everybody who came over in my family (both sides) were hardcore illiterate and apparently did not have much. or they pissed it all away on drink. there were mostly claims of the former, but i suspect it was mostly the latter.
the only history passed down seems almost universally as though they were not fans of the communities they left and abusive assholes to the children they had here. the first native-born generation did not marry within their ethnicity and were generally hostile to any extended family and instead moved away from wherever, dislocated by lack of work, and settled to procreate with an adjacent ethnicity (nordic with german, ulster scot with english) before dying young and functionally illiterate after decades of fighting with each other, having way too many kids, and hard drinking. none of my grandfathers lived long enough to see me born. no joke, i might be the second male in either family line that makes it to 50 since at least the big move 130 years ago.
ours is a stupid people, from a salty stock.
sometimes i meet people who can tell you what their great grandfather did and how it involved being able to read/write, and how they can trace back family lines to other countries, and i’m like “that sounds neat.” i am ever curious about the material conditions my ancestors enjoyed/didn’t, but anything more than 2 generations back is just looking at statistics. i don’t assume they were necessarily poor, because it could also be they were rich fucks that squeezed a little too tight or fucked the dog and got run off in the night with nothing. there was always this “and cortez burned his ships” type of vibe about returning to the mother country to find family. like whatever was back there was worse than anything that could happen here, which seems like it was an all-american shit show.
Genocidal homicidal demonic race
I don’t think this tweet is bad at all. Say you’re an American with Irish heritage. In 2022, you basically get all the privileges that white supremacy has to offer in this country (death to America btw).
But travel back in time to say, Manchester England in the 1840s. Had you been an Irish person in that social context, you absolutely would be experiencing a fair amount of ethnicity-based oppression and prejudice. Read about what the Irish lived through in that time and place. Even Engels, despite being completely sympathetic, ends up reflecting some of the prejudices of the time. Now, because you’re an Irish-American, try putting yourself in those shoes. Might actually help you understand and empathize with current systems of oppression.
Would it be better to read about actual oppression and prejudice going on today towards the African-American community, indigenous people the world over, etc? Of course it would! But for a lot of people they need to imagine themselves in that situation to even begin to empathize.
Pulling out my callipers so that i can acertain which part of the central european plain yall’s ancestors come from
This is just “read Settlers” with extra steps.
