45
AmErika! (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I thought this tagline was funny cuz they say AmErika. Erika is a shitty German war song about your sweety. As far as war songs about your sweety go, Erika is both fascist and pales in comparison to Katyusha, the best sweety war song.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 8 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Serious question, where does the amerika spelling come from? I get amerikkka, and that's fun to type. Is amerika just a shortened version of amerikkka intended as a sort of dogwhistle for it, or is there a separate origin of that spelling?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    I believe the German spelling for a lot of things that - in English have the letter ‘c’ in it - use the letter ‘K.’ For example, America and Africa is Amerika and Afrika. The Germans also use K’s in a lot of their own words (Freikorps). And Germany is associated with white fascism and Nazism which also coincides with the KKK, which historically used vocabulary with Ks in it (Klan, Koran, made up words).

    I don’t know when it became popularly used as a pejorative against the west, but the most recent example I can think of is Settlers by J. Sakai. However, I’ve seen non Marxist/left black supremacists also use the K variant of spelling so it’s not exclusive to anyone.

    In essence, it’s comparing America (and any other western country with a C/K in its name) to the KKK as well as Nazi Germany.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Literally just because Amerika is the German spelling and German = Nazis

    It always felt kinda weird to me, because there are in fact a lot of other languages where America is spelled with a K, and German was also the language of Marx and the DDR

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Oooh, of course. Yeah I see what it's going for, it does seem kinda toothless though.

    Side note: I love referring to it as the DDR and not the GDR because DDR is also a fun game snom

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent