Live data from Hacker News

I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

theatlantic.com

51–60 of 292 posts

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#51
post #35
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you probably come from a slav tribe. Saxons were a tribe in Germany. Anglos a different tribe. Take an ancestry / 23andme/ myheritage test and see what comes up. You would be surprised.

Just realize those generic tests are designed more for entertainment than scientific rigor. They are looking at associations between genetic traits and groups, but it’s not like those groups where clones of each other or even genetically isolated.

They’re not 100% rigorous but mine at least was pretty accurate, matching what I knew to be true from family oral history.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#53

> It’s been healthy for me, a fair-haired Anglo-Saxon with a Roman numeral in my name (John Austin Murphy III) This is what assimilation looks like. Someone with an Irish name calling themselves Anglo-Saxon. It’s like a Hispanic person calling themselves Latinx, proof that they have lost all organic connection to the culture of their ancestors.

Who cares though. I was raised Jewish but don't practice anymore. Theoretically there's a line if ancestors going back 3000 years to pass down beliefs and practices to me. But they aren't actually valuable so I don't want them. Sunk cost.

My wife's ancestors are likely genetically pure going back many centuries from the other side of the world. Her mother's family were nobility before they came to America. Our kids are a thing that probably didn't exist at all prior to the 20th century and they're fantastic. And they know their culture to be New Yorkers.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#54
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them. If you are offered an executive role at a successful company because you can help with PR, it may be good for your career. I don't see how that is any different than someone with an climate science degree joining a company to help them "go green". Obviously the role exists partially for PR, but there may still be positive things you can do.

Nothing good comes from a culture that perpetuates whitewashing other cultures just to please whites and their visions of an ideal minority.

You're being downvoted, but I completely agree.

The whole "woke" / "political correctness" movement is mostly bored white people.

This is the result of a group of people with no real major battles left to fight. You make up an enemy to give your life purpose.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#55
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are not all white people Anglo Saxon? I don’t bother to call myself anything other than white, Anglo Saxon, European, Caucasian. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. I have Irish, English, Italian, and post world war 2 immigrated Polish direct ancestors. I don’t know what else to call myself nor do I particularly care. I don’t have a strong personal sense of identity tied up with any of those things. They are just words…

No you probably come from a slav tribe. Saxons were a tribe in Germany. Anglos a different tribe. Take an ancestry / 23andme/ myheritage test and see what comes up. You would be surprised.

Slavs were not a tribe in Germany. Slavs speak an entirely different language family from the Germanic one, as different as the Romance one. The Slavic language family stretches from Russian through Ukrainian and Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Serb and Slovene, among others.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#56
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them. If you are offered an executive role at a successful company because you can help with PR, it may be good for your career. I don't see how that is any different than someone with an climate science degree joining a company to help them "go green". Obviously the role exists partially for PR, but there may still be positive things you can do.

Nothing good comes from a culture that perpetuates whitewashing other cultures just to please whites and their visions of an ideal minority.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Dr. King explains this far better that I can. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/10/21/arc-mor....

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#57
I know that many of us here don't like what labor unions have become in the 21st century. But they do need some labor representation that can ensure the trucks used by drivers have working lights, mirrors, and safe tires, and that the company negotiates use of restrooms around the city. Maybe just a "safety only" union that only deals with safety issues?

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you "lose all organic connection to the culture of your ancestors" simply by calling yourself Latinx? You're surely not suggesting they abandon the traditions, holidays, food, music, clothing, dancing, and all of the rest of their cultural connection, simply because of one label? I am an Irish-American who plays the music, hates the food, but if I wanted to call myself of "European" ancestry, that wouldn't aba…

He didn’t call himself European, or white, utterly anodyne words. He called his name Anglo-Saxon. That you didn’t immediately understand the difference shows that you don’t get it . Which is fine. If you’re not Irish and don’t claim to be that’s cool. You do you. Americans do their American thing, Irish people do their Irish thing and we all happily exchange cultures and products and talk shit about each other as hum…

Knowingly or not it's not hard to take the point which is that "Anglo-Saxon" has lost any meaning beyond fair skinned at this point for the vast majority of people. Anyone reading the source knew what the author meant even those who were knew and were annoyed by the incorrectness.

The comparison to "latinx" is apt though - I should see it as a flag but instead it's like nails on a chalkboard because it's everything I don't like about language policing.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm majority Anglo (like, actually from England), but I have a Spanish last name from one of my grandparents, who in turn is a patrilineal native American whose family adopted Spanish naming some time in the distant unremembered past. The author's terminology could easily be correct in reference to himself, irrespective of his name. That said, I question the relevancy of this comment to the story.

Someone trying to well-actually a writer's self-proclaimed ethnic identity is hackernews af though you have to admit.

That's why there's /r/LOLHackerNews on reddit!

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murphy is the Anglicized form of an Irish name, Ó Murchú. One of the author’s paternal line ancestors came from Ireland, a land conquered and colonized by the English, i.e. the Anglo-Saxons. It would be one thing to say he had a honky ass white name, a cracker name, that would be in the American says American thing, who cares category. But to identify as Anglo-Saxon, an ethnic category!?! Not terribly surprising give…

I feel you shouldn't punish people for the name they were given by their parents. Changing your name is a big existential act, which I don't think it's reasonable to expect. If you've had it drummed into you from birth that you are III then it's hard to escape. That person's views about what their name represents are their own though and can be challenged.

Americans do their American thing. That’s cool. I do my Irish thing and point out that a Murphy calling himself an Anglo-Saxon is utterly assimilated. Also cool. Americans pointing out that Irish and British people drink way more than Americans, and imbibe other narcotics at rates not normally seen outside Cuban-American locales. That’s cool. We can all notice that other people are different and get along, or not.
Post reply on HN