Christopher Columbus, Italy, Ethnic Background General Discussion

[Torie]

No, not really, but in Los Angeles, there really wasn't, and isn't, an Italian American community profile, or Italian American neighborhoods and so forth.

[Torie]

It's hard to be gay, and not go with the subculture option.

[Torie]

What is this obsession with Italians now?  So many obsessions, so little time. It kind of makes me fond of the days, when the obsession was with the excrescences of suburbs, with exurbs being the innermost circle of Dantean hell.

[Torie]

What is this obsession with Italians now?  So many obsessions, so little time. It kind of makes me fond of the days, when the obsession was with the excrescences of suburbs, with exurbs being the innermost circle of Dantean hell.

The two obsessions are mirror images of each other.  BRTD is right about the suburbs, but for the wrong reasons.  Whereas he is wrong about Italians, but for the right reasons.

I get where you are gong on the burb thing, but not the Italian thing.

[Torie]

Yes, thanks, and thanks for the thoughtful and interesting post.

[Torie]

train, I think what needs to be understood (and that probably doesn't surprise you) is that I hold my association with the hardcore scene and that subculture above all else. But here's the thing: Why wouldn't I? Let's imagine I was an Italian-American. Why would I feel a greater affinity to the people who just happened to have ancestry from the same country as me, than the people who I actually hang out, do things with, and share in common an extremely esoteric subculture and lifestyle that affects all aspects of life, and fuels my politics? And it's not just my scene either this applies to, think of the people who go cosplaying at conventions for another example. I'd imagine they'd think the exact same way.

You seem to understand this, but many (including oddly enough it seems most European posters, despite the fact that the hardcore scene and conventions full of cosplayers certainly exist in Europe too) don't.

It's kind of like the gay subculture. That subculture trumps everything else, including race and class. It's one of the things I enjoy most about it. You get to meet all kinds of people, and get to know them, in a way that would be far more difficult otherwise.

[Torie]

Columbus Day comes from a time when white ethnics were still discriminated against. White ethics are not discriminated against anymore.

White ethnics don't EXIST anymore.

You mean white Catholics? In the NY orbit, I still think being Italian has some meaning. It is pretty much gone for the Polish, Irish and of course Germans. Do Greeks count (yes I know not Catholic, but not Orthodox Jewish either, who certainly do have an ethnic identification)?