| Nymeria said:
Part of this view comes from American culture where locally we have festivals to celebrate local cultures of Mexican, Irish, Italian, and especially German culture. I wore a dirndl and drank beer from a glass boot which may be stereotypical and even offensive to you given I have no direct German heritage, but it was more of sharing and honoring each other to become closer. I do think intent and attitude matters, not just the imagery. The challenge with these issues is we are often arguing about end products and the divide comes from very different understanding of history. For example, if all someone knew about Germany was the second World War that vacuum of context would create a very distorted view of your people. I'm not sure how much progress or valid use of mental resources it is spending outrage on a symptom if we ignore the causes of such mindsets. It's not an easy issue to resolve given as a species we naturally want to take reductionist views of others. |
Hehe, as a german I can say, that Dirndl is only used in parts of germany, especially Bayern, and many hate them, so appropriate away. 
But in all seriousness - I'm actually happy that people enrich their life with some part of german culture. And if it is reduced to drinking beer (which I dislike, maybe I'm not a right german). And as you say, better people see also some positive things about Germany than reducing us to the guys who murdered half of europe in the world wars.
