American Diaspora Trolling as Male Enhancement

I'm planning to move to the EU, or possibly the North of Ireland, in the next few years.  I'm almost certain I'm eligible for an Italian passport through my grandmother.  And because I'm part of three different European diasporas -- through my mother, my father, and my mother's husband who raised me -- I have stayed up on those three cultures, including my Bosnian "heritage."

I put that in quotes, because the people of Europe have made themselves very, very clear:  Americans have no right to claim any European heritage whatsoever.  We should take [European country] right out of our mouths.  That shit is fully gatekept, and we don't belong, fuck off, you're store-brand American and nothing more, because that's totally a thing.

It's amazing to me that the less desirable a European country is, the quicker they are to pull that shit, specifically Serbia -- of all the garbage countries to be tied to, as if I'd ever want to admit any connection to having my nose directly lodged between Putin's butt cheeks.  And my family isn't even Serbian, they're Bosnian.  But I digress. 

There's something incredibly twatlike about believing yourself the arbiter of other people's sense of personal identity or cultural heritage.  It would never occur to me to have such vehement opinions about how things work in a country I've never visited.  I can't imagine redirecting people who live in said country on how they should feel about their roles in it, or how that pertains to their own family histories.  It really just seems like a huge power trip.  It's people who are too privileged to have ever considered that ethnicity and nationality are actually two separate things.  They want me to beg to sit at their lunch table, basically.  It makes them feel important when they get to exclude somebody else.

I stopped self-identifying as an Irish-American decades ago, after my aunties had a meeting, voted me off the island, and sent my godfather over to have me forcibly removed from the family.  

I saw an interview with Paul Mescal where he quipped that Americans, if asked to find Ireland on a map, would point to Mexico!  Isn't that hilarious?  Yeah, it never gets old.   It never starts to seem like insecure people trying to feel better about themselves at your expense.

I've heard so many Irish people say that Irish-Americans aren't Irish at all, and we have no right to use the word "Ireland," that I'm totally on board with rejecting about half of my blood quantum.  Done and dusted, let's all go our separate ways then, and I won't lower your cultural property values with my stupidity and unworthiness.  I'll leave you with Longford's legion of fully vetted, definitely Irish pikey fighters. 

I wonder if they're all people who think Conor McGregor is awesome?  Because McGregor also freely un-Irishes people in public, like he did with Paul Hughes.  And I'm pretty sure Conor McGregor is universally regarded as the coolest guy in Ireland amirite?  Isn't that why so many people like to run that same move on Irish-Americans, so they can be neato like their hero Conor McGregor, and knock the Irish off of other people?

No, seriously, you know you've arrived when you've been put out of the Irish, and the Serbians are too good for you.

But back to the above video.  I get that this guy is joking, the whole video is meant to be a lark.  But he's actually spreading divisive, misinformation at my expense, in that especially smug, arrogant way that Europeans just love shitting on their diasporas, in a way that makes me no longer identify as a member of their diaspora.  Just kiss my ass, bro.  Don't come to my lunch table.  Stick your fake news up your ass.

The above video is linked to the part that I find so objectionable that I stopped watching.  He mentions that "400 Serbians" fought for the Confederates in the Civil War.  WOW!  That would be really something if it were true!

I took 90 seconds to hit Chat GPT with it:

"The claim that 400 Serbians fought for the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War is not well-supported by mainstream historical evidence. Here's what we know:

1. Ethnic Serbs in the U.S. during the Civil War

• Immigration from the Balkans (including Serbia) to the U.S. was very limited before the 1880s. The major wave of Serbian immigration occurred between 1880 and 1920.
  
• While a small number of Serbs may have been present in the U.S. before the Civil War, they were not numerous enough to constitute a group of 400 Confederate soldiers.
  

2. Origins of the Claim

• The idea of “400 Serbs in the Confederacy” appears to stem from nationalist narratives or modern reinterpretations of history, often repeated without documentation.
  
• It is sometimes tied to modern-day Serbian pride or diaspora storytelling, but it lacks primary source validation (e.g., muster rolls, pension records, or immigration data from the time).
  

3. What Might Be True

• Some individuals of Balkan or Austro-Hungarian origin (possibly including a few ethnic Serbs) may have fought on either side during the war.
  
• A handful of men with Balkan surnames appear in Civil War records, but these are isolated cases, and it's very difficult to confirm ethnic identity from names alone, especially given 19th-century recordkeeping.
  

