The Celtic tribes were from Modern day England correct?
Not exactly. The Celts were the first tribe of Indo-Europeans who migrated into Europe out of the ancestral home somewhere around Anatolia, around 3000BCE. We can only speculate on the nature of their encounters with the population of Homo sapiens who already inhabited the continent, since the only remnants of it that still survive are the Basque people and a few archeological clues like Stonehenge. But as usually happens when newer migrants come from a place with advanced technology (civilization had already sprung up in the Middle East but Europe was still in the Stone Age), they displaced the indigenous culture. For centuries, all of sub-Scandinavian Europe was a vast Celtic homeland. Bohemia is named after the Bohumil, a Celtic people. The Gauls were a Celtic people, as were the people of Iberia whose name we've forgotten but not their bagpipes.
But more Indo-European tribes followed them to Europe. The Germanic tribe took a roundabout route through Scandinavia and then across into Denmark, but the Greeks and Romans came straight in from the southeast. Again the pattern of newcomers overwhelming an older population played out and by the early centuries CE Celtic cultures and languages were restricted to the British Isles. When the Romans abandoned their outposts on Britannia, Germanic tribes with technology learned from the Romans even invaded that island, obliterating the culture of the original Celtic "Britons" and replacing it with that of the Angles and Saxons.
At this point the only Celtic cultures on Britannia were Wales and Cornwall. What is now Scotland was inhabited by the Picts, a pre-Indo-European tribe of whose language, culture and genetic history we'll probably never know much. The last Celtic homeland was Ireland. Ironically the Romans called Ireland "Scotia," so when in the latter centuries of the first millennium CE Irish colonists migrated to the Pictish lands in northern Britannia, they brought the name along with their Gaelic language and the place is now called "Scotland."
The only surviving Celtic languages are the Irish and Scots dialects of Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish (which is undergoing a revival) and Breton, the language of the descendants of some Britons who fled back to the continent when the Anglo-Saxons invaded.
Yeah, this is how I feel. I don't like that everything has to be "Black" and "White". Why there has to be "Asian", "Latino", or "black" neighborhoods.
I don't mind attempts to preserve "Asian" or "Latino" communities any more than I mind the "Italian," "Russian," "Persian" and "Greek" communities in our big cities, or the "Irish," "Polish" and "German" ones that used to exist. A culture is something people maintain by agreement. Any American of Asian, Latino, Polish or Greek ancestry is free to give notice to his landlord and move into another neighborhood where everyone eats hamburgers, speaks English, watches baseball and listens to rock music. And in general these communities are cordial to outsiders who wish to move in due to marriage, scholarship or sheer eccentricity, so long as they do their best to learn the language and assimilate in other ways.
In the same way, I have no objection to "African" communities where people speak African languages and practice African traditions. Cultures are precious sources of ideas and motifs. We should support all reasonable attempts to preserve them because they enrich civilization.
But I am uncomfortable with communities that are defined by the physical appearance of their members. This means that those members don't have the same freedom to migrate from one community to the other as the descendants of the German and Mexican immigrants do.
Most of my ancestors arrived in America in the late 19th century and the children of the first generation of immigrants assimilated into the mainstream. I barely speak a word of any of their languages, have rarely tasted their food, and have no more interest in the politics of their homelands than the average American. I'm an American without a hyphen or an adjective. Just an American.
But ironically, the families of most "black" Americans go back at least three generations further than mine on American soil, and many go further than that. They're more "American" than I am. Even as slaves they spoke our language, ate our food and played our games. Why is there such a strong force to keep them separated from the rest of us?
Discrimination is not the reason. Asian-Americans suffered grievous discrimination up until the 1960s, just like African-Americans. Mexican-Americans continue to be discriminated against. Yet the children of Mexican and Asian immigrants intermarry with Euro-Americans at such a high rate that it's difficult to identify anyone who's a third-generation member of those ethnic communiies. Why, then, do we have fifth-, sixth-, seventh-, and even eighth-generation African-Americans?
Why does it all have to be about race? In my School, it is so hard cause when I walk around, I see all these cliques that consist of people of the same race. I try to be friendly to everyone, but it seems like the blacks are the most surprised when I smile at them or be friendly with them. Its like they don't know how to react to a white dude being nice. They usually smile back or talk to me, they just seem surprised, like its something that never happens. I just wonder what it is like on their end. What happens when they smile at a white person or try to befriend a white person.
It's tempting to suggest that it's all about skin color, that this is why it's easier for Italian and Mexican immigrants to assimilate. All they have to do is lose their foreign accent and get haircuts like ours and we can't tell them apart. Yet Chinese immigrants are easy to tell apart despite their perfect English and their zeal to adopt our fashions, and they've been welcomed into the Melting Pot for decades.
Elsewhere in the New World the descendants of freed slaves were not only accepted into the mainstream readily enough, but
they wanted to assimilate. Why not here?
As I said, I think it's the legacy of the Civil War. Almost a century and a half later, Euro-Americans and African-Americans still have to reach over a river of blood in order to shake hands. All other slaves in this hemisphere (except in Haiti) were freed peacefully, as the forces of economics made slavery impractical.
But I do wonder who is at fault. Is it the blacks being jerks to whites that makes them separate, or the whites being jerks to the blacks, or a combination of both?
Surely some of both. This is a problem that has to be solved individually. You're doing your part by smiling at them and being friendly. Don't concern yourself with how anyone reacts. You're a positive force for the advancement of civilization and knowing that should be enough of a reward. Your children and their children will have an easier time getting together because of people like you. Bless you.
