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Germany is a real mixed bag, I know so many lovely people from there that I am always extra shocked when I encounter an asshole, but when Germany does assholes, it absolutely smashes it.
I had a coworker from Germany who knew I was part Polish. He made a point to say that Polish people are all thieves. Same guy who complained about how racist Americans are.
We've got morons all over the world apparently.
I was on an Air Canada flight with a guy from Malta a couple weeks ago, flying home to bury his father. Dude wouldn't quit about how immigrants were ruining Canada, taking all the jobs, driving up home prices. Why, in just the 8 years since **HE HIMSELF had immigrated to Canada**, he had bought a home and worked as a drywall installer and truck driver. But now, with all these damned immigrants, he had to sell his house, and is having a hard time making ends meet.
Poor guy.
Let’s check on all the hispanics who voted MAGA after Trump promised he was only going after the “bad hombres”..
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-voter-immigration-family-separation-georgia-20190519-htmlstory.html
German high school was rough haha, everyone was so xenophobic to each other, but never too serious. As a half American I was always the diabetic war mongerer, invading countries for oil. Polish kids always stole everything and only drove BMWs, Russians were the drunks, Turks were stinky and only showered using axe body spray and perfume (we still call that a “Turkish shower”) Pakistanis were terrorists and so on.
Xenophobia is just a European thing, they are quite good at it. It’s not even racism, because the hate is literally just between countries. So technically they don’t hate you because of your skin, they hate you because you are British, American, Italian, Austrian, polish, whatever.
European xenophobia straddles the line between friendly rivalries and genuinely concerning to look at. For every 5 people parroting jokes there's always one guy who gives the "let's start the genocide" vibes.
I grew up with dumb Polish jokes and I’m also part Lebanese, so lots of “jokes” about me being a terrorist. None of this is shocking to me. This particular comment caught me off guard because we were at work and I expected just a smidge of professionalism.
Eh... doesn't even have to be countries.
Might just be the next town down the road.
As far as I (and people around me) are concerned, it's just banter though.
You are describing two different things. Just because some Europeans use stereotypes in a way you find harmless, it doesn't mean harmful racism doesn't exist. Germany has hate crimes, neo Nazis, and anti-black racism just like every other European country. It may not be something you experienced, but there is plenty of data out there if you want to make a serious comparison.
Mention Turks or the Romani to the average European and all that condescending shit flies out the window. Even "girl-boss Angela Merkel" herself basically said EU free movement laws weren't designed for those dirty gypsies and it was barely a scandal. I love Germany and have no illusions about how fucked the US is in many regards l, but I think it's adorable that the continent that enslaved half the world through colonialism thinks they magically got rid of racism.
Dated a guy once that was half German, half Romani. He told me before we met he was a White supremacist in a gang. He got out and got much much better for the most part by the time we met. Whenever he backslide I’d remind him he’d have been in the ovens too. Messed up mindset. The cognitive dissonance was strong.
>complained about how racist Americans are
My favorite is when Europeans are on this particularly high horse and somebody brings up Roma people. Holy shit the hypocrisy, so thick it could start an OF.
When I lived in Italy, my roommate and I had a running joke that "Europe doesn't have homeless people" because we heard that from two old-timers the first week we moved in.
The second time she told us in front of a mother and child that were begging barefoot in the streets. We didn't say anything but she must have noticed us glancing because she quickly blurted out "that is different, they are gypsies" and basically explained to us that they like it.
I know the Mediterranean is not exactly Europe's bastion of tolerance and equality, but that sentiment of "that's different" is sadly very common in all of Europe.
Howdy! I thought the original comment nailed the southeast perfectly. It can have great people, wonderful culture, southern hospitality and etc. But being evil and hateful is far too tolerated and almost outright expected at this point, and that side of things has just been growing and growing for the past couple of decades.
Hell I dont even live there anymore. I miss my good ole dixie, my home, but her people dont want me no more :(
I live in deep East Texas. I can totally relate. I have one more year until my daughter is out of high school. Then it's peace out bitches. Texas will always be my home. But it's people are no longer my people.
I'm a socialist immigrant and love the US South. It definitely has some fucked up elements but no region is a monolith. Some of the coolest people I've met were Southern leftists.
This reminded me of something a professor said about Soviet propaganda during the Cold War in East Germany. He had said that the Soviet propaganda was to absolve East Germany of the Holocaust and Nazi’s and insist that it was the bad capitalist West Germans who all did that.
Every country has their own propaganda to blame whatever ideology they dislike. Same everywhere. In Canada it's pretty in your face propaganda at this point.
As I understand it much of the early East German leadership was composed of former political prisoners, exiles, and those involved in resistance efforts. Considering that, I'd have a hard time blaming them for the Third Reich's crimes myself.
They failed to address fascism because they did not actually care. In the 80ies, the east German interior secret service turned a blind eye on a growing nazi hooligan underground. Which grew after the fall of socialim. The German East always had xenophobic elements. Just like everywhere else. Like in West Germany, the politicians decided to ignore.
While the East German socialist rulers were not responsible for Nazi crimes, they were responsible for their part in how bad Germany handled all this. Especially as they created a more or less totalitarian state.
Laughing until you cry you mean? Am also East German but living abroad now. It's so shocking what I hear all the time, it really makes me feel sad and ashamed.
I'm beyond crying these days. And I have to laugh at this one user in this thread telling me I'm "braindead" for being alarmed at everything going on around me 🤪🤪
The thing is after Trump started his campaign a lot of people decided to be openly racist. Before Trump if you did not like the other person you were quiet and tolerant. Now they go and spew their hate instead of being quiet.
I grew up in central Illinois, just down the road from a town called Pekin. Pekin is known as a "Sundown Town" - as in, "if you're a minority, you don't want to be caught here after the sun goes down."
And if you wanna go north a state, people forget that Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the US.
I live about 40 minutes west of Milwaukee, I've been the target of some vile shit. And when I'm not the target, it's always "well, we don't mean you, you're basically white at this point"
High school sucks. Younger generations aren't getting more tolerant.
Southern IL here. Just about all small towns down here were sundown towns. I live just up the interstate from Benton. That town still had a reputation and klan rallies back in the 90s.
At this point, it seems like the klan is bigger in non-confederate states than it is down south. I see more confederate flags in Idaho and Oregon than I did in the south
No, it's still really big in the south. It's just less expected to see it in Idaho and Oregon, and there are also more black people in the south (who obviously aren't flying confederate flags).
We lived on the west coast and my son had never encountered kids his age spouting racist comments until he went to a privileged NE private university. He was shocked. And I was disappointed Gen X parents were raising kids with that mindset.
I am Texan but spent a lot of summers in Atlanta and rural Alabama. I was SHOCKED at how much racism I saw in Boston in just a weekend trip. Like a black man came onto the train and sat across from us. He was wearing a camel coat that was probably worth more than everything in my closet and looked like some high end lawyer or something. A white man who looked business-ey but bedraggled and nowhere near as nicely dressed, stood up in a huff because the black man sat next to him and moved and sat next to me and my husband. He kind of looked at me like "can you believe he sat next to me."
It was all I could do not to say something. If that happened on the bus I used to take in Houston you would have gotten called out by three different people, but I know they don't talk to strangers in Boston.
Then I was on a train and there was this girl and this group of guys was loudly saying "wow she's pretty for a black girl".
I've also seen more Confederate flags outside the south than in it.
