Should white Americans be called "Indigenous Europeans?"
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Anonymous
YES! I mean what's so bad about saying you're Iranian? I roll my eyes when people tell me they're Persian. Persia is gone. |
Anonymous
Well, my family is originally from a country that doesn't exist anymore, and if asked about our heritage, we refer to the country. People referred to themselves as Polish even when Poland didn't exist as a country. Ditto for Lithuania. Also, Persian is both a descriptor of a group of people and a language. Persian people are an Iranian people who speak Persian or a related dialect. There are about 90 million Persians, and they live in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and elsewhere. |
Anonymous
Those were only states, not ethnicities. Persian is a language (called farsi, not "iranian") a culture, a civilization. |
Anonymous
Ah, the same thing that Americans do with "Mexicans"? That's a different conversation. I wasn't the one writing that btw. We're talking about boring white Americans trying to make themselves interesting by claiming some heritage of a country they've never even been to, a culture they didn't experience, and a language they don't even speak. I've learned not to be too interested anymore when someone tells me they're "German". And I've stopped asking where in Germany they're from because the answer is usually "My great-great-great-great grandmother......" Never heard a European claim a long gone heritage from some ancestor, and call themselves "Polish" or "French" when they didn't even grow up there, for example. |
Anonymous
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OK I'm white and never say I'm European. I have no claim to Europe. I think my family is from at least 6 different European countries. I think people most commonly relate to the European country that their last name derives from. I hate the word "Caucasian" and prefer just "white."
I don't feel like a boring American because I don't have one specific ethnicity, rather I'm pretty proud to be American and part of the melting pot. I'm only vaguely interested in someone's ethnicity if they have an accent. And then I only ask because the person is usually proud of where they came from and it's a conversation starter. |
Anonymous
Oh, ok. So like "Persians" born in America, who have never been to "Persia" because it hasn't existed since 1935 really should just say they are American. Right? I mean, I speak a little Latin, and I am Italian, should I claim to be Roman? |
Anonymous
I don't think that "should" applies here. If someone with an ethnic Persian background whose parents came from Iran wants to call themselves Iranian-American, or Persian, or just American, that is their choice. Similarly if you want to call yourself Italian American, or Sicilian, or just American that is up to you. You can call yourself Roman, but that would tend to make people think your ancestors actually came from the city of Rome. Or will think they misheard and you are Roma. Mostly it is about context. In some contexts someone can call themselves Scots Irish, but in others it will confuse the listeners. A Jew can all themselves Ashkenazi, but that will confuse most listeners. |
Anonymous
| Forms you fill out only have a category for white/Caucasian, not EuroAmerican. Just because I haven't been to Europe, doesn't mean I haven't been exposed to customs, foods, languages, etc from my grandparents or parents or out of my own interest in my genetic makeup, ancestry, and genealogy. That's like saying Chinese Americans shouldn't call themselves Chinese if they've never been to China. It's like having to call vanilla ice cream white or plain. White is not an absence of ancestry. |
Anonymous
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Hello White people, White people are the ones that came up with the designation of 'White'. It's YOUR designation of yourself.
Why? Because you wanted to distinguish yourself from 'Black'. Because in those times, people were White, Black (also named by whites), Dark skinned (also named by white), Redskinned (also named by whites) or Oriental (also named by whites). So this designation is of your own making to distinguish superiority in that 'pristine, White, pure, godly' kind of way over POC. You even decided Caucasian had to be defined as White, even though that is the correct geographical designation of people of from not only Europe but also from Northern Africa, South Asia, Western Asia and Central Asia. So OP, you're simply complaining about a term that was invented by none other than "White People". My guess is that now in 2016 you're feeling left out of having a hyphenated term and are scratching to feel like you belong to something more because you are so far removed from your ancestry and culture of origin. But you're probably also one of those people that telling other hyphenated Americans to assimilate already and stop saying "well in my culture". |
Anonymous
| I love studying my ancestry and seeing how many different European countries and Native American tribes my ancestors were from. I embody the melting pot. If this bothers people, that's not my problem. |
Anonymous
I have to assume that the person who thinks there is no pride of heritage among White Americans has never been to a major East Coast city. Why not roll down to Southie in Boston or Little Italy in Baltimore and check out how not proud people are of their various European heritages? |
Anonymous
THIS. Persian is an ethnicity. That doesn't cease to exist just because the country has a new name. Similarly, Burmese was still an ethnicity when the country was called Myanmar. I think Americans really struggle with the difference between nationality, citizenship, and ethnicity, to be honest. I don't really know why, because lots of Americans identify as Polish, or Irish, or whatever. But the idea that someone's ethnic identity might be different than what is denoted by their passport seems really hard for many USians to accept. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Do non white people think all white people look the same? You can tell by looking at White people whether they are Italian, or Irish, or whatever. You can also tell by the last name, but not always. One of the reasons I kept my last name is because I don't identify with my husband's ancestry. My last name is part of my heritage so I wanted to keep it. What about white Americans originally from Russia? They don't look Asian but they are from Asia. You can't assume all white people were from Europe. It's just easier to say white but if we want to come up with new classifications we should be able to. |
Anonymous
Only if you're blonde. |