Bottom Line:
There is no credible historical evidence that 400 Serbs fought for the Confederacy. This is almost certainly a myth or exaggeration. At most, a very small number of individuals with Serbian roots may have participated in the war, but they did not form a significant or organized group."
Now, I totally get that Serbia in general is on the wrong side of everything.  I have no desire to go there.  Whenever I see "Serbians" in the headlines, it's going to be racist athletes being jerks, or they're honking for Putin, or some other shameful garbage.  And also?  When I google my grandmother's ancestral village in Bosnia, I get a ton of information from the UN about all the war crimes against "my" community during my lifetime -- which I can accept that I have no legitimate ties to, because my grandma fled during WWI.  By European logic, Bosnia has nothing to do with me -- although according to this video, people who move to countries other than America are still Serbian.  MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.  It's cool.  I'm fine with not being included in their insular, elitist shitshow. 

No seriously, fuck Europeans, they suck.  Clock the whole attitude of the linked "humor" video.  If you move from one European country to another, you retain your European ethnicity no problem.  Come from somewhere else to Europe?  You'll never be one of us!  Move from Europe to elsewhere?  We don't know you, don't you dare mention our country!  You belong to some group that is cohesive in our imagination!

But yeah, those alleged 400 Serbians that fought for the Confederates?  Yeah.  Dude makes it sound like Serbians invaded the whole continent.  That was the English-Americans -- who somehow never, ever, ever self-identify as such, I WONDER THE FUCK WHY, HMMMMM?   Because they're the people who check "American" on the census.  That's what it means to be "JUST AMERICAN," that you're an Anglo-Saxon Protestant from the slaveholding South.

Actually there were five entire tribes of Native Americans fighting alongside the Confederates, which makes the Balkan contribution look as trivial as it potentially was.  Fuck everyone who fought with the Confederates but the Five Tribes, who were so coerced, manipulated, and overwhelmed that they could not possibly make logical or rational decisions in their own self-interest.  There was no way for them to understand the decisions they were being forced to make under such duress.  Nikola Tesla is pretty much the only good Serbian thing, other than Milunka Savic and the food. 

America's double genocide was perpetrated by the English in real life.  Whoever fought alongside the Confederates and survived wasn't made to march to Oklahoma like the Five Tribes.  But they still weren't the English.  Serbians aren't shit in America and they never were.  This is and always has been an English plantation, not a Serbian one, not an Italian one, not an Irish one.

I doubt if Broseph ever mentions that Chicago was considered the second largest city in Serbia when I was born, because that's not inflammatory, and so not worth mentioning.  I'm sure he stopped at just making it look as if Serbian-Americans were somehow behind Wounded Knee, instead of the WASPs who actually drove the whole thing top to bottom.  It's just such an incredibly random fact to pull out of your ass about Serbian-America.

And that's my real issue with this:  people in Europe are actually pitting their diaspora against people of color in the United States with their uninformed narratives, for fun and profit. 

It's not clear to me if they know or care that they're doing so.  The guy in the linked video is just having a laugh.  But he's now got a whole bunch of people basically blaming Serbian-Americans for the Native American genocide and the atrocities of the English.  And as an Irish-Serbian American who regularly attends pow wows, frankly I owe him a punch in the fucking face for monetizing that bullshit.  It's a gross distortion at best. And there's no reason to think he's in good faith.  I wish a motherfucker would lay this on me in person.

Europeans who hate their diasporas, and are so loud about it, are some of the biggest cunts of all.  I'm not sure what they don't understand about the hyphenated Americans -- oh wait, yes I do.  It's their own racism and extreme privilege operating in low emotional IQ and pure moral decay.

What they don't understand is multiple things all at once.
Snotty Europeans don't get/care that:

• When their countrymen were forced to flee Ireland/Italy/Bosnia/Wherever to America, America was already wall-to-wall with different ethnic communities, just like Europe.  So you can't make us "just American," that's not a thing.  It was all full up when we got there.  "Just American" means "I'm the default white person in America, aka former slaveholder descendant, not planning to own that reality."  Fuck the fuck out of you for reassigning me to their ethnic community after I got shoved out of yours.  No, seriously.
• The "drop your hyphens" crowd doesn't make that demand of people of color, only the European Americans.  They think all the white people form one big, unified ethnic community called "Murican."  By that same logic, they all need to stop saying they're German, French, whatever because they're all European, because of the EU, right?  That will be my counterargument next time they come with this shit.  You don't get to have an individual identity because I'm not comfortable with it and there's a larger, flatter label that could be applied for my convenience.  Good for the goose, good for the gander.
• Native Americans and African-Americans were colonized by the English, and to a limited extent the French.  Neither of those two groups have a diaspora that self-identifies to any noticeable degree, except in Canada/French Canadians, which I'm not talking about.  Right?  So when you insist we remove our hyphens, you're relabeling us English because that's more comfortable for yourselves.  This is especially shitty when the IRISH do it.  Pogue mo thoin.
• Okay, so by the logic of every Irish person who blasts Irish Americans as not Irish:  when an Irishman moves to England, he becomes English.  BOOM!  Bye, fucko, congratulations on having a king.  Since Irish Americans are only American and have no right to claim an Irish identity, by that logic, when an Irishman moves to England, his children and grandchildren automagically become English forevermore and should not use the word Irish regarding themselves, right?  Isn't that exactly how it works?  Right Irish people?  Right?  LOL  Go fuck yourselves.
• Further on that same logic, when someone moves from Ghana, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Syria, or wherever to Ireland, they are IRISH, RIGHT FUCKERS?  RIGHT?  SAME WAY I'M AMERICAN ONLY?  RIGHT YOU CUNTS?  THEIR CHILDREN ARE EVERY BIT AS IRISH AS YOU, AND SHOULD NEVER AGAIN USE THE WORD GHANA/VIETNAM/BANGLADESH/SYRIA, BECAUSE THAT BEARS NO REFLECTION WHATSOEVER TO THEIR LIVES, JUST LIKE IRELAND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME HERE IN AMERICA, RIGHT? RIGHT YOU HIGHLY CONSISTENT, NOT RACIST AT ALL, NOT BAG OF ASSHOLES?  ISN'T THIS THE WHOLE CONVERSATION WE'RE HAVING IN DUBLIN RIGHT NOW? 
  