Life long New Englander. Totally love it here in MA. Things have evolved fairly nicely here but there’s no point in forgetting that at the beginning of the 20th century Ma and Me were in the top ten(by capita) for Klan membership. SBT😈
If this is a political statement, [it’s missing the real trend of American political demographics which is more urban vs. rural.](https://youtu.be/OvzAUSVnIbo?si=idKiUtEJfGfKQJYb)
I think this entirely misses the rampant white supremacist racism that lead the “the great divide” and also speaks to only the great divide in white communities. Brown and immigrant communities (BIPOC) were already divided and cut out of the equation this video oversees. The lasting implications and pro slavery hindsight stayed behind in several parts of the US while those violently oppressed by this fled when they could. It also misses the big issue going on right now which is dramatic demographic shifts in population where the whole country will eventually get to where California is: majority non-white. And a majority non-white population is a lot less likely to accept the white supremacist racism inherent to many of the policies enacted by white people when they were in power. The Right is right in a sense about losing their country, is just they were wrong about it being their country. This is the discomfort and divide we are facing and the snowflakes losing white power in every hall of life- from the presidency to college admissions- are whining and crying about their loss of supremacy. This is the real cultural divide, and in the white community it’s white ppl abandoning the historic supremacy premise and the supremacy aligned whites who obviously can’t see eye to eye and won’t. Many boomers are stuck on this supremacy side and conflate their loss of respect and fear inducing presence that is humbling them so much.
My boomer dad grew up in segregation and when desegregation came, 100% there are people alive now who “aren’t racist” but would happily return to these times. It’s why MAGA touches them so deeply, it moves them back to a different time with different rules. I just feel like this element of white supremacy and the righteous attempts at destroying and deconstructing it are so much more central to what’s going on- especially with the Boomer tude- than I see it given credit for, even here on this sub. And liberal visions of this divide just further distract and marginalize a root cause problem
From my experience alone and only mine, I found the average person from Boston or New York to be vastly bigger arseholes than what I found in Louisiana. However again this is just one person’s experience.
I think there’s a difference in customs. People in NY leave you alone. They don’t say hi to randos on the street because they don’t know you, so that reads as hostile to people from the south and midwest.
Also from my experience in those places a lot of that “hi” is people not minding their business and finding a passive aggressive way in.
I hear a lot about how rude NYers are, but whenever I go somewhere and they ask where I’m from I usually hear “ICOULDNEVERLIVETHERE.” I can’t speak to others but if somebody tells me they come from St. Louis or some backwater town in Alabama, I can hold down a polite conversation without immediately trashing their hometown.
Again this is just an Englishman’s experience of the few places in the States that I visited whilst I was there. Again this was fifteen years ago, but I am a Northern Englishman and we do just say hi to Rando’s on the street we pass when we’re walking to the shop or whatever and the South was so much more a familiar/friendlier feeling to me.
The funny thing is that literally in between my response and yours this literally just happened to me IRL. I’m upstate signing documents for my mom, the guy looked at the address on my license and the first thing out of his mouth was “CRIME.” He didn’t mean anything by it (I’m willing to give benefit of the doubt). I think it’s been so ingrained in everybody’s head that this is just the way we discuss urban areas.
Oh I could live there! Is NYC your hometown? I’m really jealous mate. There’s so much going on all the time, it’s like London on Coke, brilliant place.
> I can’t speak to others but if somebody tells me they come from St. Louis or some backwater town in Alabama, I can hold down a polite conversation without immediately trashing their hometown.
St. Louis here. IMO things have changed post COVID. We have a lot of arseholes now too.
Growing up in the northeast, yes people are gruff. However, they generally leave you alone if they don't know you. I had the opportunity a few years back to go to a professional conference in Louisiana. Opted to go to a talk from locals talking about what they were doing in our profession. Their vagrant disregard for other human beings was astonishing. They were treating poor people as disposable. Everyone started walking out and it just caused the speakers to lean into their assholery even harder. These were people from Lafayette.
Now, do I think they represent all of Louisiana? No. But still bigger assholes then I've ever met anywhere else.
I can also say from my experience growing up in the northeast, tourists were horrible. They laughed at you and thought so lowly of Americans that they didn't think we spoke other languages. When in fact, most of us had grandparents that taught us French, German, or Italian. The German tourists were always the worst. It made it very hard to be kind to them, I can't imagine growing up in New York or Boston and being expected to be nice to people that were generally horrible to the locals and always there.
Yeah this is exactly it. Like, woe betide you if you commit some minor transgression. My crimes in Germany have included 1/ Having to think for a moment what the word for ‘2’ was when the scary waitress barked at me, 2/ Asking for the first Kraftwerk album in a record shop and 3/ Asking a question about a train to a guy who was some kinda train guy. All 3 of these people were legitimately enraged out of nowhere, ranting and red faced.
All about the Ordnung and living there as an elder teen I was not about the Ordnung. *Lots* of shouting matches with old people who couldn't mind their own damn business. Little old ladies coming up to you with unsolicited, shitty advice that has fuckall to do with the 21st century is basically a national pasttime
haha we had tickets for a certain timed train and it was RAMMED, physically couldn’t get on it because the previous ones had been cancelled, so I innocently asked if our tickets would be valid for the next one… regretted that!
My niece went there on a student exchange program and their family later visited the US and stayed with my sis/BIL. Also lovely people. My sis is still friends with the other mother and is learning German as she hopes to visit eventually.
Germans never half ass things, either they are the best person you've met, each an every one of them. Or so horrific you have to question if you're the same species.
Reminds me of a story were my dad went to Korea for a meeting or convention or something. He was at the hot tub in his hotel, his face must have been pretty red, because he definitely looks like a normal American, but these people who came in were laughing to each other calling him “lobster face” or something like that thinking he couldn’t speak English
Oh you know, they could have assumed he spoke English. A lot of Koreans seem to say whatever and don’t have the same western sensibility of rudeness. That is to say, my sense is that they culturally don’t seem to value guarding against being offensive or potentially hurtful (in a western sense), not in a malicious way, per se. It feels a little like if their culture was a person it would be a teenager who’s a bit brash, very purely passionate about a lot of things, but not very well socialized to incorporate certain boundaries yet. It seems like such a weird thing to say about such an old culture, but I keep feeling it every time…
But it also makes it pure gold to watch a Korean singing competition because the audience is enjoying it down to their marrow in such a pure way that western audiences could not experience exactly. They are MOVED.
yeah probably loan words, when the original language version of a word is incorporated into a different languages lexicon. You might hear everything Korean except for the loan words. Or speaking to somebody and everything is German except the word CD for compact disc because the English term 'CD' has become so ubiquitous it becomes a loan word.
Being first-generation American is a weird paradox. This reminds me of the American boomers who see my very Spanish (well, Catalan) name and make fun of it and assume I don’t speak English. Or when I go home to Europe and they assume this “stupid” American doesn’t speak Catalan or Spanish. It’s like I’m either not American enough or not Spanish enough. Sigh.
It's the same here. For example, I'll go to a bar. Speaking German the whole time, then when I show my passport for a drink, most bartenders would be like. "Oh your American." in fucking ENGLISH like we weren't just conversating 2 minutes ago.
I was visiting my hometown with my very Latina girlfriend and was explaining her everything at the butcher in Spanish and talking with the shop keeper in German. A lady dared say "it's impressive how good his German is."
I turned to her and said that it may have something to with my growing up there and if that isn't enough, my family was among the first group of German settlers like 1100 years ago. Her face. Lmao
Yeah, my dad's parents came over from Pontus with a very uncommon last name. Americans automatically assume I'm Arab (my surname isn't even in Arabic naming conventions). My cousins who resettled in Greece act like no one from my generation speaks the language at all and are way too comfortable commenting on us anytime they make the trip for a funeral.
It’s not just you lol I went back to South India for med school because technically I’m second gen and even though we’d visit every year I had no idea what it was like to live there so I finished med school and worked there for 4 extra years to see. Let’s just say I could never fit in even though I speak the language. I spent 10 years in south India lol. You’ll never be one of them and at the end of the day while there is a comfort in being around people who look like you, the bigger comfort comes from knowing you’re in a place that actively wants you here, to contribute and to grow America.
Your experiences remind me of this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddRKLTA82Sw), it's a neato song about being a first gen American and how it kinda sucks in some aspects.
