self hatred, where local couldn’t be good, to be gradually replaced by an era of rediscovering traditional local recipes, and appreciating the fusion created by adapting the world’s recipes to local tastes.
Today, the food culture of these islands is one of huge cosmopolitan variety, with some of the world’s best restaurants, and a renewed focus on great local ingredients. But someone’s grandfather wrote about being served a plate of bland stove in 1946, so this persists.
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For all members concerned about moderation, I have reopened this topic:
Please address the issue there, instead of derailing the current discussion with off-topic comments.
Thank you.
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Can we please revisit the part of the terms & conditions that says rules lawyering will fail?
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There is plenty of good food in the UK. Good Indian food. Good Chinese food. Good French food…
And yes, even the most British of dishes, fish and chips, was introduced by a Jewish immigrant.
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Haggis. Haggis fucking rocks.
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Although I may not have aimed this correctly, still…
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