Diversity Representation in MU*ing

[Groth]

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Stuff like this is usually pretty easy to explain, since I see it all the time and have had this discussion a lot. To put it simply, Asian-Americans and people who live in Asian countries are living extremely different experiences. You can't expect someone who grew up in China who has only lived in China to have the same experience and opinion as a Chinese-American. Considering that in China you grow up literally in the dominant ethnic group, why would the concept of cultural appropriation or anything like that even be something that you think about?

"Americans got mad, but people in China didn't" is just not a good argument and displays an overwhelming amount of ignorance on the part of journalists. Like, I don't see American journalists looking to see what the opinions of people who live in Lagos are about African-American issues. It just makes literally zero sense to me and has always been my least favorite line of thinking.

While I do think cultural appropriation is a real thing in a lot of contexts. When it comes to X-Americans in particular I think it's really somewhat silly and a good way to point out that silliness is to put it into a European context.

Some people from the US seem downright fetishistic about the idea of them having some degree of ancestry from Ireland, Italy, Germany or what have you and often attempt to celebrate holidays and icons in ways that are downright absurd to the people who still live there.

To me my traditions are simply things me and my family have been doing for long enough that it feels natural to continue doing them, they're not an attempt to celebrate my heritage. I have no reason to care about anyone else partaking in these traditions beyond the fact it's obviously annoying if someone uses a symbol without knowing what it means.

To tangentially address a random stranger quoted in the NYT article

I wouldn’t wear traditional Irish or Swedish or Greek dress either. There’s a lot of history behind these clothes. Sad.”

The reason you shouldn't wear the traditional Swedish dress is that it's pretty lame. The history behind it is that peasant clothing got regionally standardized during the 17th and 18th centuries for economical reasons and during mid to late 19th century there was a period where everything had to become 'gloriously Swedish' as part of the national romantic movement and suddenly peasant clothing was a national treasure. You can blame the same movement for a lot of the viking fetishism and a bunch of history revisionism I'm not sure we've fully untangled yet.

[insomniac7809]

The Italian, Irish, and German diasporas to the USA are a really interesting topic, IMO.

The short version is, these days we're all white, but back when we really weren't. The diaspora communities in the United States have formed their own unique identities over the last century or so over waves of immigration, even if the communities of European descent are becoming less of a distinct identifier as the cultural identity is absorbed into generically "white." Which, yes, often means that celebration of whatever heritage just turns into a drinking holiday in ethnic drag.

But at the same time... if the X-American culture has a tradition that we've developed and maintained that looks weird to the inhabitants of X, well, what do you guys have to do with it?

[Ganymede]

@insomniac7809 said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

The short version is, these days we're all white, but back when we really weren't. The diaspora communities in the United States have formed their own unique identities over the last century or so over waves of immigration, even if the communities of European descent are becoming less of a distinct identifier as the cultural identity is absorbed into generically "white." Which, yes, often means that celebration of whatever heritage just turns into a drinking holiday in ethnic drag.

Well, you have to find culture that you can hold onto when you haven't any of your own.

[Auspice]

As someone whose family is predominantly Irish (my father is 100% Irish, as example)... I get really, really, reeeeeeeeally vexed by the 'Well my great-great-grandfather's mother was an O'Reilly so that means I'm Irish!' crowd. I mean, I guess it could mean they are? But they also can be some of the most freakin' obnoxious.

...like the one guy who sat in an OOC Lounge one time telling everyone how his family were IRISH WITCH HUNTERS. All based on a 'my father's aunt's husband's family have the last name <X> and they're witch hunters based on this google search I did....' Like, not even blood relatives but hooooooo boy.

But yes, the whole distill it into a drinking holiday thing- ugh. Ugggggh.

[bored]

@insomniac7809 said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

The Italian, Irish, and German diasporas to the USA are a really interesting topic, IMO.

The short version is, these days we're all white, but back when we really weren't.

Goes double for slavs, with a bonus of almost universally being depicted in... like hilariously openly racist ways in the media, even today, and people generally being totally OK with it.

I'm not sure the 'back then but not now' is even true, it's just less obvious (mostly). Of course, all light skinned people (even in groups that white people don't necessarily agree are white, see even Ashkenazi Jews) benefit from not physically looking black and being targeted for that reason, but when you get into things into wealth and education etc., it's hardly uniform, even today.

