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The Fourth of July

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Re: The Fourth of July

#191

Post by hootbootscoot »

darawk wrote: post #178
cookie_monsta wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Or maybe the point is that for some people systemic racism isn't just another abstract problem that doesn't really affect them every single day of their lives.

It seems to me that's what's happening in this thread is privileged people with no experience of systemic racism telling Filipino veterans how they ought to feel about the country they fought for. The people with the concrete experience are speaking, and HN commenters are telling them they're bad and wrong and should be more mad. Seems strange, in light of the prevalence of the word 'listen' of late.

You had me, then you lost me.

Hubris and the unwillingness to comprehend real problems and the desire to cover them up with "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" won't go down well.

What I'm seeing is more apologism for wrongful historical actions, perhaps in RESPONSE to what you described, but at this point it's become an "AMERICA IS GREAT SO SHUT UP"

Re: The Fourth of July

#192

Post by pjc50 »

throwaway0891 wrote: post #151
rayiner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is great. It’s virtually indistinguishable from America for the typical person. I don’t know where you’re from, but as a Bangladeshi immigrant to the US, but I wouldn’t emigrate to the EU. 76% of Americans say that a naturalized citizen is a “real American” and just 13% disagree: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/... . In France it’s 55-28. In Italy it’s 41-36. There is no place in th…

If you have a look at "legal immigrant that lived here their entire lives is a real " the US goes say down in support. It's clear they see it as a purely legal status, not necessarily as acceptance in a society. That survey probably conflates ethnicity and nationality, as many countries use the same word for both. Like Hungary for example. PS: There's no way 50% of Brits think gaining citizenship doesn't make you Bri…

> There's no way 50% of Brits think gaining citizenship doesn't make you British, unless they don't speak English. That's what the word means!

That's what you think the word means, but a lot of people use "British" and "English" as ethnicity descriptors, and standard language on survey forms includes "white British" as an ethnicity.

I can quite believe that 50% of the population thinks that gaining citizenship still makes you an immigrant; you could probably find a large support for "being born in Britain to nonwhite parents doesn't make you British", and look what happened to Shamina Begum.

(Just to be clear, this is all racism)

Re: The Fourth of July

#193

Post by realityking »

082349872349872 wrote: post #148
Gibbon1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US went to war against Spain in 1898 and took the Philippine away from Spain. The US promised the Filipinos independence and then reneged on it and fought brutal war against the Filipinos for 14 years.

The occupation both gave the german language a word: "Amokläufer", and caused the US army to switch from .38 to .45 caliber sidearms.

Do you have a source on the relation of “Amokläufer” to the Spanish-American war?

All the sources I can find claim it originates from Malay/Indonesian culture.

Re: The Fourth of July

#194

Post by hef19898 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #165
geofft wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are (or at least I think they are). I think we have other policies today that are similar in effect - gerrymandered election districts and intentional poor placement / management of polling stations being the most obvious examples in my eyes. There's also stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigford_v._Glickman .

> gerrymandered election districts It's hard to call gerrymandering "racist" when there isn't inherently any right way to draw district lines and then you consider the implications of what the opponents of existing districts call the "wrong" way. The way gerrymandering works is that you start off with a town with 1000 black Democrats, 1000 white Democrats and 2000 white Republicans, and you have to draw four district…

Despite, nit because of the way US elections work. Limited number of poling places, especially in poor neighborhoods, affecting people of colour more because of past zoning laws? Check. Elections held on workdays, making it harder for poorer people, again more often people of colour, to vote because they have to take a day of? Check. Mail in ballots being very hard to come by, see above? Check. An electoral college and a senate that gives more weight to votes from states with a higher percentage of whites? Check.

Compared to any other western style democracy, and the differences become clear.

And arguing gerrymandering, proven to benefit one party only at the disadvantage of people of colour, is actually a good thing, is just plain manipulative.

Re: The Fourth of July

#195

Post by AnthonyMouse »

hootbootscoot wrote: post #191
darawk wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that's what's happening in this thread is privileged people with no experience of systemic racism telling Filipino veterans how they ought to feel about the country they fought for. The people with the concrete experience are speaking, and HN commenters are telling them they're bad and wrong and should be more mad. Seems strange, in light of the prevalence of the word 'listen' of late.

You had me, then you lost me. Hubris and the unwillingness to comprehend real problems and the desire to cover them up with "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" won't go down well. What I'm seeing is more apologism for wrongful historical actions, perhaps in RESPONSE to what you described, but at this point it's become an "AMERICA IS GREAT SO SHUT UP"

It's not "SHUT UP IT"S GREAT!" so much as pointing out specifically why the claim that it isn't great is wrong, to which the responses were a moving of the goalposts to some other, generic wrongs against black people that haven't actually been specified and so can't be addressed.

Re: The Fourth of July

#196

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

hef19898 wrote: post #186
rayiner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is great. It’s virtually indistinguishable from America for the typical person. I don’t know where you’re from, but as a Bangladeshi immigrant to the US, but I wouldn’t emigrate to the EU. 76% of Americans say that a naturalized citizen is a “real American” and just 13% disagree: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/... . In France it’s 55-28. In Italy it’s 41-36. There is no place in th…

Right wing parties won the UK, if you want to call Boris Johnson that. They lost in France, biggly. They lost in the Netherlands. They won some state elections in Germany, if becoming the biggest opposition party in state parliaments without any chance of governing can be called winning (they got more votes than I am comfortable with, so). But who again held Congress until 2018 and still holds the Senate and the Pres…

And the UK is not even in the EU anymore.

