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the jizz taxi posted:Speaking of which, apparently something odd is happening in the Pas-de-Calais and Nord region since they decided to offer Dutch courses. The traditional dialect of the Dunkirk area is West-Flemish and only old people speak it, but the young people who learn Dutch get taught Standard Dutch, meaning that they probably still can't communicate with their grandparents! France continues its very impressive history of not understanding other languages at all.
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Sep 6, 2013 13:17
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a pipe smoking dog posted:People always seem very surprised by how widespread Welsh is. I was talking to one of my English friends the other day who'd been to Wales for a holiday (I live in Manchester) and he was amazed that when he went into shops and restaurants people would speak in Welsh first until he told them that he was English. I lived in central Wales for some years and, while many people (mostly older people) could speak Welsh, the primary language was very much English. Even in the supposedly-Welsh-dominated north and north-west, English was the dominant language. Not impossible that it's changed in the last 15 years, though.
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Sep 6, 2013 13:50
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the jizz taxi posted:True as that may be, those areas shouldn't be monocoloured though. I suspect that a majority of people in Wales still has English as a first language, and that would be even more true for Scotland and Ireland. It's like how they colour the northwestern corner of France as Dutch-speaking, while in reality only a minority of people there has Dutch as a first language. On the Eurominority map they're not monocolored, they're labeled as existing only as bilingual speakers. On the 19th century map the people in rural Wales may have been monolingual speakers, I'm not sure. That said, on the Eurominority map it's not really clear what warrants stripes and what warrants dots. I'll shoot the guy an email and ask.
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Sep 6, 2013 14:01
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Phlegmish posted:The reality is that racism in Western Europe is mostly systemic and institutional in nature. It rarely involves outright violence or confrontation and is instead perpetuated through more subtle forms of exclusion and discrimination. Just like in the United States. Sorry if this doesn't fit into your American-exceptionalist worldview, I know I shouldn't have encouraged it in the first place. I can't speak about the violence thing but it is without a doubt way less subtle in Europe. And I don't think it has to do with American exceptionalism, it's more of a new world thing in general since ethnic nationalism doesn't make as much sense here. There's still plenty of racism but even in the more racially charged countries like the US or Brazil or Bolivia, you don't see "Nationalist" parties getting representation the way they do in Europe (insert joke about republicans). I'm not saying racism is less violent or even less prevalent in America since I haven't lived in western Europe, but it's almost definitely less overt and less visible in the media/politics.
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Sep 6, 2013 14:18
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the jizz taxi posted:True as that may be, those areas shouldn't be monocoloured though. I suspect that a majority of people in Wales still has English as a first language, and that would be even more true for Scotland and Ireland. It's like how they colour the northwestern corner of France as Dutch-speaking, while in reality only a minority of people there has Dutch as a first language. The areas of Wales and Scotland which the map says have billingual speakers have roadsigns in both languages (by law), shop signs in both languages, official documents in both languages etc. I believe there are one or two islands in the west of Scotland where the council actually holds their meetings in Gaelic, and I suspect similar things happen in Wales (especially as Welsh is still "a thing" in Wales; in Scotland Gaelic is "not really a thing, well maybe sort of a thing, I mean I know someone who met someone who speaks it but they're a bit weird". Then again, maybe that's racist!
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Sep 6, 2013 14:58
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Placid Marmot posted:I lived in central Wales for some years and, while many people (mostly older people) could speak Welsh, the primary language was very much English. Even in the supposedly-Welsh-dominated north and north-west, English was the dominant language. Even if north and northwest Wales was really dominated by Welsh speakers, the large majority of the population lives in South Wales.
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Sep 6, 2013 17:50
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PittTheElder posted:Just put "Canadian". If we get a couple million of you guys to do it, surely some Republican politician will go on a retarded rant about a Canadian Bacon-esque plot to subvert America. There are around 700,000 Canadians living the US, so I'm surprised it's never spoken about.
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Sep 6, 2013 19:59
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sbaldrick posted:There are around 700,000 Canadians living the US, so I'm surprised it's never spoken about. They're basically Americans anyway. Whose really gonna complain?
