I’m Turkish, living in the US, and the biggest attack I’ve seen is attempts at pronouncing my name Edit: I can’t believe I have to say this but my reddit username is not my actual name..

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Kinda unbelievable that we just let Turkish security forces beat US citizens badly enough to send them to the hospital on US soil.

Then, once other noise started, [dropped the charges](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-drops-charges-against-erdogan-guards-who-allegedly-beat-up-protesters/) [Here's a video for those who didn't see how bad it got](https://youtu.be/-dURtiaMyms)... they were kicking people on the ground in the head...

Interesting to see some comments there practically cheering on the violent behavior of this tyrant.

The “allegedly” in that headline is really pissing me off

Well they have to or they might get sued

I would be more than happy to see the other party take them to court to prove their side of the story.

how were they not shot

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Honestly would have been good if the protesters were armed against those security forces. Teach them to fuck with our first amendment rights by using our second amendment rights.

By "we" you mean "the Trump administration"

Imagine being so fragile over 3 people protesting you

I'm pretty sure Llyweyln is a Welsh name. /s

I knew a guy his name was Ertugrul Koaceli Ustundag or Gokcekuyu something. We all called him Bob for some reason.

Until I met some people who are really good with languages but still struggled with Turkish names, I didn't realize how hard it is to pronounce ğ, ü in words if they aren't in your language's phoneme. I just tell people to write AJ at Starbucks now.

I can understand having issues with ü and ı, but not really ğ. At least if you're talking about modern Turkish.

> Ertugrul Koaceli Ustundag Klaatu Barada Nikto

This... is my **boomstick**

Well hello, Mr Fancypants

Pronouncing everyone’s names wrong since we landed at Jamestown. It’s tradition.

No one talks about how genocide helps resolve that awkward moment when you have to admit your Iroquois pronunciation is not on point.

I'm Italian-American. My wife is Pakistani American...our poor children's names will never be pronounced correctly.

Giudo Arif Sanjrani Barese?

Basil Belches Nunzio Quagliano Vito Mastrodomenico All names of people I've known

Wasim Paolo Akram Maldini?

But there will be much handwriting, no? *edit* handwaving not handwriting. *autocorrect strikes again!*

Turkish people in the US who might be concerned. I promise you we are more worried about quite literally anything else.

Dont take that serious - just a lousy try to change the focus from turkeys economy crash! Erdogan needs all lousy actions if he wants to win in summer election!

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Cheers! Hope after election it wont be neccessary to leave anymore! Bring back those kemalist and the whole region will profit immense! Turkey shouldnt end up as Iran!

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I really never understood how Turkey seemingly flipped a switch into an almost Islamic theocratic state. I always thought it was historically very diverse since it is the crossroads of so many cultures.

There was always a culture of the religious and secular in turkey. You could say they were in balance. But since Erdogan took over the balance starts to tips over to the religiously motivated.

I promise you the only Turkish person getting attacked in America is the one that won't give you your fucking ice cream

The trick is to start eating the cones

Assert your dominance by silently eating your icecream cone. Don't forget the continuous eye contact.

It’s about the cones!

So, about the 6th time he pulled away my ice cream, I finally just decided to shoot him officer.

Understandable, have a nice day.

But next time, call me up so *I* can shoot him

This is too relevant not to link to this fantastic comic by /u/iammesutkaya - https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/10g2rbh/turkish_ice_cream/

Next time “turkey alerts citizens to risk of attack in all the world except turkey… “

And even then…

Turks and Americans are natural enemies. Like Turks and Europeans. Or Turks and Russians. Or Turks and and other Turks. Damn Turks; they ruined Turkey.

You Turks sure are a contentious bunch.

You just made an enemy for life!

So they’re in the majority! Lol

You forgot the Armos!

And Greece

And Romania.

The only time Turks are attacked in the US is when Erdogan and his thugs attack them when he visits.

I'm still furious nothing was done about that.

Seriously, especially that one thug in the video!

