An Old Stock American Can Tell The French From The Arabs, But Wonders What To Call Real Americans
07/15/2016
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Re: James Fulford's blog post NYT Calls Bastille Day Muslim Kamikaze Truck Driver A “Frenchman Of Tunisian Origin” From: An Old Stock American [Email him]

In regards to James Fulford’s statement that it   "makes sense to speak of someone of Arab  descent born in Detroit as an American–it doesn’t make sense to refer to someone of the same ethnicity born in a suburb of Paris as a “Frenchman”, perhaps you might be surprised to learn that there are millions of people in the USA who instinctively have a much different reaction.

The recent event reported as "American students killed in Bangladesh" left an impression in my mind, completely contrary to the facts. I read that title and a picture popped up in my mind of people who look like me, when I saw the actually picture of those students I saw Bangladeshis dressed in Western clothing—their names were Tarishi Jain, Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain. [Students from Emory University, UC Berkeley killed in Bangladesh café terror attack, By Meg Wagner,  New York Daily News,  July 2, 2016]

I've read before that in the Census self-reporting of ethnicity a portion identify as American, but those individuals are much more common in the areas in which the white population is predominately of British origin, particularly of Scotch-Irish origin.

My first ancestor set foot in North America 400 years ago (from Scotland), I have read that there are some ninety million people predominantly descended from pre-USA colonists. If "American" has been claimed as the nationality of all citizens of the "Proposition Nation" of the USA, perhaps we can come up with an ethnicity identifier for those of us of British origin from the founding population.

I myself would welcome a new name as I can't really claim to be "English", "Scottish" or "Scotch-Irish" because I have many ancestors from each group and "British" doesn't feel right either. after so many centuries of shared identity and separation it would seem you would have a new ethnic nation.

I have for a long time felt that, like you say, "American" really doesn't describe my ethnicity, but my citizenship in the "propositional nation" of the USA. However, I still have that instinctual reaction of "Americans" being someone like me, rather than just any "white" person of every origin or anyone of any origin who happens to have USA citizenship.

James Fulford writes: The group our reader is referring to (what  Archie Bunker called“regular Americans”) was referred to by demographers as “Old Stock Americans” until political correctness set in.  Steve Sailer is fond of quoting a scene from a movie called  The Good Shepherd

In a 1961 conversation between with a Mafia don (played by De Niro's old buddy Joe Pesci), Roth's dialogue spelled out ...the new elites' combination of resentment toward and grudging respect for the past's Protestant Establishment:

Joseph Palmi: “You know, we Italians have our families and the church, the Irish have the homeland, the Jews their tradition … What do you guys have?”

Edward Wilson: “We have the United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.”

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