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Sep 6, 2013 20:01
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Barudak posted:They're basically Americans anyway. Whose really gonna complain? They also tend to show up to take really good jobs (which is why my family moved there)
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Sep 6, 2013 20:12
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One can only imagine how much more widespread Sami would be if we didn't run the oppressive Norwegianisation of the Sami people up to the middle of the 1900s. ulvir fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Sep 6, 2013 |
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Sep 6, 2013 21:08
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Shbobdb posted:The whole anti-Roma thing is so . . . strange. When I lived in Germany, I got attacked by a group of three kids, couldn't have been older than ten because I was a "Gypsie". I'm not, I look like an Eastern European/Eastern European Jew. Funny how our anecdotes correlate. When I was on a school trip to Rome nearly 20 years ago I was threatened with a knife and almost robbed by three kids that age, only they called me "gajo" and got their asses handed to them when two of my more violence prone classmates showed up. Yours must have happened later, because at the time I didn`t think of them as roma, but rather southern italian because of their darker skintone. I doubt any german kid at that time knew what a "Zigeuner" supposedly looks like. Regarding anecdotes about Roma, I can relate quite a few from my Central European friends, family and colleagues that I was told when trying to understand the for me initially shockingly common anti-ziganism. I still don`t condone it and try to counter it with my own positive roma-anecdote(which I also have), but I at least understand where the anti-ziganism is coming from on a personal level.
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Sep 6, 2013 22:22
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Soviet Commubot posted:That said, on the Eurominority map it's not really clear what warrants stripes and what warrants dots. I'll shoot the guy an email and ask. The guy got back to me, he says the dots are to indicate areas which have historically had a few speakers of the minority language but isn't considered the language's "motherland".
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Sep 7, 2013 14:15
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goethe42 posted:Funny how our anecdotes correlate. When I was on a school trip to Rome nearly 20 years ago I was threatened with a knife and almost robbed by three kids that age, only they called me "gajo" and got their asses handed to them when two of my more violence prone classmates showed up. It's really a weird thing. I'm Portuguese and I know lots of Spanish and Italian people, and racism against gypsies is ubiquitous and socially accepted. In Portuguese we even say "don't be a gypsy" whenever somebody is trying somehow to cheat somebody, and it isn't perceived as bigoted. However, playing devil's advocate, gypsies rarely get an education or integrate with the rest of the society. They are overrepresented in what concerns criminal statistics. It is "well known" that according to "their" culture it is okay to steal and cheat non-gypsies, and that their culture is parasitic, etc. Does this already sound racist? I don't know a single south-European person who doesn't think like this to some extent.
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Sep 7, 2013 15:08
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AndreTheGiantBoned posted:However, playing devil's advocate, gypsies rarely get an education or integrate with the rest of the society. They are overrepresented in what concerns criminal statistics. It is "well known" that according to "their" culture it is okay to steal and cheat non-gypsies, and that their culture is parasitic, etc. Does this already sound racist? I don't know a single south-European person who doesn't think like this to some extent. People do think like that, indeed, not just in the South (see my previous post in this thread). And they always have an anecdote about how a Roma teenager yelled at them once, and that somehow justifies their prejudices. But it is very much bigoted. Any group that finds itself on the fringes becomes overrepresented in criminal statistics, and we are talking about a group that has been marshalled around Europe for centuries and found exclusivism and hatred wherever they appeared.
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Sep 7, 2013 15:28
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Starks posted:There's still plenty of racism but even in the more racially charged countries like the US or Brazil or Bolivia, you don't see "Nationalist" parties getting representation the way they do in Europe (insert joke about republicans). One of the core tenets of fascism is that a nation is bound by racial or ethnic bonds stretching back centuries or millennia. It's very much an "Old World" thing because the oldest states in the Americas are only a couple hundred years old and most of them only came into being because of a large number of old world migrants. Funnily enough the groups in Americas that were most inclined towards fascism back when it wasn't immediately synonomous with evil were native american groups such as the American Indian Federation, what with aboriginal groups having national histories going back thousands of years. Basically, being young nations largely composed of a hodgepodge of immigrants from all over the Old World makes the New World less disposed towards renegade nationalism. At least that's what I think.