Re: The Fourth of July

#197

Post by hootbootscoot »

rayiner wrote: post #57
weiming wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to never waste an opportunity to remind others of their disdain and it is more and more visible these days e.g. in big news media or on Twitter. Makes me sad and I hope this can change.

My family is Bangladeshi immigrants and we have been talking about this lately too. My parents just moved into a new house, and yesterday my dad installed a big American flag. My parents are Democrats so they agree ideologically with CNN, etc., but even they’re getting sick of the over-the-top weeping and rending of clothes.

Did it ever occur to you that media outlets are businesses, and so their talking bobble-heads pander to whatever they think will help their bottom-line and perception as being "cool" or "with it"?

TBH, I was initially imagining your family being a bit sick of all the weeping and rending of clothes about Sacred America, the national entity one must worship or be unworthy. Embrace the flag or GTFO!

Get over it, it's a place. It's a country. It has a checkered past, as most countries do. It's not perfect, nor is it the most villainous regime ever.

The current trend towards realizing Americas flaws is related to it's decline as an empire. Expect more of the same to the degree that said flaws are not addressed, expect more decline and plan for it, ideally by de-imperialising like Kemal Ataturk would have recommended, lol.

What some smarter folks may realize is that America has created a global empire and an imperial structure to match it, replete with satrapies. Surely there are some consequences for being the Global Cop (TM) As history assures us, no empire lasts forever.

I would humbly propose less handwringing but also less manipulation of the rest of the world, as this will save us from future handwringing. Let's back out of the Global Empire business and start trying to back the values we actually stand for.

Supporting Mubarak and Sisi in Egypt is not a long term value I will argue we should be projecting. Do I need to elaborate further on this theme? We risk leaving the world a legacy of mere "might = right", which is not likely the legacy we want to be remembered for.

If one truly "LOVES" ones country, (It's a bizarre thing to require compulsive adoration of an abstract entity on par with the feelings one has for a spouse or family member. Such compulsory adulation is a tool used to build armies and blind loyalty, which is wrongful. I realize that one may need to find a structure of meaning to comprehend the loss of a loved one who died following orders and "defending a nation") one will seek to fix its flaws and will address criticisms as bringing up potential flaws to address.

Re: The Fourth of July

#198

Post by hootbootscoot »

vore wrote: post #98
zipwitch wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American from birth, and speaking for myself, it's not hating my country. It's frustration and sometimes anger at our failure to do better. I believe that doing better than we are is within our grasp, but we, as a nation, so often seem to turn away from positive change in favor of a comfortable and easy (for many Americans) status quo that is ultimately inadequate and often blindly hypocritical.

Even from just examining the present, it's hard to find much to like about how the US is handling a pandemic.

Particularly the (lack of a concerted) federal government response to the COVID pandemic.

Selective support of states rights when it's Pandemic Time counts as "kicking the can down the road" to the poster below me.

Re: The Fourth of July

#199

Post by hootbootscoot »

rayiner wrote: post #107
vore wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even from just examining the present, it's hard to find much to like about how the US is handling a pandemic.

We have fewer Covid deaths per capita than four of the five biggest countries in the EU. Do you think people in France or Spain are “ashamed” of their country’s handling of the outbreak?

No other nation in the world had a clown trying to turn facemasks into a political issue to argue about.

Oh sorry, one other nation did, and it's argued that that clown was installed the same way our clown was by the same foxy Australian media mogul.

No other nation had a total jackass absolutely hamper every single effort to contain the virus.

No other nation had such a moronic leader who literally stalled for 6 weeks in his initial response to this.

Spare me the nonsense, please don't LIE to my face. We all saw it.

Re: The Fourth of July

#200

Post by jariel »

tptacek wrote: post #155
rayiner wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a serious attempt to cancel America, that goes beyond holding America responsible for its past wrongs. Someone posted a link to this tweet elsewhere in this thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/116818940954980... I think this is not an uncommon opinion and it’s becoming more and more mainstream. And that sort of thinking is an attempt to cancel America. It’s not just saying that America has d…

Can you see how a reasonable person might read this as catastrophizing? The tweet you linked to is pretty banal, and appears factual. I'm having trouble even connecting the dots from "many of the founders were slaveowners" to "let's cancel America". The nuns taught me the same thing in 1980s Catholic grammar school.

Colin Kaepernick Tweeted today that 'July 4th is a Celebration of White Supremacy'.

This is an existential attack on the nation by a popular figure defended and support by most of the press and major international corporations.

I don't have the reference, but yesterday, in response to an arguably racist Tweet about a white person doing something within the range of normal, but being interpreted as negative, the top Tweet response from a Black woman with over 10K likes was simply 'White people are a disease'. Nobody though to take this down as 'hate speech it seems'. This is definitely an 'existential' statement about the system, not just the narrower BLM ideal of rectifying police injustice etc..

There is a legit movement to rectify past wrongs obviously, but there are definitely existential aspects to this that cannot be ignored.

So those are very populist examples, but there are definitely more foundational intellectual movements afoot as well.

'Cancel America' is sadly, a thing, mixed in with all the other things.

[1] https://twitter.com/Kaepernick7/status/1279463720318570497

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