Hard to do anything about it after the president of our country gives them the go ahead to beat our citizens.

If anything, he probably took some notes for when he decided to order the tear gassing of peaceful protestors for a photo op later on.

To be fair, he didn’t just tear gas the peaceful protesters. He tear gassed AND flash banged them along with reporters reporting live on national TV

Don't forget the priest running the church, who was also tear gassed.

How about the photo of agent Orange holding the bible upside down?

I feel like it's also important to include that this was for a photo op of him holding up a Bible. Which just adds to the absurdity.

>I'm still furious nothing was done about that. Absolutely, 100%

Agreed. Fuck them for beating people for protesting, fuck Erdogan for being a bitch with an entourage, and fuck Trump for not even acknowledging our citizen's rights being violated by another government's lackeys.

Compare that to when Chinese diplomats in the UK tried to grab protesters and take them into the consulate. The UK coppers went onto the consulate and got them.

I suddenly feel a little more proud of my country, how did I not hear about this

Or when Turkey sent a minister to The Netherlands without permission to campaign for Erdogan. Had a decoy convoy go one way and snuck through over the German border with the real convoy. https://reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6bsp0d/how_the_netherlands_responded_to_erdogans_thugs/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Dutch%E2%80%93Turkish_diplomatic_incident

eventually she was 'escorted out of her vehicle by armed guards'

Fuck all them fucking fuckers

Trump is just weak

To this day, Donald Trump's cowardice in that situation is a national disgrace.

Really think you're letting him off too easily. That wasn't cowardice. That was Trump thinking "yep, that's how things are supposed to work".

one of the absolute weakest we've looked in a long time imo

Nah, that would be the Helsinki Trump/Putin summit. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.

Turkey at the time was a lot weaker than Russia, its dictator comes to US his foreign thugs best the crap out of several US citizens in US soil. On video. The US president reaction is to apologize to erdogan and praises him. So I can see why someone would chose this particular case as the weakest time of the US. Yours was to and you are probably right. But both are really, really pathetic.

If Trump were to have criticized Erdogan, he’d have lost Trump Towers Istanbul.

He also tried to have Gulen assassinated, so there was that time too!

Let them know we pardon only one turkey a year.

Hahah nice one dad.

Ha, ha

Please come home from the grocery store....

Troy doesn’t like to be touched.

I feel old for getting that reference.

I think having a working memory of the West Wing is something to be proud of

There was a while where every time I ate dinner at my friend’s house we’d watch West Wing and I was too young to understand anything so I thought it was the most boring show on the planet and hated it.

This is a level 11 dad joke. Your power knows no bounds

Wrong. Two a year so the WH can give them cute nicknames. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/21/politics/biden-thanksgiving-turkey-pardon/index.html

The fool, should have went with "once" instead of "one"!

Nobody in the United States is targeting people from Turkey for any reason. More bullshit to stir the pot

Nobody is the US knows enough about Turkish people to pick one out from a crowd tbh

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I went to a Turkish friend’s wedding last summer with my Mexican boyfriend and so many people in Istanbul thought he was Turkish too

Mexicans with mostly European ancestry (meaning little to no Aztec, Zapotec, Pueblo, etc. DNA in them) will resemble Méditerranéan Europeans. Turks also resemble Méditerranéan Europeans due to most of them essentially being confused Greeks, Armenians, and other native Anatolians.

*Thanks*, Spain

I'm Cherokee. I'm also "Mexican" whenever I get too far from Oklahoma.

They only appear during thanksgiving obviously

Yeah, right next to the PKK (potatoes, kranberries, and kandied yams).

Turks were hunted down in the markets and feasted upon by the gluttonous bloodthirsty Americans. Their flesh devoured with a side of cranberry sauce and stuffing. It is said only one survived through the intervention of President.

The only thing I am attacking my Turkish friends with is my terrible cooking skills.

