On Hyphenated-Americans.

[P3nT4gR4m]

If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

This! It's the culture identity / heritage game in a nutshell. Here's the choice. You can be special because of something that happened to you at birth or you can become special the hard way - because of something you've done.

Most monkeys are real fucking lazy

ETA: Yeah, I did the "you" thing again. Read that as "someone", eh?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Is being Irish (or anything) special? Unless you are a real minority in a global sense, there's probably several million other very similar people with the same badge.

About the Casinos/rewards for heritage thing, I would say the fact that personal financial reward is once again the leading factor in the exclusion mindset. Share with you = Less for me.

This seems to extend to non-tangible things like being X.

Which explains a lot. I've seen some dumb shit done just because not doing it would be "less manly" implying that there is a finite supply of masculinity. This probably isn't coming out well.

Nope.  You're right on the money.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

This! It's the culture identity / heritage game in a nutshell. Here's the choice. You can be special because of something that happened to you at birth or you can become special the hard way - because of something you've done.

Most monkeys are real fucking lazy

That may be part of it.  Mostly, though, I think it's the impression that there's a Law of Conservation of Irishness/whatever.  If all those yanks in Boston get to be Irish in some fashion, even in their own heads, then the perception of being Irish loses some of its appeal.

It brings to mind the old Aerosmith fans vs the new Aerosmith fans garbage of the late 90s.

"I was doing this before it was cool."

[P3nT4gR4m]

Definitely!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Damn good shit, Roger.

A people without a history or a connection or a sense of place are just drifting, aimless, and shallow.

A person without a cultural environment is a person without culture.

(ETA:  Which was the point of the posts with weird names and explanations on pages 1-2.)

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, I can't wait around any longer, stuff to do.

I'll check back in later.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I realize it may be too late now to back to the OP, but I wanted to add something.

I think the truth is inbetween the idea that Americans have a severely abbreviated culture and Hyphenated-Americans are Really Really Hyphenated People.

Hyphenated-Americans are that way because our history and heritage is about 30 minutes long.  We don't have a sense of cultural identity, because our society is a mish-mash of hundreds of cultures, none of which particularly want to learn about each other, because that might weaken the non-existent ties to their parent culture.  But I see you covered this:

America was colonised in waves, and those waves often consisted of people from distinct linguistic and cultural groups, usually settling in similar areas to each other.  The parents bring the culture with them, from their homelands, but the children born there...well, they exist in a different geographical, legal, political and economic climate to the one their parents did, alongside other emerging or distinct foreign cultures as well.

The only reason Irish Irishness is considered more legitimate than American Irishness is because the former controls the state of Ireland, and thus the percieved homeland of Irish Tradition by both sides.

And it was inevitable that the dog in the manger thing would start sooner or later.

Several Native American nations had this happen when they started seeing revenues from casinos (the ones that didn't get fucked out of those revenues, anyway).  Suddenly there were tests or one kind or another, or standards, as to who was actually "of the tribe".  It was amazing how exclusive it all got...And I'm not talking about Johnny-come-latelies who moved onto the Rez after the Casinos were built, I'm talking about life-long residents who turned out to have a White, Black, or Hispanic grandparent.

There's obviously no jackpot to split for being Irish, but the principle is the same.  If they let just ANYONE be Irish, then being Irish isn't as special.

CISamericanhet.   

Well, it's like this:  I am descended from Cornish stock.  I do not consider myself "Cornish-American", because I don't know much about Cornwall, I don't know anyone in Cornwall, but most of all I personally don't need a cultural identity cluttering up my already fucked up personal identity.

But I can see how some people NEED some form of cultural identity.  They HAVE to have it...And it costs the REALLY REAL Irish folks NOTHING to have a bunch of groupies way the fuck on the other side of the pond. 

Twid comes to mind, here.  His cultural identity is extremely important to him, to the point where he nationalized.

How this is somehow insulting to the Irish is utterly beyond me.

I can't think of a reason, except that america has a really, really shitty rep, which probably isn't relevant here at all.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I grow very fucking weary of the double standard that's oozed around here, recently.

Examples:

1.  Hating straights is totally different than hating strays, and if you have a problem with that, it's because YOU don't understand that YOUR privilege excuses MY bigotry.

2.  Fear of "CISHETs" justifies bigotry.  Never mind that this logic justifies the odious "gay panic" defense.

3.  Shitting on people is okay, as long as it's You People, not real people.  It's just that the definition of "You People" has changed.  Equality was NEVER the issue with some; instead, the issue was to change from shit-ee to shit-er. 

4.  It's okay to lump ANYONE in with the pigfuckers, as long as the person involved is part of the population subset approved for the purpose.

5.  It's okay to shit on someone if you have a "berserk button", which means you can stop thinking and start pooping.

6.  Friendship is a very distant second to The Cause.

First off, I'm not one of the radical queer crowd, because apparently I'm not queer enough for them.

Secondly, I'm kind of pissed that you are lumping me in with Hovercat / Juana Go? and Signora Paesior, over a thread that happened over SIX FUCKING MONTHS AGO. My memory ain't that long, and it's been a kind of fucked up space I was living in from March last year till December just gone, being excluded and marginalised in my OWN FUCKING HOME by people me and Payne tried to help, resulting in 3 months of HIDE THE SHARPS and panic attacks, listening to Shitty Ginger Housemate yell and scream at his girlfriend from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep and worry over keeping the roof over my head (YAY TORIES?). 

Thirdly, you seem to be constantly (of late) making assumptions as to what I think, and what i think about you. I've never considered you "part of the problem" when it comes to misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia etc. Can't speak for Hovercat and their thoughts though, because I am not Hovercat. Just as YOU want to be treated as an individual, so do I. The reason I come back here is because I don't want to become part of an activisty hive-mind, and my communication style is sometimes far too aggressive for those spaces.

