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What is indigenous white British culture?

Started by Chedney Honks, April 14, 2021, 12:48:35 PM

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Icehaven

Quote from: Blue Jam on April 14, 2021, 02:49:03 PM
Just the other day I was wondering why Americans seem to have no idea where Wales is or that it even exists, and Mr Jam suggested it's because there are relatively few famous Welsh-Americans, or famlous people people describing themselves as such. I looked this up and while there are lots of Americans who can claim distant Welsh ancestry, like Barack Obama and Jeffrey Dahmer, it looks like the most famous ones with nearer Welsh relatives are Quincy Jones, Leslie Nielsen and Bob Hope. So yes, not very many. Maybe there's something in this.

And I spose they consider the Welsh celebs that make it over there to just be generally British. George Bush Two apparently asked Charlotte Church what state Wales was in when she met him.

popcorn

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on April 14, 2021, 03:23:07 PM

I'm trying to think of things that are unique to the UK, but also ubiquitous among the member nations.

Self-deprecating humour I suppose? Electing absolute cretins would be another.

oh I thought you were telling me what ngubu means. as you were.

Ferris


frajer

A big red bus with a big fuck-off lie written on the side.

Kankurette

Football? Cricket? Rugby? Moaning? The Proms? Greasy chip butties? Monty Python? Naval buggery? Hanging monkeys?
Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on April 14, 2021, 02:11:59 PM
The USA is an interesting case study about how to shore up your identity.

There are some basic abstract concepts and symbolism representing the US, and the basic shitty idea that 'Fuck you, we are USA, I haven't looked into it properly but this means we are the best and you suck'.

But if that was all that was needed, the US wouldn't be so  full of people trying to claim they were anything but American. They take their heritage, whether it is German, Polish, Chinese, Irish, Mexican, etc and cling to it like a little baby. There are people Live Action Role Playing being Irish or German, not actually being either. There are Czechs in Texas that think dressing up and eating the same food and having traditional dances means they are Czech. Fuck off. Having a heritage and enjoying that from time to time is fine, but trying to exist through it and defining yourself around it every single day of your life when you're American and your parents are American is exposing a hollow reality and that needs concealing.

Why do they do that? What is absent about America that they need to shore things up in this way?

Not that I wish to single the US out here. A lot of newly independent states were under imperial rule for so long that their own nationalism takes on some rather alarming and disingenuously phoney elements too. Yugoslavia 'a multi ethnic multi race multi faith brotherhood working for a common betterment', is far more desirable than Serbia's 'we define ourselves by our devotion to god and being on the historic front line against the Muslim hordes'.

I suppose whatever the fuck it is, it all comes back to a yearning for the roaring hearth, song, dance, stories, belonging, purpose, etc.
I think it's cos the US is relatively new compared to most countries. I always find Americans whose great-great-grandparents emigrated to the US calling themselves French/Polish/Italian/whatever a bit weird, if only because my dad was a Scot[nb]I never inherited his love of Irn Bru. No offence, Scots, but it is VILE.[/nb] and if I went round Scotland saying I was Scottish in my weird English accent, I'd get laughed at or beaten up.

ETA: football has a huge black and Asian following and shitloads of black players (but very few Asian ones, Chaudhury - the Leicester player with the Fellaini-esque hair - is the only one I can think of), and cricket has a huge Asian following, so not sure how 'white' they are.

Ferris



olliebean

Bloody hell, is this a new thing? That's the third time I've come across the phrase "indigenous white" today, having never heard it before. The first two were people starting tweets with "As an indigenous white [man/woman]..."

It's debatable what "indigenous" means wrt the British Isles, but the people who keep using that word - I do not think it means what they think it means. And as for adding "white," that's just shorthand for "I'm a big dumb racist."

Is "As an indigenous white person..." the new version of "I'm not a racist, but..."?

Kankurette

Quote from: Blue Jam on April 14, 2021, 02:49:03 PM
Just the other day I was wondering why Americans seem to have no idea where Wales is or that it even exists, and Mr Jam suggested it's because there are relatively few famous Welsh-Americans, or famlous people people describing themselves as such. I looked this up and while there are lots of Americans who can claim distant Welsh ancestry, like Barack Obama and Jeffrey Dahmer, it looks like the most famous ones with nearer Welsh relatives are Quincy Jones, Leslie Nielsen and Bob Hope. So yes, not very many. Maybe there's something in this.
Poor old Wales always gets left out. Maybe that's why the Manics never broke America.

popcorn

what about indignant white British culture


Shoulders?-Stomach!

'By indigenous, this is not based on any historic ancestry of my own or that of the land currently known as Britain, but it sounds vaguely like a technical basis to get what I want which is an entirely visually white country... And I literally don't care how many non whites this hurts if there's a chance to get it'

Basically what the people who use the phrase think. Which is probably why they say they "want free speech"

Sebastian Cobb

Do any other cultures get really arsey about what to call a bread roll? Maybe that could be a thing in itself.

