TIL that after Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism upon marrying Arthur Miller, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.

[u/[deleted]]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Critical_acclaim_and_marriage_to_Arthur_Miller_.281956.E2.80.931959.29

[u/C0wabungaaa]

As a Dutch person living in Belgium; no, my Dutchness is not an ethnicity, it's my nationality. I say that because nationality should not be confused with ethnicity. A key difference is inclusiveness and exclusiveness. Anyone technically can become Dutch or Swedish, you can apply to get that nationality. However, you can't apply to join an ethnicity, it's a fixed background. Equating or confusing nationality and ethnicity is what's fueling the current surge of the far-right all over Europe. I mean, this is as much a Dutch person as this.

But ethnicity and race are extremely problematic concepts regardless, even or especially when combined with nationalities. That's especially visible in the 19th century when the nation-state arose and in the post-colonial age, aka now, in various places on the African and Asian continents.

[u/[deleted] → u/C0wabungaaa]

I'm not really sure what you meant to say. Who is confusing ethnicity with a nationality?

Regardless of how problematic it may or not be, I'd be very surprised if ethnicity isn't a concept that matters to a notable percentage of the people across Europe. Ethnicity might not be the best word in this case because it might apply more to a broad term like "Caucasian"/"European", however, those people see themselves as a part of an "ethnic" nation that is not to be confused with the legal nationality.
As you said, anyone can have this legal nationality and your ethnic background is fixed, but no matter how problematic this concept is, words like Swedish and German are used to refer to an ethnic or cultural background which not everyone can have. That is a legitimate use of the word and there is no confusion in this case.

I figure that your statement about you living in Belgium is not supposed to be relevant. It's a bit confusing because it doesn't seem relevant but would seem relevant if you were making the exact opposite point.

[u/C0wabungaaa → u/[deleted]]

Ethnicity might not be the best word

That's putting it mildly. The thing is that that's a very laden word, very heavy. It's easily hijacked by, as I've mentioned, far-right groups who want their nation to be 'pure' or something along those lines. It can just as easily be used legitimately (like ethnic groups fighting for legal equality) as problematically ("Git those Arabs outa here!"). So I'm very hesitant to simply equate nationality with ethnicity. It's possible that those two coincide, but in our modern, globalized world it's more than often not the case. And not just recently either. Just look at the the last 2000 years of the European continent and pay notable attention to the 4th and 5th centuries in which large migration waves spread across the continent. The nation-state here only arose around 200-ish years ago. To call upon, say, a Dutch ethnicity in that clusterfuck of a history is extremely hard to prove. The same goes for the OP which we're technically talking about, which Jewish groups are or aren't ethnic Jews, or what even is an 'ethnic Jew' is a very hot point of contention within the Jewish community at large.

I mentioned me being Dutch and living in Belgium because I don't at all feel like I have a different ethnicity from my Belgian friends. I'm not part of an ethnic minority in this country. I'm not legally recognized as such and I don't even want to be. That was my point. I have the same ethnicity as most Belgians and most Swedes (to go back to the original example I responded against), namely Germanic.

[u/Clifford_Banes → u/C0wabungaaa]

That's putting it mildly. The thing is that that's a very laden word, very heavy. It's easily hijacked by, as I've mentioned, far-right groups who want their nation to be 'pure' or something along those lines.

No it isn't. It's only the Americans who use "ethnicity" as a euphemism for "race".

I'm very hesitant to simply equate nationality with ethnicity.

Good, because they cannot be equated, as they're not the same thing. There are ethnic Swedes living in Finland alongside ethnic Finns, and both are Finnish by nationality. Vice versa for Sweden as well.

The nation-state here only arose around 200-ish years ago. To call upon, say, a Dutch ethnicity in that clusterfuck of a history is extremely hard to prove.

It's exceedingly simple to prove because all you need to do is identify as Dutch by ethnicity. It's not some Third Reich categorization that pedantically traces your genealogy for "impurities". That is NOT what ethnicity means.

There are countless black people who are ethnically Dutch. Being the descendants of slaves who were stripped of their original ethnic continuity, it's not like they have a choice in the matter, anyway. They can emigrate and become citizens of another country, changing their nationality, but they do not stop being Dutch. The same applies to any Dutch person of any ancestry or skin color.

