Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Friday August 18 2017, @12:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the color-me...-anything dept.

Over at StatNews is a story on a recent trend where low cost commercial DNA testing is resulting in a number of White Nationalists taking genetic tests, and sometimes they don't like the results that come back.

The article looks at research on how they respond to the sometimes unexpected results:

[...] In a new study, sociologists Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan examined years' worth of posts on Stormfront to see how members dealt with the news.

[...] About a third of the people posting their results were pleased with what they found. "Pretty damn pure blood," said a user with the username Sloth. But the majority didn't find themselves in that situation. Instead, the community often helped them reject the test, or argue with its results.

Some rejected the tests entirely, saying that an individual's knowledge about his or her own genealogy is better than whatever a genetic test can reveal. [...] Others, he said, responded to unwanted genetic results by saying that those kinds of tests don't matter if you are truly committed to being a white nationalist. Yet others tried to discredit the genetic tests as a Jewish conspiracy "that is trying to confuse true white Americans about their ancestry," Panofsky said.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday August 18 2017, @05:37PM (7 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday August 18 2017, @05:37PM (#555993) Homepage Journal

    "Define "white culture." You can't"

    Sure I can. In the US (and we are specifically discussing US events here), you have a mix of all sorts of different groups. The ones who have been there a while have largely lost touch with wherever they came from. You just listed 9 nationalities in your background - that's great, you're a typical white American, the result of a successful melting pot. Your culture begins with the ancient Greeks and the Romans, carries through the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, includes the migration the the New World, and what has happened in the US since. That is your culture. You are not Norwegian or Ukrainian, you are an average white American of European ancestry. That is your culture. That is "white culture" in the US.

    Other groups in the US have different cultures, (or if you prefer, subcultures). Take Hispanics as an example: Even though they also ultimately have European roots, they have more recent ties to their origins in Central and South America. In many (most?) cases, they still speak Spanish, and have contact with family in their countries of origin. That is a different experience, leading to a different culture. American blacks, African blacks, Chinese, Japanese: other groups have their history, their own collective experiences, and hence own unique subcultures.

    Most groups are told: be proud of your culture! Be proud to be XYZ. The notable exception are the people in the ex-European group. If they display pride in their culture, they are called racist, and told that they need to atone for their privilege. People are getting tired of being told to atone for sins they never committed; they're just average folk, getting through life a day at a time, justlike anyone else.

    Call them racist for taking pride in their history, just one more time. Come on, do it. Bubba is gonna tell you where to stuff it. Which is basically how Trump got elected.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @06:25PM (2 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday August 18 2017, @06:25PM (#556015) Journal

    Ah, I see where you're going with this.

    Unfortunately, this "melting pot" means the bad as well as the good. This also means that my "culture" would include massive amounts of genocide and slavery, some of it within living memory, of the people who were here before us or who were forced to come here against their will by us. No thank you; none of my ancestors were involved in either the slave trade or the genocide of the American First Nations as far back as I can trace them, and i would rather *not* lay claim to that as part of "white culture" if it's all the same to you.

    Furthermore, consider that I grew up in southern Queens and the Bronx, by turns, in New York City. Flushing looks like Hong Kong, and most people in the Bronx where I was were Latinx or black. Whites were very much a minority in both cases. I still prefer Sichuan, Hunan, and Cantonese food over Midwest and especially Southern US cuisine, and make it a point to brew about half a dozen pan-Chinese herbal medicines for common ailments. Yet my skin is white (though I get mistaken for Hispanic or even Egyptian in low light...must be the hair).

    So...what culture am I, really? Am I a "reverse banana?"

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @11:10PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @11:10PM (#556166)

      No fried chicken, chicken-fried pork, batter-fried okra, hush puppies, collard greens??
      Gal, you were eating at all the wrong "Southern" joints. 8-)

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:51AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:51AM (#556586) Journal

        I kind of like the whole not-having-diabetes thing. There is a reason the fattest people in the country live in the Southeastern states =P

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @06:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @06:32PM (#556021)

    "Sure I can. In the US (and we are specifically discussing US events here),"

    By all means, double-down on xenophobia.

    Joking aside, your description of white culture (even limited to the US alone) is way off. There are lots of distinctly different cultures of "white people" based on their ancestral cultures. Sure, the whole thing's fuzzy, but if you want to go down that road "white culture" becomes even less distinct from any other culture.

    A note on Europeans: they were supremely shitty in days gone by. There are a few people who will try to make you feel bad for that. Everyone else just wants you to know it. If you want to react to the latter group as though they were the former you will be seen as a racist for trying to deny history.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @07:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @07:37PM (#556056)

    No Trump got elected on a platform of lies and hatred of liberals. You can keep trying to convert the latent and overt racism into ancestral pride, but no one else is buying that shtick. Only the extremist liberals say all conservatives are racist, just like only the most extreme conservatives spout conspiracy nonsense and believe liberals are coming to kill them / take their guns / turn them gay.

    You are falling for a polarizing LIE. Take pride in your culture, but as soon as you cross into white supremacy then fuck yeah you'll get called out for that shit. If you don't have the good sense to condemn the nasty parts of your ancestry then you're going to be lumped in with them. Doing / saying nothing and pretending like bigotry is not a massive problem in the US will only get your negative responses.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:33PM (#556156)

    Most groups are told: be proud of your culture! Be proud to be XYZ. The notable exception are the people in the ex-European group. If they display pride in their culture, they are called racist, and told that they need to atone for their privilege.

    Bullshit! There are nearly endless examples of white "ex-Europeans" celebrating their culture here in America! In Michigan, for example, you can actually find entire towns that are a near endless parade of European heritage. Maybe you need to get out more?

    People are getting tired of being told to atone for sins they never committed; they're just average folk, getting through life a day at a time, justlike anyone else.

    Set aside your persecution complex, put down the tiki torch, and the assault rifle with the extended ammo clip. No one is telling you that you can't celebrate your heritage. Just don't beat up others while you do it. Mmmmmkay?

    Call them racist for taking pride in their history, just one more time. Come on, do it. Bubba is gonna tell you where to stuff it. Which is basically how Trump got elected.

    No, Trump was elected because he sold us a bill of goods and told us that America was in a very, very dark place and he alone could fix it. BTW, how is MAGA working out for you? Just asking.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:50AM (#556316)

    Call them racist for taking pride in their history, just one more time. Come on, do it.

    Sure, no problem! "Fucking racists!" Seriously, when the only thing you have to point to in your "cultural history" is the weiner, something both Anthony and TMB agree on, you are a fucking racist. And you all want to vote for Trump, to do what? Repeal Obamacare, 'cause Obama was black? Didn't see that coming! Or you want to give tax breaks to the 1% to help out all the poor white trash you imagine I just insulted? They are not that stupid. Or do you want to roll back environmental protections, and worker safety regulations, and labor rights regulations, and pull out of the Paris accords just to grab some Petrochemical Pu . . . .

    Yeah. Call us the "alt-left" one more time, you coward. If you cannot even live in your country, and you think you have a right to judge? And, OMG, did you vote? There is no alt-left, there is just the regular old left, no need for alternatives, because Leftist Values are American values! Equal rights, freedom, and a basic distrust of real estate developers and used car salesmen.