Proud to be Irish. Why not proud to be white?

Life is a game of luck. I have loads of luck, all bad.

I assumed from the title that this thread would go the opposite route with later10 arguing that surely being proud to be white is OK because it's the same as being proud to be Irish.

Anyways, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of nationalism so long as it's not used as an excuse for oppressing other nationalities.
It is irrational when you break it down, but then again so is having a favorite football team.

Also, there's nothing wrong with being proud to be white.

Being proud of something you haven't achieved yourself is idiotic.

I agree that it's a bit silly to feel proud of something you've no choice in, but I think I understand why people here find it easier to feel proud to be Irish than to be white.

When many people say they're proud to be Irish, they don't just mean they're proud to have been born within our borders. They're thinking of a whole range of signifiers such as an underdog attitude, a good sense of humour, a fine literary heritage and so on.
Even if these things don't apply to themselves or even to the country as a whole, it gives them an identity to belong to, and that gives comfort.

But in Ireland being white can't give you that same sense of belonging because for most of our history it's been too much the norm and therefore doesn't carry any signifiers. Being white doesn't mean anything to us as we've almost always all been white. We've had nothing to define our whiteness against and therefore whiteness never meant anything to us. It just is. But we could define our Irishness against the other nationalities around us, especially the British. Whiteness never came into our conception of Irishness as they were basically white too. So it was easier to construct an identity around our nationality rather than our skin colour, as it was our nationality that made us different.

To adjust the old thought experiment slightly: imagine you're a white swan who's never seen a black swan. You don't think of yourself as a white swan as being white is something you consider to be intrinsic to being a swan. Then one day you see a black swan and think "He's a black swan and I'm a white swan!"
So it's hard to create an identity around something you take for granted, and therefore hard to have a sense of pride in it, be it a genuine or constructed sense.

We Need Community wrote: »

How is it idiotic? Can you not be proud of your friends and family or even other people. We have no control of where we are born but where you grow up can largely affect the type of character you are, what your beliefs are, perspective about different things, your social life, the music you listen to etc, By saying that you are not proud of being Irish you are kind of saying you are not proud of yourself and your surroundings. Saying that you are Proud to be Irish is to me just a simple way of summing these character building things up.

Without pride in these character building things, there would be no community. We need community.

As stated many times before, nationality is an accident of birth. I wouldn't say i'm proud to be Irish, as i did not choose to be Irish. But that's my nationality and it's fine, i could be Russian or Saudi!!

the same applies to being white/latino/black/asian. Why would you be proud of it when you didn't choose to be it in the first place!

Bodhisopha wrote: »

Without pride in these character building things, there would be no community. We need community.

Not sure if you are taking the piss as it is a valid point :pac:

ascanbe wrote: »

It's a fairly pointless, irrational thing to take pride in.

Yes, agreed. The only things I take pride in are the things I've had to work hard for. Ironically for this discussion that being white makes it so I've not got to work as hard to get them.

and speaking of national pride, just read this story about a telephone recording of Silvio Berlusconi. In it he talks about how Italy is a "shítty country" and he wants to leave it