Finally, the whole Irish-American thing..  Yesterday i dun fucked up. Said as much in the thread in the limited time i had available. Working off emotions rather than logic from basically viewed as "other" and potentially dangerous as a kid by ignorant little shits, and the funding of the IRA by some Irish-Americans has always provoked an emotional response in me, and yanno IN THAT THREAD, not very bipedal. I knew it at the time and still opened my gob.

And since i've not had the opportunity to respond there have been 3? 4? threads over one ill thought out sentence/ emotional response, and it's been "hey, lets kick a Pix". (again, a subjective emotional response).


I love you, Rog, you've seen me through some dark assed brain shit, but today's response was disproportionate as fuck.

Oh, and I see whilst I was typing this that you fucked off.

{edited to add} ok, you have shit to do. we all have shit to do, that last sentence was OTT, sorry.)

[The Good Reverend Roger]

First off, I'm not one of the radical queer crowd, because apparently I'm not queer enough for them.

I feel ya.  I'd advise, though, that this happens in EVERY RADICAL COMMUNITY of any kind.

Secondly, I'm kind of pissed that you are lumping me in with Hovercat / Juana Go? and Signora Paesior, over a thread that happened over SIX FUCKING MONTHS AGO.

Nope.  I didn't find anything you said back then to be offensive.  The above statement was deliberately not directed at you, but at the community as a whole.

My memory ain't that long, and it's been a kind of fucked up space I was living in from March last year till December just gone, being excluded and marginalised in my OWN FUCKING HOME by people me and Payne tried to help, resulting in 3 months of HIDE THE SHARPS and panic attacks, listening to Shitty Ginger Housemate yell and scream at his girlfriend from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep and worry over keeping the roof over my head (YAY TORIES?). 

See above.

Thirdly, you seem to be constantly (of late) making assumptions as to what I think, and what i think about you. I've never considered you "part of the problem" when it comes to misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia etc. Can't speak for Hovercat and their thoughts though, because I am not Hovercat. Just as YOU want to be treated as an individual, so do I. The reason I come back here is because I don't want to become part of an activisty hive-mind, and my communication style is sometimes far too aggressive for those spaces.

Understood.  My concern was that the same sort of thing was happening, with a different flavor.  If I am mistaken, my apologies.

Finally, the whole Irish-American thing..  Yesterday i dun fucked up. Said as much in the thread in the limited time i had available. Working off emotions rather than logic from basically viewed as "other" and potentially dangerous as a kid by ignorant little shits, and the funding of the IRA by some Irish-Americans has always provoked an emotional response in me, and yanno IN THAT THREAD, not very bipedal. I knew it at the time and still opened my gob.

I certainly haven't ever done that.     Like once a day.

And since i've not had the opportunity to respond there have been 3? 4? threads over one ill thought out sentence/ emotional response, and it's been "hey, lets kick a Pix". (again, a subjective emotional response).

Pixie, you've seen me kick people.  This wasn't a kick.  No matter how much you might ever piss me off, you're not on the kick list.  I believe I mentioned that twice on page 1.

I love you, Rog, you've seen me through some dark assed brain shit, but today's response was disproportionate as fuck.

I have a problem with that, yes.   When the rock hits me, I holler.

Oh, and I see whilst I was typing this that you fucked off.

Actually, my boss called me over to his office.  Back now.

{edited to add} ok, you have shit to do. we all have shit to do, that last sentence was OTT, sorry.)

No worries.

Look, my main concern here isn't the subject matter, or prior subject matters.  It's the politics of exclusion.  While I agree in principle with cultural appropriation being a bad thing, I see it as a bad thing when the person doing it has no claim at all on that culture (White middle class student in dreadlocks, ancient hippie in a dashiki, etc).  In this particular case, the people in question DO have some claim on that culture, and that - to them - is extremely important.

Yes, that has a downside (it makes them easy marks for IRA bagmen, for one thing).

But having no cultural anchors whatsoever is a worse problem.  A man with no culture to rely on is a man with no societal norms, and a man with no societal norms is a man with no moral structure.  Such a man is capable of anything.

Example:  The best way to combat rape culture is to attack the culture itself.  To do this, you need a competing culture that can overwhelm the rape culture until rape is considered a shameful crime by damn near everyone.  Cultures can't really be kickstarted in the time we have, so we have to rely on existing cultures.  If no existing cultures are available, or the ones we have are WORSE (hello, America!), then you have no tools with which to accomplish the task.

You have a choice here.  You can have everyone in your cultural tent pissing out, or you can sit in the tent alone, trying to ignore the streams of piss coming IN.  It really is one or the other.  Cultures should not be predatory, but the best cultures will allow admission to those who have the minimum requirements to fit in.  In this case, Irish ancestry and a strong identification with that ancestry.

And, IIRC, Irish tradition has its ways of dealing with rapists and wife beaters.  Something about sewing them into the bedsheets when they're drunk and beating them with everything in the house, IIRC.

Or just working on that existing culture so that rape/abuse becomes odious among that culture's people.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0tLTm0kaHQ

Payne insists that I post this so everyone gets the reference.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0tLTm0kaHQ

Payne insists that I post this so everyone gets the reference.

I shall have to look at it at home, after work and after the gym.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So does this mean im getting my token card taken away now? Its so shiny.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

So does this mean im getting my token card taken away now? Its so shiny.

nope. Still my favourite

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, that will teach me to calm down and post a rational response.

Next time, I'll just stick to one liners.

GAME ORVER.

PIX & TWID WIN.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ya know, fuck this.  I'm out.  You guys have fun.