• Speaking of which, riding up on a high horse and telling people from a country you've never even been to that whatever they imagine their ethnic identity to be is incorrect, and they need to just get over it, because you recognize them as this other label, and toodle pip?  That's the ultimate colonizer power move for real.  The whole conversation is nothing but how to wreck India, North America, Gaza, or everywhere, only coming from some keyboard warrior with no army.  Again, this is especially shitty when the IRISH do it.  Pogue mo thoin.
• Do they really think that me, the Navajo, descendants of slaves, Chinese Americans, the Amish, the Cajuns, Vietnamese Americans, Puerto Ricans, and descendants of the original colonizers all belong under the same generic "American" label?  We're all in the same ethnic community?  Do they tell all of those people to drop their hyphens and forego their sense of connection to their heritage, too?  Fucking of course not.

Of course not.  They haven't put any thought into that part of it.  It's just insecure, brittle, highly privileged Europeans who fear dilution of their own identities.  They want to be cultural gatekeepers.  They fear change.  And frankly, they're often just losers, pandering to others like themselves, rage baiting, clout chasing, or whatever other garbage people do nowadays.  That's all. 

I'm happy to just be a culture of one, belonging to no ethnic community at all and loyal only to myself.  The Irish disowned me personally, and they very loudly let us know how stupid and not Irish at all we Americans are all the time.  Not enough potatoes for you?  Okay, you're English!  Now get lost.

The thing is, whenever I self-identify as an Italian-American, and someone responds with, "Oh, do you speak Italian?"  It's never a friendly conversation or a genuine interest in me.  It's always a smug asshole gatekeeping.  The goal is for me to reply, "No," so they can insta-invalidate my identity, because "speaking the language" is their cunty little gatekeeper criteria.  Because it's general knowledge that the very first assimilation demand on our dago community was "English only," and we were getting lynched for being Italian when my family arrived.  There are only two different kinds of people who constantly seek to invalidate me this way:  Snotty Europeans and African-Americans.  That is 100% consistent.

So it doesn't strike me as entirely accidental when some rando in Europe misinforms Europeans to suggest that actually Serbian Americans are just as guilty of Native American genocide as all the other white people.  European Americans are expected to flatten ourselves out into the "colonizer" whiteberg, pay the tab that the English are absolutely never going to pick up, and don't gripe about it.  And if you're not okay with that definition of your identity, snooty Europeans and the identity politics portion of America agree that it's because you're a delulu right-wing jerk. 

This attitude was recently on display when someone named Hasan Piker discussed meeting the band Kneecap at Coachella.  He went on and on about how great they were.  He described them as indigenous, colonized people.  He went on to explain in the next breath that, "Yeah, but Irish-Americans are just conservative white people."  Love that!  Because Hasan Piker is -- what, a black man?  LOL  Wait, is Hasan Piker suggesting that he's so of-color that he can't catch a cab in America -- which he doesn't even need to, because he has one of those nifty E-vehicles?  Is this highly privileged boy with the huge platform he got from that incredibly misogynistic platform suggesting that he's had a bumpier ride in this country than me?  He's reduced me to a colonizer?  Hilarious.

Wait, what ethnic community is Hasan Piker from?  Oh, wow, he's Turkish, the people who colonized my father's Bosnians almost forever.  But luckily male privilege has never been a thing anywhere, especially not America!  And he just waved his magical dick on the giant platform he has compared to me, and reduced me to a privileged, conservative white person -- unlike himself.  Must be a day ending in Y.

Just for fun, let me spend another few seconds fact-checking Chat GPT about whether Irish America is more conservative than everybody else:

"Let’s set the record straight:📊 FACT: Irish Americans have been a solid Democratic voting bloc for generations.