The Italians probably have us beat on overall heated food-based arguments.

Ferris

Quote from: olliebean on April 14, 2021, 04:26:43 PM
Bloody hell, is this a new thing? That's the third time I've come across the phrase "indigenous white" today, having never heard it before. The first two were people starting tweets with "As an indigenous white [man/woman]..."

It's debatable what "indigenous" means wrt the British Isles, but the people who keep using that word - I do not think it means what they think it means. And as for adding "white," that's just shorthand for "I'm a big dumb racist."

Is "As an indigenous white person..." the new version of "I'm not a racist, but..."?

It was a big thing for the BNP (remember them? What were all that about!)

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: thenoise on April 14, 2021, 03:16:09 PM
Ironically, one of the things I associate with the British (white or otherwise) is an exaggerated praise of everything exotic/foreign - food, fashion, lifestyle, religion,etc - and a pathological contempt for everything home grown. I guess the Brexit crowd is a reaction against this, but even so, there does seem to be a section of society desperate for something to be proud of about Britishness, but absolutely no idea what it might be.

Identity is tied to purpose which underwritten by emotions.  Brits are desperate to be proud of someothing in the same way any other human is; this invariable evokes idealistic thoughts of the mother land.  My Syrian friend often says how offensive he finds a lot of Brits in their moaning about their own country which for him is an incredible place compared to back home; he is still very proud of Syria and it's history and food; Brexit broke him more that a lot of people I know; he just couldn't believe all these people were moaning about stuff (on both sides btw) when where he comes from has been varying degrees of dictatorship ever since he was born; he got through his military service and first opportunity he got removed himself from the country (this was about 5-6 years before it kicked off as we know today) undoubtable he would be dead now if he'd had stayed (and sadly a lot of his friends have ended up this way). 

I've been trying to explain the British mental state to him for sometime and a lot of it comes down to an incredible amount of indoctrination and gaslighting by the British state.  This has had the impact of British people being alien to their own history; nationalism is not an easy fit for the British; imperialism yes because that is what you do in other countries (hmmm going abroad to other countries wrecking the place then moaning about the locals is probably a good one to add to the list); but nationalism is tricky as we have a union made up of various nations (and psst keep it quiet but the English one is the least "indigenous").  This has meant some half-arsed flirting with the idea of nationalism and civic pride but it can never be truly formed; British exceptionalism doesn't really exist other than for the very rich with only Englerland exceptionalism crudely trying bore an ugly path through all the other nations (the result....well the end of the Union and Englands bizarre succession from itself).  This denial of history (that Britain is not a pure nationhood; but is an example of local diversity coming together with connected and shared histories from the foreign countries that conquered; s at odds with this human desire to have a nice neat simple explanation of why the fuck it exists in the first place; and why as a modern state it still quite laughable sustains a monarchy.....it must be because of some kind spiritually indigenous connection to the island(s).  Is it balls.

shiftwork2


bgmnts

Thing is though how far back do you go?

Are there any remnants of an indigenous population here in any European like there is in the Americas or in Australia? Does any group deserve recompense for crimes committed against them, like the African call for reparations of the black population in the States? Does Italy owe a huge amount of cash to the Mediterranean and western Europe? Fuck knows.

Sebastian Cobb



I think this picture says everything that needs to be said.

Zetetic

Quote from: bgmnts on April 14, 2021, 04:50:41 PM
Thing is though how far back do you go?
It's not really a meaningful term unless it's used in contrast to a particular wave of colonisation (or invasion, migration).

pigamus

I think it's code for "proper British", as in, brown people may have been born here but their roots are somewhere else. Racists hate brown people claiming to be as British as you or I.

Zetetic

All the identity stuff is fine as far as it goes, but I wonder if there are any modern British cultural artefacts to point to that people feel stands for them or they feel a sympathy with (like Yorkshire puddings or Crinkley Bottom).

bgmnts

Quote from: Zetetic on April 14, 2021, 04:52:38 PM
It's not really a meaningful term unless it's used in contrast to a particular wave of colonisation (or invasion, migration).

Indeed but surely Britain has been colonised and subject to so many invasions and waves of migration to an absurd degree?

Roman colonisation, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, the French and the Dutch.

But to find the indigenous british population you'd have to go back like 2000 years or so. Maybe there are some weird inbred mountain communities in north west wales or scotland but I am unsure.

