Also is referring to them as croats insensitive? It feels like a slur tbh. If it isn’t a slur can I call them scroats? Some croation on tiktok was valuing whiteness a lil too much so I made fun of them and wanted to make sure I wasn’t being unintentionally shitty since I know little about this region

Edit: is croat pronounced krote or crow-at

  • Lemvi@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    17·
    27 days ago

    “Croat” is not a slur, just what people from Croatia are called.

    I don’t think making fun of Croats for their country’s past is any more insensitive than any other instance of bullying someone for their nationality.

    If anything is a sensitive topic its not as much their role in WW2, but rather the much more recent Yugoslav wars, and the still existing tensions between Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks.

    • ComradeSharkfuckerOPEnglish
      6·
      27 days ago

      “Croat” is not a slur, just what people from Croatia are called.

      Gotcha, I figured but wanted to be sure. It really feels like a slur to me idk why 😭

      I only poked at their country’s past because they insinuated that Turkey was lesser in some way due to the generally higher melanin content and it was clear from their username that they had some nationalist sentiments

  • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    26 days ago

    I hate that I’m like this (or that the world makes me respond this way?) but there are certain identity groups that make me brace for fascism and really horrible reactionary bullshit.

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I immediately hate or distrust someone just because of a last name or an ethnicity but especially in recent times there are particular identifiers that mark someone as having Jewish heritage and I just brace and silently hope to myself “Please don’t be Zionist, please don’t be Zionist…”

    In a similar way, Croatians have a reputation with me for often having strong ultranationalist and fascist sympathies. Obviously not all of them do and I’d hate to treat all Croatians as if they are guilty of beliefs that only some of them hold, especially when Croatians were also victims of fascism and some of them resisted Croatian fascism however they could, but if you’re Croatian then I’m bracing for the Ustaše sympathising due to my past experiences. A large part of this is because the expat Croatian community where I live is extremely comfortable flying the Ustaše flag and even wearing Ustaše garb openly so it’s hard not to be more than a little on edge about this.

    I think that it’s fine to give a fascist or potential fascist flak without remorse. If someone is veering heavily into racism or ethnonationalism then I wouldn’t take issue with calling them on it. But there’s a big difference between pissing on the Ustaše flag and draping someone in that flag simply because they are Croatian; if you spit on the memory of Pavelić in front of a Croatian to gauge their reaction that’s fine but I wouldn’t go and make accusations of someone being a sympathiser unless I had good reason to.

    (Idk if you’re across it but keep an eye out for the chequered shield used in Croatian iconography - if the first square is white, things are not right.)

      • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        26 days ago

        This is the normal Croatian flag, nothing of concern here:

        (Note that the chequers in the top left go Red-White-Red-White)

        This is the Ustaše flag:

        If you see that symbol in the top left or you see the shield with a chequered pattern that begins at the top left with White-Red, then you’ve got yourself a fascist.

        It’s important to know the difference because they aren’t easy to distinguish between at first glance, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

    • ComradeSharkfuckerOPEnglish
      2·
      27 days ago

      Damn, so scroat doesn’t really work. Highly unfortunate. Granted, altering the term for an ethnicity in order to make it offensive probably hasn’t been a good thing historically.