[fluff]

Inspired by this 'put-down' in another thread:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
See, there you have a perfect example of a person who has country envy. He wishes he was american, but he cant be. He's British and is stuck there. Your just mad because, in addition to German bases, we'll be closing both the airforce bases there in England. So therefore you British blokes are going to lose alot of money also.

It's ok to want to be American, the whole world wants to be
----------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a strange belief. I have nothing against Americans and I'd would hope they are glad to be American. I do find it a little odd that some of you need to justify yourselves this way, however. And can you really believe it?

By the way, if I wanted to be American I would be.

 

[s1ngletrack]

I don't get the arrogance either.

 

[Toshi]

me three. i can't make up my mind of whether i should run for office when i'm old and grey and try to change the system, or simply pick up my junk and move somewhere else entirely (japan?)

 

[Skookum]

Don't worry he's not a real american anyways.....

 

[Westy]

Sometimes Americans can be easily characterised by that drunk guy you always see at football games with his shirt off screaming we're number one at all the wrong times.

 

[Silver]

That happens any time you point out a flaw with a country. The patriots all come out of the woodwork and point out how said flaw is worse in another country.

Example:

"Canada has a problem with racism toward the Native population."

"Oh yeah, eh? That's ok, because at least we aren't as racist as the States!"

I don't even need to point out how this works with Americans. I'm still trying to figure out how being proud of where you were born is a good thing. It's like being proud of having blue eyes...

 

[N8 v2.0]

I donno either... I chalk it up to misplaced frustration with 'holier than now' foreigners who feel obligated to be overly negative about all that the US does in order to make them feel better.

History shows that the US is quite generous in its dealings with the world although some of the wrinkle-bellies forget that when the US doesn’t pay attention to them like they would like us to.

 

[Westy]

I don't even need to point out how this works with Americans. I'm still trying to figure out how being proud of where you were born is a good thing. It's like being proud of having blue eyes...

Your just jealous because you are ugly and dudes with blue eyes get more tail.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Don't worry he's not a real american anyways.....

And even that character is decended from immigrants to the Continent...

Here's some real American natives...

I present....



Prairie Grass!

 

[Silver]

Your just jealous because you are ugly and dudes with blue eyes get more tail.

Are you trolling for a picture of my baby blues?

 

[I Are Baboon]

See, there you have a perfect example of a person who has country envy. He wishes he was american, but he cant be. He's British and is stuck there. Your just mad because, in addition to German bases, we'll be closing both the airforce bases there in England. So therefore you British blokes are going to lose alot of money also.

It's ok to want to be American, the whole world wants to be

It's stupid commentary and embarrassing to hear other Americans with that kind of attitude.

 

[Westy]

And even that character is decended from immigrants to the Continent...

Here's some real American natives...

I present....



Prairie Grass!

Few realize that prairie grass descended from the seeds in ancient 12 grain bread that was dropped here by visiting Venuetians.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Few realize that prairie grass descended from the seeds in ancient 12 grain bread that was dropped here by visiting Venuetians.

!!!

 

[llkoolkeg]

Inspired by this 'put-down' in another thread:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
See, there you have a perfect example of a person who has country envy. He wishes he was american, but he cant be. He's British and is stuck there. Your just mad because, in addition to German bases, we'll be closing both the airforce bases there in England. So therefore you British blokes are going to lose alot of money also.

It's ok to want to be American, the whole world wants to be
----------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a strange belief. I have nothing against Americans and I'd would hope they are glad to be American. I do find it a little odd that some of you need to justify yourselves this way, however. And can you really believe it?

By the way, if I wanted to be American I would be.

Why is it such a stretch to believe that people want to be identified with #1? "Be like Mike", remember? If being #1 did not make you the envy of the all around you, then don't you think more people would have been wearing Buffalo Bills jerseys during the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty? Wait, let me revise my example...who sells more jerseys- Arsenal or Everton? If second is so darn good, why was the U.S.S.R. so disappointed with the silver medal earned for their cold war performance? Despite what we may wish to believe about competition, winning is the most important thing to most people and most people tend to see themselves as "winners" and try to emulate those most successful.

As far as being an American if you wanted to be, I say give it time. Few investors jump on the bandwagon when the stock's trading low. As soon as things turn around for us, our friends will erupt from the woodwork more quickly than Mike Tyson's vanished with his declaration of bankruptcy. Remember those American Flag denim and leather jackets? Don't send 'em to the consignment shop just yet...

