As far as I know, the Klan has never heaped accolades (or honorary memberships in the Klan Auxiliary) on the black on black violence perpetrators. It would be interesting to see the effect if they did and it was heavily reported.

(February 8, 2015 at 4:17 pm)Pizz-atheist Wrote: I know I have mixed feelings about being half-Mexican since I've grown up around racists in my family (my mother's side(white) since my dad(Mexican) left when I was young and don't know my dad's side) and peers. Now racism doesn't have to be rednecks lynching people. Racism is often passive-aggressive in polite society like making comments about Mexicans that have a negative emotive connotation.

Goddamned straight.

(February 8, 2015 at 5:06 pm)Norman Humann Wrote: Btw, Alex, I heard that many people in Germany are ashamed to sing their national anthem because of its connotations with fascism. Is it true or was it a bunch of boloney?

Possible. Any show of patriotism and flag waving - outside football, where it is the norm - is frowned upon in polite society. This probably includes singing the anthem for some. However, connecting the black red and golden flag and the national anthem to Nazism is silly and ahistorical. The message of the parts of the anthem which are still sung is actually quite nice compared to other anthems. The verses where the old borders are mentioned going through neighboring eastern and western european countries (von der Maas bis an die Memel...), and the virtues of german wenches and wine are praised, is simply not sung any more and that's that as far as I am concerned. The music was written by Haydn of course, and the use as an anthem goes back to the Austrian Emperor.

I think, from what I heard, people still sing the anthem, but there are just parts that have been cut out. Is that right?

(February 9, 2015 at 1:29 am)Losty Wrote: I think, from what I heard, people still sing the anthem, but there are just parts that have been cut out. Is that right?

Yup, exactly, as I said, it would be considered impolite by some to still claim the old eastern Prussian lands, which are now Russia, Poland, Latvia... as part of Germany

But it is still not sung on as many occasions as the star sprangled banner for example, not even close

"Impolite", yeah :p

So Germany is the exact opposite of the US on the flag waving spectrum. it's funny since the US is much younger and became a nation much more recently.

(February 9, 2015 at 1:54 am)Norman Humann Wrote: "Impolite", yeah :p

So Germany is the exact opposite of the US on the flag waving spectrum.

Indeed, pretty much the opposite end.

Quote:it's funny since the US is much younger and became a nation much more recently.

It depends on how you count, though. What would you consider the beginning of the german nation?

The creation of the national anthem, or more generally the Deutschlandlied, by von Fallersleben, in the 1840s, falls into an epoch where Europe (apart from england and france or so) was, as you probably know better than me, divided into an uncountable number of duchies and kingdoms and what have you, with some Napoleon thrown in. The "national" movement to unify Germany as a single nation state was the progressive party back then - as opposed to today where nationalism is considered conservative regressive.

The creation of the unified German state out of the (Nord)deutsche Bund, the kingdom of Bavaria etc dates to 1871. The United States hence have a 100 years more of unified "national" history behind them if you count like that. Although... of course the US of the 1780s looked much different from today, which still shows in the separatist tendencies of some southern states *cough texas cough*, doesn't it If you count starting from the civil war, it's the same age, interestingly.

If you count the German "holy roman empire" as the beginning (which was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire, as Voltaire remarked), we go waaaaaay back. But then we'd have to sing a hymn to emperor Otto or something The consensus opinion seems to be that the people living in and running the holy roman empire didn't really feel a strong national unity and identified more with their local tribe, the rulers being more interested in their particular small patches on the map, and relations between noble families, than a unified german nation.

I find English patriots (football fans) embarressing because they add an extra syllable.

"In-ger-lund"

(February 9, 2015 at 4:51 am)robvalue Wrote: I find English patriots (football fans) embarressing because they add an extra syllable.

"In-ger-lund"

Funny enough, in Germany the exact opposite was observed - the de facto official slogan during the 2006 world cup came to be

"Schlaaaaaand"

instead of Deutschland, which was created incidentally because when chanting Deutsch-Laaaand, the first part remained mostly inaudible in stadiums. In the end though, it was mostly used with ironic undertones.

(February 8, 2015 at 10:49 pm)IATIA Wrote: My parents raised six children with that saying and we all turned out just fine. We are not racist nor do we give a shit what deragotory terms or names are thrown around. We learned to consider the source and move on.

My mother raised me by calling me stupid, ugly and a slut among other things. No matter how hard I try, I can't remove that mental tape player that tells me that I am those things. Logically I know they are wrong but I still have a tendency to blame myself when things go wrong. Words hurt. I can't imagine what it does to a child's self image to hear repeatedly that the race that they are born into is somehow of less worth than another race