this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
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because growing up, I only ever heard that word from neoconfederate types, and so I'm conditioned to associate that word with "the South shall rise again" bullshit

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think Fidel Castro had a part in making popular yankee as an insult since at least in latam he was the main dude that used it as an insult

And i know that since pre-fidel cubans used to say gringo to refer to americans but Fidel would instead use yankee during his speeches

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i-get-it if fidel called me a yankee it'd sting

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He may be gone but Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz Canel can still call you a yankee

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm certain they called some of those DSA members yankee after they left.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Oh my god I completely forgot about the DSA clown troupe adventure in Cuba.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago (1 children)

because growing up, I only ever heard that word from neoconfederate types

this is precisely why i use yankee for all usamericans, its shorter than usamerican and it pisses off the literal worst crackers

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

"usamerican" needs to be part of the Hexbear style guide, and it needs to be enforced.

(Or "Yankee"is fine too)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Usian works too IMO, but yeah yaKKKee is better

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah whenever I've called Americans Yanks they always get confused and think I'm talking about the sportsball team, but it's definitely not confusing to the rest of the world.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago

Those jedi mindtricks don't work on Americans. We're too dumb.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

Literally all of Latin America uses it as a pejorative for any American, along with gringo. We get exploited and brutalized by Americans from the north and the south, you're all Yankees to us.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its not an insult, that's just what you're called

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

no no it's both theory-gary

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You gotta reframe it just a little bit and associate it with the words "the Global South shall rise again" now.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In Japanese ヤンキー (katakana for Yankee) is used as a term for delinquents and bad-behaving teenagers

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Whence {元|もと}ヤン motoyan for an ex-delinquent. Guess where I learned that word from!

Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837

"We Will Talk of Nothing Else": Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

Yankee -> Yank -> sceptic tank -> seppo.

Rhyming slang is great, come have a butchers I'm not telling porkies you old raspberry.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

Yankee just means American (as in USAian)

Before the US civil war it was already a term for all Americans. Once the confederacy declared "independence" they wanted to drop all ties to the US government and its citizens. Thus, Yankee became a (an attempt anyway) derogatory term for those who remained US citizens who at the time were basically all located above the Mason-Dixon line. And it's just sort of stuck since then. Those outside the US context just use it for every American. The most famous usage is probably the Vietnamese anti-American propaganda saying like "Go home, Yankee! Your government doesn't care about you!" and stuff like that

On a personal note or whatever, half my family is from the deep south, so I also grew up understanding it as a sort of derogatory term used for those from the northern states. It's pretty fucking weird to realize eventually that your family members are using an "insult" from the pro-slavery rebel government towards you (not me but my dad. So, also kind of at me...). Not to credit them too much though because I doubt they know really what they're saying in that respect and they do it as a joking thing mostly from what I saw. Of course sentiments of "war of northern aggression" and "MLK was a troublemaker" (heavily censoring that second one...) are still alive even among people that most outside observers probably wouldn't clock as super racist upon casual observation. When you're their nephew or grandson though, well, I can only confirm all the assumptions people have towards white southerners. (No, not literally everyone, obviously, before someone comes yelling at me. But it's a big percentage that are seemingly fine with everything from casual slur usage to aggressively wishing death on people. Obama being in office in particular sent my uncle down a pretty wild path)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fine, we'll call the likes of ye seppos, like @erika3sis said

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I specifically have my sort of ill-defined "tripartite division" idea, which is to say that of the people who self-identify as "Americans", that Seppo refers really more to capitalists and their lackeys than to anyone else, whereas American per se refers basically to class conscious members of what's often called the "American diaspora", and Usonian refers to... honestly everyone else.

The country is however called Seppoland and its people may be called Seppolanders.

This terminology is a bit opaque and hard to explain well, so I tend not to use it around others very often.

Sent from Mdewakanton Dakota lands / Sept. 29 1837Treaty with the Sioux of September 29th, 1837

"We Will Talk of Nothing Else": Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah, if you’re trying to insult an American, “yank” or “yankee” isn’t very cutting.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

White people just assuming everything is a slur very-normal

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

growing up, I only ever heard that word from neoconfederate types, and so I'm conditioned to associate that word with "the South shall rise again" bullshit

It's not likely that anyone but yourselves will care about the finer subdivisions of different kinds of yankee

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We can go back to just using American if you'd like?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can call me whatever you like

spoilerExcept "liberal"

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

lmao fucking yankee 🤭

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

In many languages, "yankee" or some variant of it is used to refer to Americans in general, like "yanqui" in Spanish or "jenkki" in Finnish.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Koreans sometimes say “yanknom,” yankee bastard, so you can also use that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

When a Yankee is eating

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

They're called yanks because that is all they do all day

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yankee soldier
He want to shoot some skag
He met it in Cambodia, but now
He can't afford a bag

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

As a southerner I use it to talk about northerners. I used "carpet bagger" to talk about a politician around a bunch of South westerners the other day and none of them knew what it was.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

The only time I heard the word "Yankee" used outside of baseball was when my dad got upset with me for wearing a Piggly Wiggly hat

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I didn't even realize they were talking about all Americans lol