Culture, Race, and Ethnicity

What countries were your ancestors/current relatives from?

This has been bugging me since Alison Brie was forced to apologize for voicing Diane Nguyen, a Vietnamese Amercian character from BoJack Horseman.

Simply put, I find the entire situation ridiculous. It is the nature of actors' job to play someone they are not! "Cancelling" performers for accepting a role when character's race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or other feature doesn't match that of the actor is just as absurd as, say, charging Claire Foy with lèse-majesté because she, a commoner, played Queen Elizabeth II.

Can you explain the reasons for outrage and change my view?

It seems to me that we’re getting more and more places using digital payment means to promote tipping in Australia. When you pay by card, you have to go through the tipping questions before being able to pay. Some places now have a QR code where you order and pay for your stuff at the table with no interaction from a server, and the process still asks for a tip. We need to fuck this shit off.

I (45f) come from an evangelical Christian family. From our young age we have been taught that girls should stay a virgin till their marriage. I grew up with this thought as well. I stayed the good girl that everyone thought I was. We weren't even allowed to see kissing in the movies. I got married at a very young age at 17 to a man who was 29 at that time. I got pregnant 5 times. I was always told that only a woman who is devoted to her husband and pleases him will go to heaven. I didn't even know women could have orgasms. Sex with him was always uncomfortable but in my mind if I denied him, I was committing a sin. I didn't even reject him when I was 5 weeks post partum. Though I should have but I was afraid of him.

In my mind he was a good husband because he didn't beat me. But he did financially and sexually abuse me. I was told that the more you suffer, the more likely you will be Lord's favorite. My breaking point came when I found my husband was having an affair. I confront him and he said to stay out of it. That he is a man and it is in his right to have multiple women. Even in the school that we went has taught us it is perfectly ok for a man to have multiple women but not for a woman to have multiple men because it messes their head.

For 5 years straight I had to endure my husband's infidelity, his abuse, his neglect. During this time, I got on the internet and met some other religious women who were taught the same. They made me realize that I am a human too, my feelings matter and what was happening to me it is not right. I didn't have a job and I never worked a day in my life so it was not possible for me to get a divorce. But someone told me that in my state I do not need a job to file.

And since I have been out of work for 20 years, I can easily get alimony. It was a long battle. Long story short, my parents disowned me. My husband has tried multiple times to delay the divorce but it was of no use. I got alimony but lost the custody of my kids. My oldest one doesn't want to talk to me. Our kids were hurt a lot. But I think it was for the best. Because I was still broke and a mess. It took me a while to build a foundation for myself. I am still not in a good place. I am in therapy.

After my divorce, I started dating. I casually dated few people. And people have given me way more love and affection than I have ever received in my own marriage. I will never forget that one guy who made me orgasm for the first time. I cried when that happened and he held me. In my marriage my husband rarely ever hugged me or showed affection towards me. I never knew my body could even do that. I didn't think I would be still desirable after my body was broken after having 5 kids. I wish I didn't get married sooner. I wish I dated a bit more before settling down. I can never get back the years I have lost. I think I am now a bit comfortable about sharing my story. I hope if one person sees this learns that marrying early and a virgin doesn't guarantee you a better life. I see a lot of people criticizing women and saying nonsense that a woman who is a virgin till her marriage will always be happy. But they never speak about how many of us are dying inside.

How is the feeling of constantly seeing people who are looking different than you? Do you like the feeling of working with various races of people everyday? Do you like, hate, or just be neutral to this, though?

Has anyone else noticed a trend of restaurants starting to push a tipping culture here? Around 20-30% of restaurants over the last few months have started bringing you the receipt and saying "if you want to add a tip, write it down in this spot", or giving you the EFTPOS machine and telling you that you can select a tip or choose to skip, and then standing 50cm away from you as you make your decision.

I consider myself a fairly assertive guy, so in each of these situations, I have opted out of tipping, smiled and thanked them for everything. But even so, it leaves me feeling guilty because everything was good. Which is frustrating because that's what the US expects - if everything is good, then you tip. But we pay our hospitality staff an actual living wage, so I've only tipped if the service goes above and beyond what's expected (eg a certain staff member is absolutely lovely, or they throw something in extra for free). I imagine many more people don't have the same social/emotional strength to say no in the moment and would rather give $10 than look bad, and because of that, it seems almost predatory to ask for a tip to begin with. We all know how to tip; if we want to give extra money to say thanks, we don't need instructions.

Normalise opting in for tips, not opting out. This is so frustrating that the social obligations seem to be shifting at restaurants.