Also, for the record, sometimes inflammatory comments or retorts are lobbed over the oceans simply because it is amusing to witness active denial or just to get at the goat of people who view the continued existance of soverign nations as nothing but conservative reluctance to let go the familiar reins of tribalism.

 

[fluff]

Why is it such a stretch to believe that people want to be identified with #1? "Be like Mike", remember? If being #1 did not make you the envy of the all around you, then don't you think more people would have been wearing Buffalo Bills jerseys during the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty? Wait, let me revise my example...who sells more jerseys- Arsenal or Everton? If second is so darn good, why was the U.S.S.R. so disappointed with the silver medal earned for their cold war performance? Despite what we may wish to believe about competition, winning is the most important thing to most people and most people tend to see themselves as "winners" and try to emulate those most successful.

As far as being an American if you wanted to be, I say give it time. Few investors jump on the bandwagon when the stock's trading low. As soon as things turn around for us, our friends will erupt from the woodwork more quickly than Mike Tyson's vanished with his declaration of bankruptcy. Remember those American Flag denim and leather jackets? Don't send 'em to the consignment shop just yet...

Also, for the record, sometimes inflammatory comments or retorts are lobbed over the oceans simply because it is amusing to witness active denial or just to get at the goat of people who view the continued existance of soverign nations as nothing but conservative reluctance to let go the familiar reins of tribalism.

I think you and I may have rather different value systems. What you consider winning is probably not of much concern to me and vice versa. The original comment is an example and I was not stung by it, simply puzzled that someone should assume that I want to be American. Buffalos, cowboys, everton or arsenal mean little to me. Why should I care much about other people's achievements in competition? It's not like I had any part to play or any share in it.

Are things really that bad for you? I thought you were doing OK. As for the clothes, I cannot throw out what I do not have.

I haven't a clue what your last sentence means.

 

[llkoolkeg]

I think you and I may have rather different value systems. What you consider winning is probably not of much concern to me and vice versa. The original comment is an example and I was not stung by it, simply puzzled that someone should assume that I want to be American. Buffalos, cowboys, everton or arsenal mean little to me. Why should I care much about other people's achievements in competition? It's not like I had any part to play or any share in it.

Are things really that bad for you? I thought you were doing OK. As for the clothes, I cannot throw out what I do not have.

I haven't a clue what your last sentence means.

1) Most likely. Probably true. Whoever said that was probably employing rhetoric because it is an effective tool, not necessarily a logical one. I don't say that you should care; I was merely saying most do, whether or not they admit it to themselves or others.

2) Personally speaking, things are tough at the moment for me: my job is morphing into something I no longer recognize, my infant daughter is very sick, I get less than 4 hours of sleep per night, I only have time to ride one day per week and like most guys, I could stand to get a little more nookie. That has little bearing on my opinions here, though, but thanks for caring.

3) International debate with evolved, border-erasing Europeans can be amusing when emotional pics play to their unconscious inferiority complex, i.e. many of your progressive thinkers view us as reckless coyboys intent on preserving the antiquated and anti-collective concepts nationalism and colonialism...so nothing irks you more than us smugly revelling in our caveman ways.

 

[RhinofromWA]

I could stand to get a little more nookie.

Like you ever could get enough.....neaky:

 

[fluff]

1) Most likely. Probably true. Whoever said that was probably employing rhetoric because it is an effective tool, not necessarily a logical one. I don't say that you should care; I was merely saying most do, whether or not they admit it to themselves or others.

2) Personally speaking, things are tough at the moment for me: my job is morphing into something I no longer recognize, my infant daughter is very sick, I get less than 4 hours of sleep per night, I only have time to ride one day per week and like most guys, I could stand to get a little more nookie. That has little bearing on my opinions here, though, but thanks for caring.

3) International debate with evolved, border-erasing Europeans can be amusing when emotional pics play to their unconscious inferiority complex, i.e. many of your progressive thinkers view us as reckless coyboys intent on preserving the antiquated and anti-collective concepts nationalism and colonialism...so nothing irks you more than us smugly revelling in our caveman ways.

Well, from all of that I hope things pick up for you, especially that your little girl gets well soon.

