What do people mean by White Culture?

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There is racism against people of color in the US--no doubt about that! It stares us in the face.

But I still don't believe there is something called "white culture." "White privilege" is also a misnomer, though less of one than it used to be. Jews, certainly, didn't benefit from "White Privilege" before the Second World II; the same thing for the Irish in the mid-late 19th century; and Italians during the early 20th century.

If you look at it in a purely macrocosmic sense, discrimination against Caucasian people was probably less intense than that which was against black people. However, the people feeling the discrimination were not in a macrocosmic bubble.

Within their microcosmic existences, they certainly felt the discrimination.

"White Culture," in my experience, is usually used by white racists who are defensive about being white--who believe there is "reverse discrimination" against whites.

If a person is of Irish descent, they'll use either "Irish" or "American" culture, depending on the context, Same with Italo-Americans. Both are, obviously, Caucasian. But they don't consider themselves members of a "white" cultural entity. The same is true of Jews, perhaps with a bit more intensity.

It is possible that there exists a mainstream "American" culture where the majority are of European descent, where European-American derived values predominate; that would be more correct than stating that there is "white culture."

Generally, in the context of a cultural competency class, White culture refers to White, Anglo Saxon, Protestant, Upper Class, Males because they were the traditional 'shot callers' in America and hence they determined the dominant culture.

As time has worn on, the protestant bit has become much less important. I'd say that outside a few urban enclaves on the East coast and maybe Chicago, Irish and Italian are as white as anyone else...

Jews, not so much.

White culture is also seen as emphasizing things like individualism, the protestant ethic and a deep suspicion that poverty is the fault of the impoverished. Also, white culture has a preoccupation with time not shared by many other cultures (i.e. being late is seen as disrespectful and a sign of poor self discipline, etc.).

Many other American cultures (black, latino) are more oriented toward the collective, less materialistic, different time orientation, etc.

In general, I find the above to be the case.

Obviously, there are many exceptions to the above.

"A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next."

https://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html

I think the key here is "accepted behaviors",

beliefs, values, and symbols, generally

without thinking about them", passed from one generation to the next.

And truly those are the cultural elements fostered by parents and peers in early age.

So in that case for some folks there is a culture of Barney the Purple Dinosaur around a decade or so ago.

And now anything goes; depending on what is the flavor of the moment on electronic devices, and such as that.

Culture is complicated; so complicated that many people flail helplessly in an ocean of cultural differences without
ever finding an anchor; and a bonding cohesive human force of culture is necessary for that; a great deal of
human misery, suffering, and even potential premature death results from that indirectly/directly.

And that's why we see white folks rapping with baggy clothes on and so-called 'red-necks' in rural
communities listening to RAP as loud as anyone in the city; the hunt for meaning, purpose,
common beliefs, values, and symbols go on but the key is in SHARING; when there are
so many variables of culture and places for individual niche; the sharing in terms
of numbers can be more possibly found; but much harder to share in flesh
and blood life; as real culture of old with concrete stuff of solidarity..

Every which way but loose;
in terms, of human flesh and blood connection..



Truly, the village is more the culture of human fostered sharing through the ages.
Now in flesh and blood terms; that culture of village is growing steadily darker/dim;
and what is left is a collection of nomads some who have paired up with other nomads
in the search for subsistence across a nation; with a small nuclear family of two; if
two can hold out in all this stress of cultural chaos together in a 'unholy' new
human experiment that has never fully been tried before, in terms of
culture passed down from generation to generation in a village
of common means, goals, purposes, beliefs, values, symbols as LIFE..

Yeah, in this case, romance and marriage
can be a mechanism for long term survival
with kids
or
NOT, with significant
others more important
than ever to retain for basic help to survive..

These overall changes in society make it harder than ever for
conservative leaning minds to survive and thrive in a society that
is increasingly more nomadic in functionality
for survival; this is the easiest on the innately
naturally nomadic mind from birth otherwise
known as extreme extrovert compared to
the other end of extreme introvert also
used as stereotype for Autism;
that is only partially
true across the
full spectrum of
Autism.

But anyway, that is why there are so many 'angry
middle-age white conservative folks', as their way
of life is changing to a place where they do
NOT feel comfortable; and an online
community is nothing like a
flesh and blood one in
terms of intrinsic
rewards for reciprocal
social communication..

NO, it's not a good age,
overall,
to be on the other end
of this carrot and stick..

I doubt it if most people live like the Karshasians--or want to live like the Karshasians.

They are an anomaly.

I discovered culture by leaving one.

The New Orleans I grew up in was small, old, and filled with lots of groups. We were said to be the most European city. We were French for longer than we have been American.