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Sep 7, 2013 19:52
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AndreTheGiantBoned posted:It's really a weird thing. I'm Portuguese and I know lots of Spanish and Italian people, and racism against gypsies is ubiquitous and socially accepted. In Portuguese we even say "don't be a gypsy" whenever somebody is trying somehow to cheat somebody, and it isn't perceived as bigoted.
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Sep 7, 2013 20:45
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Fojar38 posted:One of the core tenets of fascism is that a nation is bound by racial or ethnic bonds stretching back centuries or millennia. It's very much an "Old World" thing because the oldest states in the Americas are only a couple hundred years old and most of them only came into being because of a large number of old world migrants. Funnily enough the groups in Americas that were most inclined towards fascism back when it wasn't immediately synonomous with evil were native american groups such as the American Indian Federation, what with aboriginal groups having national histories going back thousands of years. Ehh. Certain interpretations of fascism were all the rage in Latin America, with for example the Brazilian Integralist movement going all in for the Italian style of fascism, and dictator/president/fascinating character all around Gétulio Vargas cultivating a similar populist movement too.
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Sep 7, 2013 20:57
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The United States wasn't really except either. You had "nativist" movements which were all about discriminating against anyone who wasn't a good Anglo-Saxon protestant.
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Sep 7, 2013 22:15
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The KKK, especially the second wave that rose to prominence in the 20's-30's, seems to fit the Fascist bill to me.
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Sep 7, 2013 22:22
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AndreTheGiantBoned posted:It's really a weird thing. I'm Portuguese and I know lots of Spanish and Italian people, and racism against gypsies is ubiquitous and socially accepted. In Portuguese we even say "don't be a gypsy" whenever somebody is trying somehow to cheat somebody, and it isn't perceived as bigoted. Yeah, it's similar here in the UK, with a lot of people I know thinking Roma do have it tough at times but that they "are not helping themselves" or whatever. It's fairly widely accepted that it's not okay to be racist, but a lot of people seem to think that if something is 'true' it can't be racist and then they just have to believe something to be true and it's all okay in their minds. My own Roma anecdote is that we were at a gas station once when a Roma woman tried to sell us some jewelry. We said no, she asked again, we said no again, that was it. It's... hard to summon much hatred or bigotry from that, but I guess some people manage it with even less!
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Sep 7, 2013 22:32
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Mister Adequate posted:Yeah, it's similar here in the UK, with a lot of people I know thinking Roma do have it tough at times but that they "are not helping themselves" or whatever. It's fairly widely accepted that it's not okay to be racist, but a lot of people seem to think that if something is 'true' it can't be racist and then they just have to believe something to be true and it's all okay in their minds.  Shows like Big Fat Gypsy Weddings don't really help, as they portray Gypsies/Irish Travellers in a manner virtually indistinguishable from Nazi propaganda (all the men value only drinking and fighting, all the women marry at 16 and live their entire lives in a caravan with a massive TV, neither are educated). It's almost impossible to find any positive coverage of Travellers in the media. Overt racism is normally frowned upon here, but that ad above initially passed before later being banned.
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Sep 7, 2013 22:59
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Mister Adequate posted:Yeah, it's similar here in the UK, with a lot of people I know thinking Roma do have it tough at times but that they "are not helping themselves" or whatever. It's fairly widely accepted that it's not okay to be racist, but a lot of people seem to think that if something is 'true' it can't be racist and then they just have to believe something to be true and it's all okay in their minds. I recall a Roma thread in D&D a year or two back where a number of otherwise reasonable European posters went balls to the wall Eurofreep and defended their bigotry with "but it's not like racist Americans and blacks, it's based in reality!" and got really mad when people didn't agree that this time it really is different. I don't think the thread lasted a whole day.
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Sep 7, 2013 23:17
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Soviet Commubot posted:I recall a Roma thread in D&D a year or two back where a number of otherwise reasonable European posters went balls to the wall Eurofreep and defended their bigotry with "but it's not like racist Americans and blacks, it's based in reality!" and got really mad when people didn't agree that this time it really is different. I don't think the thread lasted a whole day. 