 

[N8 v2.0]

2) Personally speaking, things are tough at the moment for me: my job is morphing into something I no longer recognize, my infant daughter is very sick, I get less than 4 hours of sleep per night, I only have time to ride one day per week and like most guys, I could stand to get a little more nookie. That has little bearing on my opinions here, though, but thanks for caring.

Bummer man! Hope everything gets better for you and yours soon!

And I thought my day was sucking... I've got a house full of sheet-rock in the house I'm building and no shingles on the roof and rain, rain, fvcking rain going on and more in the forecast...

On the plus side, I've got all the wires for my 52" plasma run in the wall along with the surround system speakers...

 

[Skookum]

I present....



Prairie Grass!

i see your prairie grass and raise you....
T-REX!!!!!

I donno either... I chalk it up to misplaced frustration with 'holier than now' foreigners who feel obligated to be overly negative about all that the US does in order to make them feel better.

Funny you should make that statement and breeze over the subtle topic of Genocide which is intertwined with me posting Sitting Bull Cheif of the Lakota Sioux. It's funny how blind Americans are to how bad our **** stinks. But you got a point, Europe is far from innocent, i've often thought of taking a bunch of native brothers and invading Europe and putting them on reservations and making them speak Indian and take away their religion. But they're much to used to that so what would be the point....

 

[Serial Midget]

me three. i can't make up my mind of whether i should run for office when i'm old and grey and try to change the system, or simply pick up my junk and move somewhere else entirely (japan?)

Oh please - the Japanese are even worse than we are - the difference is that we communicate our national pride in a language that is commonly used in western nations - your average Japanese national and the American seldom communicate. However... while working and going to school in Denver I knew, associated and worked with many, many Japanese ex pats and students. To a one they all felt that anything Japanese was clearly superior to anything else anywhere in the world and they had no qualms about telling you so. It was so pervasive and annoy that I began to avoid anyone I thought was Japanese.

 

[Toshi]

Oh please - the Japanese are even worse than we are - the difference is that we communicate our national pride in a language that is commonly used in western nations - your average Japanese national and the American seldom communicate. However... while working and going to school in Denver I knew, associated and worked with many, many Japanese ex pats and students. To a one they all felt that anything Japanese was clearly superior to anything else anywhere in the world and they had no qualms about telling you so. It was so pervasive and annoy that I began to avoid anyone I thought was Japanese.

hehe, that is true. japanese are intensely nationalistic and more than a bit xenophobic. they also have a national health care system, low violence and a culture that i tend to prefer, on the other hand.

 

[Serial Midget]

hehe, that is true. japanese are intensely nationalistic and more than a bit xenophobic. they also have a national health care system, low violence and a culture that i tend to prefer, on the other hand.

Yeah... I've heard that before... I hope it's all you expect it to be.

 

[Toshi]

Yeah... I've heard that before... I hope it's all you expect it to be.

i'll probably never make it over there for real tho. my reading level is about 1st grade (<-- pointing at me, heh) and i'm only half japanese after all...

 

[MikeD]

Japanese people in Japan are really freaked out by people who look Japanese, but don't speak it fluently. It's pretty funny if you happen to be over there with a Japanese-American; sit back and watch the confusion start. On the other hand, when a bunch of friends were being as noticably loud on a quiet Japanese subway as only Americans can be, we were pretty startled when the closest Japanese businessman looked up at my friend and asked in accentless English, "Is that a tin of dip in your back pocket? Man, I haven't had one in years; would you mind?" He was very happy to find it was Copenhagen long-cut, his old favorite (from when he worked in Seattle.)

Anyhow, back to American narcissism, it kind of comes down to believing your own bullsh*t...this happens in the Marines all the time, when people get arrogant not because of what they've done to become who they are, but inversely, because of the rhetoric that constantly surrounds them.

On the other hand, it annoys me to no end that Europeans roundly forget or ignore that they are 100% responsible for the post-colonial disaster that is today's world. I'm not going to defend (or engage in debate online, just because that's not a freedom of speech I feel I have at the moment) America's current handling of said disaster, but it's funny how it's American arrogance that's always blamed as the seed of the world's troubles, when it's generally easy to see that the world was carved up arbitrarily and set off-balance culturally and politically in the 19th and early 20th centuries by Europeans who have since vacated the premises, withdrawn to an insular Europe, and begun throwing barbs at America as often as possible.