[surreality]

I am a totally ridiculous Euromix. For me, that's enough explanation.

For my relatives? It isn't. Now, I won't pretend it isn't a... uh... unusual cluster of people, such that if I listed out what I know of them to someone who knows me (and the way I live, what I do, etc.), they would both laugh and then nod solemnly with a 'that explains it'.

But it gets ridiculous. "I'm half Italian!" "No, you're a quarter Sicilian and a quarter Italian and the Italian quarter was original Spanish high nobility that fled the Inquisition due to a curiously high number of Jewish names appearing in the history for a bunch of supposed Catholics blah blah blah blah blah... " This is about where I am curious, sure, but know there is a level of ridiculousness going on that is intellectually interesting, but I'm certainly never going to be the baroness (spoiler alert: my great uncle was, and he lived in the neighboring mid-middle class subdivision and was as broke as we are, he was just 'that guy who really, really loves that accordion' to us), and my 2 rooms of the family palazzo <cough wheeze choke snerk mutley-snicker> (read: hot mess with no hot water, a ruin of a top floor, and a lower floor that was sold off for a condo before I was ever born) got sold off a few years ago because we didn't want to fix the desperately shitty collapsed roof or keep paying a full share of the $$$$ taxes on a property where other relatives live 24/7/365 and we have no access to.

And you'd think the stupid was condensed there, but no. My mother's side? We know... 3/4. 1/4 was simply deleted from the otherwise painstakingly curated family history my grandmother spent decades researching and compiling for, in her words, 'being filthy Hungarian gypsies'. One whole half of my grandfather's family was simply not allowed to be known; my mother even only met any of them once, in secret, when my grandfather smuggled her over to meet some cousins one holiday season. I don't even know what group/line it is; we just know that a great aunt doing research recently found more info and 'the oldest record of them is from the 17th century' and some reference to Transylvania. (My mother had to pass this along, insisting 'this is why you LARPed, I'm sure of it' and I winced so fucking hard I blame it for my first wrinkles.) And this bothers me -- not just because of my mother's... uh, yeah, she has the sensitivity of a thrown brick -- but because there's a whole branch of the family I will never know or even ever really know about, because my grandmother was such a bigot. You'd think my grandfather only had one parent, and was budded rather than born or something.

Pretty sure all of my grancestors have at some point been at war with literally all of my other grancestors. It is all supremely absurd, but boy howdy does it explain a lot re: internal conflict, I guess.

[bored]

@surreality My maternal grandmother was also super racist against Hungarians. I think we've chatted about PA stuff so maybe you've heard this one, but here's some info on a fun white people slur popular in the region! She'd say it all the time around me as a kid.

[surreality]

@bored We have! Though my mother and her side of things were all in Chicago until she married my father (who is from Delaware; they now live in the house where he grew up). I have heard the alternate form come out of her mouth, though, yeeeeeup. My mothers' folks moved here when I was pretty young -- 8 or 9 I think. She was less grumpy about the Hungarian part, but muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch less thrilled about the Roma part. I need to ask the maternal one to send what info she had again, since quarantine is as good a time as any to google the ever living shit out of it.

[Kanye Qwest]

that all sounds exhausting. i'm adopted so i never really knew, but decided i was heritage: viking. and then DNA tests came about

[Wretched]

@Kanye-Qwest So I grew up THINKING i was roughly 1/4 - 1/2 Italian, my last name is even Italian... Well 23 and Me say otherwise. I am about 40% Bavarian (which is spot on with my grandmothers side, but if it was only her, it should be lower than that. And Another 40 % is English, Specifically London area. I am like 1.2 % Italianish. But my 'alleged' maternal bio-grandfather is Italian like Father from Italy. There are large differences in appearance between my mom and brother, like 1.5 feet and haircolor.... and i /really/ want to talk to my Oma about it, but she is turning 90 soon and I dont even know if I want to ask such a personal questions, but it also might be my only chance and does it matter that much i mean i dont know shit about my Fathers side really...

...imma stop talking.

[surreality]

@Wretched I've considered it, if only to be like 'wow, we ran around a lot, huh'. Would not be surprised if results came back 'hot mess'.

