Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

I personally think all the people should have the right to their cultural heritage. And where is more Double Standard? Again, saying 'I'm proud to be black' is considered empowering and progressive while saying 'I'm proud to be white' is seen as racist and evil. Also, saying 'I'm ashamed of being white' is often seen as compassionate and socially conscious while 'I'm ashamed of being black' is seen as self-loathing

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Well, "black" is kind of the odd race out when we're discussing cultural heritage. There is no single white cultural heritage, and there is no single Asian cultural heritage. It's very rare that you'll find anyone who identifies primarily as white or Asian rather than by "American" or a specific Eurasian ethnicity.

Whereas there are a large number of black people in the Western world who do share a specific aspect of cultural heritage - their ancestors were enslaved and taken from their homelands, and most do not know what country or ethnic group their ancestors belonged to. So, consequently, you sometimes see "black" treated as an ethnic group within the Western world in the same way that "Irish" or "Chinese" is treated as an ethnic group.

^ I don't think "I'm ashamed of being white" should be seen as socially conscious. It sounds to me more indicative of personal issues that the speaker should maybe see a therapist about.

edited 31st May '11 11:23:03 AM by BobbyG

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I don't think I've encountered anyone who wasn't disgusted by the phrase "I'm ashamed to be white." Though I suppose there is a double standard in that blacks who're ashamed of their color are pitied rather than despised.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

@nzm

(I give up on the up arrow thing)

I'm not sure where you are getting these views from, as I've rarely seen either. I've seen lots of people talk about such a view point but I've never once met anybody or seen any statistics to support that such views actually exist.

edited 31st May '11 11:23:13 AM by breadloaf

When people talk about "Black culture", it seems to me that they are usually referring to African-American culture — which, of course, is wildly different from any of the native African cultures, or from the Caribbean culture, or from the Native Australian cultures.

There is not a "Black heritage" involving all dark-skinned people, exactly as there is not a "White heritage" involving all pinkish-skinned people .

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

There are different 'white' cultures with common origins in the Indo-European culture. The same applies to 'black' cultures with common origins in the African culture. Of course it evolved and diversified, but there are similarities

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Well, there is the black nationalist viewpoint that rejects the term "African-American" and identifies West Indian black people as part of the same culture. Not sure how common that is, but I've definitely heard it.

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Except that you need to go a lot in the past in order to identify an unique "African culture". Actually, I doubt that such a culture has even been found: I am not an expert on the topic, but I suspect that you'd need to go back to quite a bit earlier than the migration of part of humankind out of Africa and the origin of the "white" subtypes in order to find it.

The cultures of Africa are really quite different one from the other, much more than the "white" cultures are: there are historical reasons for this, as well as the fact that they just had more time to develop and change.

But even for the "white" case, talking about "White culture" does not make much sense. Better — and less inflammatory — to talk about Western culture, about Slavic culture and about Hispanic culture, to mention only the main cultural groups traditionally associated with white people — at least, for some notion of whiteness: people seem to disagree on whether South American and Slavic people "count as white", whatever this even means.

Although, of course, there is a lot of contact and similarities between these three cultures, and a lot of fuzziness along the edges — for example, many Eastern European people, as far as I can see, belong to both Western Culture and Slavic Culture.

edited 31st May '11 11:46:59 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Eh, it all depends on what degree of differentiation we take. Existence of regional culture, Polish culture, Slavic culture, Indo-European culture ('white culture') and, ultimately, human culture are not exclusive. I am myself, I take influence from regional culture, I am Polish, I am European (and 'white') and I am human. At the same time!

And you might be right about Africa, I am no expert either

edited 31st May '11 11:47:21 AM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Ok. Then I'd suggest that it's better to use the term "Indo-European culture" than the term "White culture", if they are really equivalent.

The latter term suggests some really unpleasant associations to many black people, after all — and frankly I cannot fault them, given the actions taken not that much time ago by some branches of Indo-European culture and given the beliefs that certain members of this culture still profess about them.

EDIT: also, Indo-European culture contains Indian culture and Iranian culture too. What about them?

edited 31st May '11 11:55:34 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

And that's the problem. We shouldn't fear the word 'white' because we are white. Some assholes that used whiteness as a way of oppressing people don't make the word 'white' wrong. It becomes demonized, just like Hitler's use of swastika demonized a perfectly good symbol. We shouldn't forget what things really mean.

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Well, historically, "whiteness" was never a major concern of the cultures that we are talking about. One of the fathers of European Culture was Saint Augustine, after all, and he was a north African (and probably dark-skinned, at least to some degree).

If you'd have asked a Roman or a Greek about this, they would have probably been quite confused — to them, Egyptians or Moroccans were definitely more akin than pale-skinned northern barbarians

People started talking about "whiteness" only relatively recently, when they developed a need for a "scientific basis" for the oppression of dark-skinned people.

edited 31st May '11 12:02:26 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Not necessarily, the idea of pale-skinned beauty was persistent in Europe for ages (possibly originating from Nordic culture) and it had nothing to do with oppression or hatred

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

As a beauty ideal for a particular group of people, yes. Not as a cultural identification symbol. I may be wrong, but I remember no case in which people of European descent were referred to as "white people" and it wasn't a way to compare them to dark-skinned people and affirm their own superiority on a racial basis.

Plus, the same Nordic people also prized blonde hair. Should we start talking about "Blonde culture?"

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

'Indo-European' isn't an old term either.