Skookum, I say round up the boys and have at it...but if you do seize San Diego back enroute to Europe, just make sure we get casino privledges, OK?

MD

 

[genpowell71]

Don't worry he's not a real american anyways.....

Actually numbnvts my grandmother is Cherokee...

And I'm not narcissistic, I'm just proud to be an American. Anyone who lives in theis country ought to be proud to be what they are. Yes, our leaders smoke trouser trout. But I'm still awed at all the sacrifices that our forefathers made to get us this far, not to mention all the sacrifices we make to keep us on top. So if loving my country is wrong, then I dont wanna be right baby!!!!

 

[Toshi]

Japanese people in Japan are really freaked out by people who look Japanese, but don't speak it fluently. It's pretty funny if you happen to be over there with a Japanese-American; sit back and watch the confusion start. On the other hand, when a bunch of friends were being as noticably loud on a quiet Japanese subway as only Americans can be, we were pretty startled when the closest Japanese businessman looked up at my friend and asked in accentless English, "Is that a tin of dip in your back pocket? Man, I haven't had one in years; would you mind?" He was very happy to find it was Copenhagen long-cut, his old favorite (from when he worked in Seattle.)

heh, nice story. i have definitely encountered the first phenomenon, as my spoken japanese is good enough (when in practice -- vocab is very flighty and vacates the memory banks quickly ) that i can fool shopkeepers and most people for at least a few seconds, enough to get through typical daily transactions certainly. the amusing point comes when/if they finally realize, and ask "you're ... american?"

i'm not sure if i could live with the outsider status that comes with that, but then again living in the country would surely motivate me to learn the language much more than the "threat" of a bad grade in school.

and, finally, yes, i completely agree with MikeD's assessment that arrogance in all of these groups (colleges especially) arises largely if not entirely from internal reinforcement of the "we're the best!" attitude. i'll attempt to post a nytimes article on this subject that was quite entertaining

It Takes a Tribe

August 1, 2004
By DAVID BERREBY

WHEN the budding pundit Walter Lippmann coined the term
''stereotype'' back in 1922, he offered several examples
from the America of his time: ''Agitator.''
''Intellectual.'' ''South European.'' ''From the Back
Bay.'' You know, he told the reader, when a glimpse and a
word or two create a full mental picture of a whole group
of people. As in ''plutocrat.'' Or ''foreigner.'' Or
''Harvard man.''

Harvard man? We know, thanks to Lippmann, that stereotypes
are part of serious problems like racism, prejudice and
injustice. What is Lippmann's alma mater doing on such a
list? (He even added: ''How different from the statement,
'He is a Yale man.''')

Spend time on a campus in coming weeks, though, and you'll
see what he meant.

At colleges across the country, from Ivy League to less
exclusive state schools, students who are mispronouncing
the library's name this month will soon feel truly and
deeply a part of their college. They'll be singing their
school songs and cherishing the traditions (just as soon as
they learn what they are). They'll talk the way ''we'' do.
(Going to Texas A&M? Then greet people with a cheerful
''howdy.'') They'll learn contempt for that rival
university -- Oklahoma to their Texas, Sacramento State to
their U.C. Davis, Annapolis to their West Point.

They may come to believe, too, that an essential trait
separates them from the rest of humanity -- the same sort
of feeling most Americans have about races, ethnic groups
and religions. As the writer Christopher Buckley said
recently in his college's alumni magazine: ''When I run
into a Yale man I somehow feel that I am with a kindred
spirit. A part of that kindred-ness comes from his
gentility and his not being all jumped up about it. It's a
certain sweetness of character.''

All this sentiment comes on fast (a study last year at Ivy
League campuses found freshmen even more gung-ho than older
students). Yet college loyalty, encouraged by alumni
relations offices, can last a lifetime -- as enduring as
the Princeton tiger tattooed on the buttock of former
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, or the Yale sweater
sported by evil Mr. Burns on ''The Simpsons,'' a number of
whose writers went to Harvard.

New identities are forged within the university as well, in
elite groups like Skull and Bones at Yale or the Corps of
Cadets at Texas A&M or Michigamua at the University of
Michigan; in sororities and fraternities; even in
particular majors and particular labs. Students don't just
attend a college; they join its tribes.