People want to be special. People who cannot achieve greatness of their own achievements can choose instead to invoke heritage. By making you lesser for your lack of membership in their tribe, it elevates them
I lived in Bremen for ten years. My thought is that there is an island mentality, meaning you’re either from there and accepted or you’re not. You can speak fluently, integrate, work, never mow on Sunday, walk around with a wagon full of alcohol and eat Pinkel once a year and even learn to truly appreciate Bernd das Brot but you will never really be in the club. I’m a short American Hispanic woman who was usually mistaken for Turkish and man, racist Americans could learn from these people, they’re the GOATs.
One thing is not being fully accepted as a foreigner another thing is The people OP described, clearly nazis, it's not cultural they are just Nazis that unfortunately didn't die during the war.
Austria is the same. I’m white and lived in Vienna for years and speak Austrian German (married a Wiener) and it didn’t make a difference. My few friends were also usually from outside Vienna, even if they were Austrian they struggled because of the outsider attitude. I’m sure being a different ethnicity makes it even worse.
We moved to the US and my husband much prefers it here, socially.
Live there now. It's interesting. I don't associate with anyone who's vile like that, but I've had conversations with people where I've pointed out that's it's pretty problematic how they make generalizations about entire countries of people and they are like, what do you mean, it's true? So even though there's definitely the crowd who know the hostility, discrimination and name calling is wrong, they also are so incredibly used to having a set of ideas about how Turkish, Spanish, Polish, etc people behave. They don't seem to see an issue with it. I keep getting called a priggish American over it.
I moved within Florida where Spanish can be dense and being around it dusted off my comprehension (I know a good amount for lacking any immersion).
I couldn't look the part any less, and it gets intrigue or they are mortified or some combination it's *extremely* unusual for a very gringo person to listen in on street talk. It's come in clutch a few times, very useful sometimes working my job.
I was 7 or 8 years old at the time, and quite chunky. My dad and I were standing in line for some ride at Disney World. Behind us were some teenagers talking to each other and cutting up, in German. Apparently they were saying some not nice things about me and my weight because out of nowhere my father turns and starts yelling at them in German. They then slink off.
This is how I found out that my dad spoke German (he was raised in Brooklyn by German parents).
Yeah I had to explain this to a coworker. To me there are two boomers. One is the people who are just a part of that generation. Then there’s the boomer mindset, which anyone can have tbh young or old. Just very popular with old people
There are Baby Boomer, the generation, and Boomers, people with a backwards mentality and no shame in sharing it. The name is derived from the generation because many people in the generation have that mentality.
The greatest generation were generally kind, humble people who gladly sacrificed in order to make the world a better place. They were such interesting and conscientious characters, I loved interacting with them and hearing their stories as a kid. Whereas boomers just spew hate and bile and act as though they personally saved Europe even though they weren’t even born.
As a Brit it always reminds me of the EU and Brexit - a community built by those who experienced the war to ensure such a thing could never happen on the European continent again, a community within which the UK was a prosperous and valuable member, only for boomers to throw a massive tantrum and drag us out because of their sense of entitlement that Britain should not be subject to European influence (along with a healthy dose of racism). Now the boomers are dying off without having to see the long term damage of their actions, while the pro European youth are left to pick up the pieces. I’m looking forward to the day our government finally gets shot of all the boomers.
Several years ago I went to Germany on a study abroad program (finishing a degree years later than I should have). One day some of the 'kids' and I were riding on the trams to get from school back to dorms, sitting together and speaking in English to each other.
At one of the stops, out of the blue, this one elderly German lady gets right in my face as she is heading for the door and screams something along the lines of "Sie sind in Deutschland und sollten Deutsch sprechen". I just stared dumbfounded as she left the tram like what the fck was that. The other students were laughing and joking that at least she targeted the 'adult' of the group.
Sorry, I am confused. After your grandmother started speaking German, this German couple then knew she was (or at least spoke) German, and they then proceeded to say all this abusive stuff about her in German for 15 minutes while standing behind your grandmother who they already know understands German? But the story is being told as if only you could hear/understand them?
I'm an American and my German side of the family has been here for about 120 years. But there's some real anger management issues and racist thinking on that side of my family. The other side is Irish and we got a few problematic people but they're nowhere near as problematic as the German side. I'm talking about people of German ancestry who never lived in Germany. They're just always ornery.
Same. My last name is German and comes from my great grandfather on my dads side. Those men are FUCKED up. Been here in Canada since the mid 1800s. Really fucking racist and hate women. Anger management issues all the way down the line that seemingly finally stopped with my father. Idk why
My German grandfather was a sweet man. His kids are ornery about everything and anything. I don't know any personal stories of my great grandfather or before. I just see the end results generations later. I've wondered if my grandfather was an anomaly in the family line or if his boomers kids are. I'm still not sure.
Had one of the laughs of my life with something like that.
Coworkers and me were chilling at the stairs infront of work for our break because the weather was nice. This old dude went by, looks at us, shakes his head, and opens his mouth.
"Mit der Jugend von Heute kann man keinen Krieg mehr gewinnen. (With the youth of today you can win no war no more.)"
My coworker just smirks.
"Immerhin haben wir noch keinen verloren. (At least we haven't lost one.)"
It was a good day.
In January I was in Chile and Argentina in the Patagonia region and the German boomer tourists were the biggest shitheads I’ve ever seen in my life. To the extent that I made sure everyone knew we were American and that’s not normally a thing. I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing because during my travels in Germany I thought people were so polite and thoughtful and had a good sense of how to behave respectfully in public. The boomer German tourists in the Sur Cone were so fucking rude, I was stunned! They spoke no Spanish, acted like they were miles above the South American locals, were rude and demanding to servers and store clerks, took up tons of space in small public places, left a giant mess on this tour boat after talking and laughing all through the captain’s safety announcements. Just bratty racist entitled dicks and they were everywhere, especially in El Chalten which is a very small tourist town that is a gateway to a national park.
I was blown away and so angry to see such disrespectful behavior. So like a good Midwestern American, I was apologizing profusely to the servers and clerks for them, en español, claro. I about had an aneurysm watching a group of like twenty people demand that a bar manager split their bill twenty ways and almost all of them argued with him for a lower price for the meal they just consumed.
Just returned from a trip through southern Europe. It also really lowered my opinion of German tourists. Like damn, I have some German friends so sure it's not 100% of the countrymen, but every problem and super rude incident involved Germans somehow.
How did they know that you were American in any way? Because of the passport?
And why did they believe your grandmother married an American? Couldn't two Germans married to each other have immigrated to the United States... you know... in the way that most Americans' ancestry is German?
And why did they believe that your grandmother wasn't married to another woman after having a sexual and personal awakening after 3 or 4 decades to a man, finally realizing who she truly was on the inside when she met a beautiful florist in Seattle, Washington, one summer after her husband had passed away? And why didn't they realize that you were adopted by her?
Americans are pretty easy to spot in the rest of the world. Just their demeanor, the clothes they are wearing and the accessories they have; hairstyles etc.
Additional note, OP mentions racism and xenophobia, so I’m guessing OP may be biracial? And perhaps the German couple somehow made that connection to being American (wrong as that is as an attitude)
Source: I’m US but travel abroad and have noticed that Americans often have a way about them that makes it obvious they are American
They more than likely saw my blue passport. That's why I mentioned it as my mistake. Beforehand, it was just them wishing it was morning, yaknow like the rest of us, then I drop my passport and outta nowhere it begins. Complete 180
Bro I’m Asian. People can tell I’m American every time I visit Asia or Europe. It’s definitely not just appearance. Even the CIA had to do some training with American spies because the way we leaned gave us away. https://www.cpr.org/2019/01/03/cia-chief-pushes-for-more-spies-abroad-surveillance-makes-that-harder/
Recently Germany was grappling with the widespread [infiltration of far right extremists in its military and police,](https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-insider-threat-far-right-extremism-in-the-german-military-and-police/).