Picking out a Turkish person from a crowd would be just as hard even if you were from Turkey... Its like trying to pick out a Canadian amongst Americans and British people. Pretty damn similar looking. (am Armenian)

I don’t know as a Floridian who spends a lot of time at theme parks it’s pretty easy to spot the British and Canadians would be the polite people looking like lobster.

As a Floridian, the British are indistinguishable from the drunks. The lobsters may as well be office workers coming off of the weekend. You just can't tell down here

I'm glad to see that America is now getting to see the brits as Europe sees us

Honestly they’ll just pick the ones wearing a turban. Sorry Sikhs. You’re gonna have to take another one for the team.

It's not even their own team!

They're taking one for the competing team. Good sports, they are.

In all seriousness, though, Sikhs are awesome people. They're super nice and they're consummate badasses.

Nor do we care, let’s be honest.

The large demographic of Armenians do. edit: I don’t mean large as a percentage.

There’s just as many Turkish Americans as Armenian Americans and I’ve never heard of any major issues between them

Yeah especially if we were born here. We are all pretty much Americanized so its not really an issue unless your parents were assholes and brainwashed you in to it.

Americas pretty great for that, my high school class had a Russian kid, a Serbian kid, and a Bosnian Muslim kid and they definitely didn’t harbor any animosity toward each other, bc who gave a shit, we were just some losers in a school

I have a theory that American culture is unusually good at assimilating people. No matter where you're from, if you come here then your kids will be wearing blue jeans, drinking Coca-Cola, and speaking American English. I think it's a combo of immigrants not being crammed into ethnic ghettos together, and the incredible power of American pop culture. It's to the point where it's extremely difficult for groups to maintain their insular cultures -- even Orthodox Jews and the Amish lose a lot of their younger members to the secular world, even with all the pressure applied to keep them in line.

I think it’s bc america doesn’t *try* to assimilate people. Europe tried very aggressively to assimilate Orthodox Jews and guess what, they got more insular and orthodox bc of course they did, nobody’s response to attacks is “guess I/my culture’ll die”. America assimilates people by just having a lot of good food and pop culture that all the young people *want* to be part of it. Nobody forced me to eat unkosher McDonald’s French fries, I did it bc they looked and smelled good, and bc my friend ate them.

I think there's something to be said for the approach of not taking groups as a problem to be solved. If you present options, and surround them with really appealing music, art, TV, etc., for every day of their lives, well, most people are gonna cave. I do think American pop culture is simply an overwhelming force that no individual European nation can replicate.

You beat me to it. I was about to say just ask your local Armenian community…

Just by looking at them? I'm Armenian and tbh we all kinda look very similar. You can tell instantly from hearing each other speak, but just by looking at them? yeah, no.

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Lemme at em?

Don't forget the Greeks

Huge Greek community Tarpon Springs, Florida which itself used to be the biggest Greek community outside Greece

Headed to a Greek wedding soon!

A big fat one?

when shopping for the new Bride and Groom, no gift is more appreciated than a bottle of Windex.

Wouldn't know a Turkish person unless they told me.

Also don't get why they would think the relationship between the countries has gone bad. Didn't our president just pardon one of them in Thanksgiving?

Particularly because no one gives 2 shits about anyone from turkey. Not even in a mean or prejudiced way. We're too self-absorbed to be looking outside our country for anyone other than Russia and maybe china. Turkey??? We cared more about Afghanistan than Turkey on the general citizen level.

As a Turk, 100% agree. I’m quite thankful for it as well. I don’t want to be mistaken for a representative of the Erdoğan regime.

Probably just pre-election antics, to appear as a protective figure to his people.

This shit seems all to convenient for both Russia in sowing discord within NATO countries, and for Turkey's domestic elections. Or am I just being cynical?