''What endlessly impresses me is people losing sight of how
arbitrary it is,'' says Robert M. Sapolsky, a Stanford
biologist who specializes in the links between social life
and stress. ''Students understand how readily they could
have wound up at another school or wound up in another
lab.'' Yet every year, he adds, ''they fall for it.'' For
most, what Professor Sapolsky calls that ''nutty but
palpable'' onset of college tribalism is just a part of
campus life. For social scientists, it's an object of
research, offering clues to a fundamental and puzzling
aspect of human nature: People need to belong, to feel a
part of ''us.'' Yet a sense of ''us'' brings with it a
sense of ''them.''

Human beings will give a lot, including their lives, for a
group they feel part of -- for ''us,'' as in ''our nation''
or ''our religion.'' They will also harm those labeled
''them,'' including taking their lives. Far as genocide and
persecution seem from fraternity hazings and Cal versus
Stanford, college tribes may shed light on the way the mind
works with those other sorts of groups, the ones that shape
and misshape the world, like nation, race, creed, caste or
culture.

After all, a college campus is full of people inventing a
sense of ''us'' and a sense of ''them.'' As one junior at
the University of California, Los Angeles, told her school
paper before a game against the University of Southern
California: ''School spirit is important because it gives
us a sense of belonging and being a part of something
bigger. Besides,'' she said, ''U.S.C. sucks in every way.''

In an e-mail interview, Professor Sapolsky writes that
''Stanford students (and faculty) do tons of this, at every
possible hierarchical level.'' For instance, he says, they
see Stanford versus Harvard, and Stanford versus the
University of California at Berkeley. ''Then, within
Stanford, all the science wonks doing tribal stuff to
differentiate themselves from the fuzzies -- the
humanities/social science types. Then within the sciences,
the life science people versus the chemistry/physics/math
geeks.'' Within the life sciences, he adds, the two tribes
are ''bio majors and majors in what is called 'human
biology' -- former deprecated as being robotic pre-meds,
incapable of thinking, just spitting out of factoids;
latter as fuzzies masquerading as scientists.''

Recent research on students suggests these changes in
perception aren't trivial. A few years ago, a team of
social psychologists asked students at the University of
California at Santa Barbara to rank various collections of
people in terms of how well they ''qualify as a group.'' In
their answers, ''students at a university'' ranked above
''citizens of a nation.'' ''Members of a campus committee''
and ''members of a university social club'' ranked higher
than ''members of a union'' or ''members of a political
party,'' romantic couples or office colleagues working
together on a project. For that matter, ''students at a
university'' and ''members of a campus committee'' ranked
well above blacks and Jews in the students' estimation of
what qualifies as a group.

Much of this thinking, researchers have found, is
subconscious. We may think we care about our college ties
for good and sensible reasons -- wonderful classes!
dorm-room heart-to-hearts! job connections! -- when the
deeper causes are influences we didn't notice.

part 1, part 2 coming up

 

[Toshi]

part 2

Some 20 years ago, researchers asked students at Rutgers to
describe themselves using only words from a set of cards
prepared in advance. Some cards contained words associated
with Rutgers, like ''scarlet,'' the school color, and
''knight,'' the name of its athletic teams. Others, like
''orange,'' were associated with archrival Princeton. Some
students took the test in a room decorated with a Rutgers
pennant; others took it under a Princeton flag. A third
group saw only a New York Yankees banner.

Students who saw a Princeton or Rutgers emblem were more
likely to use Rutgers-related words to describe themselves.
They also mentioned that they were students at Rutgers
earlier than those who saw only the neutral flag. They
didn't consciously decide to stand up for Rutgers. Outside
their conscious minds, though, that identity was in place,
ready to be released by symbols of the tribe.

More recently, three social psychologists at Harvard looked
at another example of subconscious tribal beliefs. Mahzarin
R. Banaji, who led the study, argues that people in
similar, equivalent groups will place those groups into a
hierarchy, from best to worst, even when there is no
rational basis for ranking them. The psychologists tested
Yale sophomores, juniors and seniors, who live and eat
together in ''residential colleges.'' Students know that
these colleges are effectively all alike and that people
are assigned to them at random. Still, the team found,
Yalies did indeed rank them from best to worst. (In the
interests of peace and comity, the colleges were kept
anonymous.) Moreover, students assigned to the less
prestigious units were less enthusiastic about their homes
than those from the ones with a better reputation.

