i posted this on jude's site.
there is no such thing as white culture?! that’s bullshit. talk about a fucking pigeonhole. white culture is:
farming corn and soybeans, raising livestock, milking dairy cows. it is football, basketball, and baseball. it is band, orchestra, and choir. it is christianity. it is meat, potatoes, and a vegetable. it is casseroles and potlucks. it is demure behavior. it is hunting pheasants, deer, and ducks. it is rock and roll, country, and folk music. it is innovation and enterprise. it is FM radio, transistors, air conditioners, the airplane, vulcanized rubber, the light bulb, the telegraph, the sewing machine, the cotton gin, vaccinations making life better.
rebuttals
a. these are not uniquely white
b. others were denied the opportunity for such creation
then how exclusive is culture. how do you define culture. how do you assign cultural ownership of something. do people claim culture or does culture claim people.
sometimes it seems the only culture accorded to whites is the culture of oppression. this oppressive, colonial, imperial, racist past of whiteness has prevented or nullified any possible claims of white culture. the one most exclusive commonality of whites was the advantage of white skin. there was an affinity in whiteness. welcome racists to my hotel, my restaurant, my restroom, my drinking fountain.
what happens when a part 1 of a culture A is adopted by culture B.
is part 1 no longer part of culture A.
and if culture A + culture B = culture C
then is part 1 only a part of culture C.
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tuesday's truism
heterosexual marriages (as opposed to homosexual marriages) are valid because they produce children. infertile couples and old people should not be allowed to be legally married. if you are married and neither infertile nor beyond your ability to produce children, but yet you don’t have children, you will be blamed for underpopulation.
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i forgot to mention that the worst best team in the nfl beat the hapless bears on sunday. i watched the game at klinker's new apartment. we were sitting on the couch together and klinker picked up a large pocketknife from the table and asked me if i had ever been circumcised. don't worry, i'm unscathed.
1 comment:
Actually, the cotton gin was invented by a black man. Further, I don't think you should include basketball under the heading of white culture. If the current demographics of the NBA tell us anything, the is distinctly black or European. Meanwhile, ice hockey is a glaring omission. Also, christianity would be a cultural claim of many blacks and hispanics as well. But I believe country music and NASCAR are culturally white.
Now, my real point.... remember back to your classic definitions of culture- the learned patterns of behavior, beliefs, traditions, language, and custom. In this definition, there isn't a black or white culture- those tell us nothing. Ben's taxonomy needs to be more specific- rural culture, urban culture, blue-collar culture, hip-hop culture, etc. Two people from New york city, black and white, will have more cultural similarity than the same white guy will have with a white nebraska kid.
Finally, affiliating white culture with privilege is also too generic. A lot of people in history have been oppressed (like women for instance, regardless of color). Oppression is more accurately attributed to the wealthy, who most often are white.
OK, not finally.....you escaped unscathed because of my skill with a knife. I made a very clean cut. It's part of my street-gang culture.
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