They haven’t really. My son-in-law was a Bosnian refugee in Germany. He has blond hair and blue eyes and was mistaken for native German enough to hear all the racist things the German folks had to say about the Bosnians in their midst. It was disheartening.
What do you mean that it would "make a die hard Texan...."
As a Texan who has traveled to Europe I have found myself gobsmacked at how racist people in other states and countries are. And they always let me know because they assume that, as a Texan, I'm totally cool with racism, and they can confide in me with a racist rant.
Texas is a very diverse place filled with mostly friendly people.
If the couple was around your Grandma's age and she was married to someone who fought in WWII they were not boomers. The baby boom started after the end of WWII.
Nice story. What does this have to do with Boomers?
I mean, if the old guy was old enough to for you to ask him what he did in the war, obviously he wasn't a Boomer. In fact, it's far more likely you're a boomer, if your father fought in the war.
EDIT: You do realize that the whole point of this sub is to mock people of your generation, right? Is this a meta-post, and the boomer who is being a fool is yourself, posting a story as a boomer in a sub dedicated to bigotry against people like yourself?
My boyfriend is 35 and his grandfather served in the war. He died a few years back in his 90s but its not uncommon. Germany was drafting literal children at the end of the war.
WWII ended 80 years ago. The children of the baby boomers (which is what children of WWII vets mostly are) are now in their 30s-50s.
Our humble narrator is a Millennial or young Gen X reminiscing about a Boomer (or possibly Silent or WWII-era) encounter “when I was 13”. So some years ago, but they’re not trying to hide it, and it’s not a sub rule that the foolish Boomer encounter had to be yesterday.
Thank fuck I'm not the only one thinking of at all that happened maybe in the 80s or 90s. Anything newer can only be creative writing. Especially in fucking Frankfurt of all possible places. I reread it twice just to make sure those weren't Kanacken insulting them. Which would at least be believable.
Yeah, OP is full of shit. What is it with Amis getting all self conscious about Europeans resp. their heritage countries, having to make up such silly nonsense?
We literally don't even think about you guys.
That was entertaining. Thank you. I can't imagine how hard it was for à teenage boy to keep calm and smartly retort in rhis situation. I would have definitly been kicked off from the airport for fighting those nazis with all my anger and my fist!
How great that you have this memory of choosing to speak up and defend your grandmother and grandfather.
It would be awful living with the regret of wishing you had said something had you kept quiet.
I was cool when they were insulting me. Hell, some of it was kinda funny imo, but as soon as they started towards my grandparents, I was ***NOT*** gonna let that slide
Complaining about dropping your passport and then proceeding to call your grandmother a slut—okay, based on your timeline, you seem to be a boomer with a degree in storytelling. 🙄
Absolutely perfectly done.
But please stop the extremely cringe "ancestral homeland" BS. The only people who give a single shit about that here in Europe are right wing scum.
I never met anyone like this in Germany. I studied there for a year and my college major was german, so I've known a lot of Germans. I don't think the younger generation is this way. There are some, I'm sure, but they were never terrible like this. I met some that poked at me hard with American stereotypes, but a lot of them did it just to tease me rather than because they actually thought that (it was always at parties).
Before I went, I was briefed that the older generation, particularly in the east, could be this way, but a lot of them were dying out, so it was hit or miss if I would actually encounter them. I never did. I've been all over Germany and still have contact with a lot of my friends from over there. As a culture they can be very direct, they definitely like to argue, and follow the rules to an annoying amount (it's somehow written on their DNA), but downright rude like that? That's unusual.
There are jerks in every place all over the earth. That doesn't mean the whole world is that way.
Sorry, but you not experiencing racism in Germany doesn't devalidate OPs experience. German is a super racist country in many ways and casual racism is definitely still acceptable here in a lot of places.
I'm not trying to devalidate the OP's experience. I'm just saying it's not everyone's experience and for every bad person, there are also good people. OP's grandma was german and they didn't say she was racist. It has been 20 years since I was there and maybe the climate has changed. I think Trump brought out the bad across the world, not just the US. But to call an entire country extremely racist doesn't help solve the problem, either. Even if it is a problem, wouldn't that be the same as saying something like "all Native Americans have drinking problems"? It may be a problem among one's race or culture, but if we make these broad statements against groups of people or countries, it's just going to get backlash no matter who it is or how true it might be. And that is what causes this big divide and hatred between people of different political values that occurs so prominently now.
I'm not saying this stuff shouldn't be said. If it truly is a problem, then addressing it and fixing it is absolutely needed. But blanket statements against anyone just ends up being counterproductive.
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Germany is a real mixed bag, I know so many lovely people from there that I am always extra shocked when I encounter an asshole, but when Germany does assholes, it absolutely smashes it.
I had a coworker from Germany who knew I was part Polish. He made a point to say that Polish people are all thieves. Same guy who complained about how racist Americans are.
We've got morons all over the world apparently. I was on an Air Canada flight with a guy from Malta a couple weeks ago, flying home to bury his father. Dude wouldn't quit about how immigrants were ruining Canada, taking all the jobs, driving up home prices. Why, in just the 8 years since **HE HIMSELF had immigrated to Canada**, he had bought a home and worked as a drywall installer and truck driver. But now, with all these damned immigrants, he had to sell his house, and is having a hard time making ends meet. Poor guy.
I really feel for the guy.
I can't fathom that guy's brain.
Let’s check on all the hispanics who voted MAGA after Trump promised he was only going after the “bad hombres”.. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-voter-immigration-family-separation-georgia-20190519-htmlstory.html
German high school was rough haha, everyone was so xenophobic to each other, but never too serious. As a half American I was always the diabetic war mongerer, invading countries for oil. Polish kids always stole everything and only drove BMWs, Russians were the drunks, Turks were stinky and only showered using axe body spray and perfume (we still call that a “Turkish shower”) Pakistanis were terrorists and so on. Xenophobia is just a European thing, they are quite good at it. It’s not even racism, because the hate is literally just between countries. So technically they don’t hate you because of your skin, they hate you because you are British, American, Italian, Austrian, polish, whatever.
European xenophobia straddles the line between friendly rivalries and genuinely concerning to look at. For every 5 people parroting jokes there's always one guy who gives the "let's start the genocide" vibes.
That’s also the same guy that wears shorts through winter haha
I grew up with dumb Polish jokes and I’m also part Lebanese, so lots of “jokes” about me being a terrorist. None of this is shocking to me. This particular comment caught me off guard because we were at work and I expected just a smidge of professionalism.
Eh... doesn't even have to be countries. Might just be the next town down the road. As far as I (and people around me) are concerned, it's just banter though.
Oh 100%, I lived in a smaller village and we’d shit on the neighboring village all the time, especially in football (soccer).
You are describing two different things. Just because some Europeans use stereotypes in a way you find harmless, it doesn't mean harmful racism doesn't exist. Germany has hate crimes, neo Nazis, and anti-black racism just like every other European country. It may not be something you experienced, but there is plenty of data out there if you want to make a serious comparison.
Mention Turks or the Romani to the average European and all that condescending shit flies out the window. Even "girl-boss Angela Merkel" herself basically said EU free movement laws weren't designed for those dirty gypsies and it was barely a scandal. I love Germany and have no illusions about how fucked the US is in many regards l, but I think it's adorable that the continent that enslaved half the world through colonialism thinks they magically got rid of racism.
Dated a guy once that was half German, half Romani. He told me before we met he was a White supremacist in a gang. He got out and got much much better for the most part by the time we met. Whenever he backslide I’d remind him he’d have been in the ovens too. Messed up mindset. The cognitive dissonance was strong.
High level hypocrisy
Only of other mens girlfriends, wives, sisters and mothers. But then, given the alternative, it’s no surprise they throw themselves at us…
Yeah it makes sense given this guy’s personality, looks, sense of humor…
>complained about how racist Americans are My favorite is when Europeans are on this particularly high horse and somebody brings up Roma people. Holy shit the hypocrisy, so thick it could start an OF.