Zetetic

Quote from: pigamus on April 14, 2021, 04:54:33 PM
I think it's code for "proper British", as in, brown people may have been born here but their roots are somewhere else. Racists hate brown people claiming to be as British as you or I.
I think, taking the OP seriously and generously, it's trying to get at a "mainstream" British culture that isn't defined against that mainstream, or clearly "belonging" to minority or disempowered ethnicities, or is an explicit "subculture". Noting that the mainstream clearly draws on these things and internalises them, after a fashion, over time.

Zetetic

Quote from: bgmnts on April 14, 2021, 04:57:07 PM
Indeed but surely Britain has been colonised and subject to so many invasions and waves of migration to an absurd degree?
Right, but indigenous doesn't have to always mean "First" People (even if it happens to in some places). It's the people that were there when someone turned up (and you have to define someone, unless you mean the default of White Europeans in the 17th-19th centuries).

gib

Quote from: bgmnts on April 14, 2021, 04:57:07 PM
Indeed but surely Britain has been colonised and subject to so many invasions and waves of migration to an absurd degree?

Roman colonisation, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, the French and the Dutch.

But to find the indigenous british population you'd have to go back like 2000 years or so. Maybe there are some weird inbred mountain communities in north west wales or scotland but I am unsure.

2000 years ago a lot of it was tribes that had come over from what is now Belgium, France and Germany.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age_tribes_in_Britain

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: bgmnts on April 14, 2021, 04:50:41 PM
Thing is though how far back do you go?

Are there any remnants of an indigenous population here in any European like there is in the Americas or in Australia? Does any group deserve recompense for crimes committed against them, like the African call for reparations of the black population in the States? Does Italy owe a huge amount of cash to the Mediterranean and western Europe? Fuck knows.

The reparations movement from the 1980s (and before that race reductionists and advocates of segregation i.e. places like the Nation of Islam in the 1960-70s) are very much the germs of what is passing for a lot of leftist "progressive thought" today.  This is quite clearly at odds with a notion of equality; the move for reparations was defeated by black activists before and we are gearing up for it all again.  Reparations are problematic for a whole host of reasons and should not be confused with the desire to create an equal society free from the social construction of race and its use to oppress groups.

We know this; people like MLK literally fought and died for it; yet for some reason some leftists today are convinced race reductionism needs to be reheated again.

bgmnts

Quote from: Zetetic on April 14, 2021, 04:58:45 PM
Right, but indigenous doesn't have to always mean "First" People (even if it happens to in some places). It's the people that were there when someone turned up (and you have to define someone, unless you mean the default of White Europeans in the 17th-19th centuries).

So then who is indigenous? That's what i'm saying, where are the lines drawn? Would anyway deny that native Americans tribes are the indigenous people of North America?

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on April 14, 2021, 05:01:09 PM
The reparations movement from the 1980s (and before that race reductionists and advocates of segregation i.e. places like the Nation of Islam in the 1960-70s) are very much the germs of what is passing for a lot of leftist "progressive thought" today.  This is quite clearly at odds with a notion of equality; the move for reparations was defeated by black activists before and we are gearing up for it all again.  Reparations are problematic for a whole host of reasons and should not be confused with the desire to create an equal society free from the social construction of race and its use to oppress groups.

We know this; people like MLK literally fought and died for it; yet for some reason some leftists today are convinced race reductionism needs to be reheated again.

I mean black people still suffer from the historic oppression and never benefitted from their building of america, so reparations seem ethically fine to me.

Quote from: gib on April 14, 2021, 05:00:18 PM
2000 years ago a lot of it was tribes that had come over from what is now Belgium, France and Germany.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age_tribes_in_Britain

Indeed this is true, there were always links and trade there, but I mean you can only go as far back as written records allow I'd say.

Chedney Honks

Quote from: Zetetic on April 14, 2021, 04:57:43 PM
I think, taking the OP seriously and generously, it's trying to get at a "mainstream" British culture that isn't defined against that mainstream, or clearly "belonging" to minority or disempowered ethnicities, or is an explicit "subculture". Noting that the mainstream clearly draws on these things and internalises them, after a fashion, over time.

There's nothing generous about that, it's exactly what I intended. What's not serious about the OP apart from 'recipe boxes'?

olliebean, I have absolutely no idea of the context of the word indigenous used elsewhere. If you think I was trying to be racist, I will apologise - once - because I think you must be out of your mind.

Of course it devolves into a discussion of semantics because it's this forum, obviously, but the basic question is:

What the fuck is British culture apart from all the shit it has fucking stolen?

pigamus

Quote from: Zetetic on April 14, 2021, 04:57:43 PM
I think, taking the OP seriously and generously, it's trying to get at a "mainstream" British culture that isn't defined against that mainstream, or clearly "belonging" to minority or disempowered ethnicities, or is an explicit "subculture". Noting that the mainstream clearly draws on these things and internalises them, after a fashion, over time.

That still just basically means white people though, doesn't it? The mainstream culture is whatever white people do.