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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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We have a conclusion to the "Braveheart" saga, precipitated by a viral video of a Scottish girl defending herself by waving a knife and axe at a man filming her. This incident was discussed in multiple comment threads, with @ArjinFerman summarizing the discourse here.

Per the BBC reporting on the court case:

A man has been found guilty of making sexual remarks to a group of girls aged between 12 and 14 in Dundee before grabbing and pushing one of them to the ground.

The court heard that Belov had said "hello sexy, I'll show you a good time" to the girls while walking past them in the Lochee area of the city.

After one of the girls called him a creep, he had returned to confront the group and called his sister, who arrived shortly afterwards and assaulted one of the girls.

His sister has also been convicted, in what appears to be a complete legal victory for the Scottish girls.

Needless to say, not one mention anywhere of the brother and sister being Bulgarian Gypsies.

The problem for Bulgarians (which is a lesser problem for Romanians, although still an issue for them) is that despite all the /r/Europe posting of blonde girls in traditional outfits, many of the natives are relatively dark haired and swarthy for ethnic Europeans, and so to the untrained (and not proficient ethnoguessr regular) North-Western European commoner eye, blur into a continuum with the Roma population (who themselves are after all only part Indian, many are much lighter skinned than the average actual Indian).

I have Spanish and Southern Italian friends who have faced actual ethnic abuse by random native drunks in eg Sweden and Denmark who assumed they were Arabs (and again, this has happened to two people I’ve encountered and discussed it with, so it cannot be all that rare). An (Ashkenazi) American Jewish guy I know (who is far more the Trotsky or Woody Allen phenotype than the Levantine Warrior one) was accosted by some people in a small town in East Germany where he was visiting for a wedding by people who assumed he was a migrant of some sort. People are not that good at differentiating races.

The problem for Bulgarians [...] is that [...] many of the natives [...] blur into a continuum with the Roma population [...]

I would argue that the actual problem is the racists HBD-proponents who decide to improve the local community life by abusing or attacking people based on their perceived ethnicity.

There is a lesser problem where people use appropriate heuristics based on perceived ethnicity, but this is small fries in comparison. If I were a Bulgarian, I would have a problem with people threatening me because they mistake me for a Roma. If they decide to check every banknote I pay with using UV light I could live with that.

An (Ashkenazi) American Jewish guy I know (who is far more the Trotsky or Woody Allen phenotype than the Levantine Warrior one) was accosted by some people in a small town in East Germany where he was visiting for a wedding by people who assumed he was a migrant of some sort. People are not that good at differentiating races.

Of course, the kind of Germans who would actively accost migrants will likely consider it a happy accident if they end up beating up a Jew instead. (Though more recently, I guess it is also possible that some on the far right admire Israel for what they did in Gaza.)

I would argue that the actual problem is the racists HBD-proponents

What is this about? Are people violently attacking ethnic minorities on the street HBD proponents? Because my understanding was that most racial violence was committed by genuine racists who have never heard of HBD, while the sort of nonviolent rational heuristics like UV light checks were the domain of the HBD proponents. This seems backwards to me.

It's just a boo light.

Most East Germans don’t think about Jews at all. If asked explicitly they may or may not express mildly antisemitic opinions, but it’s not the same as it is in corners of Poland (which also have no Jews) where some minor parties have whipped up a moderate amount of antisemitism in the last decade, although even there Jews are usually hated third or fourth after Ukrainians, Muslims/non European migrants and sometimes Germany.

Score one against the hypothesis that the male tilt of migration is why people hate it.

I think there was some funny evidence that in Poland women were as likely to be as anti immigration as men, which is untrue in Western Europe, so maybe not.