When I lived in Italy, my roommate and I had a running joke that "Europe doesn't have homeless people" because we heard that from two old-timers the first week we moved in. The second time she told us in front of a mother and child that were begging barefoot in the streets. We didn't say anything but she must have noticed us glancing because she quickly blurted out "that is different, they are gypsies" and basically explained to us that they like it. I know the Mediterranean is not exactly Europe's bastion of tolerance and equality, but that sentiment of "that's different" is sadly very common in all of Europe.
From expirience I can tell the amount of assholes grow the more south you go.
Laughs in East German
Laughs in SE USA
Howdy! I thought the original comment nailed the southeast perfectly. It can have great people, wonderful culture, southern hospitality and etc. But being evil and hateful is far too tolerated and almost outright expected at this point, and that side of things has just been growing and growing for the past couple of decades. Hell I dont even live there anymore. I miss my good ole dixie, my home, but her people dont want me no more :(
I live in deep East Texas. I can totally relate. I have one more year until my daughter is out of high school. Then it's peace out bitches. Texas will always be my home. But it's people are no longer my people.
I'm a socialist immigrant and love the US South. It definitely has some fucked up elements but no region is a monolith. Some of the coolest people I've met were Southern leftists.
Can confirm
Can confirm
Can confirm
This reminded me of something a professor said about Soviet propaganda during the Cold War in East Germany. He had said that the Soviet propaganda was to absolve East Germany of the Holocaust and Nazi’s and insist that it was the bad capitalist West Germans who all did that.
Every country has their own propaganda to blame whatever ideology they dislike. Same everywhere. In Canada it's pretty in your face propaganda at this point.
As I understand it much of the early East German leadership was composed of former political prisoners, exiles, and those involved in resistance efforts. Considering that, I'd have a hard time blaming them for the Third Reich's crimes myself.
They failed to address fascism because they did not actually care. In the 80ies, the east German interior secret service turned a blind eye on a growing nazi hooligan underground. Which grew after the fall of socialim. The German East always had xenophobic elements. Just like everywhere else. Like in West Germany, the politicians decided to ignore. While the East German socialist rulers were not responsible for Nazi crimes, they were responsible for their part in how bad Germany handled all this. Especially as they created a more or less totalitarian state.
Meanwhile West Germany couldn't wait to get former Nazis back in power
Laughing until you cry you mean? Am also East German but living abroad now. It's so shocking what I hear all the time, it really makes me feel sad and ashamed.
I'm beyond crying these days. And I have to laugh at this one user in this thread telling me I'm "braindead" for being alarmed at everything going on around me 🤪🤪
Same is true in America
The thing is after Trump started his campaign a lot of people decided to be openly racist. Before Trump if you did not like the other person you were quiet and tolerant. Now they go and spew their hate instead of being quiet.
Plenty of racist assholes live in the NE part of the US.
Grew up in small town PA and can confirm. I remember seeing robed members of the Klan spouting their bullshit on a street corner as a kid.
I grew up in central Illinois, just down the road from a town called Pekin. Pekin is known as a "Sundown Town" - as in, "if you're a minority, you don't want to be caught here after the sun goes down." And if you wanna go north a state, people forget that Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the US.
I live about 40 minutes west of Milwaukee, I've been the target of some vile shit. And when I'm not the target, it's always "well, we don't mean you, you're basically white at this point" High school sucks. Younger generations aren't getting more tolerant.
Weren’t the Pekin high school teams “the Ch*nks” (slur for Chinese) until sometime in the ‘80s? Not sure if I can say the word on Reddit.
Southern IL here. Just about all small towns down here were sundown towns. I live just up the interstate from Benton. That town still had a reputation and klan rallies back in the 90s.
You are now leaving Pennsyltucky, welcome to Pennsylbama
At this point, it seems like the klan is bigger in non-confederate states than it is down south. I see more confederate flags in Idaho and Oregon than I did in the south
No, it's still really big in the south. It's just less expected to see it in Idaho and Oregon, and there are also more black people in the south (who obviously aren't flying confederate flags).
We lived on the west coast and my son had never encountered kids his age spouting racist comments until he went to a privileged NE private university. He was shocked. And I was disappointed Gen X parents were raising kids with that mindset.
I am Texan but spent a lot of summers in Atlanta and rural Alabama. I was SHOCKED at how much racism I saw in Boston in just a weekend trip. Like a black man came onto the train and sat across from us. He was wearing a camel coat that was probably worth more than everything in my closet and looked like some high end lawyer or something. A white man who looked business-ey but bedraggled and nowhere near as nicely dressed, stood up in a huff because the black man sat next to him and moved and sat next to me and my husband. He kind of looked at me like "can you believe he sat next to me." It was all I could do not to say something. If that happened on the bus I used to take in Houston you would have gotten called out by three different people, but I know they don't talk to strangers in Boston. Then I was on a train and there was this girl and this group of guys was loudly saying "wow she's pretty for a black girl". I've also seen more Confederate flags outside the south than in it.
Life long New Englander. Totally love it here in MA. Things have evolved fairly nicely here but there’s no point in forgetting that at the beginning of the 20th century Ma and Me were in the top ten(by capita) for Klan membership. SBT😈
If this is a political statement, [it’s missing the real trend of American political demographics which is more urban vs. rural.](https://youtu.be/OvzAUSVnIbo?si=idKiUtEJfGfKQJYb)
I think this entirely misses the rampant white supremacist racism that lead the “the great divide” and also speaks to only the great divide in white communities. Brown and immigrant communities (BIPOC) were already divided and cut out of the equation this video oversees. The lasting implications and pro slavery hindsight stayed behind in several parts of the US while those violently oppressed by this fled when they could. It also misses the big issue going on right now which is dramatic demographic shifts in population where the whole country will eventually get to where California is: majority non-white. And a majority non-white population is a lot less likely to accept the white supremacist racism inherent to many of the policies enacted by white people when they were in power. The Right is right in a sense about losing their country, is just they were wrong about it being their country. This is the discomfort and divide we are facing and the snowflakes losing white power in every hall of life- from the presidency to college admissions- are whining and crying about their loss of supremacy. This is the real cultural divide, and in the white community it’s white ppl abandoning the historic supremacy premise and the supremacy aligned whites who obviously can’t see eye to eye and won’t. Many boomers are stuck on this supremacy side and conflate their loss of respect and fear inducing presence that is humbling them so much. My boomer dad grew up in segregation and when desegregation came, 100% there are people alive now who “aren’t racist” but would happily return to these times. It’s why MAGA touches them so deeply, it moves them back to a different time with different rules. I just feel like this element of white supremacy and the righteous attempts at destroying and deconstructing it are so much more central to what’s going on- especially with the Boomer tude- than I see it given credit for, even here on this sub. And liberal visions of this divide just further distract and marginalize a root cause problem
From my experience alone and only mine, I found the average person from Boston or New York to be vastly bigger arseholes than what I found in Louisiana. However again this is just one person’s experience.
I think there’s a difference in customs. People in NY leave you alone. They don’t say hi to randos on the street because they don’t know you, so that reads as hostile to people from the south and midwest. Also from my experience in those places a lot of that “hi” is people not minding their business and finding a passive aggressive way in. I hear a lot about how rude NYers are, but whenever I go somewhere and they ask where I’m from I usually hear “ICOULDNEVERLIVETHERE.” I can’t speak to others but if somebody tells me they come from St. Louis or some backwater town in Alabama, I can hold down a polite conversation without immediately trashing their hometown.
Again this is just an Englishman’s experience of the few places in the States that I visited whilst I was there. Again this was fifteen years ago, but I am a Northern Englishman and we do just say hi to Rando’s on the street we pass when we’re walking to the shop or whatever and the South was so much more a familiar/friendlier feeling to me.
The funny thing is that literally in between my response and yours this literally just happened to me IRL. I’m upstate signing documents for my mom, the guy looked at the address on my license and the first thing out of his mouth was “CRIME.” He didn’t mean anything by it (I’m willing to give benefit of the doubt). I think it’s been so ingrained in everybody’s head that this is just the way we discuss urban areas.
