American English in the UK?

Uriel   Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:45 am GMT
96-99% white in all but 3 or 4 states? Not in my experience! Sounds like somebody's never been south of the Mason-Dixon line, to Detroit or Chicago, or to any of the states that run from Texas to California. Need I also mention New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii?

As you can see from these maps, the predominately white states are clustered in the north, the midwest, and the sparsely populated west, while the entire southern rim of the country from Virginia around to California have a rich demographic mixture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps_of_American_ancestries


<<So the term Anglo Saxon does not refer to the English exclusively. So all those modern day white inhabitants of the United States of America can indeed be called Anglos Saxon, even if their ancestors came from Northern European countries other than England (or the UK generally). >>

Um, not in America, they can't. Only Americans of British descent would be considered WASPs. Those of German or Scandinavian descent would never consider themselves such, no matter where the Saxons and Jutes hailed from originally, and our huge numbers of Eastern and Southern European descendents would be equally mystified to be lumped in with them!
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:39 am GMT
***Just about every US state has a white population of about 96-99%. Only about 3 or 4 states are actually racially diverse***

If you expect me to genuinely believe that then I will believe that the moon is made entirely of Gorgonzola cheese with a wee bit of Gruyere chucked in for good measure if you tell me so.......and the closest I've been to the USA is the clifftop at Land's End, down in Cornwall, England, the extreme south-westernmost tip of the British mainland where they have this huge signpost pointing in the direction of all sorts of locations across the world, with one pointing out over the wide Atlantic to the WSW saying "New York 3500 miles" or whatever the actual mileage is. That's the nearest I've ever been to America.

One of the signposts points inland, to the NE, and is blank until you tell this bloke who runs the whole show where in the UK you come from and he will then consult his computer and then insert the name of your city, town or village on the sigpost and the exact mileage from Land's End and then take your picture standing beneath it. Edinburgh is 574 miles away, so just a wee bit nearer than New York!
Rene   Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:04 pm GMT
In California, whites are officially a minority and white heritage is more and more becoming something that a person is made ashamed of in social situations. It's really amazing just how easy it is to walk down a street and get hissed at, beaten-up at school, sworn at, etc. simply because a person is white. I give it twenty more years before California resembles the South in about 1920, only in reverse.
Guest   Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:12 pm GMT
What a pity.
Guest   Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:29 pm GMT
<< In California, whites are officially a minority >>

Not true, they officially make up 77% of the population : http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html
JT   Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:51 pm GMT
<<Not true, they officially make up 77% of the population : http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html>>

Well, yeah, but that depends on how you define "white". If you look further down that list, you'll see "White persons not Hispanic" at 43.1%.
Travis   Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:01 pm GMT
>>Um, not in America, they can't. Only Americans of British descent would be considered WASPs. Those of German or Scandinavian descent would never consider themselves such, no matter where the Saxons and Jutes hailed from originally, and our huge numbers of Eastern and Southern European descendents would be equally mystified to be lumped in with them!<<

This is definitely the case. While in some parts of the US, "Anglo" is used to lump together white English-speaking North Americans, regardless of ancestry, in contrast to Latino Spanish-speakers, such is not a term that would be used by much of the population at all to describe themselves in places like the Midwest. The big thing is that here in the Upper Midwest in particular, it is not merely personal ancestry but rather the idea that the general culture here is not a transplant of British culture but rather a creation in situ with in many ways more input from non-British European immigrants than, say, the English or Scottish. Hence we are overall not merely non-British by personal ancestry, but rather we are non-British by culture, and moreso than much of New England and the South, as well. Consequently we really do not identify ourselves as being part of the greater British culture which has spread itself to places like Australia, New Zealand, Ontario, and like.
boz   Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:14 pm GMT
<<Well, yeah, but that depends on how you define "white". If you look further down that list, you'll see "White persons not Hispanic" at 43.1%.>>

"White persons not Hispanic" is not the same as "white persons" though, there would not be two different entries if it was.
Rene   Fri Aug 29, 2008 6:47 pm GMT
Exactly Boz. There are two different entries. The all white entry is at 43.1%. Besides, a great of Mexicans in California (and yes, I know I am purposefully excluding other Latino groups) are probably undocumented and aren't taken into the count.