What this suggests, Professor Banaji says, is that taking
one's place in a tribe, and accepting the tribe's place in
a larger society, are mental acts that happen regardless of
the group's purpose or meaning. Once people see that
they've been divided into groups, they'll act accordingly,
even if they know that the divisions are as meaningless as,
oh, the University of Arizona versus Arizona State. ''We
know that human beings identify with social groups,
sometimes sufficiently to kill or die on their behalf,''
she says. ''What is not as well known is that such identity
between self and group can form rapidly, often following a
psychological route that is relatively subconscious. That
is, like automata, we identify with the groups in which we
are accidentally placed.''

Not all researchers agree that people care about so-called
nonsense groups with the same passion they give to
religion, politics or morals. Another theory holds that the
subconscious mind can distinguish which groups matter and
how much. One example comes from a much-cited experiment,
performed, naturally, on college students.

In 1959, the social psychologists Elliot Aronson and Judson
Mills asked undergraduate women to join a discussion group
after a short initiation. For one set of participants the
initiation required reciting a few mild sexual words. The
other group had to say a list of much saltier words about
sex, which embarrassed them no end (remember, this was
1959). The discussion group was dull as dishwater, but the
women who suffered to join rated it as much more valuable
than those who had a mild initiation (and higher than a
control group that didn't have to do anything).

A subconscious clue for perceiving a tribe as real and
valuable, then, may be expending sweat, tears and
embarrassment to get in. The political activist Tom Hayden
recently recalled just such a rite at the University of
Michigan, in an article on the left-wing Web site
alternet.org. He was complaining about the lock that Skull
and Bones has on November's election (President Bush and
the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, are members).

''As a junior, I was tapped for the Druids,'' Mr. Hayden
wrote about his own campus clan, ''which involved a two-day
ritual that included being stripped to my underpants,
pelted with eggs, smeared with red dye and tied to a campus
tree. These humiliations signified my rebirth from lowly
student journalist to Big Man on Campus.''

As for Professor Aronson, had he not wanted tight control
over the experiment, he writes in his widely used textbook,
''The Social Animal,'' he and Professor Mills could simply
have studied an initiation outside the lab -- at a campus
fraternity or sorority.

THAT kind of lumping together -- studying one group to
explain another -- drives scholars in other fields to
distraction. To them, a pep rally is different from a
political rally. Historians, trained to see big
generalizations as meaningless, are often aghast at the way
psychologists' theories about groups ignore the difference
between, say, today's two-gendered, multiethnic and
meritocratic Harvard College and the one that gave Lippmann
his degree in 1909. And anthropologists for generations
have disdained psychology for ignoring cultural
differences.

But one fact is clear, and college groups exemplify it
well: While many creatures live in groups, humanity's are
unlike anything else found in nature. Peter Richerson, a
biologist at Sacramento State's rival, the University of
California at Davis, likes to point out that his students,
sitting quietly together on the first day of class, are an
amazing exception to the general rules of animal behavior.
Put chimpanzees or monkeys that don't know one another in a
room, and they would be in hysterics. People team up with
strangers easily.

Professor Richerson and his longtime collaborator, Robert
Boyd, an anthropologist at U.S.C.'s hated enemy, U.C.L.A.,
argue that we will sign up for membership in tribelike
groups for the same reason birds sing: It feels right
because we evolved to do it. ''We want to live in tribes,''
Professor Richerson says. Humans are ''looking to be told
what group they belong to, and then once they do that, they
want to know, 'What are the rules?'''

The tricky part, says Professor Sapolsky of Stanford,
Cal-Berkeley's bitter rival, is that humans alone among
animals can think about what a tribe is and who belongs.
''Humans actually think about who is an 'us' and who is a
'them' rather than just knowing it,'' he says. ''The second
it becomes a cognitive process, it is immensely subject to
manipulation.''

And, of course, studying the phenomenon won't make you
immune. ''I'm true blue,'' says Professor Banaji, who
taught at Yale from 1986 until 2002, when she joined the
Harvard faculty. ''I was physically unable to sit through a
women's basketball game between Harvard and Yale on the
Harvard side.''

David Berreby's book, ''Us and Them: Understanding Your
Tribal Mind,'' will be published next year by Little, Brown
& Company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/education/edlife/01EDTRIB.html?ex=1092561356&ei=1&en=6feec2872e11d70b

 

[Skookum]

Actually numbnvts my grandmother is Cherokee...