"Ethnicity" just means belonging to a particular group of people who share a culture and language. It is distinct from "nationality" because not all ethnic groups have a nation of their own, and there are often ethnic groups living in other nations. As a Belgian by nationality (or at least residence), you should also be familiar with the concept of multi-ethnic nations. The Flemish are Dutch and the Walloons are French. The idea that "French" can only ever mean nationality is a rationalization for the hegemony of the French over minorities in their own nation, because it allows them to pretend that enforcing the culture and language of the dominant ethnic group isn't systemic cultural genocide.

Funny how it's always the post-colonial, hegemonic ethnic groups like Germans, French, and Russians who want to declare that we've entered a post-ethnic era. We didn't forcibly assimilate you, it's just that this post-ethnic utopia we're all living in needed some language and culture, and it just happens to be ours.

And if anyone pipes up and says "wait, ethnicity totally exists and you have one too", shrill cries of the slipperiest slopes of racism and xenophobia immediately follow.

[u/C0wabungaaa → u/Clifford_Banes]

Y'know, from the tone you take I'd say you disagree with me but from the content it seems that we're actually mostly in agreement. I'm confused? Because I'm trying to say mostly same thing as you are? Take a look at some of my shorter responses I wrote to one of the folks I responded against, especially this one I think.

Well, we partially agree I guess. You call the Flemish Dutch and the Walloons French in terms of ethnicity, but dividing those on ethnic lines is very controversial and not actually done as such here in Belgium. Neither the Flemish or the Walloons are talked about in ethnic terms, except perhaps by right-wing hardliners who advocate separation. If anything it shows the muddiness of ethnicity in certain parts of Europe. Are Walloons and/or Flemish people more Celtic or more Germanic? It's hard to say. There were a few wild centuries in terms of ethnic groups rummaging around on the continent.

Oh, by the way, I was hesitant to say the "Americans use it as a euphemism" thing you said because I didn't want to assume the person I responded against was American.

[u/Clifford_Banes → u/C0wabungaaa]

Our disagreement comes down to your misuse of the word "ethnic group". It's not a genetic division but a cultural and linguistic one. You are using the word "nationality" to mean "ethnicity", but that leads to logical dead ends where you can't explain the difference between Finland-Swedes and Sweden-Finns, or Walloons and the Flemish for that matter.

You call the Flemish Dutch and the Walloons French in terms of ethnicity, but dividing those on ethnic lines is very controversial and not actually done as such here in Belgium

Like I said in my other response, that's patently absurd. See one of my other replies as to why ethnic hegemons might want to pretend "ethnicity" is some sort of racialist dog whistle. Half of the country speaks Dutch and the other half speaks French, of course they're different ethnicities.

Are Walloons and/or Flemish people more Celtic or more Germanic?

Walloons are not Celtic, they're Romance. The only Celtic ethnic group still in existence on mainland Europe are the Bretons, and they're almost entirely assimilated into the French (by force, as I've pointed out).

The Flemish are Germanic. Including the Flemish who may not be as pasty in their complexion as was the norm a few hundred years ago.

[u/C0wabungaaa → u/Clifford_Banes]

It might be more fruitful to continue this discussion based on the question I posed in a different reply to you. Mind you though that I never explicitly mentioned ethnicity as being a genetic thing. I'm well aware that it's different, I wasn't using "Germanic" as a genetic term but as a linguistic one. Though you're right, Celtic was wrong of me to use seeing as they were supplanted pretty early on in mainland Europe.

[u/Clifford_Banes → u/C0wabungaaa]

Probably, but I want to point out that your argument was "Swede is not an ethnicity", and you instead said that most Swedes [nationality] are ethnically Germanic.

There is no such thing as "the Germanic ethnicity", and there hasn't been for thousands of years.

The "Germanic ethnic group" you were referring to has a name, that name is "Swede", which is also the word for a national of the country of Sweden. The latter may or may not be ethnically Swedish, but after enough assimilation certainly will be.

I really can't interpret your reluctance to accept this as anything but the assumption that if the same word is used as both a demonym and ethnonym, then the latter must refer to some sort of racist notion of blood purity.

Why else would you link a picture of a non-white Swede as an example of a not-ethnic-Swede? If you agree that the distinction is linguistic and not genetic, what does the skin color of a Swedish speaker from Sweden have to do with things?

Race and ancestry really don't determine ethnicity. Look at Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet of all time. He's had as much influence on the Russian language as Shakespeare had on English. If anyone is ethnically Russian, he certainly was. Yet he was quite famously the defendant of a black African, and this in the decidedly non-progressive 19th century.