Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/American (ethnic group)

message: **Your historical revisionism will not change how Americans view themselves for any better.  Brendel confessed in a recent edit of his that "pluralism" is the solution and I take that to mean he is philosophically opposed to the facts.  I have enough of German revisionism and denial.  His attempts to relativistically apply such treatment to the actuality and not mere concept of an ethnic American people, are futile save here.  Franks founded France and Americans founded America.  Franks were previously known as Sicambri; before that even as Cimmerians.  They undoubtedly did blend with immigrants to their tribalistic society and polities, but that does not cancel out their own singularistic existence.  That does not disqualify their Frankish legacy to France.  You cannot silence the truth by shooting Wikipedia in the foot.  E pluribus unum is what defined the Americans in their nascent stage, not what defined them through subsequent immigration and continuing to the present.  Your defials of traditional history are Original Research and unverified by all but the most "up to date" social scientific twists and reinterpretations of what it means to be any type of people.  You would deserve no respect for the lack of it you give, save for the fact that Jesus taught me the amendment to "An eye for an eye" as being do unto others as you would have them do unto you and turn the other cheek.  Give me a scholastic genocide and maybe I might turn the other cheek, or maybe not.  Éponyme 04:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: E pluribus unum is exactely why your point is mute. As for  these 7.2%, we don't know who they actually are. All we know is they state "American" as their ethnic group. But to take an educated guess they are what you call "immigrants themselves" as most of them are not Native Americans and most-likely (guessing from their national distribution) thereby European-Americans. George Washington was an Englishman, so were all the other forefathers, the USA was founded by Europeans-who then became European-Americans (Of course they were Americans, after 1777, but obviously they were European-Americans-they weren't Navajo or Cherokee now were they.). That's pretty much common knowledge these days, may I suggest reading a newly published American History textbook. Ana Quindlen once states in Newsweek: "All of us are immigrants, some of us just got here sooner."-there is no exception unless you're a Native American, or as you insisted on calling them: "Indians." The US is a country of immigrants, every child knows that, from sea to shiny sea. Besdies according to the article you originally wrote, people like: President Eisenhower, Kennedy, Hoover, FDR, Regan, Carter would not have been Americans-of course according to you 92.8% of Americans arn't part of the "American people." Besdies, the article is totally OR. See the arguments made by Hornplease above on why this article needs to go. ...and please do not use WP as your blog. Wait, why I am talking to you? Regards, Signaturebrendel 05:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Give me a break with the Israel Zangwill (melting pot) and Howard Zinn (the other side of David Irving) nonsense of revisionist pipedreams.  The British colonies were a melting pot, but the American states are multiculturalism.  The former provided the ethnogenesis and the latter provided the atmosphere in which you are a German American immigrant as opposed to the few German colonists who perhaps identitified with the rest of the former colonial subjects and also declared themselves American.  (The Census Bureau map is very revealing.) You will NOT redefine America and Americans with an outsider, Hippie perspective of what American means.  Washington and his co-conspirators explicitly condemned being referred to as English/British and which is why this country was founded.  Hippies who say they are atheist also think they know more than Christians do about Christ and say what Christ would do.  Your position is relativistic lunacy and we Americans are not the European Union--do not treat us this way as you are attempting to do.  You also sicken me with such disrespect for my nation and my family, my ancestors and what they fought or died for.  Incidentally, I did not say who could become American.  The closest comparison is Irish (our White House is based on an Irish state building in Dublin and Maryland was affiliated with an Irish lord of English origins), whereas we have had four Presidents of Irish immigrant roots (Arthur, Wilson, Kennedy and Reagan) and no other immigrant background.  As a side note, my English contacts inform me that Americans remind them of the Irish in speech and mannerisms (most indentured servants in the colonies were evicted from Ireland--the story of country and western music culture's beginnings--I did say cowboy culture was truly American as this was where Jackson/Polk/Johnson/Buchanan/etc's families were from before settling the Carolinas and frontier, before the indenture system was replaced by Black slaves).  For whatever reason the Dutch and German colonists in America apparently did not assume the new identity is beyond me, apart from cultural (Continental) differences--but I concede that they were/are technically American and only plausibly not, by the standards explained before.  I'm not trying to exclude them--they did so themselves, like the Amish.  Furthermore, you are going to have to convince us all that the Sephardic Jews in Rhode Island, New York and South Carolina called themselves American or assimilated at all.  Éponyme 08:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

