Have you ever seen pure WASP?
Posted by PaleCar821@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 86 comments
Like Anglo Saxons from England whose ancestors didn't really mix with other ethnicities.
Posted by PaleCar821@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 86 comments
Like Anglo Saxons from England whose ancestors didn't really mix with other ethnicities.
WillDupage@reddit
I’m related to a few.
Ok-commuter-4400@reddit
My entire dad's side, yeah. I have 2 ancestors who were passengers on the Mayflower and there's a whole chunk of Vermont named after that line of my family, where King George III had given another of my ancestors a land grant back in the mid-1700s.
Lotta people in New England can trace their entire family lineage back to specific transatlantic crossings among Puritan families in the 1600s.
uursaminorr@reddit
white people here barely know what kind of “white” they are. white supremacy is less about exact country of origin and more about excluding other people. bear in mind, italians and irish weren’t really considered white for a long time. “white” is a social status, not an actual race or culture.
dlerach@reddit
If you go to the Northeast or Midwest there is major division still between various European ethnicities. I think what you’re describing is more common in the sunbelt.
uursaminorr@reddit
i am in the midwest.
dlerach@reddit
And you really think people in Chicago don’t have a sense of if they’re Irish, Polish, Italian, etc.?
uursaminorr@reddit
the one city of chicago? sure. southern wisconsin? nah. northern illinois? nah. michigan? maybe.
i’m not debating whether or not there are recognized communities, im saying the majority of white people i have interacted with dont belong to them.
dlerach@reddit
If you live in a city in the Midwest I find that hard to believe. Maybe out in the sticks sure, but even then! Aren’t people famous for the super strong Scandinavian or German links in the Upper Midwest?
uursaminorr@reddit
okay new york, you obviously know more than i do
Jorost@reddit
WASPs are everywhere. I'm one. When I did 23andMe they sent me back a piece of blank white paper and said "this is you."
Jackal2332@reddit
They gave me .2% African Hunter-Gatherer or somesuch, but honestly, I think they were just feeling bad for me for having such boring DNA, and presumably bursting into flames when exposed to sunlight.
stebe-bob@reddit
Yeah mine was 52% German and 41% “British Isles”. The remaining ~7 percent was a mix of some Balkan and southern European (from a Great Great Grandmother from Austria-Hungary) and a little bit of Scandinavian. Not super exciting.
MyNameIsNot_Molly@reddit
Same. 84% English 12% Welsh
cobaltkarma@reddit
Same. 0.6% sub-Saharan African. The rest is Europe and none of my great grandparents were even immigrants so I would think it's common.
wildeberry1@reddit
My Ancestry report said “You’re hella white!”
(54% English, 40% Scots, 6% Scandi as a US/Canadian)
GOTaSMALL1@reddit
“How white is he!!”
An8thOfFeanor@reddit
I come from a lone of WASPs so long it leads back to Moses
stebe-bob@reddit
Some weeks it seems like I’m descended from Job, personally.
Butitsadryheat2@reddit
Couldn't you just trace it by how much mayonnaise is sold in an area?
KennstduIngo@reddit
How woud I know? Do they wear a sign or something?
Ziggity_Zac@reddit
It says "J Crew"
Pinkfish_411@reddit
"J. Press" would be a lot closer to the truth.
wcpm88@reddit
A man of culture
Stupid_Snowmeiser@reddit
Not all of them, but there’s a chance that a few wear a hooded dunce cap.
ButterscotchOdd8257@reddit
They might.
ToastMate2000@reddit
Do people with purely Anglo-Saxon heritage even still exist?
MrHandsRadDay@reddit
Fuck is a wasp?
melina26@reddit
My grandpa was pure WASP, we thought. Turned out there was a Hessian in the mix.
Mackheath1@reddit
I'm not sure I understand - do you mean someone who descended from (current) British Islands? How would I even know? My parents are German (I'm American), but I speak with a mid-Atlantic accent - I suppose someone might 'mistake' me for a WASP?
BusinessWarthog6@reddit
I also think most people if they see someone in public aren’t gonna think about the persons ethnic background
ITfarmer@reddit
So European monarch genes? Not a lot of branches on the family tree?
Terrible-Image9368@reddit
There are wasps in my bushes all the time and they are determined to build nests on my house above my door
Mean-Math7184@reddit
Every time I look in the mirror. We have very well researched and reliable family trees going back to 15th century for the direct lineages. Things get fuzzy before the family migrated from France to England around 1400, but everything from England and USA is well preserved.
DOMSdeluise@reddit
Well there have been two Bushes as president in my lifetime so yeah sure
-RedRocket-@reddit
Not that I know of.
I wonder how many Angles, Saxons or Jutes' descendants never either intermarried with native Britons, or with subsequent populations of Normans or Danes.
No one still talks like Beowulf.
GaryJM@reddit
According to genetic studies, it looks like nobody in the UK is "pure Anglo-Saxon". Analysis of early Anglo-Saxon burial sites suggest that they were intermarrying with the locals almost as soon as they started settling here. Modern British people have between 25% and 40% Ango-Saxon ancestry.
Federal_Pickles@reddit
Have I ever seen a white person?
PaleCar821@reddit (OP)
Nah, most of white Americans are from Germany or Ireland. So I'm asking
Classic-Push1323@reddit
White Americans with English ancestry are the second largest subgroup of "White Americans." If you include "Old Stock Americans," who are also English, they are the largest group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Americans
Someone who has a small amount of Irish ancestry doesn't necessarily have ancestors who came to the US from Ireland. Many English people living in England also have Irish ancestry.