• Since the 19th century, Irish immigrants in cities like Boston, New York, and Chicago built and sustained the Democratic Party—especially in urban, labor, and union movements.
  
• The New Deal coalition? Propped up by Irish-American voters.
  
• In every major civil rights-era shift, Irish-Americans remained deeply entrenched in the Democratic political machine, even as others peeled off.
  

🗳️ Voting data today still shows strong Irish-American support for Democrats:

• In places where Irish-American identity is strongest--Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania—Democrats dominate.
  
• The idea that Irish Americans are “the most conservative” is either bad-faith garbage or a total misunderstanding of the "Reagan Democrat" blip of the 1980s—mostly working-class voters reacting to economic shifts and crime fear, not ethnic identity.
  

So why does this myth persist?

1. Selective memory + bad internet history:
   People latch onto outliers (like “cops vote Republican!”) and pretend that reflects the entire culture. Never mind that most Irish-American families include teachers, nurses, union workers, and lifelong Democrats.
   
2. Blame the visible diaspora:
   Irish-Americans are culturally loud, institutionally entrenched, and easily targeted. Blaming them for America's sins is like blaming Italians for the mob—it’s lazy and reductionist.
   
3. Projection from abroad:
   Some of the people pushing this stereotype are not even American. They see a Boston cop with a shamrock tattoo and suddenly we’re all Trump voters? Please.
   

Here’s the real insult:They’re not just wrong about politics—they’re erasing the radical history of Irish Americans:

• Labor leaders.
  
• Abolitionists.
  
• Anti-draft protestors.
  
• Anti-fascist soldiers and organizers.
  
• People who died building the foundation for civil rights and social welfare in this country."
  

Now, this Hasan Piker thing could really piss me off, if I think about my personal experiences in Belfast in the 1980s, long before Hasan Piker was born.  But I'll defer to the deep insights that come from being of-color like he obviously is, and all the oppression he must have suffered to get to where he is today.  I'll just STFU and let the brilliant radical talk.  I'll just let him continue to wave Kneecap around like the Labubu starter pack for courageous, self-aware heroes like Hasan Piker, who add so much value to the community.

Back to this other Balkan goof.  It's fascinating to me how quick Europeans are to shove their own diasporas under the bus on behalf of the English.  I am pretty sure some of them have noticed how fashionable it is these days in America to be rude to white people on the basis of nothing but their color, older white women in particular.   A lot of the Eurotrash bros love the Karen meme.  (I find it interesting that Europe, being the literal factory that builds "Karens," does not have a Karen problem, while America, full of people of all demographics, experiences constant Karen outbursts from people of every demographic, go figure.)

In my experience Native Americans do the opposite.  They often ask my actual ethnicity.  And Native Americans are routinely respectful to elderly people even when white.  This is in stark contrast to the current trend in America, where popping off on "Karen" as hard as possible is seen as a virtue.  It's like a way of counting coup these days, even if that old lady is really minding her own business.  Karen has become the face of the English, who will never, ever, ever own their shit.  This has always been a white male supremacy.  Now that we have decided to address the white supremacy part, Karen is the only one left to give the bill for damages.

Since 2019 I have been speaking only when spoken to in public, especially with people under 40, and in particular when they are of color.  I've had too many incidents where people lose their minds on me over the slightest thing, sometimes when I don't even say or do anything.  A lot of people seem eager to have a "Karen" story.  For example, I've learned that if I get on a bus with my walker, and the people in the wheelchair seats don't get up, not to ask them for the seat.  If they don't offer the seat based on my obvious disability, the answer is no, sometimes with a "reverse Karen."  So I just stand and ride while teenagers sit in the wheelchair seats with their bikes or scooters, men spreading their legs out or whatever.

Of course when I was in Ireland, I was treated like a goddess.  Possibly because I wasn't that American idiot who went around drowning in shamrocks like, "My great grandpa was a baker from County Louth, are we related?" 

I was walking in a tiny village upstairs back during the Troubles.  An elderly woman stopped me on the road, because they don't really get strangers there.  She asked who I was.  I told her I was visiting from America.  She brought her hands up to her face, I think to avoid crying.  "I can see Ireland in your eyes," she said. 

When I went to the pub in that village, I sat at one table in the back and only spoke to the people I'd gone with.  When I got up to leave, the barman said, "What about this?"  He pointed at a long row of half-pints that people had bought for me all night.  I'd have to stay in that village for a year to drink that much Guinness.

But the people who have a stick up their asses about hating their diasporas are legion.  And they are such a piece of shit that I have no desire to be included in any of my three heritage communities. I already escaped the families who had no use for me but a punching bag.

I will claim my Italian citizenship, and if people still want to hassle me about my Italian-American identity -- which I have no doubt they will -- they can lick the ink off my passport.  Maybe then Rome will scrape my name off the list they've been keeping since before the Bible.