From: foster@mtechca.uucp (self.attribute:=major_arcana[0].name)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Being Celtic isn't just being non-British
Date: 13 Apr 92 01:57:15 GMT
Organization: MAINTECH, A division of Volt Delta Resources, Inc. Orange, CA

In article <92099.130631U53644@uicvm.uic.edu>, <U53644@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:

>Do you know of any other group of cultures that spends so much of their 
>time defining themselves in terms of another culture (e.g. England)?
>Really, there is more to these cultures than the struggle against English
>aggression. Let's start hearing it - literature, art, music, cooking,
>anything. 

When I was in college (1980-1983) I read the newspapers put out by the
Black Student Union, MEChA (a Mexican-American students' group) and the
Asian-Pacific Islander Association. I noticed that in the first two papers
most of the articles that mentioned cultural practices gave as the reason 
the statement "we do this because it was forced upon us by the oppressive
racist white culture." The APIA writers, on the other hand, gave themselves 
or their parents credit or blame, as appropriate. 

(After all, it would be ~very~ difficult to prove that the oppressive racist 
white majority has a vested interest in forcing Asians to study, work hard 
and better themselves. It makes much more sense to say that the oppressive 
racist white majority (I need to find an acronym for that) wants all the 
minorities to be uneducated, drug-addicted and self-destructive.)

I, too, wondered if there was anything about being black or Chicano in 
the US that was uniquely black or Chicano and not merely "at least we
aren't white".

I later learned that the people who wrote for the BSA and MEChA newspapers 
were thought quite radical even within their groups. Are the members of
s.c.c. who define themselves as "not British" rather than as "yes Celtic!"
especially radical?

I suppose anyone who feels strongly enough about something to write about 
it, taking time away from ordinary student life, must by definition be a 
radical or must bear an enormous grudge. After all, who can possibly feel 
very strongly about a moderate or conciliatory position? 

I think the difference between the two minority groups (black and Chicano
on one hand, Asian on the other) was that the ancestors of the former 
groups were involuntary-Americans (through slavery and conquest), and the 
latter are here because they want to be (immigration). 

But what do I know? In California I count as white, because my ancestors 
came from all over the Celtic and Anglic parts of Europe. It does no good 
to point out to ultra-radical blacks and Chicanos that my ancestors also
suffered at the hands of white people, even to the point of rape, inter-
marriage and miscegenation (many American blacks and all Chicanos have an 
English or Spanish ancestor from way back; the radicals deplore this).

I conclude, therefore, that the reason the Celts spend so much unproductive
time saying things like the following is that they consider themselves to 
be involuntarily British.

(I am making some of these up, but only some. I don't mean ~any~ of them
as anti-Celt criticism, nor do write with intent to belittle the struggle 
of the Celtic peoples for self-determination.):

   "at least we aren't English" 

   "we speak English cos they killed or drove all the Gaelic speakers
    into darkest Galway and wouldn't hire them" (this one has a parallel 
    in Chicano history, where schoolchildren were whipped for speaking 
    Spanish even on the playground)

   "we eat cold dry toast for breakfast because British-made toasters
    are defective, and we can't build our own toasters cos they've
    got a stranglehold on our economy and they've lured away all our
    skilled craftspersons to Liverpool" 

   "the greatest works of English-language literature were written by 
    Celts but the English won't admit it"

   "our cuisine is no better than theirs because they drafted our cooks 
    into their army and sent them to die in India"

   "no one watches RTE cos BBC is better produced and better funded"

   "our pubs are just like theirs cos they suppressed all the native
    drinking customs"

    "our government is organized just like theirs, even if we do use say
     Poblacht/Teach Dail/Taoiseach instead of Kingdom/Member of Parliament/
     Prime Minister, cos they wouldn't let us have any better system"

Flames to email please.

Jeff Foster