DosZappos@reddit
I don’t think that disqualifies anyone
Kseries2497@reddit
It would make them not Anglo-Saxons, which is part of being a WASP. Not that anyone really cares about it.
squirrel_haka@reddit
You just throw out “most white Americans are from Germany or Ireland” as if it were common knowledge? That’s absurd.
bluecrowned@reddit
It's also not true lmao
im_in_hiding@reddit
Can you tell the difference between Americans with distant German ancestors and Americans with distant English ancestors? We're many generations into being a country and a lot of mixing has happened
ScarletDarkstar@reddit
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Weary_Song7154@reddit
Why the hell would I ask everyone what their ethnic background is?
Trialbyfuego@reddit
There are many white Anglo Saxon Protestants in America. However there are many white Anglo Saxon atheists too.
Hotdog_Grabber@reddit
I saw an actual wasp this morning. Other than that, I have no fucking idea you weirdo
Butitsadryheat2@reddit
😂😂😂
ScarletDarkstar@reddit
There were 4 wasps on my garlic yesterday evening.
BeepCheeper@reddit
Yeah they’re mostly in New England
“Pure” is a weird choice of words
ThereCastle@reddit
Yes, I live in New England.
ABelleWriter@reddit
I married one. This man is mayonnaise level of white. Absolutely nothing but British heritage. It's wild.
cheekmo_52@reddit
Anglo-Saxon is a reference to a group of different Germanic Tribes, including the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who migrated to Britain is something like the 5th century. The P in WASP stands for Protestant.. which didn’t exist until Lutheranism started in the fourteenth century. So Anglo-Saxons were there for a thousand years before Protestantism exists. They weren’t all ethnicity to begin with, and nine of them were Protestants. There is no such thing as a pure WASP.
50ShadesOfKrillin@reddit
nope, I grew up in nothing but diverse neighborhoods and I like it that way
im_in_hiding@reddit
That's kinda impossible for us to know just by looking at white people. And if there are subtle signs then most people don't know those signs or care to.
One-Hand-Rending@reddit
Yes...they all live in Connecticut. They are easy to spot.
theycallmethevault@reddit
I'm curious how you think we'd know them by sight?
Gold_Telephone_7192@reddit
The majority of the country identifies as white, has ancestors from the UK, and the Protestants are the largest religious group in the US. So it's very common for people to fall under the WASP banner, and it's not like we (or even they) would know if there are other ethnicities or religious people in their ancestry.
Tom__mm@reddit
There are millions of while people in the US who are of generally British descent and are some flavor of Protestant. You’ll find them from yachting clubs to trailer parks.
benicebuddy@reddit
People say Americans are racist, but at least they can tell who you're supposed to hate by looking at them. Europeans need to know your whole family tree (or just the country where you were born) before they know if they are supposed to hate you. I don't know which is worse, but they are both awful.
sydni1210@reddit
I truly don’t believe they even exist at this point. If they do, inbreeding is occurring.
mikhailguy@reddit
I'm from South Florida..I did have very white a British friend in elementary school. Nice kid, but he looked middle-aged even at 8 years old.
He looked pretty white to me
Peepaw50@reddit
I'm pretty sure I'm a WASP, but I can only trace my lineage back to 1555 in Saxony Germany.
LucidLeviathan@reddit
One of my grandmothers was Cherokee (or at least claimed to be so; she was a bit nutty), but aside from that, yes.
CommonwealthCommando@reddit
It's hard to find one without at least a little Irish or Scandinavian in them, but yeah, we have plenty.
They frighten me.
pricklycactass@reddit
Yeah all of my dads side of the family. They trace back to the mayflower.
Pitiful_Fox5681@reddit
I don't understand the question, but if it's "have you ever met a daughter of the Mayflower" or "have you ever met a descendent of a British protestant who still has all British ancestry and is still protestant" the answer is yes. This was fairly normal in the small town I lived in in Connecticut. My wife's (very old) grandmother in Maine also fits this category, though my wife's mom does not, and my wife is Catholic and half Persian.
Cowboywizard12@reddit
Even the Anglo-Saxons mixed with thr Celtics considering DNA testing shows despite the common belief more British people are of Celtic Descent than Anglo Saxon Descent
ThisOnesforYouMorph@reddit
Yea, I've seen pure WASP. You can, too; they're still touring. They'll probably play Blind in Texas.
HueyLongest@reddit
I'm not going to send you a picture but I'm about as close to being pure WASP as you can reasonably get (ignore ironic flag in bio)
mcaffrey@reddit
This is not something Americans think about or talk about. Only weird racists in Idaho focus on "mixing". If I were to imagine WASPS, they would be rich old money folks in the northeast, but it would never occur to me to think about it in terms of any ethnic purity or whatever that means. That isn't how America works.
strawb9@reddit
I'd imagine those people are most common on the East Coast. Those old money families didn't mix much with the common folk.
thatcoolguy60@reddit
How would we know?
Definitive_confusion@reddit
Yes. I've been to New England
gdubh@reddit
How would one know?
sneezhousing@reddit
Can't tell by looking at someone. I have no idea
Rubberbangirl66@reddit
I come from them…
QuasiJudicialBoofer@reddit
Maybe once, at the vineyard.
RioTheLeoo@reddit
I mean, probably?
I don’t see that many white people in general, and when I do I’m not asking for their 23andMe results
HorseFeathersFur@reddit
Have you?
thingsbetw1xt@reddit
Probably? But why would I know or remember it lol
CPA_Lady@reddit
🙋♀️
RektInTheHed@reddit
Like the Wurzels?
TheBimpo@reddit
Weird question man.
jetf@reddit
george bush sr is the ultimate wasp