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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 9, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is Hasan Piker white? I guess he’s Turkish/greek. Looks very white. Just seems interesting that he would talk about replacing whites……when the next move if his side wins would be sending himself to the gulags.

Sort of in the category of Pedro Pascal White. Maybe a little bit less.

That question would be better asked with more precision. If you are literally asking about Hasan's skin colour, then you can just look at him. He has skin as pale as the average European.

If you're asking 'Is he European?', well traditionally Europe ends at Istanbul, which would make Hasan Asian, but his wikipedia page says his father emigrated from Greece, although he has a surname which sound more Turkish, and that his mother has mixed Asian ancestry (Indonesia, Turkey, Kurdistan, Arabia). So on balance I'd describe him as mixed Asian, although that doesn't preclude him from having white skin, as many do in Asia.

I think he's genetically white or close enough, a huge proportion of Turkey is. On a social level I think it's more complicated, "white" is typically used as a synonym for European and someone from a Muslim country outside of Bosnia/Albania fit into that pretty awkwardly, especially if they explicitly behave the way a hostile outsider does.

Ya Romans are white. And there’s still some of them there. He might be predominantly Roman who had forced conversion. He’s actually more white than Fuentes. The interesting thing with white privilege is only Argentina claims whiteness outside of Europe.

My official line is now AOC. Any whiter and you’re white. Since she has an obsession with white men her kids will be white.

She is white - what are you talking about?

She identifies as a women of color. I don’t have a big disagreement since I she is the dividing line. Her skin is a little brown so she definitely has some black or Amerindian in her, but likely 70% European.

She has claimed Taino and Jewish ancestry, and probably there is some truth to that (but I'm very sceptical of "my ancestors were Sephardic Jews who fled the Inquisition" part, much more likely to be more recent:

"During the early 20th century Jews began to settle in Puerto Rico. The first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were European refugees fleeing German–occupied Europe in the late 1930s. Puerto Rico's economic boom of the 1950s attracted a considerable number of Jewish families from the U.S. mainland, who were joined after 1959 by an influx of Jewish emigres from Fidel Castro's Cuba.")

"Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, made the reveal on Sunday evening at a Jackson Heights synagogue in Queens, telling the crowd that “a very, very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews.”

She dated her ancestry to those who had to flee Europe during the Spanish Inquisition more than 500 years ago, and sought refuge in the New World. “Some of those people landed in Puerto Rico,” she explained.

“As is the story of Puerto Rico, we are a people that are an amalgamation,” she said. “We are no one thing. We are black; we are indigenous; we are Spanish; we are European.”

She is majority white, though, as is the Puerto Rican population in general:

"Puerto Ricans, on average, have genetic contributions from Europeans, West Africans, and Native Americans of approximately 66%, 18%, and 16%, respectively."

Elizabeth Warren identifies as Cherokee, or at least she did when it benefitted her. That doesn't make her one. If we abandon the actual ancestry, then the only thing left for us is what is profitable for a particular individual in particular moment and do they have enough power to enact it.