My family moved here twenty-five years before the Battle of New Orleans, which happened after the War of 1812, but no one told us it was over.

French, Spanish, African, Indian, and all mixes between. The neighbors were north of the lake, Spain, when Florida reached across the Gulf Coast to the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge.

My family swore loyalty to The King of Spain. He gave us land.

We did not have an Anglo problem till after 1812. Over the next fifty years it got much worse. It is still a problem.

About a hundred years later I went to New York City. In New Orleans we are called White, in New York, people reacted to me like an alien species. They were Jew, Italian, Irish, which had also come to New Orleans, and mostly died from Yellow Fever as fast as they came.

I could identify them, they had no idea of my line. They were hostile, like dogs, I stood my ground, then advanced a step, and they fled. Just my presence raised hackles. When I asserted myself, acted dominate, I got what I wanted.

Later when interacting, some told me they knew all about the mountains of Louisiana, and how we spoke with a Kentucky accent. Past Pennsylvania was about as far as their world view reached. Louisiana was somewhere in the Appalachians. Word had reached New York about dueling. Some Anglos had made social errors, were called out, and instead of meeting under the Oak at dawn, had left town in the night, and did not stop till they were back in New York.

I told them that public dueling was against the law since 1876, so we quit doing it in public.

Almost all of them were 50-60 years out of Europe, and their last trip had been from Ellis Island to Manhattan, where they moved into six story apartment buildings with their own kind, and stayed there. A lot of them could be packed in a block, and that block became their village. Dangerous strangers were people in the next block.

The slums of Europe had moved to New York. A block held some 7,000 to 10,000, and our country place had as much land. I ran two dogs on mine. Our city place has the same foot print as one of their six story buildings, with four apartments per floor.

We had conflicting world views.

They did introduce me to people they thought were like me. Upper class Haitians, Dominican Republic, and they did hit on one, Martinique. We share a Creole Culture. New Orleans was a culture hub for the islands. The famous Creole Cottage found throughout the islands was made of cypress, in New Orleans, and shipped as a kit house. We did prefab housing in 1750.

I live in a long history, we did not have much else to talk about. In New York, they knew nothing of their past. Not where in Ireland did they come from, and they only had some vague idea about bad British stealing their potatoes. They did not know when that happened.

After fifty years in British America, we south Germans who paid the 10 Pounds to become British, plus passage to Pennsylvania, did not join the revolting indentured servants, debtors, transported criminals, who revolted against their King. This riff raff murdered those who remained loyal. First we went to Charleston, South Carolina, the last Loyalist stronghold, then overland with the permission of the Creeks to Spanish Mobile. There we swore loyalty to the King of Spain, as the English King had abandoned us. We were refused passage to England because we had picked up some Native American blood. That lasted till the Creek Choctaw War, and we moved to Louisiana in 1790.

No one in New York had a family story, most could not name their grandparents. We lived on different time lines.

Most of my Family moved to Spanish Texas in 1830. Spain wanted trusted people along their Anglo border.

1845 saw the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, driven off their lands by the army, down the Trail Of Tears to Oklahoma. They were followed by an army of poor white trash. A lot of my family were murdered for not being as white as Jesus. The Free People of Color were murdered and their children sold into slavery. That will always be White Culture to me.

They claimed Jesus gave them the land, and the right to clear it. Fifteen years later came a river of blood that flowed for five years. The Wrath of God is not finished with the Bible Belt. It overlaps the Black Belt, and the white trash are living off of the freed slaves. This will end badly.

I have blue eyes, here I am called Redbone. White on the outside.

Honduras has a long history with New Orleans. It also had 160 governments in 159 years, and the losers came here on the banana boats.

Old Hondurans were the Linka, Maya, the Toltec, the Pupil, the children, being the Aztec trade route people reaching the tobacco fields and beyond. I know these people from their art, stone carvings, and they remember their history, back 8,000 years. White people call them wetbacks and beaners. We also have Yaqui from northern Mexico. The Apache feared the Yaqui. The Aztec avoided them.

Half way up Mississippi are the last of the Choctaw, who hid out during the trail of tears, and got a small reservation. After WWII, they got organized, and are now the tenth largest employer in the State. Way back when, they built the Natchez Trace, a road, from Baton Rouge to Nashville. They traded between the Cherokee and the Houma. Now they have a Casino, Health Spa, Hotel, and a dozen industries over the state.

The Chief said he likes to hire White People because they are dumb and work cheap. He also makes grants to the schools because if they were less dumb he could make more money off of them.