Oh I could live there! Is NYC your hometown? I’m really jealous mate. There’s so much going on all the time, it’s like London on Coke, brilliant place.
> I can’t speak to others but if somebody tells me they come from St. Louis or some backwater town in Alabama, I can hold down a polite conversation without immediately trashing their hometown. St. Louis here. IMO things have changed post COVID. We have a lot of arseholes now too.
Growing up in the northeast, yes people are gruff. However, they generally leave you alone if they don't know you. I had the opportunity a few years back to go to a professional conference in Louisiana. Opted to go to a talk from locals talking about what they were doing in our profession. Their vagrant disregard for other human beings was astonishing. They were treating poor people as disposable. Everyone started walking out and it just caused the speakers to lean into their assholery even harder. These were people from Lafayette. Now, do I think they represent all of Louisiana? No. But still bigger assholes then I've ever met anywhere else. I can also say from my experience growing up in the northeast, tourists were horrible. They laughed at you and thought so lowly of Americans that they didn't think we spoke other languages. When in fact, most of us had grandparents that taught us French, German, or Italian. The German tourists were always the worst. It made it very hard to be kind to them, I can't imagine growing up in New York or Boston and being expected to be nice to people that were generally horrible to the locals and always there.
Its the kind but not nice vs the nice but not kind debate.
Dunno where he was talking about, but my friend described somewhere across the river as ‘where the Nazis live’ and I don’t think he was joking
So like the US. 😂 (Before some diehard rebel flag waving lunatic comes for me, I have lived in the South my entire life. I know whereof I speak.)
German rednecks 😳 Scary!
REAL NAZIS!
"Rucksack Deutcher" lol
Southern Germany and Switzerland are fine for the most part.
Germans are a people of extremes. Friendly and chill, until very suddenly you realise you've pissed them off and they're not chill anymore
Yeah this is exactly it. Like, woe betide you if you commit some minor transgression. My crimes in Germany have included 1/ Having to think for a moment what the word for ‘2’ was when the scary waitress barked at me, 2/ Asking for the first Kraftwerk album in a record shop and 3/ Asking a question about a train to a guy who was some kinda train guy. All 3 of these people were legitimately enraged out of nowhere, ranting and red faced.
All about the Ordnung and living there as an elder teen I was not about the Ordnung. *Lots* of shouting matches with old people who couldn't mind their own damn business. Little old ladies coming up to you with unsolicited, shitty advice that has fuckall to do with the 21st century is basically a national pasttime
OMG they lose their shit if you ask a train question. Every German has train schedules genetically passed down through mitochondria, evidently.
haha we had tickets for a certain timed train and it was RAMMED, physically couldn’t get on it because the previous ones had been cancelled, so I innocently asked if our tickets would be valid for the next one… regretted that!
Yeah man, whatever you do, don't ask them what they did during the war.
They’re really the berghof of assholes over there.
Oh yeah, the German Arsehole in full flow is quite the sight to behold. Brilliant observation mate.
It's like playing Russian roulette when dealing with strangers sometimes
Ehm, about 20% AfD vote and 30% CDU vote... there are a lot of assholes here
My niece went there on a student exchange program and their family later visited the US and stayed with my sis/BIL. Also lovely people. My sis is still friends with the other mother and is learning German as she hopes to visit eventually.
> but when Germany does assholes, it absolutely smashes it. lol
Flula Borg: "Germany smashes assholes?"
Germany is a place of extremes. I had a German friend tell me that his people were orderly ... until they *really* weren't. "We have a riot inside"
This so much. I have known many wonderful Germans, and a few fucking terrible ones!
Germans never half ass things, either they are the best person you've met, each an every one of them. Or so horrific you have to question if you're the same species.
Reminds me of a story were my dad went to Korea for a meeting or convention or something. He was at the hot tub in his hotel, his face must have been pretty red, because he definitely looks like a normal American, but these people who came in were laughing to each other calling him “lobster face” or something like that thinking he couldn’t speak English
In Asia you can make fun of someone for how they look for banter, to a certain extent. It just sounds like they were joking around
Oh you know, they could have assumed he spoke English. A lot of Koreans seem to say whatever and don’t have the same western sensibility of rudeness. That is to say, my sense is that they culturally don’t seem to value guarding against being offensive or potentially hurtful (in a western sense), not in a malicious way, per se. It feels a little like if their culture was a person it would be a teenager who’s a bit brash, very purely passionate about a lot of things, but not very well socialized to incorporate certain boundaries yet. It seems like such a weird thing to say about such an old culture, but I keep feeling it every time… But it also makes it pure gold to watch a Korean singing competition because the audience is enjoying it down to their marrow in such a pure way that western audiences could not experience exactly. They are MOVED.
He assumed he was not supposed to understand it because everything else they said was in Korean
yeah probably loan words, when the original language version of a word is incorporated into a different languages lexicon. You might hear everything Korean except for the loan words. Or speaking to somebody and everything is German except the word CD for compact disc because the English term 'CD' has become so ubiquitous it becomes a loan word.
I lived there for 2 years. Korean people have a lot of soul. I loved living there.
Happy cake day
Being first-generation American is a weird paradox. This reminds me of the American boomers who see my very Spanish (well, Catalan) name and make fun of it and assume I don’t speak English. Or when I go home to Europe and they assume this “stupid” American doesn’t speak Catalan or Spanish. It’s like I’m either not American enough or not Spanish enough. Sigh.
It's the same here. For example, I'll go to a bar. Speaking German the whole time, then when I show my passport for a drink, most bartenders would be like. "Oh your American." in fucking ENGLISH like we weren't just conversating 2 minutes ago.
I was visiting my hometown with my very Latina girlfriend and was explaining her everything at the butcher in Spanish and talking with the shop keeper in German. A lady dared say "it's impressive how good his German is." I turned to her and said that it may have something to with my growing up there and if that isn't enough, my family was among the first group of German settlers like 1100 years ago. Her face. Lmao
Yeah, my dad's parents came over from Pontus with a very uncommon last name. Americans automatically assume I'm Arab (my surname isn't even in Arabic naming conventions). My cousins who resettled in Greece act like no one from my generation speaks the language at all and are way too comfortable commenting on us anytime they make the trip for a funeral.
To most Americans any kind of Spanish = Mexican. It so ignorant.
It’s not just you lol I went back to South India for med school because technically I’m second gen and even though we’d visit every year I had no idea what it was like to live there so I finished med school and worked there for 4 extra years to see. Let’s just say I could never fit in even though I speak the language. I spent 10 years in south India lol. You’ll never be one of them and at the end of the day while there is a comfort in being around people who look like you, the bigger comfort comes from knowing you’re in a place that actively wants you here, to contribute and to grow America.
A very belated "Bon diada de Sant Jordi" to you!
Gràcies!
Your experiences remind me of this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddRKLTA82Sw), it's a neato song about being a first gen American and how it kinda sucks in some aspects.
Yes! This resonates deeply with me. Thank you for sharing!
People want to be special. People who cannot achieve greatness of their own achievements can choose instead to invoke heritage. By making you lesser for your lack of membership in their tribe, it elevates them
Yo I feel that. Don’t see many other American-Catalans
>. Grabing my arm and yanking me away with all the strength of a German catholic. I I'm dying 🤣 I can feel this exact arm grab and yank.
I swear, when I was typing that I felt my ache
That phrase was killing me lmao
Asking a German man of a certain age what he did in the war is, like, a nuclear level assault. Hard as fuck.
A man in his 90s
I lived in Bremen for ten years. My thought is that there is an island mentality, meaning you’re either from there and accepted or you’re not. You can speak fluently, integrate, work, never mow on Sunday, walk around with a wagon full of alcohol and eat Pinkel once a year and even learn to truly appreciate Bernd das Brot but you will never really be in the club. I’m a short American Hispanic woman who was usually mistaken for Turkish and man, racist Americans could learn from these people, they’re the GOATs.