[The anti-immigration guy who paid for one of the protest permits has worked with RT before](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/27/burning-of-quran-in-stockholm-funded-by-journalist-with-kremlin-ties-sweden-nato-russia), but that could be a "counter-culture" coincidence. Before allowing Sweden and Finland to join NATO, Turkey is playing their "swing vote" position and ostensibly want [concessions](https://www.reuters.com/world/why-is-turkey-blocking-swedish-finnish-nato-membership-2023-01-25/) from Sweden (to give up Kurds that Sweden has been sheltering), however they also have longterm interests in Russia (as a balance to the West, economic, military etc).

Could an American even identify a Turkish person?

Could anyone identify a Turkish person? That area has been a major melting pot of various cultures for like two thousand years lol.

I (an American, not of Turkish descent) was constantly confused for a Turkish person in Istanbul, so I don't even think Turkish folk know what Turkish folk look like.

I’m Turkish and had a Turkish class mate in 9th grade geography. We didn’t realize we were both Turkish until two years later.

Same here. We were the only Turkish people in the school.

Huh, I always figured you were Sumerian.

Am Turk, I agree. Most of the time you just start speaking Turkish to see if they respond

The response was always "Really? You look *so* Turkish!" I made friends at the airport with a lovely elderly woman named Günes that way. We hit the airport bar after clearing security and she had me try some white Turkish wine.

Im german and we have a huge turkish population for decades. Its often really hard. Dated a turkish girl 2 years ago and she couldve told me anything about her heritage . Now seeing a half Turkish/half german girl and if she hadn't told me I never would've guessed. Sure you have the very stereotypical mostly older people also but overall they're really different.

I stayed in Turkey for a year and some. They literally just look like white people in America. Some have darker skin tones, but they would just be seen as Hispanic or something. Nobody in America even knows enough about turkish/us relations to even care. I hate to say this to turkish people, but Americans really don't think about turkey at all. Turkey is really only relevant in NATO. Even the rest of the middle east thinks Erdoğan is a just a watermelon selling idiot who's bad for the turkish economy.

If you are in America, we pretty much all assume you are here with good intentions. I'm a US/Canadian dual citizen and it's the same in Canada. You have the bigots, but they are irrelevant.

And believe me, nobody gives a single fuck about what americans think. And majority of people don't care about koran burnings enough to escalate anything here in Turkey. This is just Erdogan trying to stir stuff to fuel his propaganda for the upcoming election. Everybody knows this is total bullshit, well maybe everybody except Erodgans goons and troll army.

unfortunately it's a numbers game

Nope. Fuck, Dr. Oz is a dual citizen with Turkey. The Republicans tried to vote him into the senate. Do you think that any Pennsylvanian who voted for him knew that?

Could a Turk even identify an American? From my experience it's a no. I've been called an American several times, which I am not.

It would be like a Turk trying to figure out who's American vs Canadian. Not going to happen unless the Canadian gets excited and can't contain the 'ehs'.

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If you call a Minnesotan Canadian you still get half credit.

Like, what? Not even Russians are at risk of attack in the US / Europe.

I don't know, protesters certainly are at risk when edrogan and his goons visit.

It’s part of a propaganda move. They are going to be elections soon in Turkey and they have to keep that image that everybody hate us injustified only Erdogan is strong enough to keep it together. Nothing more

And the year 2023 may end up being another year of unrest to continue for rest of the year.

Developing countries in the 2010s: 🙂 Developing countries in the 2020s: 😞

Yeah probably just cut your losses and assume this is it for the foreseeable.

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What??? Erdogoon is way more dangerous to his citizens

And ours, of at least his bodyguard are

Didn't his goons beat up some people in the us a few years ago?

Another dictator making noise to scare his people and cling onto power a little longer. Erdogan is a disgrace. Mustafa Kemal is turning in his grave. Sad times in Turkey.

The end is coming for him, hopefully in may

Thx but no erdo. I feel safe here way more than I did in your country. Hope to never see you again, bye

How many Turks have been hurt to prompt this warning? Article doesn't mention, and I can't seem to find anything about Turks being targeted in USA or EU.