The 500 Nations are recovering from White Culture. Their casinos bring in twice what Vegas and Atlantic City do. At the end of the Trail of Tears oil was discovered on the Reservation. Their children are going to Grad School. Their lawyers have recovered a big chunk of upstate New York. Other claims are pending, Treaties were violated, land granted between Nations for as long as the rain falls and the grass grows, have Legal Force.

It was in 1974 that Native Americans were granted Civil Rights. Before that they were held as enemy combatants and wards of the government. Forty years has shown a lot of progress toward taking back the land. More is coming, much more. Three hundred years of murder and theft creates a lot of backlash.

If you will recall the trials in Nurnberg, where for much less State Supported Murder, there was Judgment.

White Culture is fat people watching Reality TV.

When they refer to "white culture" they are signifying their own ignorance and possible bigotry. There are billions of white people on the planet and a kaleidoscopic cultural diversity pervades melting pot countries like America. My Franco-Irish family has marked differences from a Swedish, Dutch, or Slavic family. In America itself there are a plethora of further cultural microcosms. So when these ignorant people use the word "culture", which was developed by an anthropologist, and they completely ignore anthropology: they marginalize their own ability to make an intellectual contribution.

For someone to even make a reference to "white culture" as if we could make such sweeping generalizations, would immediately indicate to me that if they are not genuinely ready to inform themselves as I make a concise reference to anthropology, then I am not at all interested in discussing culture with that person.

White culture= racism being a hillbilly or redneck liking chesse and not being able to dance. Here is a song about White people

I find this so amusing because white americans are so uncultured

I think trying to understand a generalization of "white culture" or "black culture" for me is not going to happen because I have spent my life trying to understand people and everything is not just region based, but income based as well. Rich people in New York are different from poor people in New York, and there could be hundreds of thousands of cultures just in the poor populace of New York alone. Each family has its own unique culture, and sometimes those spread (like pop culture). But the main culture in LA is not the main culture in Fontana, and those are not the main cultures as portrayed in Hollywood.

I see individuals, and I see groups, and I see how things are connected and how history can play a part in it, how certain peoples traveled to different regions, and how those cultures from the past helped create different cultures of today... Here in the states we are a conglomerate, we're rather different from places like Canada, or the UK, who haven't gotten to experience the vast cultural melding.

My heritage is quite varied, with Shinnecock and Iroquois mixed in with the Irish, German, English, Dutch, Norwegian, Scottish, Welsh, Manx, Austrian, Jew, etc. I was raised with a mix of cultures, and having 16 Japanese exchange students over the years, we've been influenced by their culture as well. My mom spent her childhood traveling around Europe and South America, and I've been to China, Canada, and Mexico, and we've talked with many families about their own cultures and traditions, done many reenactments of different eras and areas... And then my husband's dad's family is from Canada, and they have a rather different culture themselves.

It's impossible to pinpoint one specific "white culture" or "black culture." And I guess being on the spectrum, I'll really never understand anyone generalizing and trying to put me in a box that I tried myself to fit in only to find I cannot, no matter how much I try. Especially not when I see my friends from the Ukraine, or Ireland, being told to "check their white privilege." And that they're to take responsibility for the sins of the American slavers from more than 200 years ago, just because they are white and take advantage of a system that marginalizes people who aren't.

There is individual experience on discrimination, and then there is systemic discrimination, and more often than not the individual experience is told to keep silent because it doesn't matter in the face of systemic, but by doing that, it makes things worse. Invalidating people will never help, generalizing won't help. It only serves to separate.

Wonder bread, mayonnaise, jello, soccer, time outs, Volvo station wagons, country music, NASCAR, the bowl not the blunt, Ellis Island as a tourist attraction, and "Police officers are your friend, pumpkin".

Also, country clubs, debutante balls, a year backpacking through Europe, Episcopal High Church, Mormons, Mormons, Mormons, Olive Garden for real Italian Food, El Palacio for real Mexican food, bagels with jelly, LL Bean, actual fox hunting, the concept of too much jewelry or hair that is too big, Thanksgiving without a lasagna, cappuccino after 11am, instant coffee, coffeemate, The Gap, Hipsters, "the family meeting", Golden Retrievers, frisbee golf, Barry Manillow, sweet sixteen parties, Sunday Drives.

All those were just tongue in cheek. Those things apply to people of all races, but if you were to look at stereotypes in film you will see a lot of that.

Just like black culture, Latino culture and Asian culture, white culture is varied. It's different based on what region of the country you live in, your socioeconomic status, your heritage, your religion, your political views, your ideology, etc. The only thing I know of that is really and truly restricted to white people, besides certain country and gentleman's clubs, are the Klan and the Skinheads.

I don't understand why some people don't consider Italians to be white though. Most consider us white but some don't, yet the consider the French to be.

However, the whitest people in the world are albinos.

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