[insomniac7809]

@bored said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I'm not sure the 'back then but not now' is even true, it's just less obvious (mostly). Of course, all light skinned people (even in groups that white people don't necessarily agree are white, see even Ashkenazi Jews) benefit from not physically looking black and being targeted for that reason, but when you get into things into wealth and education etc., it's hardly uniform, even today.

Well, now we're getting into a whole thing about race and class, because yeah a lot of working-class neighborhoods around here still have a lot of people with Irish and Italian surnames, but plenty of them are a more or less even mix of both and that's if you want to try and untangle the two.

Still very different from what my grandparents grew up with, where a significant chunk of their neighborhood was speaking Italian at home (or beating it out of their kids, figuratively or otherwise) and celebrating St. Patrick's Day by wearing orange and throwing rocks at the Irish.

Like, no one's going to peg my parents as an "interracial" marriage. We're all white. But there are a few Italian words that still show up in family conversations, and plenty of Italian foodstuffs that are still a part of regular consumption, and like most people of Italian descent stateside, we do it with an accent that drops the vowel at the end of words. This is because most Italian immigrants came from the southern part of the country, and that was how the prevalent dialect there worked until Italy really got the language standardized. There is a defunct Italian dialect that exists today mostly in how Americans in the tri-state area talk about cold cuts. I think that's pretty cool.

[bored]

@insomniac7809

[L. B. Heuschkel]

As a Dane, I'm not going to even pretend to deny that I don't fall on my ass laughing helplessly when I see Americans talk about their viking heritage.

Some of them do know what they're talking about. Most of them think they're descended from Vikings the show.

[SparklesTheClown]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

As a Dane, I'm not going to even pretend to deny that I don't fall on my ass laughing helplessly when I see Americans talk about their viking heritage.

Some of them do know what they're talking about. Most of them think they're descended from Vikings the show.

I mostly think it's hilarious when people wear an obviously African hairstyle 'cause "viking heritage" lmao.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@HelloProject ... Yes. Dreadlocks appear in many cultures but contrary to what certain TV shows like to promote, the early medieval period that isn't actually called the Viking Age anywhere historians aren't crying their bitter tears, has left us a fair bit of engravings and pictures of the Norsemen. Short hair and excessive personal grooming were a thing. Giant dreadlock manes were not.

ETA: The reason I laugh, rather than get upset, though is that cultural appropriation this way is annoying but not oppressive. When I stop laughing it's because certain alt-right groups are appropriating so-called viking heritage to peddle their homo superior bullshit.

[Auspice]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Short hair and excessive personal grooming were a thing.

They didn't steal women. Women just liked a man who knew how to bathe.

[Tinuviel]

@Auspice said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Short hair and excessive personal grooming were a thing.

They didn't steal women. Women just liked a man who knew how to bathe.

Well. That's not strictly, generally, true.

On the topic of hair styles, braids were a fairly common European thing. Even among the Vikings, though they did prefer shorter hair, when it was long they braided it.

So if you want to look like a Viking, for whatever reason, get that braided ponytail going.

[Groth]

@Auspice said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

They didn't steal women. Women just liked a man who knew how to bathe.

Slavery was actually somewhat extensive in pre-christian Scandinavia. What is somewhat interesting is that even though chattel slavery ended in the 14th century, the work they did on farms and the way they were treated didn't change much all the way to the 20th century. One of the reasons so many Scandinavians emigrated to the US in the late 19th century aside from the famine was the absolutely dreadful way that farm help was treated, for instance it was perfectly legal to beat up your maids as 'discipline'. It wasn't until 1864 in Sweden it became illegal to beat your wife and 1920 it became illegal to beat your employees*. It's one of those things people like to gloss over when portraying European history.

*In 1858 it became illegal to beat employees older then 18 if male and 16 if female. So that's 60 years of physically assaulting child laborers. When did you last see that portrayed in a period show?

[GreenFlashlight]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

As a Dane, I'm not going to even pretend to deny that I don't fall on my ass laughing helplessly when I see Americans talk about their viking heritage.

Some of them do know what they're talking about. Most of them think they're descended from Vikings the show.

Maybe it's a regional thing, but where I am, that's mostly an attempt to not to say the words "I'm a Nazi."