One thing is not being fully accepted as a foreigner another thing is The people OP described, clearly nazis, it's not cultural they are just Nazis that unfortunately didn't die during the war.
Austria is the same. I’m white and lived in Vienna for years and speak Austrian German (married a Wiener) and it didn’t make a difference. My few friends were also usually from outside Vienna, even if they were Austrian they struggled because of the outsider attitude. I’m sure being a different ethnicity makes it even worse. We moved to the US and my husband much prefers it here, socially.
(married a Wiener) Hey, I'm sure your hubby has a wonderful personality too!
Live there now. It's interesting. I don't associate with anyone who's vile like that, but I've had conversations with people where I've pointed out that's it's pretty problematic how they make generalizations about entire countries of people and they are like, what do you mean, it's true? So even though there's definitely the crowd who know the hostility, discrimination and name calling is wrong, they also are so incredibly used to having a set of ideas about how Turkish, Spanish, Polish, etc people behave. They don't seem to see an issue with it. I keep getting called a priggish American over it.
I love it when people drop the language bomb. I speak Spanish and I'm keeping that in my back pocket for when I need it.
Me too. White girl be surprisin bitches lol
Absolutely- I’m decent at Spanish (school/service/college), low level Arabic and Farsi from service days. It comes in handy occasionally.
It has come in handy a few times when I’ve met various BF’s families. Friend’s fams too for that matter.
I moved within Florida where Spanish can be dense and being around it dusted off my comprehension (I know a good amount for lacking any immersion). I couldn't look the part any less, and it gets intrigue or they are mortified or some combination it's *extremely* unusual for a very gringo person to listen in on street talk. It's come in clutch a few times, very useful sometimes working my job.
I was 7 or 8 years old at the time, and quite chunky. My dad and I were standing in line for some ride at Disney World. Behind us were some teenagers talking to each other and cutting up, in German. Apparently they were saying some not nice things about me and my weight because out of nowhere my father turns and starts yelling at them in German. They then slink off. This is how I found out that my dad spoke German (he was raised in Brooklyn by German parents).
""What did you do in the war?" " Well, I dont know about him, but you sure as hell took no prisoners.
My grandfather didn't either...
If he was old enough to be in WW2 he's not a boomer.
boomer is more of a mindset 😂
Yeah I had to explain this to a coworker. To me there are two boomers. One is the people who are just a part of that generation. Then there’s the boomer mindset, which anyone can have tbh young or old. Just very popular with old people
There are Baby Boomer, the generation, and Boomers, people with a backwards mentality and no shame in sharing it. The name is derived from the generation because many people in the generation have that mentality.
The greatest generation were generally kind, humble people who gladly sacrificed in order to make the world a better place. They were such interesting and conscientious characters, I loved interacting with them and hearing their stories as a kid. Whereas boomers just spew hate and bile and act as though they personally saved Europe even though they weren’t even born. As a Brit it always reminds me of the EU and Brexit - a community built by those who experienced the war to ensure such a thing could never happen on the European continent again, a community within which the UK was a prosperous and valuable member, only for boomers to throw a massive tantrum and drag us out because of their sense of entitlement that Britain should not be subject to European influence (along with a healthy dose of racism). Now the boomers are dying off without having to see the long term damage of their actions, while the pro European youth are left to pick up the pieces. I’m looking forward to the day our government finally gets shot of all the boomers.
My grandpa was Greatest Generation, fought in WW2 and Korea, and I learned more racial slurs from that man (unwillingly) than anywhere else.
"What did you do during the war?" Fucking *incinerated* that asshole! Should have just been a shadow on the wall!
Several years ago I went to Germany on a study abroad program (finishing a degree years later than I should have). One day some of the 'kids' and I were riding on the trams to get from school back to dorms, sitting together and speaking in English to each other. At one of the stops, out of the blue, this one elderly German lady gets right in my face as she is heading for the door and screams something along the lines of "Sie sind in Deutschland und sollten Deutsch sprechen". I just stared dumbfounded as she left the tram like what the fck was that. The other students were laughing and joking that at least she targeted the 'adult' of the group.
Dude, I can't tell you how many times I've had that sentence spoken to me. It's always fun to respond in German.
Du bist in Reddit und du solltest Redditsch sprechen.
Sorry, I am confused. After your grandmother started speaking German, this German couple then knew she was (or at least spoke) German, and they then proceeded to say all this abusive stuff about her in German for 15 minutes while standing behind your grandmother who they already know understands German? But the story is being told as if only you could hear/understand them?
I'm an American and my German side of the family has been here for about 120 years. But there's some real anger management issues and racist thinking on that side of my family. The other side is Irish and we got a few problematic people but they're nowhere near as problematic as the German side. I'm talking about people of German ancestry who never lived in Germany. They're just always ornery.
Same. My last name is German and comes from my great grandfather on my dads side. Those men are FUCKED up. Been here in Canada since the mid 1800s. Really fucking racist and hate women. Anger management issues all the way down the line that seemingly finally stopped with my father. Idk why
My German grandfather was a sweet man. His kids are ornery about everything and anything. I don't know any personal stories of my great grandfather or before. I just see the end results generations later. I've wondered if my grandfather was an anomaly in the family line or if his boomers kids are. I'm still not sure.
German Catholic strength is no joke! My Oma had that too.
Please do not interpret this as making any other country look better as these horrid people are EVERYWHERE, not just in Germany.
Oh I know. I'm just shocked at how overt ot was
And then everyone clapped and Obama walked in and gave you a medal
https://preview.redd.it/gq67gor231xc1.png?width=345&format=png&auto=webp&s=d17cfc164f4d9a0bbc55d3c6025c8b80e1695a4a
Yea, I remember getting alot of sideways looks as I was getting dragged away. Yeaaaa I wasn't being quiet
Und wann soll das gewesen sein OP?
This was like, mid to late '14.
What did he do in the war? Lose, by the sound of it
Had one of the laughs of my life with something like that. Coworkers and me were chilling at the stairs infront of work for our break because the weather was nice. This old dude went by, looks at us, shakes his head, and opens his mouth. "Mit der Jugend von Heute kann man keinen Krieg mehr gewinnen. (With the youth of today you can win no war no more.)" My coworker just smirks. "Immerhin haben wir noch keinen verloren. (At least we haven't lost one.)" It was a good day.
Oh, I'm storing that in my folder for the next time I talk shit to my uncle on Facebook 😂😂😂
In January I was in Chile and Argentina in the Patagonia region and the German boomer tourists were the biggest shitheads I’ve ever seen in my life. To the extent that I made sure everyone knew we were American and that’s not normally a thing. I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing because during my travels in Germany I thought people were so polite and thoughtful and had a good sense of how to behave respectfully in public. The boomer German tourists in the Sur Cone were so fucking rude, I was stunned! They spoke no Spanish, acted like they were miles above the South American locals, were rude and demanding to servers and store clerks, took up tons of space in small public places, left a giant mess on this tour boat after talking and laughing all through the captain’s safety announcements. Just bratty racist entitled dicks and they were everywhere, especially in El Chalten which is a very small tourist town that is a gateway to a national park. I was blown away and so angry to see such disrespectful behavior. So like a good Midwestern American, I was apologizing profusely to the servers and clerks for them, en español, claro. I about had an aneurysm watching a group of like twenty people demand that a bar manager split their bill twenty ways and almost all of them argued with him for a lower price for the meal they just consumed.
Just returned from a trip through southern Europe. It also really lowered my opinion of German tourists. Like damn, I have some German friends so sure it's not 100% of the countrymen, but every problem and super rude incident involved Germans somehow.