In any case, it sure feels like your a minority when you're getting beaten up by a Mexican gang at school because they don't like the color of your backpack and the school is too scared to suspend them for it because they will get accused of racism and get their funding cut. That is not to say that all Mexicans are gang bangers or law breakers, because they certainly aren't. The greater majority are decent people who serve a function in society, whether they are legal immigrants or not, but you get the picture.
Boz   Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:01 pm GMT
<<The all white entry is at 43.1%.>>

No, it is at 77%.
JT   Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:32 pm GMT
<<In California, whites are officially a minority and white heritage is more and more becoming something that a person is made ashamed of in social situations. It's really amazing just how easy it is to walk down a street and get hissed at, beaten-up at school, sworn at, etc. simply because a person is white.>>

That's sad, but I know what you mean. I used to wait tables at a restaurant in a largely hispanic neighborhood in L.A., and every so often we'd get hispanic customers who'd request not to sit in my section. When I asked one of hispanic waitresses why that was so, her reply was, "Because you're white."
Guest   Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:00 pm GMT
Once I was working down in London a friend and I were on a tube (subway/underground) train on the Victoria Line heading down to Stockwell where we would change to a Northern Line train to take us down to South Wimbledon where we were to meet up with some friends of my friend, if you get the picture.

Stockwell is an area of London with a very high concentration of black people living, and as it was getting towards midnight there were not that many people on the train and the carriage we entered only had a group of young black guys all sitting together, probably a year or two younger than us - I'm 26 and the friend I was with 25.

As soon as we had sat down the guys started heckling us from the far end of the carriage and I have to admit it was a wee bit scary as I'm not that used to such situations even though I live in a fair sized cosmo city but not one as racially diverse as London is, or anywhere near as huge.

At the back of my mind was the relatively high incidence of crime (especially knife crime) among young black men in London and this was late in the evening after all. Strangely enough their victims generally appear to be other young black men, so maybe being young white men made us less likely to be attacked, but that's no guarantee of safety whatsoever, that's for sure.

One of them called out to us "Hey, snowflakes - wanna know where to get some Big 'Arry really cheap?" We didn't take up the offer (Big Harry is one of the slang terms for heroin) and although these blokes were not at all threatening really, I for one was glad when we got off at Stockwell, and not surprisingly my mate and I were the only two white people getting off the train as I recall, and when we changed onto the Northern Line train we didn't see that many other snowflakes either.

Once we got to South Wimbledon snowflakes were very much in the majority as were more or less in the outer suburbs where snowflakes well and truly dominate in the statistics.

It was the second time I'd been called "snowflake" in London....I think the other occasion was in a pub, again in South London with a large "non snowflake" population. I was told that it's not really used offensively but I wouldn't be too sure about that.
Uriel   Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:05 am GMT
<<At the back of my mind was the relatively high incidence of crime (especially knife crime) among young black men in London and this was late in the evening after all. Strangely enough their victims generally appear to be other young black men>>

Not strange at all. That is also the pattern in the US -- most victims of black criminals are other black people. Not sure why that would be, but the statistics bear this out.

Also, the only time anyone in London was deliberately rude to me (as opposed to just vaguely rude, which is just a cultural thing and a whole different issue), was when a black woman purposely made eye contact with me and then gave me the full body check -- just slammed into me with her shoulder as she went by. Found that pretty amusing, especially as I come from a place that supposedly has a much higher rate of racial tension than the UK, and no one has ever done that to me here!*

(*Being a half-breed, but looking very "white", I suppose I would be one of those people confusing the California stats discussed above -- if I still lived there! Remember, hispanic is an ethnicity, not an actual race, so one can be both at the same time.)
Guest   Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:07 am GMT
<<Remember, hispanic is an ethnicity, not an actual race>>

Yes but many stupid Americans do not understand it. In some cases it even prevents them to regard Spaniards as Hispanics, which is crazy (Brazilians on the other hand are often regarded as "Spanish" !).

Others, when realising a Spaniard or an Argentinian is a hispanic will then all of a sudden start insisting he's not white.

LOL @ Americans.
Guest   Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:57 am GMT
Americans make the distinction between Spaniard and Hispanic and that is right because for them Hispanic is Latin American. Consider that the mess up all concepts that they dare to pronounce: latin, hispanic, spanish, etc. They give the wrong meaning to everything, but at least they are consistent since Spain is not in South America and thus is not "Hispanic" (considering the meaning of this word for them).