Oh don’t worry. We Americans are still complete and utter assholes to servers in countries where there IS a living wage for the service industry and no culture of tipping. It’s not necessarily the “tipping” part of “tipping culture” that’s the problem.

There’s a good chance that they might actually believe that they have these allergies. The internet makes it really easy to self-diagnose and the echo chamber of a lot of these online groups and communities makes it even worse.

It’s like OP’s Kinja handle says it all.

That’s the very definition of tribalism, which has a lot of cultural roots in isolated parts of America. I mean, in one town I lived in, all the original families came from about a 20 mile radius in Germany about three or four generations back. There was a definite feeling that the others— the Catholic immigrants, the…

I think there should be a Behind Closed Ovens mocking all the gutless confrontation averse chickenshit customers who let these awful stories happen.

He’s a supremely shitty singer songwriter who likes to do “ironic” covers of black artists.

Badly done anti-US propaganda from Russia? Psh, like that’s ever been done before.

Or, “Let me see if I can prevent fire fighters from putting out fires!”

Joan Jett has been pretty active in defending Kim Fowley’s legacy, to the point of excusing questionable actions before. There was an interview with her in LA Weekly around the time of Fowley’s death (I’m a little unsure on the date) where Jett pretty much said anyone who criticized Fowley was just a failure and…

There’s major bad blood between all of them. Read the follow-up interview with the author, he only scratches the surface of it: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/840-j…

Wait, anime wasn’t a nightmare before?

Fans are the fucking worst.

That’s the thing— it’s never really used by the Irish themselves. It’s most often used by Americans who’ve been here for centuries to justify shoddy treatment of other minorities today. I completely agree with you that the British oppression of the Irish in the British Isles and Ireland was genocidal (Cromwell, for…

Oh yeah, the history of the Irish in Ireland and the British Isles is completely different, of course. Cromwell’s attempts to exterminate the Irish should definitely be taught more often to highlight just how brutal and evil they were, for example. I was merely commenting on the Irish-American experience and how it’s…

It goes beyond that— even at the height of anti-Irish persecution in America (circa the late 1840s), the Irish were able to quickly and decisively become a powerful voting bloc in places like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and so on. Nobody was lynching the Irish for learning how to read, as you mentioned— even areas…

Oh totally! My mom’s also the ubiquitous NE American Irish-Italian mix (Granpap was an Irish immigrant, Grandma was 1st generation Italian-American, dad’s family were immigrants from elsewhere). What I’m saying isn’t an inditement of these groups— it’s just that you can’t compare their situations to other forms of…

It’s a right wing talking point, especially for people that think that African Americans “play the race card too much”, whatever the fuck that means. Also occasionally making an appearance: the Italians.

I’ve read my Irish history, from the Tain to the Troubles. I’ve studied about the famines, Cromwell, landlord/laws, and the prejudice the Irish faced in the new world. Slavery was still worse by any objective measurement. It’s silly to pretend otherwise.

The Croatian fascist hooligans also use it, especially like to wave it when they chant about the massacres of several Muslim towns and villages, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at there. It was is also flown/worn by German neo-Nazis and Slovak fascists among others, and is a handy substitute for flags that are now…

Yes, the heritage of European neo-Nazis and racists.