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Sep 8, 2013 00:07
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It's not racist to say that Roma are pretty far removed from mainstream society and thus have a real hard time adapting to its customs and habits, which are frequently at odds with their own lifestyle. It is racist to say that they'd be naturally more inclined to do crime or whatever.
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Sep 8, 2013 00:16
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HEGEL CURES THESES posted:This page is on the way there though. I think that you're referring to my post. This is a very interesting thread and I don't want to derail it with bigotry or racism. Is a new thread about this subject worth it? Regarding replacing 'gypsy' with 'black' or 'jew', well, I had actually thought about it already. But I thought it was worth saying - because that's what people think and I have a really hard time trying not to think that way. And, once again, I think that the derail should stop here, and that map posting should be resumed.
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Sep 8, 2013 00:20
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AndreTheGiantBoned posted:I think that you're referring to my post. This is a very interesting thread and I don't want to derail it with bigotry or racism. Is a new thread about this subject worth it? Considering they just said that the last one didn't last more than a day, no.
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Sep 8, 2013 00:37
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the jizz taxi posted:It's not racist to say that Roma are pretty far removed from mainstream society and thus have a real hard time adapting to its customs and habits, which are frequently at odds with their own lifestyle. It is racist to say that they'd be naturally more inclined to do crime or whatever. Racism is absolutely not limited to a belief in biological differences. For example the internet's much beloved "I don't hate black people I just dislike black culture" is racism.
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Sep 8, 2013 01:30
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Here's a tongue in cheek map of how Americans view the world, drawn up to look like the game Risk. 
Ammat The Ankh fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 01:56
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Ammat The Ankh posted:Here's a tongue in cheek map of how Americans view the world, drawn up to look like the game Risk. I'm very curious as to the nationality of the person who drew it, thinking that the average American would know what a Belarus is nevermind identify it as the last dictatorship in Europe.
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Sep 8, 2013 02:45
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I know, I know, memes, but this world map is actually pretty clever and funnier than some other purportedly funny world maps.
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Sep 8, 2013 02:46
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Reveilled posted:I'm very curious as to the nationality of the person who drew it, thinking that the average American would know what a Belarus is nevermind identify it as the last dictatorship in Europe. I don't see Belarus  It looks like Belarus is in "COMMUNISM," which is just a Cold War joke.
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Sep 8, 2013 02:53
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I don't see Belarus The big swastika one is vaguely Belorussian in shape.
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Sep 8, 2013 03:32
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appropriatemetaphor posted:The big swastika one is vaguely Belorussian in shape. I thought that that was a humorously misshapen Germany, which has a way more obvious connection to the swastika.
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Sep 8, 2013 03:40
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Reveilled posted:I'm very curious as to the nationality of the person who drew it, thinking that the average American would know what a Belarus is nevermind identify it as the last dictatorship in Europe. I think that's just supposed to be generic Nazi-land. In any case it's an American who made it (or at least he lives in the U.S.).
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Sep 8, 2013 03:41
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Ammat The Ankh posted:Here's a tongue in cheek map of how Americans view the world, drawn up to look like the game Risk. It's not even a Risk map. 
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Sep 8, 2013 05:46
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Ukraine is strong.
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Sep 8, 2013 05:48
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Alternative History Risk?
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Sep 8, 2013 05:55
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Risk sucks. I mean I know you can only do so much with a board game aimed at the ages 12 to adult, but the damned thing is so terribly simplified that it becomes a chore simply to explain the many faults. It's still kinda fun, but there's waaaay better games of both strategy and tactics to play.
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Sep 8, 2013 06:48
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Basic Risk sucks, every other variant has a points system, and Risk Legacy is amazing.
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Sep 8, 2013 10:56
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Riso posted:Basic Risk sucks, every other variant has a points system, and Risk Legacy is amazing. Risk would be better if it was about collecting multi colored cubes, representing trade goods.
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Sep 8, 2013 11:07
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