Qasim Rashid, Esq.Jul 3, 2023

A Republican got offended I called the founding U.S. citizens "colonizers,"—rebuking me that “the original 13 colonies were beacons of freedom.”

I asked him to repeat that part...slowly. Apparently "colonies" is respectful—but calling those who built colonies "colonizers" is not.🤔

Also, I'm sure the enslaved, Native Americans, women, and anyone not a WASP wealthy land owner would likely disagree with that whole "beacon of freedom" part.

Show threadTexty the BardJul 3, 2023
@QasimRashid I always ask: freedom for whom? Literally the only people the founders wanted to set "free" were white male commoners. The injustice they opposed was monarchy and nobility by birth. That other people might also deserve freedom wasn't part of their worldview.
Show threadJMcD
@textualdeviance @QasimRashid And by white, they meant British, Scottish, French, and maybe Dutch. The Irish, Germans, Italians, etc. were considered undesirable.
Jul 3, 2023 at 11:32amMastodon for iOS
Show threadTexty the BardJul 3, 2023
@McD1979 Yup. My Irish and Italian ancestors who came here in the mid to late 1800s weren't exactly treated well. Damn shame so many of them and their descendants were racist asshats to other groups. The Irish ones got mad about emancipation because it supposedly meant more competition for jobs. I'm in the first generation on both sides of my family to reject that stuff (and a lot of my cousins are still racist, too... Sigh...)
Show threadDB SchweinJul 4, 2023
@textualdeviance @McD1979
Yeah. I have a cousin who cries out "the Irish we're enslaved too!" no matter how many times she gets shut down. I'm incredibly lucky that she's a minority in the family - but generations of being civil servants and social workers definitely helped bend that curve faster than for most families :-/