Aspergers and (dislike of) black culture?

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Are you really claiming that there was affirmative action happening at this fast-food restaurant?
Blacks still make up around 10-15% of our population. For them to 'be the majority in our workplaces,' whites would have to have something like a 90% unemployment rate. What we actually see is the opposite: black people were hit twice as hard by the recession's layoffs as white people.

When In was in junior high a poor black school was suddenly fed into our school system and I had a similar reaction. I found the black subculture within the school to be completely alien and very loud. At lunch they would put on loud music, dance around, talk loudly and I just remember being shocked by it and thinking, "really?".

Blue collar jews and wasps didnt act ilke that. It was a culture shock.

There are few things about black american culture that I don't like though:

The disregard for "booksmarts", overemphasis on streetsmarts and being overly gregarious, and the disdain for Cats.


I've always admired the machismo, as well as the directness/lack of pretense.

Just to let anyone trying to respond to Hanotaux know, he's been banned for some time.

When I first came to the US there were two things I didn't know about - Asperger's Syndrome and American black culture. The two of them are like oil and water. Black culture, at least the majority I was exposed to over the past 20-30 years, emphasises aggression over passiveness, ignorance over intellect, laxness over discipline, pride over humility. It took a while to learn about the stereotypes (fathers missing in action, kids in one family with different last names, the hung studly virile black male, welfare moms, $200 fingernails and $200 hair weaves, empty cupboards but 20 inch rims on hopped up rides, guns in the waistband, etc.). What's unfortunate is these stereotypes are perpetuated by black culture itself - maybe as a survival mechanism?

I'm white, so maybe I don't know much about black culture, but I think the OP describes a fairly limited perspective of black culture. Most of what I love about modern music (not Rap or gangsta type, but jazz and rock in general) seems to have evolved with lots of influence from black cultures - plural because it's not just African American influence, but African influences in nearly every culture into which Africans have emigrated (willingly or not). One possible exception may be European classical music prior to some particular date that I don't know enough to pin down. But later classical music also has its black influences. So you see, one can not like Rap and still like black culture. A culture is a big thing to dismiss based on a few musical styles or faddish forms of expression.

There isn't much Rap that I like. I've enjoyed it from time to time, but don't know enough about it to say whose music it was that I liked. Most that I've heard I did not like, but maybe it was because it all sounded sort of generic to me. Almost any music that promotes violence, though, or calls women whores, I'm not going to enjoy.

But when I was young I especially loved the Supremes. I wasn't even that interested yet in music at the time, but when I was 10 years old I would have listened to them day and night if I could. Even now, if I hear certain music by black artists from that era I am just swept into it. Love it. There are in fact many black artists whose music I've enjoyed without ever listening to much Rap or gangsta type stuff. I would try to list the artists, but that list would grow slowly and become quite long, I'm sure, once I got started. I don't have time.

Maybe the OP needs to do some of their own research. Look into the Motown music (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown ) of the 1960s and 1970s for starters. Learn about Ragtime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime ), and the jazz (and blues) of the 1920s through today. Then there's the music of Jamaica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Jamaica). I could go on and on, but you really should learn more on your own before you dismiss "black culture" in one fell swoop (a culture is also much more than just music, btw). You never know it could even become your new special interest.

Last edited by SpiritBlooms on 29 May 2012, 5:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I consider it perfectly moronic, but I've been busting my ass lately to try to learn how to play R&B and feel a deep admiration toward the black musicians who have been pioneers in the genre. I am not put off by black culture in general, not by any stretch. I would rather hear James Brown than Elvis any day of the week, and I think "white" music can be just as ret*d and asinine as hip-hop. I just think that hip-hop is a perfectly bankrupt and idiotic subculture that ought to have been strangled in the cradle and should be murdered and hacked to pieces with every bit of hate and vitriol that our society can muster. I don't think that has anything to do with the color of anyone's skin, just the lack of content in their character.

Not an unreasonable position...

You ought to get a number of different positions on the topic. I hope it goes well.

Hmmmmmmmm.

There are parts of it I really enjoy. Like blues. Hip-hop isn't really my thing, but I do see a sort of appeal in some of the grittiness, in a rock n roll sort of way I guess. Much of it is asinine, but I find the same is true of really any sort of cultural strain I can think of, there's stuff I like and stuff I don't. One thing I find appealing about black culture in general is that much of it is thoroughly working class.

Asperger's a group of characteristics that describes mostly white people. Psychologists would come up with a blanket term to signify the behavior of stereotypical "hoods", but that would be racist.

I think it's the stereotypes that don't mix well.

I've had more positive than negative experiences with African-Americans offline. In fact I often find black female college students beautiful both inside and out. Admittedly most of the black people I have met were suburban and middle class rather than stereotypically urban and lower class, but even then, that suggests that race isn't the main operating factor.

I am fond of African culture and some African-American music genres, but I don't care for "gangsta" rap, ironically because I view it as racist against black people in addition to misogynistic.

His lack of logic doesnt end there.


HELLO!
They were FAST FOOD SERVERS!
The fact that you observed the fact that blacks and hispanics hold a disproportionately high number of one of America's lowest paid and lowest status service jobs does not demonstrate that those groups are being favored. It shows the exact opposite.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 29 May 2012, 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Black Culture" as stereotyped and misrepresented by the media and entertainment is ueber NT-ish.

I would be very interested in studying an Afro-American Aspie. What do a black Aspie be like?

ruveyn

I feel the same way.

You are a sincere Afrophile.

I work with a few. They are kind of like white aspies, but black.

Thank you.

Few ethnic groups in the world are more misrepresented and denigrated in the media than the Africans. At least nine times out of ten when you read or hear anything about Africa in the news, it has something to do with corruption, poverty, violence, disease, or certain cultural practices that we consider morally abhorrent. Very seldom do you hear anything positive or optimistic about African people and their culture. Of course Africa does suffer from the ongoing legacy of Eurasian imperialism, and it was never an idyllic utopia (the same could be said for every other continent inhabited by humans), but the chronic negativity shown towards the cradle of humanity is trite and tiresome.

I'm taking a class in modern African history at my university after summer, but my greatest interest is actually in the precolonial civilizations and traditional cultures before Eurasians came over and wreaked their havoc. Unfortunately most Westerners don't even know that Black Africans even had complex civilizations like Mali, Ethiopia, or Great Zimbabwe. The only African civilization that gets any exposure in Western media is ancient Egypt/Kemet, and that's invariably misrepresented as non-African (though that is a rant for another thread). Of course, even the more "tribal" African cultures, though not without their imperfections, had some exemplary values that contrasted favorably with their Eurasian contemporaries.

I don't advocate idealizing or romanticizing any ethnicity, but Africans deserve more respect than we have shown them.

Just as I suspected.

ruveyn