Wanna guess how my big jersey over leggings every Sunday wearing ass reacted to these shirts?
They made me nuts. It took years and a lot of reading feminist thought and actually getting to know other female sports fans to ditch my, “real fans don’t wear that sort of thing” The way I see it now, was that this was the beginning of women owning sports fandom on their own terms. I still prefer an “official” jersey, but I love an adorable tee shirt. (And I will never understand the pink, as in the color, bedazzled jerseys worn by Eagle and Cowboy fans. Just because those aren’t team colors and what’s the point of wearing a differently colored jersey…also it means that you’re a fan of The Eagles or The Cowboys…not the point)
So having examined my own stupid ingrained biases and moved past them, the “fake geek girl,” conversation really pisses me off. Because there are so many kinds of geeks, because I’m a geek girl, and proud of it.
I’m not addressing the disgusting use of the phrase “appropriating nerd culture” that started this round of the conversation because it’s gross and it’s the day after St. Patrick’s day, and pots and kettles and all that jazz. (If you want to hear my thoughts on the Irish-American assimilation into mainline white culture in and the general misunderstanding of that, you’re in the wrong place. I only have those conversations with my cousins after a bottle of wine and half a whiskey. Suffice to say there’s a difference between going to the parade in NYC and appreciating my cousin Joey’s excellent leading of the parade with his bagpipes and some idiot wearing a shirt he bought from Urban Outfitters and drinking green beer until he pukes because “everyone is Irish on St. Patty’s day,” one of those is insulting.)
I’m just really sick of this conversation. Let’s have another one. Let’s talk about how great Olivia Munn is going to be as Psylocke, or how cool it is that she did her own stunts, or how badass the babies that she and Aaron Rodgers might have will be. Ms. Munn is at liberty to have or not have as many babies as she likes. That’s between her and Rodgers, but I really hope they do, because those kids will be awesome.
Bad Ass!!!!
Thoughts?
As someone born and raised in Ireland I really want to hear your theory about Irish-American assimilation!
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They’re fairly ranty and mostly amount to, we were able to assimilate due to skin color, and for some reason unlike other Ethnic-American populations, our identity is both everywhere and widely disregarded and isn’t that weird? I find Italian Americans sometimes have similar feelings…but no one acts like Italian or Greek Americans for example have a shared culture with WASPs, which for some reason they do for Irish Americans. It’s an odd phenomenon.
Also, I’ve found it useful to use the example of what St. Patrick’s day has become in The US when trying to explain cultural appropriation to older relatives. For example, “Gramps, you know how you find all those, pour me a drink shirts you see in the mall offensive? Other cultures feel that way when we take their stuff and make it a joke too!” And then everyone nods.
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Ha-ha this is such a fantastic explanation! The most annoying type of cultural appropriation I see is Irish theme pubs in other countries. They’re nothing like pubs here. It annoys me more than it offends me but I think people should still remember how badly the Irish were treated when they got to America.
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