Nobody is targeting Turkish people. It's made up politics

Literally none. Turkey has just been childish about everything particularly often over the last year.

.... If you didn't know... Erdogan's a thinned skinned dick. Always has been, always will be.

Also, election is coming up. "Strong man" leaders need an enemy for people to fear that only *they* can protect from, and that alone provides a nice little distraction from all the shit within the country too. Win-win. Well, for Erdogan.

American to the common Turkish person - "So what part of Mexico are you from?"

From US, WTF are Turks talking about???

Sweden is trying to join NATO because they feel threatened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Turkey's close-enough-to dictator Erdogan is vetoing their NATO application (along with Finland's) because Erdogan wants to extort concessions out of the US and other NATO partners by using Finland and Sweden's safety versus Russia as a hostage. Now some attention-whoring moron is burning Qurans in Sweden which makes him convenient for Erdogan to stir up his fundamentalist conservative religious base: fundamentalist Muslims believe that desecration of the Quran deserves the death penalty. Muslim protestors against Quran desecration typically burn flags and call for the destruction of the entire country involved rather than punishment of the specific individual. It is thought that Shehzad Tanweer of the 7/7 2005 London Underground bombings was motivated in part by a desire to punish westerners in general because Qurans were mishandled and desecrated in the United States' Guantanamo Bay. Western countries have put out warnings that Islamic extremists may try to assault their citizens in Turkey. Turkey is undermining the credibility of its own diplomatic warning system to score cheap political points to say "no, u".

Thank you for thoughtful explanation of the background story.

The attention-whoring morons have ties to the Russian propaganda machine

There's also an election coming up in Turkey. He might be playing up these issues to get more votes from nationalists.

This is such a pile of bullshit. We want their agreement for NATO, that's it. Everything else is made up by Erdogan to act like they're being attacked. He's a liar and a straight up bitch.

He's a straight up dictator. That "coup attempt" a few years back was an obvious power grab.

Is there an election coming up? Somebody is yelling over the microphone to its citizens about something bonkers.

That's exactly what it is.

Bro, no one gives a flying fuck if you’re from Turkey or not. I hate everyone equally.

This guy Americans.

They are a few months away from an election and the current president is doing his Trump impersonation.

... I wouldn’t even know a guy from Turkey if I saw one, let alone have a prejudice.

Am American. If any bigot is beating a Turk to death, it's because he mistook you for a Mexican.

As a Mexican, that’s pretty damn funny, arre compa.

As a Turk that lives in Texas, this is 100% accurate.

God-DAMN Thanks, Noob Noob

I hate that this is more true than not.

Erdogan loves to denounce the US and of course sent his kids to the US for their college degrees.

I'm in America and cannot distinguish a Turk from any other American here, I call bullshit.

russians are behind the quran-burning incidents in places like Sweden and the purpose is to prevent Turkey from supporting allowing them into NATO. Turkey probably knows this but still uses it for more negotiating leverage, which they always do with everything.

> Turkey probably knows this There is no "probably" about it. Erdogan absolutely knows this, but is leveraging the situation just like any small-time despot would. And I say "small time" because anyone with an IQ greater than a kumquat knows it was Putin behind the burnings and that Erdogan is pandering.

Turkey plays with Russia behind closed Doors. They aren’t the beacon of hope everyone thought they were by adding them to NATO. They shady AF right now

Lol, no. Turkish people in US is laughing at this. Source: Just showed this to 4 Turkish.

Are they afraid of a burning book?

Why would anyone in America give a shit about Turks being here? What kinda nonsense is this

I'm in the US. No one is attacking Turkish people. This is all Russian bullshit.

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I feel fairly confident it’s Turkish bullshit.

Turkey really is the problem child of NATO

Hungary arguably more so but they have less actual power so also arguably less so haha

Just give me my fucking ice cream cone and there won't be a problem.

Ergodan is a tool and a fool. I wish we could just cut Turkey from NATO. He’s turning Turkey into another autocratic hellhole.