text: American People is a term applied to nationals of the US. The Daughters of the Revolution are no more American than German-American President Eisenhower or Roman-Catholic Irish-American President John F. Kennedy. Besdies, we donnot know that these 7.2% of Americans are descendants of the early colonial settlers. The Census is based on self-identification. All we know is that 7.2% of US Census respondents stated "American" as their ethnicity. Why they did so, we don't know. All we can say is that they stated "American" as their ethnic group. (Perhaps they jut don't know there roots) Stating that these 7.2% are exclusively constituted by the Daughters of the Revolution is completely speculatory OR. None of your "sources" talks about these 7.2% being exclusively the descendants of the first European settlers to this continent. Regards, Signaturebrendel 19:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have held double standards for America vis a vis other countries in terms of nationality.  Odoacer was not more Roman than Augustus, the same thing with Charlemagne or Henry the Fowler!  You make false assertations and have never apologized for belittling my heritage, but repeatedly put "no attacks" warnings on my talk page and had me blocked for standing up for my heritage which you bash and cheapen constantly.  You are an ignorant hypocrite who refuses to aknowledge the traditions and customs of my people as they have been!  You let the media's fluff version of relativistic Americana determine your views.  Call this comments on you, rather than content, but the issue is that I have supplied numerous presentations of why I am right and you have only bashed my heritage as some cheap interchangeable thing, comparing essentially my country to a whorehouse.  You are a foreigner dictating my customs to me!  If you don't like the Bush administration doing that in Iraq or whatever, back off with regards to me and my habitation.  You hold no "regards" to anybody except yourself and your positions!  Éponyme 00:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Nobody's attacking your heritage; though you have been attacking the heritage or "hyphenated American[s]" such as Presiden Eisenhower, Al Gonzales, and 93% of Americans quite a bit. Your article is being deleting in accordence to WP policies. We have explained them to you over and over again. Signaturebrendel 04:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes you are, so very naively...And I have tried time and time again, to explain to you people that Italian-American pizza is not American like cornbread and fried chicken.  Pizza was imported with immigrants from Italy who came to work for the Robber Barons in the Gilded Age; cornbread and fried chicken was a staple diet of colonists who created America as a sovereign nation built with their sweat, blood and tears (and whose names are given to the first counties, towns, villages and Revolutionary War military pensions).  Corn bread and fried chicken was already here, looong before pizza was heard of on this side of the Atlantic--at the previous turn of a century.  http://www.twin-music.com/lyrics_file/alanjackson/when/where.html  At least Eisenhower knew why he was supposed to speak English!  For you, you want to revise what it means to be American at the heart of it all.  You want to apply social engineering to fit your fantasy of what America should have been in the past, but you cannot change the past and so why bullshit with falsifications?  So you want to change how America must be--fine...but that is not how it was founded.  You misequate Ellis Island/ Statue of Liberty ideas with the Founding Fathers--that is called a false analogy!  That you are this ignorant is no surprise; people are more and more forgetting the ideals of my country.  There is a difference between John Adams and Al Capone.  There is a difference between the Latins and the Gauls they conquered/incorporated, even if the Latins were a Greek people beforehand and took Etruscan lands.  There is a difference between these peoples and the Germanic tribes who sacked Rome and toppled the Western Roman Empire, even though the Franks rebuilt it as the Holy Roman Empire.  There is a difference between Julius Caesar's ethnic heritage and Charlemagne's.  Colonel Sanders was American (ethnic group); Alberto Gonzales is Mexican American.  Just think for a minute:  The Toliver family of colonial Virginia was originally from Florence, Italy and used to spell their name as Taliaferro.  I am in all likelihood descended from them, but I would not call that family nor these origins in my case to be Italian American.  They are just Americans now as they were then.  However, that is a different story than Al Capone or Tom Tancredo, or Rick Santorum, or Gianni Versace.  They immigrated here; they did not colonize and found like the Taliferros did.  These men are like a Greek presence in Italy after the Roman Empire was founded by ex-Greeks.  There is no reason to call the Taliaferros, nor the Washingtons (in their case, English-American is just as wrong), hyphenated Americans.  There is substantiated cause to depict Charles Laughton as British American, just as there is evidence to support calling John Kerry a Austro-Hungarian American.  That is because these men's stories began not as builders of America, but immigrants.  Romulus and Remus may have had Greek roots, but one would not call them Greek-Romans.  They would be called Romans or Latins--we would not call the Etruscans Romans, because the Roman country had not begun before the Roman ancestors made it to Etruria.  This analogy is the same as the labeling of Indians as Americans, being outright false and insulting to both parties.  I'm sure Indians of all tribal backgrounds have their own pre-Columbian name for the continent they have called home, but I do not believe they knew of the world in hemispherical terms before the emissaries of Castile and Aragon made it across the Atlantic.  Please, learn tolerance and understanding for those who host your presence here and realize that if not for them, you would have no country called America.  Éponyme 07:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The colonists were immigrants as well. They came from Europe after 1492, didn't they. As for Rome: today we have Sociology, Antrhopology, and Geneology to tells us where people come from and what exactely their heritage is. The Social Sciences are an investion of the 19th century and have obviously redfined the manner in which humanity looks upon itself. Today we have a more enlightened view on the issue of heritage than did the fore-fathers. For example we no longer bleive that Blacks are inheritely inferior to Whites and we have learned that the founding fathers were European-Americans adn the dscendents of immigrants. This country was built by immigrants and American culture and society are the results of melting pot of all these immigrants. The Hamburger and Tomatoe Ketshup, German-American contributions are as American as Fried Chicken. This country would be a mere shadow of itself if it hadn't been for the immigrants who built the Fortune 500, the New York City skyline, the factories and freeways. I am going to say this for the last time, then I am officaly done talking to you. The descendents of the colonial settlers who arrived here before 1777, are not anymore American than the 93% who are the descendents of immigrants who built this country. The US was not the same country in 1777 or 1800 as in 1940 or 2000. The US was not a wealthy superpower, it is today