MRW I get bitched at by multiple people for using the word "black" instead of "African American"

I totally understand where you're coming from, but African borders are mostly artificial constructs imposed by Europeans. It'd be more accurate to learn what region/tribes/families you were descended from.

And boy howdy did the Irish get fucked up and down the Atlantic by the British. The bloody history of conflict didn't settle down until just a couple decades ago--and there are still tensions. Southern Ireland was colonized by Anglicans who enforced their religion and governance on the natives, and forced them off of their land. There are libraries of Irish folk music about battles between the British and Irish. Some Irish welcomed German bombing of London during WW2 (and some kept up terrorist bombings for the next 40 years).

And Catholics! JFK had to give a speech to a congregation of Protestant clergy explaining that he wasn't going to make the US a slave state to the Vatican. In the 60s!

And a lot of folks who came to America lost a lot of their roots, regardless of race. My own family lost their name during immigration. A genealogist was able to narrow it down to a certain region, but there's a disconnect across the Atlantic that I'll never be able to bridge.

tl;dr, Lots of folks got fucked. Black people got fucked hard. Asian people got fucked hard. Some white folks got fucked hard. My family made out pretty well, but a lot didn't.

/r/AdviceAnimals Thread Parent Link - imgur.com