this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Then that's what he should've led with. Not "well I never owned slaves"/"well my ancestors never owned slaves" (which he led out with both, and then the typical kyle "woe is me" response); as all of those comments are so immediately toxic that I'd believe that a milquetoast suburbanite Amerikan kyle was spitting them before anyone else. If you don't understand the necessity for my hypervigilance, and the hypervigilance of those like me about matters of seeming white supremacy, then you don't get the thrust of the assignment at all.
Actually, the more I mull this over, I don't get where any part of this meme needed to be responded to if it's the case that he's just straight up Russian with formerly-enslaved Russian ancestors. This is one of those things where if the shoe doesn't fit, you keep it pushing and keep your mouth shut; not crocodile-tear like you're play-acting kylery.
He asked what a certain, little known thing on the picture was since it is an incredibly niche thing that is virtually unknown outside the US. After he received an answer, everyone, including you, dogpiled on him like he was some random chud who was defending his families history and their right to slavery. Yes, he did get defensive with pretty poor choices of words, but it was probably overwhelming to get blamed for a lot of things that are completely irrelevant to himself and his family history.
He was just confused, then stated the basic fact of “Oh, my family didn’t own slaves”. Which, granted, is a very common conservative talking point; but in this situation it is funnily enough correct and I believe that he meant that earnestly and innocently. You can’t expect a person outside of the US to know about every modicum of American culture and know how to work around it.
Hyper vigilance is necessary, but it might be best to confirm suspicions first before going on the attack. That’ll just weird people out and alienate those who agree with you. Especially if you know little about the person and that person has been here for years without issue.
If he's Russian he can be proud of being Russian. They have a cool history and culture in their own right that can be celebrated without undermining other people. Why cling to being white when you can be Russian?
I agree, but I don’t think that he was clinging to or defending his whiteness, in fact on multiple occasions in the past Shrike has made his displeasure and hatred of being lumped into the “white” umbrella as he does not view himself as white.
If I’m reading why he’s trying to say correctly, I feel like he was more so exasperated of being lumped under the white umbrella with everyone else including Americans, and by extension he is now responsible for history and crimes that his ethnicity doesn’t have a sliver of connection to. That could definitely be extremely frustrating and almost erasing to a degree. It’s just extremely American-centric, and just lumping everyone under the same umbrella because they’re “white” in the American view.
fair enough.