anon_kega said in #3484 1w ago:
https://restorationist.org.uk/what-is-an-englishman/
Tom Rowsell (survive the jive), schools us on the ethnic history of the English, as many seem to have forgotten. Especially back in merry old England, the authorities seem convinced, or are at least trying to convince us, that the historical English were a motley band of sub-saharans who also didn't exist as an ethnic group. But enough about absurdities, it's always interesting to see the details well laid out for how far back the English go as a recognized self-aware ethnic group and even nation-state. Every day someone tries to tell me that nations didn't exist before the modern nationalist era, and while this may be true for Carpathian peasants and Papuan tribesmen, it does not appear to be true for the English.
The question I'm left with though is the status of us in the new world. Many of us came over 300 years ago, and are mixed somewhat with other British and North Europeans. "WASP", "Amerikaner", and "White" are terms to describe this mix, with different class and political connotations. They don't quite seem to land. Interestingly it is "anglo" we use more as a self-label for english ancestry more than "english" on this side of the pond. "American" is occasionally also attempted, but that is a much larger identity now, and IMO growing too rapidly to identify with. (Is this too heretical to say on this day?)
I think in the absence of late 19th century and later mass immigration, the "Americans" would have undergone a firm ethnogenesis as something definitively distinct from the English. But with everybody on earth becoming an undocumented American before the pudding is done cooking, that ethnonym is losing steam, and we have reverted to some kind of half-defined identification with our north euro ancestry.
Happy July 4th. Today we are Americans of course, but what about the rest of the year? What is an American?
Tom Rowsell (survive the jive), schools us on the ethnic history of the English, as many seem to have forgotten. Especially back in merry old England, the authorities seem convinced, or are at least trying to convince us, that the historical English were a motley band of sub-saharans who also didn't exist as an ethnic group. But enough about absurdities, it's always interesting to see the details well laid out for how far back the English go as a recognized self-aware ethnic group and even nation-state. Every day someone tries to tell me that nations didn't exist before the modern nationalist era, and while this may be true for Carpathian peasants and Papuan tribesmen, it does not appear to be true for the English.
The question I'm left with though is the status of us in the new world. Many of us came over 300 years ago, and are mixed somewhat with other British and North Europeans. "WASP", "Amerikaner", and "White" are terms to describe this mix, with different class and political connotations. They don't quite seem to land. Interestingly it is "anglo" we use more as a self-label for english ancestry more than "english" on this side of the pond. "American" is occasionally also attempted, but that is a much larger identity now, and IMO growing too rapidly to identify with. (Is this too heretical to say on this day?)
I think in the absence of late 19th century and later mass immigration, the "Americans" would have undergone a firm ethnogenesis as something definitively distinct from the English. But with everybody on earth becoming an undocumented American before the pudding is done cooking, that ethnonym is losing steam, and we have reverted to some kind of half-defined identification with our north euro ancestry.
Happy July 4th. Today we are Americans of course, but what about the rest of the year? What is an American?
Tom Rowsell (survive