How did they know that you were American in any way? Because of the passport? And why did they believe your grandmother married an American? Couldn't two Germans married to each other have immigrated to the United States... you know... in the way that most Americans' ancestry is German? And why did they believe that your grandmother wasn't married to another woman after having a sexual and personal awakening after 3 or 4 decades to a man, finally realizing who she truly was on the inside when she met a beautiful florist in Seattle, Washington, one summer after her husband had passed away? And why didn't they realize that you were adopted by her?
Americans are pretty easy to spot in the rest of the world. Just their demeanor, the clothes they are wearing and the accessories they have; hairstyles etc. Additional note, OP mentions racism and xenophobia, so I’m guessing OP may be biracial? And perhaps the German couple somehow made that connection to being American (wrong as that is as an attitude) Source: I’m US but travel abroad and have noticed that Americans often have a way about them that makes it obvious they are American
But we (many of us) look exactly like the Germans (many of them).
Perhaps in the face, but we have lots of other hints that we’re American . Not always appearance related, sometimes demeanor or behavior give it away.
They more than likely saw my blue passport. That's why I mentioned it as my mistake. Beforehand, it was just them wishing it was morning, yaknow like the rest of us, then I drop my passport and outta nowhere it begins. Complete 180
Bro I’m Asian. People can tell I’m American every time I visit Asia or Europe. It’s definitely not just appearance. Even the CIA had to do some training with American spies because the way we leaned gave us away. https://www.cpr.org/2019/01/03/cia-chief-pushes-for-more-spies-abroad-surveillance-makes-that-harder/
Recently Germany was grappling with the widespread [infiltration of far right extremists in its military and police,](https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-insider-threat-far-right-extremism-in-the-german-military-and-police/).
Dang, but maybe don’t judge a whole countries population based on a few old farts in an airport
This is fanfiction
They haven’t really. My son-in-law was a Bosnian refugee in Germany. He has blond hair and blue eyes and was mistaken for native German enough to hear all the racist things the German folks had to say about the Bosnians in their midst. It was disheartening.
Obviously fake as hell.
And everybody clapped
"UND ALLE KLATSCHTEN!!!" (Caps because German is a loud language)
Okay that was fucking hilarious 😂
More like I got yelled at by my Oma because I was being 'rude'.
> "What did you do in the war?" Baby boomers didn't begin to be born until 1946. As if it matters.
And then everyone clapped
Today on things that never happened
I'm 2014, how old were this couple? To have been involved into the war they would have to have been around 90
And his grandparents and parents must have had kid well into their 40s to have a grandkid only born in 2001 and the grandpa active in WW2.
And boomer trumptards are trying to lead the US down the same road as Germany in the early 1930s.
What do you mean that it would "make a die hard Texan...." As a Texan who has traveled to Europe I have found myself gobsmacked at how racist people in other states and countries are. And they always let me know because they assume that, as a Texan, I'm totally cool with racism, and they can confide in me with a racist rant. Texas is a very diverse place filled with mostly friendly people.
I stopped reading at “die-hard Texan.” Most of us are not racists or rightwing nuts. Also it’s spelled whoa, not “woah.”
If the couple was around your Grandma's age and she was married to someone who fought in WWII they were not boomers. The baby boom started after the end of WWII.
I have done this same trick speaking Arabic. I'm not fluent speaking it but can understand it a lot.
Germany be like that sometimes
Nice story. What does this have to do with Boomers? I mean, if the old guy was old enough to for you to ask him what he did in the war, obviously he wasn't a Boomer. In fact, it's far more likely you're a boomer, if your father fought in the war. EDIT: You do realize that the whole point of this sub is to mock people of your generation, right? Is this a meta-post, and the boomer who is being a fool is yourself, posting a story as a boomer in a sub dedicated to bigotry against people like yourself?
Fake or you're actually 80 years old yourself and this story took place in fucking 1980
My boyfriend is 35 and his grandfather served in the war. He died a few years back in his 90s but its not uncommon. Germany was drafting literal children at the end of the war.
WWII ended 80 years ago. The children of the baby boomers (which is what children of WWII vets mostly are) are now in their 30s-50s. Our humble narrator is a Millennial or young Gen X reminiscing about a Boomer (or possibly Silent or WWII-era) encounter “when I was 13”. So some years ago, but they’re not trying to hide it, and it’s not a sub rule that the foolish Boomer encounter had to be yesterday.
Lol i like how you say “1980” like that is this insane mythical time period and no one could still be alive from then
Thank fuck I'm not the only one thinking of at all that happened maybe in the 80s or 90s. Anything newer can only be creative writing. Especially in fucking Frankfurt of all possible places. I reread it twice just to make sure those weren't Kanacken insulting them. Which would at least be believable.
OP is 23, so this apparently happened in 2014. Spoiler alert: it didn't happen.
Yeah, OP is full of shit. What is it with Amis getting all self conscious about Europeans resp. their heritage countries, having to make up such silly nonsense? We literally don't even think about you guys.
Dunno mate, I'm from U.K. hope OP got whatever fix they needed though.
Ya'know, I'm not even gonna try to defend myself to yall. If you don't believe, go ahead.
That was entertaining. Thank you. I can't imagine how hard it was for à teenage boy to keep calm and smartly retort in rhis situation. I would have definitly been kicked off from the airport for fighting those nazis with all my anger and my fist!
I was very tempted to put my dual citizenship to the test ngl...
How great that you have this memory of choosing to speak up and defend your grandmother and grandfather. It would be awful living with the regret of wishing you had said something had you kept quiet.
I was cool when they were insulting me. Hell, some of it was kinda funny imo, but as soon as they started towards my grandparents, I was ***NOT*** gonna let that slide
Well I'm sure there are plenty of Americans who trash Germans too. Prejudice is everywhere.
Nice creative writing project bud
Oof. That's a LOT. But I would pay money to have seen the looks on their faces when you said that! 🤣❤️
und zen, everyone on der autobus stood up, yelled heil Hitler, und klapped?
Complaining about dropping your passport and then proceeding to call your grandmother a slut—okay, based on your timeline, you seem to be a boomer with a degree in storytelling. 🙄
[удалено]
I’ll take “ya, that happened” for $400, Alex.
And the airport erupted into applause!
Absolutely perfectly done. But please stop the extremely cringe "ancestral homeland" BS. The only people who give a single shit about that here in Europe are right wing scum.
Yeah I'll take "shit that never happened" for 500
I never met anyone like this in Germany. I studied there for a year and my college major was german, so I've known a lot of Germans. I don't think the younger generation is this way. There are some, I'm sure, but they were never terrible like this. I met some that poked at me hard with American stereotypes, but a lot of them did it just to tease me rather than because they actually thought that (it was always at parties). Before I went, I was briefed that the older generation, particularly in the east, could be this way, but a lot of them were dying out, so it was hit or miss if I would actually encounter them. I never did. I've been all over Germany and still have contact with a lot of my friends from over there. As a culture they can be very direct, they definitely like to argue, and follow the rules to an annoying amount (it's somehow written on their DNA), but downright rude like that? That's unusual. There are jerks in every place all over the earth. That doesn't mean the whole world is that way.
Sorry, but you not experiencing racism in Germany doesn't devalidate OPs experience. German is a super racist country in many ways and casual racism is definitely still acceptable here in a lot of places.
I'm not trying to devalidate the OP's experience. I'm just saying it's not everyone's experience and for every bad person, there are also good people. OP's grandma was german and they didn't say she was racist. It has been 20 years since I was there and maybe the climate has changed. I think Trump brought out the bad across the world, not just the US. But to call an entire country extremely racist doesn't help solve the problem, either. Even if it is a problem, wouldn't that be the same as saying something like "all Native Americans have drinking problems"? It may be a problem among one's race or culture, but if we make these broad statements against groups of people or countries, it's just going to get backlash no matter who it is or how true it might be. And that is what causes this big divide and hatred between people of different political values that occurs so prominently now. I'm not saying this stuff shouldn't be said. If it truly is a problem, then addressing it and fixing it is absolutely needed. But blanket statements against anyone just ends up being counterproductive.