Hacker News Reader

Comment by gojomo | Hacker News Reader

Or perhaps, they're subtly satirizing someone clumsily pretending to be Arabic who doesn't even know enough to choose a plausible name. Honest Achmed's is a false-flag operation!

I've noticed that getting offended about stereotypes and word choice is a very American thing to do – and also shared with other cosmopolitan English-speaking areas. For most groups X, "X-Americans" are more likely to take offense than plain X. So you may see foreigners speaking about stereotypes – those applying to their own groups or others, in jest or debate – with a level of frankness that triggers the 'racist! must! object!' reaction in acculturated Americans/anglophones. Of course, YMMV.

View on HN

This is an amazing discovery. You mean to say that when Arabs are with each other, in their own country, they speak to each other frankly, humorously and in broad generalizations about their own culture -- while going about their day, interacting with Arab society, as if they're doing nothing wrong?

Well then, I can't possibly see how that's different from a proportionally small group of Arabs in English-speaking countries being generalized about, made fun of, or being reduced to caricatures by the much larger non-Arab population -- who then accept and act upon those stereotypes when they interact with Arabs (or people resembling).

Sir, have you documented your observations? The world of sociology will surely be shaken by this!

My observation is not primarily based on 'X' members speaking amongst themselves in their own country and language, but when speaking in mixed X and American/anglophone contexts.

I've noticed this most strongly where X is drawn from {Spanish-speaking countries, anywhere in Asia, Russia}. I don't have enough data points to be sure how still-native Arabs treat stereotypes and non-politically-correct word choices. (I have a hunch they are relatively thick-skinned, plain-speaking, and don't have the same stereotyping/language taboos as Americans/anglophones have, but I could be wrong.)

Yes, having experienced discrimination as a minority immigrant community in the English-speaking world would be one plausible explanation for greater sensitivity among X-Americans than native-X. As would now being in a culture that assigns greater deference to those expressing 'group offense'. It's overdetermined!

It would make an interesting sociological study!

It sounds like a study of nothing. It sounds like a question nobody cares about, but that could easily be misused in the service of racism. I take very strong exception to the idea that there’s nothing wrong with this kind of passive-aggressive hate speech, and that I only think there is something wrong with it because (you think) I grew up in America instead of that part of the world. I’ll give you a clue: in the USA, I’ve actually heard the phrase "I ain’t Iranian" from a redneck, who was trying in his inarticulate bigoted way to convey to me that he wasn’t going to cheat me. Reading this bug report was like having to listen to an embarrassing and pathetic fool of a racist relative going on and on. I would think this racist fool was pathetic and embarrassing for saying things like that no matter where I grew up.

There are lots of reasons why someone might call himself or herself a hyphenated American. I called myself an Arab-American to establish bona fides for my confident statement that Achmed is not a name, nothing more. You don’t actually know anything about me because I said I’m an Arab-American. That might mean I’m culturally American, culturally Arab, some mix of varying degrees of the two, or even fully both. I may simultaneously consider myself fully Arab and better at being American than most 10th-generation Americans. Who are you to say different?

What is the point, anyway? So what if my opinion of this speech is determined by where I grew up? The tasteless racist caricature I’m criticizing is what it is and would be that whether I even existed or not.

I don't know you, so my observation did not include, nor does it rely on, any ideas about where you grew up or in which cultures you can seamlessly operate.

If that wasn't clear from the generic wording of my first comment, it should have been clear from the second, where I clarified this is an observation over many nationalities (unrelated to you and your declared identity), and that one contributor to this "offense gradient" could be that it is a reasonable reaction to discrimination faced as a minority.

The point is that I find it interesting how much the tendency to take offense over racial/national stereotypes varies by culture/language, and that the American/anglophone culture seems most likely to take (or worry about giving) offense. This is an observation independent of any judgement about the right level of offense.

(And while it would be interesting to further understand these cultural differences, my quip about a study was a mock-serious response to the parent's sarcasm.)

I retract that response. It was clouded by passion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com