I'd say that term 'Indo-European culture' is similar to 'white culture'. They are both recent terms (historically, 'Indo-European' might have been coined even later) and they are both generally about the same thing. The only real difference is the word 'white' which become stigmatized because of racists and I simply don't want it to be stigmatized in the same way I don't want people to think that swastika is only a nazi symbol. We cannot allow assholes and people who get offended by anything that was ever said or done by the said assholes to take our words and symbols for us. It's not the way to go

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

The associations are already there. And it's not a really useful term anyway, and we have substitutes.

Is it really worthwhile to raise a fuss about it, when Black people have, frankly, very good reasons to be wary of such terms as "White Culture"? It's not really "one of our words and symbols", at least not one of the main ones.

It's not like they are asking us to remove the Crucifix from our schools...

edited 31st May '11 12:47:47 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I'd rather remove crucifix from schools (and let people use it the way they want, just not to promote one religion officially) than remove a word, phrase or symbol from existence. Rise of political correctness makes our languages poor and devoid of any spontaneousness - we have to watch every single word not to offend someone by it. Instead of doing that, we should take words and symbols back and use them the way they should be used. Simple example: removing swastikas is a bad idea. Learning what swastika means for different people (people in India, Greek people, Germanic pagans etc.) is a good one.

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Actually, the crucifix I mentioned was a joke, mostly. Traditionally, it is in all Italian schools, and recently the European Union asked us to remove it. This generated a lot of grumblings — I think that they appealed, and they are still debating about it — but I really don't think it was a huge deal, in either direction.

And since you mention swastikas, I'll say it: regardless of the intention, parading around with swastikas in front of a Jewish person would still be a major dick move. I am aware that the symbol has other meanings, and this may justify it being showed during, let's say, a museum presentation about ancient Germanic art; but its recent usage has irredeemably tainted that symbol. You can have whatever intention you want, but a Jew seeing it will think of the murder of his people (and, quite possibly, of some of his relatives). It's just not something one should do.

Now, I don't want to compare slavery and white supremacy with the Holocaust, in one direction or in the other; but a Black people hearing such a term as "White Culture" or — shudder — "Whiteness Pride" will associate it to highly unpleasant experiences that they or their ancestors had to face. And the term was not all that common in our culture to begin with, so I don't see any reason not to drop it.

By the way, another reason for dropping it is that the people who are most likely to use it nowadays are unpleasant racists, and my hypothetical usage of the term could be misconstrued as my approval of their deranged ideologies.

edited 31st May '11 1:07:18 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

And here we disagree. I don't think symbols can be tainted beyond redemption. There is too much Hitler Ate Sugar about the whole thing - banning swastikas, banning Wagner, military music being associated with nazism, military uniforms being associated with nazism, patriotism being associated with nazism... This simply needs to stop, it's going to far

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Perhaps not beyond redemption: give it another 500 years or so, and perhaps the Swastika might have acquired another, harmless meaning. But right now? There still are people around whose friends and relatives have died in concentration camps. It's just way, way, way Too Soon.

Wagner, or military uniforms, or patriotism are a different matter (though mindless patriotism is something I really do not approve of), but the swastika was the symbol that nazism chose to represent itself. It cannot be disassociated by that that easily, and in the same way, it is not possible to disassociate that easily such a term as "White Pride" from the trials that Black people had to face not all that much time ago.

There still exist neo-nazis using swastikas to represent their idiotic beliefs, and there still exist white supremacists using such terms as "White Pride" to represent their idiotic beliefs. Do you really want to be associated with that sort of people?

edited 31st May '11 1:23:10 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

There are still Satanists who use Pentagram as a satanic symbol but it doesn't make me forget about the other meanings. There are still Klansmen who use crucifix as their symbol but it doesn't mean that christians can't use it as well. I don't want to associate myself with assholes, I want to take symbols away from them.

Also, patriotism doesn't have to be mindless. You can love your country without being an idiot

edited 31st May '11 1:26:55 PM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

I always found anyone expressing pride (or shame) in something like race as a person to be wary of. Such talk always makes it sound like an acheivement, and a fact of genetics isn't something to be proud or ashamed of.

edited 31st May '11 1:27:30 PM by TheBatPencil

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

Agreed on this.

The pentagram and the crucifix are also quite known for their other meanings;*

^{the crucifix, in particular, is mostly associated with Christianity, of course.}

the swastika, less so, and non-racist uses of such terms as "whiteness", not at all (frankly, as I said I doubt whether they have ever been in wide use in a non-racist sense).

Look, all symbol-concept associations are arbitrary. If I wore red and blue together while in my hometown, people would think that I am showing my support for the local soccer team. If I wore a green tie, they'd think that I support a certain secessionist party. If I wore a swastika, they would think I am a neonazi; and if I started talking about "whiteness", they would think that I am a racist idiot.

edited 31st May '11 1:37:46 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

The problem here lies in oversimplifications: we often assume the worst meaning or we judge b the first impression only. Person who is educated and aware should know various meanings of symbols and phrases. This is very similar to the problem I see with the way the literature is being taught: we only learn the most basic (or most well-known) meaning while forgetting other interpretation. We limit our perception of symbols by assuming the simplified, superficial (mis)interpretations and ultimately fail to understand anything. Isn't it the same thing that caused discrimination in the first place - generalization and lack of insight?

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

What do you want to redeem, anyways? What exactly are you taking pride in?

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful