What do people mean by White Culture?

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Someone on Facebook posted this article We need to talk about White Culture

And I'm trying to figure out exactly what they mean by "white culture." I think I can ascertain that when people say "black culture" they mean those descended from slaves, right? It certainly can't mean people from places like Jamaica, or Kenya, or Nigeria, or Australia, since their culture is vastly different. Yet, there is still a rather large difference in black Americans from somewhere like Raleigh, North Carolina vs Los Angeles, California, so the idea of having just one black, or white, culture is a bit strange to me.

I'm guessing Anglo derived English speaking countries, and the customs/norms they all share, is "white culture" in this context.

Anyway, the article is terribly biased, as the overwhelming majority of black people in the US killed are by the hands of other black people, meaning people from their own culture. Yes, that doesn't take away certain points, but you need to have perspective here, and you need to focus on the troubling problems before the minor ones (often, if you help the big ones, the little ones are also helped).

I hold the view that there is no such thing as "white culture" or "black culture". I would not trust the "Daily Beast" to be a level headed and sensible news service.

However white people have culture, sometimes this culture is something in common with black people.

Consider for a moment a Swede, a Scot, an Englishman, an Irishman, a Frenchman and an Spanishman.

They might all be white (or black) but their culture will be very different. I very much doubt if the average man from Spain would have the same lifestyle or attitudes to a typcial Swede. Also for example a Swede will have their christmas dinner on christmas eve where they have a special pork joint and they often watch Donald Duck on TV, while an Englishman will have a very different meal on christmas day. I refuse to enter into a discussion of which is better, they are just different.

I'm tempted to write a response on this person's post, but I feel like if I question there being a white or black culture, I'll be called racist. I seem to get called racist for questioning anything these days...

I know that my culture is a conglomeration of other different cultures (Irish, German, Scandanavian, Native American, Japanese, etc) and it is vastly different from the cultures of various friends of ours who could be considered white. I really don't like being generalized like they're doing with this article, and it just really makes absolutely no sense as to why they're doing it.

White Culture is an American term that derives from American Black people.

Most of the culture in the U.S. is created directly and indirectly by the white majority, including what is done in school as well.

Black People and other minorities in the U.S. feel negatively about white culture being imposed on them, to their detriment.

Black culture ≠ African Culture, they are two very different cultures.

People have this weird tit-for-tat attitude towards things, their always has to be an equivalence. They're leaping on this Roof weirdo and trying to paint him how they perceive black people or whoever else are painted in the media but its all garbage since it is generalization and collectivized guilt that racism is built out of to begin with. The article wants us to talk about white culture as it attains to... songs they sing at frat houses and gun ownership? Yeah okay, thanks lol.

There isn't a monolith white culture in the U.S. but he did give a justification for the term "white culture".

If there can be an American black culture that includes fatherlessness and violent music despite all the black 2-parent homes where mellow music is played then theoretically there could be a American white culture too. (He didn't say American but it needs to be said especially on an international board like WP.) He does seem a little befuddled too. He honestly doesn't know why some white Americans will start singing racist songs on the bus while others start singing 99 Bottles Of Beer On the Wall.

Like a fish trying to describe water, I have a tough time trying to describe American white culture. It gets parodied a lot (Stuff White People Like) but never really described. Although for all I know, sociologists have already done so. My only true hints are the places where black people accuse each other of "acting white". To whom does the insult "oreo" get applied? When I was in school it got applied to black kids who were studious. But that doesn't explain Roof at all. He was clearly plugged into a network (that Rhodesian flag) but who gravitates there and why?

There is no such thing.

Black people may see it as one thing, as someone almost white it varies due to many factors.

Whites break down more by economic class, religion, with walls higher than the walls between races.

Whites are social climbers, buy bigger houses than they can afford, expensive cars and trucks, trying to get in with their betters. Then they think they should be respected for their debt.

People who have money avoid them.

Poor whites are social outcasts.

Regional, whites do not like whites from other regions.

The Political Caste System, adds further divisions.

Black People are more of a single group, hold more culture in common, are mostly AME Church, so they do tend to see all whites as one.

Black people have a flatter economic range, have to vote Democrat, and have to develop broader social skills to survive. Like everyone else they need someone to blame. White culture works.

I saw a KKK poster, they admit to killing thousands of Blacks since the War Between the States. That is very sad, but Blacks have killed that many Blacks in the last six months.

When these kinds of people say "white" or "American", what they actually often mean is conservative/Republican, football watching beer drinking fratboy type culture; they make more sense once you realize that.

It really doesn't mean anything to me. I sort of agree with the above statement by dox. That's what I think of when I think of "white culture" when it is used as a derogative.

These terms are relative. But honestly, I have no pride in being white, nor shame in being white. I had no control over what color I was born.

On the other hand, I understand what people mean when they say "white culture." I do realize that I am privileged to be white. This doesn't mean I'm proud of being white, just that I recognize the advantages to being born in America as a white person. There are advantages,

There is no "white culture." There's Norwegian culture, British culture, German culture, perhaps even, to some extent, American culture.

There is "African-American" culture, but no "black" culture per se. African-American people come from all parts of (mostly) West Africa--where there are hundreds of ethnic groups.

^^^^^
That's true. But the author is pointing out that U.S. blacks are called to account for "black culture" regardless of their own life circumstances. If a married black stockbroker with no hip hop on his ipod and a childhood in the suburbs is supposed to do soul searching about "black culture", then shouldn't the same be true of his white counterparts. That does already happen but it is the unfortunate domain of Social Justice Warriors who try to microanalyze "white culture" into a meaningless stew of privilege and microaggressions. That isn't helping and it actually makes any true analysis harder.

There are many African-American people who are not part of what is considered "African-American" culture.

I know, and are friends/acquaintances with African-Americans who are, and are not, part of the "African-American" culture.

Which goes to show: Judge by the INDIVIDUAL!! !

I should say that I agree with Janissy's stance.

I agree----and, every African person I've met, thinks Black Americans are a JOKE, because they feel they know absolutely NOTHING of the African Culture----so, to them (Africans), to "claim" it, is ludicrous.

I don't really understand why people think rap and baggy pants (?) are considered black culture, it's very dependent on region as to what people are like. I know what the average culture of black Americans is where I am, and it's different for those who live 50 miles away. And yeah, our African friends have a completely different look on things here.

It seems like people are considering each culture to be the poor/backwater people, which seems a little weird and backwards. Especially considering my dad's family are (poor) farmers from Indiana and that culture is pretty different from things found in the southern states.

That underlined bit is certainly a huge problem.

As a current student of social sciences and (hopefully) future researcher. I can assure everyone here that "white culture" and "white privilege" are real things, but they aren't well understood or used properly outside of a classroom for the most part...

If you're interested in what sociologists and social workers mean when they use these terms, google human diversity/cultural competence and ONLY visit websites that end in .edu--there should be some good class websites up that can explain these terms simply/well.

Both terms, in popular use, have pretty much become thought-terminating cliches (also a real thing). When otherwise thoughtful, intelligent people hear these terms they (at best) get defensive and turn their brains off or (at worst) totally filp-the-fuck-out.


If we want to solve the problem of race in this country, and it is still a problem, we'll need to find new terms and new ways to talk about them.

What I see here in this thread, and in society in general is illustrated clearly in these clips from a documentary called "The Color of Fear."
I'm pretty sure you can find the whole thing on youtube. It's worth an hour of your time.





Until these two people can see the other's point of view, we're f****d.