#you don't understand this is in my very DNA I cannot ignore the call of ϕιλία and στοργή I WILL lose my mind if confronted with them 100%

[butterfirefly]

Me when characters have undying love for each other /romantic:

Me when characters have undying love for each other /platonic:

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Is there a non-offensive way to talk about heritage? I have German and Greek heritage; I would never claim to know more about those cultures than someone who actually lives there, but it's still a part of me in some small way (and this is not coming from a shoddy dna test. my great grandfather was from Germany. my last name is Greek). And like...my dad's side is Mexican American. To call us just American would erase our identity. So I feel like there's room for more nuance when it comes to things like chicken tikka masala. Calling it just British reads like an 'I made this' situation. It's possible to acknowledge both the place it was created/the nationality of the people (Britain, British) and their ethnicity (Indian)

Look, I really don't want my reply here to come across as hostile because I'm absolutely sure you mean well, but to be honest this kind of reads like one of those social media interactions where a woman says "I really don't like it when men say 'We're pregnant' rather than 'We're expecting' or something similar, because it devalues the process a woman goes through when pregnant, and decentralises her when it's her risking her health and life and happiness to grow a new human in ways that he literally cannot even approach," and then Some Guy TM inevitably responds with "OH SO MEN CAN'T BE EXCITED ABOUT BEING FATHERS?" when that is not the point, and is a reactionary response that ignores what was actually said.

Like, you've finished this ask with this sentence: "It's possible to acknowledge both the place it was created/the nationality of the people (Britain, British) and their ethnicity (Indian)".

The post you're referring to literally addressed this. This was explained. We are talking about two very major and clashing cultural views on race, and what is acceptable in one is incredibly offensive and invalidating in another. In America, a recently colonised country whose population is therefore knowingly made of immigrant families, yes, of course it's better to say Mexican American, or African American, or Irish American, or any other modifier - because, culturally, you understand that those things mean "American, but of different roots." Because everyone there, First Nations folks aside, has a non-American family root. That's literally how it works for you. It doesn't mean you don't 'count' as 'properly American'.

Whereas, as that post explained, that is not true in Europe. If you called a black English guy an African Englishman, for example, you are literally marking him out as Other - you are saying he doesn't count as properly English. Why? Because look at the language. What would you call a white Englishman to fit the same pattern? An English Englishman? Do you see the problem? What's the white equivalent of 'Indian Welsh woman'? What's the white equivalent of 'Asian Scot'?

There was a Tumblr post I remember seeing a few years back now - I can't remember now what the original post was, something about how welcoming or not British people are to foreigners. But some American had commented "Pretty sure every POC in the country already knows y'all are hostile af", and that was, to European eyes, an incredibly racist comment - not because it bad mouthed Britain (lord knows that part was accurate), but because it directly said that British POC aren't British. The American who posted that thought they were being supportive, I'm sure. In reality, they were agreeing with the neo-Nazis of Britain First that only white people are truly British.

Like...you say you "feel there's more room for nuance", but you're the one ignoring the nuance and trying to impose a rigidly American view of race onto other cultures here. You ask if there's a "non-offensive" way to talk about this, but the post you're referencing literally explained the cultural differences and why the American way is offensive outside America, and how you should phrase it elsewhere. Okay, you have Greek and German heritage - great. And in America, where the cultural vocabulary allows it, you can use the phrasing "I'm Greek" or "I'm German" and great, that works, because the people you're saying it to have the cultural background to understand that you don't mean "I personally am from Germany/Greece, where I was born and raised and still live."

But that is what those sentences mean outside of America. Which means, outside of America, when you use them you are claiming something that isn't yours, at the expense of others. Outside of America, just say "I'm part-German/Greek", and hey presto, the issue is solved.