AHAHAHAHA!

That is such a typical response....... You wanna know how many white people claim Cherokee? Well let's just say so much it's a running joke among natives. Just helping to put you in the know Skippy.....

Beyond that i can agree that there are many positive things that our forefathers have done. Just because we can look at the bad doesn't mean we have to discount the good certainly, but for some reason with most people all they want to look at is the good, or haven't been informed of the bad.
Regardless dwelling on history isn't what's going to heal wounds but learning from it can. So if someone from Europe is gonna harp critisism let's not worry about if they are actually using the advice they're doling out. But blurting out nationalistic nonsense and being arrogant is foolhardy. The U.S. will soon be joining Europe in my opinion in complaining when China becomes the strongest world power and it's foreign policy starts effecting us negatively.

 

[N8 v2.0]

My sister is 100% pueblo indian from the Santa Clara pueblo just south of Santa Fe, NM.

So... what does it mean for me? Free passes to Casino events?

 

[Skookum]

My sister is 100% pueblo indian from the Santa Clara pueblo just south of Santa Fe, NM.

So... what does it mean for me? Free passes to Casino events?

No it really doesn't work that way unfortunately. Kind of like if you're brother is gay you'd figure you might get free drinks at the gay bar... but then again if you give a wink or two you'd be suprised at what you can get.....

 

[N8 v2.0]

No it really doesn't work that way unfortunately. Kind of like if you're brother is gay you'd figure you might get free drinks at the gay bar... but then again if you give a wink or two you'd be suprised at what you can get.....

humm.... speaking from experience?

 

[Tenchiro]

My parents like umm drive a Cherokee...

 

[MikeD]

And my great-great uncle's brother's stepsister was a GRAND Cherokee...so eat that, Tench!

 

[jdcamb]

....Just helping to put you in the know Skippy.....

Skippy.....thats funny......

 

[Skookum]

humm.... speaking from experience?

unlike you i try to make up examples that my adversaries can clearly understand.

 

[narlus]

hey toshi, if the US had national health care would you still enter the field of medicine?

skooks, nice one.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

wait a minute. i´ve read a lot of times here that "OUR forefathers"., or references to "OUR" heritage from late americans.

one question i´ve been wondering.

do anyone here has a root or relative in any of the mayflower pilgrims?? or at least a close relative whose actions shaped the US thru history as we know it now???

what is exactly "OUR forefathers" if say, you grandad is italian, and grandmom is irish???

say i move definately to the US, and my grandchildren talk about "THEIR forefathers" or are proud for something Franklin did.
how does franklin relates to my grandkids in a way they should be proud of, other than having an oportunistic grandfather who got a job here and stayed????

how can i be proud of the actions of somebody whose relationship, or degrees of separation from me are bigger than the average for all humans?? should i be proud of the old UN secretary who happened to be born in the same city as I and went to the same elementary-high school as i did??? is that relationship enough for me to inflate my chest and scream AM PROUD??? what about if i move to france and have a kid in paris... should he be proud and inflate his chest on HIS responsability as a representant from the city of lights? or be ashamed if he happened to be born in nuremberg???

 

[Tenchiro]

wait a minute. i´ve read a lot of times here that "OUR forefathers"., or references to "OUR" heritage from late americans.

one question i´ve been wondering.

do anyone here has a root or relative in any of the mayflower pilgrims?? or at least a close relative whose actions shaped the US thru history as we know it now???

Like 15-20 years ago my mom & her family traced our lineage back to 15th century England. We came to America if not on the Mayflower then soon afterwards as the Peabody's. We came west and helped settle the Northwest as the Caruther's.

There is even have a street named after us in Portland, OR.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Like 15-20 years ago my mom & her family traced our lineage back to 15th century England. We came to America if not on the Mayflower then soon afterwards as the Peabody's. We came west and helped settle the Northwest as the Caruther's.

There is even have a street named after us in Portland, OR.

great you are as american as it can get, but what % of your genealogy is this way?? is the entire family tree traced to the original colonists?? or is just one branch that goes that way??

if 3 out of your 4 grandparents can be traced to the original colonist or to the original people who shaped this country, well dude you are truly as american as it can get.

but even so, how many more in the the 250 mill of americans are like that???