They're Not Westerners

HBD discusses a new pet peeve of mine: what’s in a name?

we have words for things — give names to things — for a reason: to help in identifying those things and to communicate something about them. and — and perhaps i am and have always been misguided about this — i thought the idea of naming things was to aid in the communication process, not make it all more confused. but i’m beginning to think i might’ve been wrong about this.

at the very least, i think someone like abaaoud — a second-generation immigrant to belgium with (i don’t think) any belgian or european ancestry whatsoever — ought to be called a moroccan-belgian. to aid in the communication process.

She goes into a long discussion of different tribes in Ireland that are still useful for identifying things such as political party. It's worth it to read the whole post.

I remember hearing about an American pastor detained in North Korea and I thought, why did he go there? He'd stick out like a sore thumb. Turns out he is first-generation American.

In all the reports of "Westerners" going to join ISIS, nearly all of them are Muslims, first and second-generation immigrants. You see a headline: Brit joins ISIS and are shocked, until you realize it's a first-generation Pakistani. Or you read about Americans traveling from Ebolaland and wonder, why the heck is an American over there? Aside from aid workers, they tend to be African immigrants, American in passport only.

The media's refusal to report on identity leads to unintended trolling of their audience. Such as: A Fight as U.S. Girls Face Genital Cutting Abroad and Western girls holiday in Kenya to undergo FGM in secret. I clicked the latter article thinking WTF, why are white girls getting their genitals mutilated? The image in my head was a Spring Break college student. Turns out they are Somalis with Western passports.

There's great potential for trolling. What's cool for 2015? FGM! Find out why more and more Americans are mutilating their daughters' genitals. Think of all the ways you can make progressives really uncomfortable with headlines. Is it time to stone homosexuals? More and more Americans say yes! (You know they'll click that one expecting Cletus Biblethumper).