If you wouldn't be eligible to represent a country in sport, you can't claim to be that nationality. amirite?

OP help, I am not good at sports Should I worry about getting deported

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Brother what

by Anonymous 2 days ago

aren't most/many professional footballers brought into the country specifically to play football? I'd argue they shouldn't claim the country that they play for so this logic feels a little unhelpful

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Maybe OP has a point, if Luka Doncic was never brought into Real Madrid from Slovenia, we might not have had him on the Mavericks and then had our hearts broken from that idiot Nico Harrison.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Nationality and ethnicity are two different things. I don't think anyone is claiming nationality when they mean ethnicity.

by Flaky_Mushroom 2 days ago

Yeah, everyone I've ever met who expresses this kind of "you're not Italian because you weren't born in Italy" sentiment still wants to be able to refer to people of Chinese ethnicity as Chinese regardless of where that person grew up.

by Gottliebalejand 2 days ago

That part.

by Flaky_Mushroom 2 days ago

I don't even know what I read.

by Ornery-Contest 2 days ago

He's basically saying that to claim to be from a country, you should have a connection to it, at least good enough that - if you were an athlete - you could represent that country at a sporting event. But of course, plenty of athletes who couldn't qualify for their home countries end up qualifying representing smaller ones, often with their only connection being that one of their parents was born there. So their argument doesn't really make much sense.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Got it. Thanks!

by Ornery-Contest 2 days ago

So you're saying that I can't say I'm a nationality that I, in fact, am not...?

by Labadiejerrod 2 days ago

I served in the military, but I'm not an Olympic level athlete. I guess the VA should strip me of my VA disability for not being American enough

by Rich_Thanks 2 days ago

So... because i have no athletic ability, i should be stripped of nationality? What am I missing here?

by Anonymous 2 days ago

You're missing reading the full opinion

by Anonymous 2 days ago

I can sort of understand your argument in spite of your terrible presentation. But you should note that there are plenty of athletes who represent countries they share almost no connection with because it makes it easier for them to participate in certain events. So representing a country at a sporting event is not the high bar that you think it is.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

That is exactly my point. It's a low bar and people with almost no connection can still claim a nationality. If you don't even hit this criteria, you can't claim to be from a place.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

But who would even make that claim?

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Phew, thank god I'm safe. What about my partner, he isn't an athlete? He was born here and has nationality and all that, will he lose it? What happens then?

by dickensjermey 2 days ago

Read. The. Description.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

But you mean just at the Olympics or in nationals, right? NHL would literally fall apart without guys from Czech, Finland, Russia and Sweden. Imagine America trying to compete with Canada only with americans... One Jaromir Jagr is worth 3 Patrick Kanes, lmao.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Someone doesn't understand the difference between Nationality and Ethnicity. Being from the US for example is a Nationality but not an ethnicity. Hence why many Americans are Mexican American, Irish America, Italian American etc.

by Vandervortcatha 2 days ago

So Giannis Antetokounmpo, despite being born in Athens, could not claim to be Greek until he was 19 years old, but Nick Calathes, who was born in Florida could rightfully make that claim his entire life because his grandparents had been born there?

by Anonymous 2 days ago

For a moment I was trying to think of what sort of incident or event had happened to prompt this. But then I remembered that Europeans get whiny when you, to the complete understanding of everyone around you, say you're "Italian" to mean that your family originally immigrated from there some generations ago and have that as part of your heritage.

by Winstonwilliams 2 days ago

Then just say you have Italian heritage…

by Anonymous 2 days ago

But it's true, people claim they're Italian because their great grandfather is even tho they've lived their whole life in America, has American parents and don't know a thing about Italian culture

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Yeah, because they can trace their family back to Italy, so they have that as part of their family's heritage. And literally no one is confused by this or assumes that this person is claiming Italian citizenship or whatever.

by Winstonwilliams 2 days ago

It's something Europeans deserve to cringe over because they're being fairly stupid about the whole thing and struggling with basic context clues. All while desperately trying to push their simple, exclusionary understanding of ethnicity and nationality on others who with little effort managed to move past it.

by Winstonwilliams 2 days ago

"Europeans are stupid for not seeing things the same way AMERICANS do" 😂

by Anonymous 2 days ago

For this specific thing? Yeah. You have an outdated understanding of ethnicity and nationality and get whiny when people who don't are able to easily understand what's being said based on simple context clues.

by Winstonwilliams 2 days ago

So... Americans have "moved past" outdated notions of nationality and ethnicity AND YET are obsessed with saying "I'm Italian/Scottish/whatever"? Make up your mind.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

You seem to have confused acknowledging your heritage with not being able to comprehend when someone is talking about it. I suppose that tracks

by Winstonwilliams 2 days ago

Acknowledge your heritage, for sure, if it means something to you. But "I have Italian ancestry" isn't the same as "I am Italian".

by Anonymous 2 days ago

I don't want to blow your mind, but there actually are some Americans who do have dual heritage, have spent time in different countries, do speak more than one language and are familiar with two cultures. So if an American was going about Italy saying "I'm Italian" it is possible they actually mean it. Further enquiry is required to find out which kind of "Italian" they mean - the actual kind or the made up kind. And if, having tried speaking Italian to them, it turns out they are just the "well, one of my sixteen great great grandparents was Italian" locals are likely to think "why did you say you were Italian, then?" it would be clearer if Americans didn't use the same phrase to mean two different things.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

I think this makes some sense though when you consider that America itself is a nation of immigrants. In the case you specifically bring up a lot of Italian immigrants faced heavy discrimination, as did the Irish. It's not surprising then that those two groups of immigrants formed tight knit communities with cultural norms that loosely persist today. Not many people go around bragging about their English or French ancestry for similar reasons.

by Vonkirsten 2 days ago

Irish and Italian definitely seem to have the strongest presence, but ask a white American what their mutt makeup is and they'll probably be able to toss out some English and German or Polish. Don't hear much about French, but I haven't spent any time down South so maybe there's more of them down there?

by Winstonwilliams 2 days ago

so you're not Italian? Your nationality is where you're born. If your parents are American and moved to China and you were born there, you would be Chinese. (tho it's different legally speaking from country to country) If you're born in America from American parents, you're American, and "to the complete understanding of everyone around you" means Americans.

by Mclaughlintrini 2 days ago

This is not an unpopular opinion, it is just logical.

by That_Daikon 2 days ago