What do people mean by White Culture?

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There's a common problem with a lot of Americans, who think that the entire world is just Greater America. So they try and export their problems with race and apply them to other countries, so you end up with bizzare situations in which Polish game developers are criticised for not including black characters, *despite Poland having very few black people*.

Is it true, as Chris Rock claimed, that black people in America tend to be concentrated in a few locations, rather than dispersed? What folks might call black culture in America, see, is what would be called chav culture over here in Britain (found among all racial groups, but mainly poor natives), so it's probably more to do with being part of the underclass than it is to do with race. It's just that America has ended up with the underclass being dominated by black people.

Sure, economics has an influence on things, but there's a HUGE difference in the culture of poor whites and poor blacks.

Also, blacks are not the majority of the underclass. They only make up about 12% of the population. However, a much greater percentage of blacks do live in poverty.

There is less of a difference between middle class blacks and middle class whites, but that is somewhat because blacks must assimilate to be successful.

In this case, the cultures in the article exist in America. The black culture is thought of as soulful, jazzy, bluesy, religious. At the center is the long struggles for civil rights. Music and church are a big part of it.

White culture appears to Joshua Dubois as the desire to oppress black people and he lists examples of police brutality, lack of civil rights and the latest racially motivated violence against blacks in a state associated with the confederacy in days gone past.

White culture isn't defined by this but he is focusing on specific components which effect the black community the most.

Where I live, the poor are all fairly the same, especially since it's a poor area. What differences do you see? Here, the poor are more likely to join a gang (black, white, Asian, Hispanic, etc) which are drug and firearm driven. It's not at all uncommon to see diverse groups or mixed race couples. The first case I was on a jury for was for a double homicide where an older black drug dealer was shot with his Hispanic nephew and the suspect was the Hispanic son-in-law of the white woman who was seeing the drug dealer (we believed it to be a gang related execution with the nephew as the target - race was no issue).
We still have bigots here, but compared to what I've seen other people talking about, we're an incredibly diverse area with less racial problems. That most likely affects my ability to see what others see as far as generic cultures go.



We have some people like that here, but to California, that's more of a back east thing. In college, we had so many different types of black cultures, from the gospel singing, to the gang members, to the ghetto "trash," to the "too white to be black," and even those from Africa, or first gen, who had completely and utterly different ideas on America in general. It's always so interesting to hear how people outside the US view it, because they're not embroiled in it, and we do have a rather large population of immigrants (from places like Germany, England, Korea, China, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Armenia, Greece, Hungary, etc).

Gangs and drugs are often thought of as part of black culture, too. Acting white is another issue. Basically what you see in Tyler Perry movies reflects black culture in America.

Are poor whites in America more likely to live in rural areas than poor blacks are? That would account for a lot of cultural differences between them. Are there significant racial differences between poor people in inner city areas?

Sure, there's more 'integration' and race mixing these days. I live in the South (a blue college town in a deep red state) and even here, it is not uncommon to see mixed race couples, etc.

The thing is, in spite of this, demographic/social research reveals that we're still a very segregated society. Today, we self-segregate on the basis of race (both blacks and whites do this) and we segregate on the basis of economics.

Even in California, major street gangs like Crips, Bloods, MS13, Latin Kings, Black Guerrilla Family, Aryan Brotherhood all form in racially/economically segregated neighborhoods and form along racial lines.

As I tried to point out before in this thread, most people are misusing the terms, when they say 'white culture' 'black culture' etc.

While there is a white culture, black culture, etc. the differences are pretty subtle. Whites tend to be more individualistic, blacks tends to be more community oriented, each group has a different time orientation, etc.

At a functional level, there's not a huge difference between poor blacks and whites, but there is a huge difference in world views/perceptions of the greater culture/society.

Even poor whites see themselves as part of the greater American culture--so much so that most are BLIND to the fact that it is a culture. That's a big reason why most of the posters in this thread do not perceive themselves as part of any culture at all. As whites we are so integrated into the dominant culture that we cannot see it.

By contrast, blacks mostly see themselves as apart from the greater American culture. You should REALLY look at the youtube clips I posted as they really help to illustrate this. So, a big difference between poor whites and blacks has to do with how they see themselves in relation to "American culture."


To the greater point of the thread:

When people refer to white culture, they're usually really referring to white subcultures such as evangelicals, conservatives, rednecks... When people refer to black culture, they're usually referring to subcultures like hip-hop culture, gang culture, etc.

This may just be something I'll have to concede on not being able to understand. I watched the videos, but maybe my preconceived ideas are too strong to make sense of it? They were informative, but I think my brain just wasn't 'getting' it. I'll have to try watching them again.