Crows are social too, will hold a grudge... you's swear they were part Irish.
A crow once sneaked quite far into my mechanic's shop without being seen, got up on a rolling toolbox and stole a bag of sunflower seeds without being noticed. I found this because I saw a crow and their other crow buddies were having a sunflower seed party in the alley, and one of the mechanics lost their snack.
Also, crows will remember if you help them for years. People make a point to make friends with them because they have been known to bring gifts and visit year after year. Probably better company than the in-laws too. There's a number of documentaries and personal videos on YouTube about this topic.
PS: Davis CA has zillions of crows. An apartment I rented had large trees at the street containing easily several thousand in a dozen trees where they bedded-down for the night. The sidewalks and streets were coated white with droppings like it was SF's Fisherman's Wharf. Needless to say, no one used those sidewalks. And you could hear when they came back, because it sounded like a crow cocktail party.
Actually there's no need for this comment, the mock-indignation on behalf of others.
A funny aside is always welcome in an otherwise substantial comment, and no, this is not considered racism or offending by 99% of Earth's population, including most Irish.
Irish are an ethnicity, not a race. They're the same race as I am (and probably the grandparent). And they make the same kind of jokes themselves all the time, like my people do the same kind of stereotype jokes for our own kind.
It's only "racism" in the provincial US preoccupation that "everything said that touches on a population/ethnicity/race is racism". Not in the "X are inferior/KKK/etc" sense, which is what we should be concerned with.
I, for one, don't appreciate taking lessons about how a joke is racist from people from a country that had slavery until the 19th century, segregation since the 1970s, and widespread systemic/popular/law enforcement racism problems today. As if their experience is the universal standard that should be applied to the global population here on the internet. That's, if not racist, surely imposing upon others...
Racism is often considered antagonism based on race or ethnicity. The terms are very closely linked, though it may have been better for me to say "ethnicity."
>Not in the "X are inferior/KKK/etc" sense, which is what we should be concerned with
So what grudges do you think the Irish held leading to this stereotype?
I don't get the rest of your argument. It seems to be "my country doesn't have a problem with racism so racist comments are fine."
>I don't get the rest of your argument. It seems to be "my country doesn't have a problem with racism so racist comments are fine."
It's more "A culture that has historically had heavy racism problems should not export their overcompensating hysteria that everything touching on ethnicity/race is racism and consider its own preoccupations universally applicable".
>So what grudges do you think the Irish held leading to this stereotype?
My god, all those links refer to Irish Americans. If anything, it shows that Americans hold grudges throughout generations. It's quite telling that an American conflates Irish-Americanism with being 'Irish'. The hyphen is there for a reason.
I'm curious where you're from that you think doesn't have a similar history, but it still boils down to "if you don't have a racism problem it's not actually racist." I don't get that logic, you can argue it's not harmful but it's still racism.
>Why not ask the Irish themselves?
I find it strange that all the Irish you are asking are speaking English, but the Irish Times hits why this is offensive.
>Well, Brian, the record so far is a whopping 800 years: this being the period, rounded down to the nearest century, for which we claim to have been oppressed by the English.
Everything else listed is fairly standard, and you could make similar articles for any ethnicity.
>I'm curious where you're from that you think doesn't have a similar history, but it still boils down to "if you don't have a racism problem it's not actually racist." I don't get that logic
Note that I never said "If a place doesn't have a racism problem then them doing racist acts is OK / it's not racist".
My argument is "Places with heavy racist history tend to look at all kind of non-racist acts as racist, either from guilt or to overcompensate, and then try to force their hyper-sensitivity on others".
Instead of getting sensitive about stereotypes like "Irish can hold a grudge", "the Italians like pasta", "Scots are tightwads", "Germans have no humor", "Greeks are fiscally irresponsible", "Asians do everything better" or whatever as "racism", better act on actual racism, like systemic racism, redlining, over-representation of blacks in what's the biggest prison population in the world, racist cop shootings, college admissions, under-funded districts, WASP domination, etc.
>My argument is "Places with heavy racist history tend to look at all kind of non-racist acts as racist, either from guilt or to overcompensate, and then try to force their hyper-sensitivity on others".
Even if this is true, that was a racist statement for the reasons I originally outlined. That doesn't change if Irish say it, and it is of the "x are inferior sense" you mention. That's what has me confused,
>Instead of... act on...
So I should better prioritise the racism I address in my country, ignoring smaller examples until I can fix major ones? I tend to just address the ones I encounter, though I think understanding that past treatment can still cause current problems we need to address is an important message.
I don't actually care, I just wanted to point it out to you, so that you understand how strongly it's colouring your views. We all have our biases, and we should all be aware of them.
And you hail from some magical fairy land with no history of oppressing others, so it's clearly fine to make light of Irish oppression. Only an American would find that action racist.
Only in the sense that they concern "race" (and loosely, since here it's an ethnicity).
So, in the same sense that preferring to have sex with women (or men) is "sexism" since "Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender."
Just not the kind of sexism that e.g. Weinstein peddled.
Just because we call what a bigot or KKK member does racism and making a comment that touches on ethnicity or race "racism" doesn't mean those are the same things, or that both are bad.
The concept of race is not looked on favorably in anthropology anymore, anway. It's better to speak of ancestry groups, as this does not imply biological homogeneity the way 'race' does. Besides, I think for a long time, the concept of race and ethnicity were tied up together, so, 'Racism' is an appropriate way to describe antisemitism, for example. Race is as much a social construct as ethnicity, so the distinction between them was loose from the start.
Stereotyping can be a tool of racism, but to do that I think it needs to imply the inferiority or superiority of an ancestry-group. It's not clear to me that holding a grudge is either a positive or negative quality.
I think you'll find that your opinion is rather hard line on this... compared to the vast majority of actual racist type behavior, and actual putdowns based on <ethnicity>, this is mildly amusing and speaks to a general behavior.
You're of course entirely welcome to keep your speech pure, but know that there's a full grayscale here and we all have different tolerances.
it's an Irish joke, that speaks the the Irish sense of humor. Irish people will jab at the Irish way all day long. It's really not offensive; certainly not as offensive as someone else coming along and deciding to be offended on others' behalf. lighten up.
A crow once sneaked quite far into my mechanic's shop without being seen, got up on a rolling toolbox and stole a bag of sunflower seeds without being noticed. I found this because I saw a crow and their other crow buddies were having a sunflower seed party in the alley, and one of the mechanics lost their snack.
Also, crows will remember if you help them for years. People make a point to make friends with them because they have been known to bring gifts and visit year after year. Probably better company than the in-laws too. There's a number of documentaries and personal videos on YouTube about this topic.
PS: Davis CA has zillions of crows. An apartment I rented had large trees at the street containing easily several thousand in a dozen trees where they bedded-down for the night. The sidewalks and streets were coated white with droppings like it was SF's Fisherman's Wharf. Needless to say, no one used those sidewalks. And you could hear when they came back, because it sounded like a crow cocktail party.