because of immigrants and their descendents with names like Kerry, Eisenhower, Astor, Regan, Bush, Carter, Johnsen, Clinton, Hoover, Roosevelt, and Gozales. You cannot write an article called the American people and exclude the immigrants and their descendesnt who not only constitute the overwhelming majoirty of the population of this country but also built and governed this nation for the better part of its very exsistance. Besdies the OR nature of your article has been expressed very clearly by multiple users above. You're article violated WP policy that's why its being deleted. Regards, Signaturebrendel 17:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: American society and culture is as much the prodcut of immigrants and their descendents who came after 1776 as it is the result of the colonialists' efforts; thus it is wrong to apply the term "American people" only upon the descendents of the colonial settlers. In other words, the American people are not exclusively constituted by those who are descendents from the colonial settlers. America is not comparable to the UK, becuase 90%+ of Americans are the descendents of immigrants-they are the American people. Stating that the term "American people" only applies to those who were present in 1777 is complete OR. Besdies there is no data stating that these 7.2% actually are the descendents of colonial settlers. Nonetheless, five days are over and this article should be deleted any moments along with this hideous discussion. Signaturebrendel 07:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: My points above are based on some of the most commonly used history and sociology books, I am not trying to change anything but I will not tolerate pure OR. The American people is a term that is mostly applied to the ancestors of immigrants, as that is what 90%+ of Americans are. And yes the US is different from any other country on the planet-the American people is a multi-cultural mix-that is common knowledge. The president you so much admire, George W Bush, is an Irish-American. He is not a descendent of the colonial settlers, yet he is obviously part of the American people-he is their leader. You are trying to push your POV with pure OR and try defeat what has become common knowledge-if you don't like the idea of America being presented as what it is, a multi-culutral mix of immigrants and their descendetns who have come here over the past 229 years, then you might want to write a letter to McGraw Hill to have their textbooks re-written. Otherwise you may publish your opinions somewhere else but unless they have been published by the likes of McGraw Hill or the US Government itself they are not fit to be here on WP. You say, that the descendents of the colonial settlers who were here when the US was established are the original Americans who were supplemented by immigrants in the past 229 years this country has exsisted. The problem is that there is no credible source backing this assumption. All usages I can find of the term "American people" referrs to all American nationals and always includes the descendents of immigrants. Furthermore the US is commonly referred to as a "Nation of immigrants"- an assumption backed by nearly any prominent social science or history textbook.Signaturebrendel 08:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I am not judging, I am trying to present the most scientific, most commonly accepted view. As I said, there are no credible sources to sustain the assertion that only the descendents of colonial settlers are members of the American people. As much as your argument may make sense, if there is no credible source to cite for it, it can't be here. According to the most credible soucres, the descendents of immigrants who came after 1776, such as Astor family are as much members of the American people as the colonial settlers. The most publizied sources tell me that the American people referrs to all Americans not just the descendents of the colonial settlers. Your point that "The original story is what existed in 1776 and that is essentially most American.  Anything since is just additive." is not supported by the most prominent sources. They state that the "additive" parts are as essential as "The original story." They do not deny the importance or under play the "The original story" but they clearly state that the "supplemental immigrants" are as essential and as much part of the American people as those involvoed in "The original story." Now if you say these sources are bias, well... contact the publishers, congress, but don't use WP. These are the most accredited source and no offense but McGraw Hill's textbooks are more credible than the OR you published here. Please understand this is nothing against you, but we on WP do not re-invent or state what we consider to be the truth, we just follow and cite the most credible sources we can get our hands on. Signaturebrendel 09:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: "I only said that they supplemented the original melting pot, which was JUST American.  There is nothing unverifiable about that at all" - yes there is. McGraw Hills textbook and such state that America today is as much the result of Ellis Island as of the 13 original colonies and its inhabitans. Thus doing as Roman do in American means doing as a diverse group of immigrants does (e.g. wearning green on St. Patricks Day, eating french fries, etc...), not just the way of the colonists. Do you see how the most credible sources on the subject directly contradict what you say. They say that American, its culutre and people are the result of immigration and a mixing of cultures. You say American is the descendents and ways of the original 13 colonies. Signaturebrendel 09:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Well than that is the most mis-represented phrase there is according to you. Becuse according to the sources, Ellis Island roots are equated with colonial roots, sort of speak. I know US history, I know that there were differences among the 13 colonies and why its called the United States of America. Nonetheless your usage of the term "American people" contradicts the commonly accpeted usage of the term. There are no sources to support the assertion  that the American people only referrs to the descendents of the colonial settlers, espically not as American culture and society is seen, mainly, as the result of Ellis Island. Perhaps you should consider another media outlet other than WP as here we need to adhere to the most commonly accpeted sources. Signaturebrendel 09:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi-related discussion