I recently hit the gym again after not going for about 8 years. (Only to rehab a sports injury).

Back when I used to gym regularly in my twenties it was a social place where strangers would chat to each other in between sets and strangers would spot other people at random.

None of that happens anymore. Also my wife warned me not to even look in the direction of a woman working out else i might get reported and kicked out of the gym. Has it gotten that bad?

Of course gyms back then had 1 or 2 pervs, but that didn’t stop everyone else from being friendly, plus everyone knew who the pervs were.

Edit: Holy crap, didn’t expect this to blow up like this. From the replies it seems it’s a combination of wireless earphones, covid, and tiktok scandals are the main reason gyms are less social than before.

For clarification, when I say chat between sets, I literally mean a handful of words. Sometimes it might be someone complimenting your form, or more commonly some gym bro trying to be helpful and correct your form.

No one’s going to the gym to chat about the latest marvel movie or what they did last weekend.

Eg. I’ve moved to freeweight shoulder press a month or two back and sometimes my form isn’t great without a spot. I might not be remembering correctly but back when I’d do free weights, if I was struggling to keep form I’m sure most of the time some stranger would come spot me for that set at random.

This post was inspired by a post on this subreddit where the OP asked reddit to change their view that young men not getting laid isn't inherently political.

I would argue that has been politicized by the likes of Steve Bannon, who despite being an evil sentient diseased liver, is an astute political animal and has figured out how to tap into young men's sexual frustration to bend them rightward.

But that's not what this post is about.

Please change my view that the left, the constellation of progressive, egalitarian, and feminist causes has been derelict in providing a counter to the aggrieved victimhood narrative. In fact, i would argue that the left has abandoned the idea that young men CAN be provided with a vision if healthy masculinity.

Edit: well I won't say my view has been totally changed but there were some very helpful comments.

My big takeaway is that this is a subject being discussed in lefty spaces, but because the left is so big on consensus building, it's difficult for us to feel good about holding up concrete examples of what a "good man" looks like.

In contrast to the right, which tends to have a black and white thinking, it's an easy subject for then to categorically define things like masculinity. Even when they get it wrong.

The left is really only capable of providing fluid guidelines on this subject and as there are so many competing values, they're not as eager to make those broad assertions.

I still feel like the left MUST do better about finding ways to circumvent the hijacking of young men into inceldom, Tate shit, etc.. but it's a big messy issue.

To the people who wanted to just say, "boys don't need to be coddled" while saying "the left is more open to letting men be open", I think you need to read what you write before posting it. Feelings don't care about facts. If young men feel they're being left behind, that's a problem.

I have always heard North Americans (esp. White North Americans) saying they (rather their families) are German, English, Italian, Irish, Polish, etc. Like Americans/Canadians are their nationality and those are their ethnic backgrounds. However, when Europeans hear or read some kind of this, they usually keep insisting Americans/Canadians don’t know how nationality works...

I currently work in an industry that relies heavily on tipping and without it many if not all the employees would not be able to sustain their lives without the extra income provided by tips. So obviously I love tips and really appreciate them. BUT, it is my view that tipping culture has gotten out of hand. I recently saw a New York Times article that talked about how tipping 20% is the minimum, which I think is absurd to expect from customers on a regular basis. I believe that the expectation of regular tipping is really just a way for companies/corporations to externalize the costs of paying employees a living wage and putting those costs on the customers. Which is bullshit. And let's be honest, it's kinda crazy to feel the need to tip someone who didn't really even provide a service for you, other than what is expected from them in the normal duties of their position. But if an employee goes above and beyond normal service, I feel a tip makes sense. So it's my view that the tipping culture in the US needs to be somehow systematically reined in and the cost of paying employees a living wage back in the companies/corporations where it belongs.

Just want to give a shoutout to the Stock Pot Kitchen in Northern NSW...had an excellent meal there (try the 'Texan' Brisket burger it's unfathomably good) and when I paid, the EFTPOS software came up with the optional tip amount thing, but the server quickly reached over and hit the 0% No Tip option before I could even think. This is the way.

I strongly believe that those calling people racist for having a specific hairstyle or wearing a specific style of clothing are assholes. Cultural appropriation isn't a thing. Cultural by it's very nature is meant to be shared, not just with people of one culture, but by people of every culture.

That being said, things such as blackface and straight up making fun of other cultures is not ok... But I wouldn't call that cultural appropriation. If I am white and want to have an afro cause I have curly hair and it looks good, or if I want to wear a kimono because I was immersed in japanese culture and loved the style and meaning, I should be allowed to with no repercussions.