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Westerner here.
If disturbs me how accurate this is, and how I never realized it till just now.
I work very hard to inspect my own preconceived biases and assumptions, and I find it very uncomfortable when someone just drops one right in front of me that I had never even realized I held… Uncomfortable doesn’t mean bad. But dammit, how am I in a picture I didn’t even know the photographer of existed?
American perceptions in one image. Persians in the palace, Arabs in the slums.
Also, not all Iranians are Persian. There are multiple cultures, despite nationalist attempts at cultural genocide.
I didn’t know that, I thought it was like Deutschland where Iranians use a different name for their country than we do in English.
Nah Persians kinda hate Arabs. Source: I work for a Persian.
I’m an Arab and this is my conception too lol
Iranians aren’t Arabs and don’t speak Arabic
Yeah we know that but does the average American whose only use of the word Persian comes from rugs, coffee, and mahbe some sweets.
Excuse me I’ll have you know I played Prince of Persia and its reboot.
Iranians have been fighting arabs since Elam and Sumaria were around.
Use the Arabic script though.
I mean Japanese and Chinese also use the same script. But I wouldn’t really say they’re the same cultures…especially not to their face.
Would probably help shape a basic conception for a number of westerners though.
Then what about the Arab Iranians in Khuzestan?
I knew a girl in college (was pursuing a girl in college) who said she was Persian. When I was confused, she explained that her family came from Iran but, the political climate being what it was in the late 1980’s, she found it safer to say she was Persian.
I think the difference here is Persian is ethnicity while iranian is nationality. Don’t know about safety but I knew Iranian and he said he was Kurd, mostly because he didn’t associate himself with Iran.
Maybe. She specifically told me she told people she was Persian because we (the US) was in an active conflict with Iran at the time, with people getting killed and all that.
Is… is that not what they are?
Hah. No, they’re not Arab and they don’t speak Arabic. Iran was actually very progressive until the Revolution of 1979.
I like to imagine, as a Canadian, that people from other cultures look at the British as “luxury whites”. Or maybe the French.
The French are people who decided to only pronounce 20% of letters.
And I feel like they do that because they feel like they’re just too good for those letters, but they leave them in the spelling of those words just to let everybody else know that they are fancier than the rest of us.
Not sure that anyone except americans is really all that obsessed with skin colour. But French often prtrayed as luxury europeans and modern japanese as sci-fi asians.
No, racial inequality happens everywhere to varying degrees, and it is usually tied to skin colour. South Africa for example.
Race is not as important in my corner, sure there is racism, but the blackest man that is your contryman is better than whitest aryan looking dude that is your nations historical rival/enemy as far as I can tell. Asian countries (which i visited) are noticeable more racist, but they are separated more by religion it looks like. What I’m trying to say skin color is secondary at best.
Im not American, and I do understand they have a huge race problem there.
Uh… Maybe?
anyone who reads that comment please GO WATCH THE VIDEO OP LINKED.
it’s super good and really approachable even if, like me, you don’t know much about music theory!
I’ve always pictured it more as “Tacky luxury, maybe with Mediterranean flair.”
ie: gilt everything, over-decorated, looks expensive for the sake of looking expensive.Iran is not on the Mediterranean
Yes. I am aware.
A lot of Arab countries on the Mediterranean though none I would call tacky or over-decorated. You are perhaps thinking of the Arabian Gulf instead?
i think the original commenter is just reaffirming the idea presented in the meme by sharing their own conceptions of iran. this highlights how westerners generally seem to view the region.
i wouldn’t use the word mediterranean here myself but i see where they’re coming from saying that, especially with regards to cultural perception versus the real, lived culture.
westerners traditionally associate the stylings of like, Parthia or maybe the Sassanids with iran/persia. those cultures are also inextricably linked with a wider western image of the bronze age and greece. i think the more interesting part of note here is that westerners tend to conflate classical cultures as all having a general “vibe” that might be described as mediterranean, and both in the case of modern iran or greece it seems that this lasting cultural image is heavily impressed in the social consciousness
Gilt over-decorated everything with a lot of details is expensive, whole purpose of it is to be expensive.
Ironically, while Persian is stereotyped as “luxury arabic” Iranian is stereotyped as “evil arabic”.
Honestly so do I but more like culturally rich rather than literally. Islam would be Hella dim if it wasn’t for Persian influences, and I say this as a non Persian.
As an Arab to me Persian sounds distinctly different unlike say Aramaic.
As an Eastern European American, to me, spoken Persian phonetically sounds like Russian (perhaps same sounds and phonemes, but, of course I can’t understand it)
There’s probably some shared cognates, Persian has one that I know of with English.
