I’m just hearing it for the first time in this thread but my first impression isn’t great. Do you really want a label that brands you as a “minority?” That doesn’t seem like a great first step toward equality.
That was the general consensus from what I read about using the term “minority”. As someone who has been labeled a minority their entire life, the term didn’t strike me as odd from a technical standpoint point, but I can see where it would not sit well for many people.
It’s interesting - the psychology of that. Recently I was answering someone who asked why the US doesn’t have more of a working class movement, and a big part of my answer was that no one in the US thinks of themselves as part of the working class. Even if they are unarguably at the base of the economy, their plan is to get out of the working class, not make it better. Similarly, I can see Americans having a problem accepting themselves as a permanent minority. In other parts of the world this is just a fact of life. Christians in Syria know they will never be a majority. When rebels ousted Assad, one of the first things they said was that they will treat minorities well. Kurds are 15% of Iraq and that is just a fact based on hundreds of years of ethnic history in the region. But in the US, everyone is on their way to something better (at least so we think). Parts of Europe had very formal class systems for long periods of history so there are people who just think of themselves as working class and they stand for workers’ rights. Not so in the US. No one here is working class or a monitory. We’re too full of all the rhetoric about being created equal.
I honestly didn’t even think about it from that point of view. That’s a really interesting perspective. I’ve known instances of Americans going overseas and realizing they are suddenly a minority. They do not like it at all.
scarabic@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m just hearing it for the first time in this thread but my first impression isn’t great. Do you really want a label that brands you as a “minority?” That doesn’t seem like a great first step toward equality.
ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That was the general consensus from what I read about using the term “minority”. As someone who has been labeled a minority their entire life, the term didn’t strike me as odd from a technical standpoint point, but I can see where it would not sit well for many people.
scarabic@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s interesting - the psychology of that. Recently I was answering someone who asked why the US doesn’t have more of a working class movement, and a big part of my answer was that no one in the US thinks of themselves as part of the working class. Even if they are unarguably at the base of the economy, their plan is to get out of the working class, not make it better. Similarly, I can see Americans having a problem accepting themselves as a permanent minority. In other parts of the world this is just a fact of life. Christians in Syria know they will never be a majority. When rebels ousted Assad, one of the first things they said was that they will treat minorities well. Kurds are 15% of Iraq and that is just a fact based on hundreds of years of ethnic history in the region. But in the US, everyone is on their way to something better (at least so we think). Parts of Europe had very formal class systems for long periods of history so there are people who just think of themselves as working class and they stand for workers’ rights. Not so in the US. No one here is working class or a monitory. We’re too full of all the rhetoric about being created equal.
ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I honestly didn’t even think about it from that point of view. That’s a really interesting perspective. I’ve known instances of Americans going overseas and realizing they are suddenly a minority. They do not like it at all.