Culture and Identity - ethnic spice, white=bland

Great Debates
1

This got started just a bit ago in Cafe society, iroinically in a thread on Celtic Woman. For some undgodly reason, I jumped into it, and we’ve taken it so far it ought to be broken off and started into a new thread.

The basic point of one poster was that Celtic music/culture was being adoped by young people of a particular ethnic background in order to create a new cultural identity that they felt they could belong to.

I agree. I do not think this is totally honest, or perhaps desirable, but I agree and believe it is so. It is not an exclusive identity, and not universal, but it enables them to adopt a stronger identity in a cultural millieu which doesn’t reward “plain” things. I definitely trace this to multiculturalism (which I also think is fundamentally dishonest and not desirable, or at least that the dishonest and undesirable aspects have taken it over and made it virulent and dangerous).

To be short about it, generally “white mongrel” young people, who don’t have a strong ethnic identity of their own, see other people getting the benefit of their culture but also having other traditions to draw upon. That is, urban blacks created hip-hop and can, without ridicule, wear funny foreign clothes and change their names to be more “African”. But they also have access to the predominate vaguely-British but mixed with a lot of stuff" culture. And this is repeated throughout most identifiable ethnic groups.

Now, I will note that many such ethnic groups have or had a lot of trouble getting along in society. Even leaving aside any real racism they may encounter, they may have language barriers, poor schools, and be surrounded by bad role models and drugs and violence. This is not about material wealth or even material well-being, but about self-image. Likewise, although the problem for the “generic” youths is a very small problem, it is still a problem to them, and one that gnaws at them.

Adopting even a pretense of “Celtic” culture gives them a sense of cultural identity they may not otherwise have. If you are a cultural mongrel, and don’t have any real sense of your origins or people, you are going to feel some self-doubts or confusion as to your personal identity, and modern society is abso-effin-lutely bad at giving you find one. I put it right alongside the general confusion over how old is “adult”, and what is even expected of adults. (In my opinion, which is not scientifically verifiable, men are more in need of this than women, hence the ubiquitousness of Rites of Passage into Adulthood among many, many cultures.)

This is also not just an American thing, but it is easy to see in America because we have a lot of young “white” youths without a lot of social moorings or limitations. (Even though just last generation their parents would never in a million years have been considered white. Never in a million years, but OK in 30-50, I guess. Many asians are even now being adopted into the generic category of “white”.) And many of them do have some definite Irish heritage, and Ireland is one of the last bastions of Celtic culture anywhere.

Celtic culture is seen as something pure, uninhibited, free - and above all untied to established government, social, or business. That’s not neccessarily true, either, but people often see it as true. Celtic culture in history was ridiculously violent and known for conquest and cruelty, but there was never a Celt-on-Jew Holocaust. Celts probably didn’t feel any shame at being Celts or guilt at being relatively rich among poor societies.

And in a society that emotionally, and sometimes materially, rewards “victims”, pretense to Celtism is a pretty good one. You can claim to be one of the original pure peoples, kind of like an Amerindian, before all those nasty Latins and brutal Germans came along and killed and enslaved you. You have the beauty of Welsh culture and the spirited rebellion of the Irish, all relatively free from bad associations.

2

I’m not sure I agree with your premise. I think some cultures are only perceived as “richer” or “spicier” due to a combination of factors, notably the outspoken actions of various “spokesmen”, if you will, and a conspicuous position in the history books. Furthermore, I think that anyone who feels the need to adopt a culture in order to define themselves needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

3

Two of my friends, a couple who both claim Celtic decent, were commenting the other day on the silliness of some of the Celtic influences in pop music. But then again both of those people have interesting identities of their own and might not feel the need to define themselves on the basis of their ancestors. Or they might realize that we all had the same ultimate ancestors.

It may indeed be, as you seem to suggest, that some people gain entrance into mental adulthood by falling on their family’s culture, but some people also develop a culture of their own by adopting whatever they see and like in popular media; which is a multitude these days. In free countries at least, we are allowed to surround ourselves with whatever culture or cultures we happen to relate to most.

Your unlucky white people (who don’t have a stylish heritage to fall back on), are really mostly unlucky in the way in which they’ve convinced themselves that they are limited by their blood. If they get past that, they will realize that they can do whatever they want.

4

As I already said in the other thread, but belongs here: from the inside, ALL “ethnic” or “folk” culture is lame. It only appears exciting to outsiders.

What periodically happens is that people who are descended from some ethnicity or other rediscover it, and then, being unfamiliar, find it “cool”.

Like the resurgance of Klezmer music among young, hip Jews - my grannie thought it was utterly bizzare, that the kids were freaking out to what amounts to Jewish polka, considered in her day the height of lame-ness – the sort of thing her parents would have listened to at a wedding, while the kewl kids rolled their eyes.

5

Wait a minute… if I have dark skin, it’s good for me to be interested in my heritage, but if I have light skin it’s somehow** wrong**?

6

Not at all. In fact, I don’t neccessarily see that being interested in any cultyure anywhere is bad, so long as you have a strong sense of identity to understand who you, yourself, are. It’s simply that many such people don’t, and don’t even really know what they’re looking into. My entire premise was not that skin color matters, it’s that people somehow feel that it does, culturally.

Think of it as the Holiday Crap. - “White people” get Christmas. Jews get Hanukah, too. Blacks get Kwanzaa, too, even though most of them probably couldn’t tell you a thing about it. Muslims get Ramadan, too. Now, none of these are (in my religious and secular opinion) as god as Christmas in the reiligious or secular sense. But they are there too. Being somehow foreign, or having a seperate “non-white” identity seemingly gives you something extra ladelled generously atop a pre-existing cultural millieu. Such people are supposedly more interesting, or simply cooler.

That is a deliberately a gross oversimplification of a complex phenomenon. But it is useful to understanding this because it is fundamentally an primal, emotional reaction, not one based on reason or careful thought.

7

I don’t see anyone saying that anything is bad or good here. Just that it is.

The point seems to be that Celtic culture is being used as a generic White cultural template by all sorts of western Europeans regardless of actual background. IOW Celtic culture has effectively become a White Transnationalism and in many ways comparable to Black Transnationalism in terms of its causes, benfits and outcomes. At least I think that’s smiling bandit’s point, and if so it seems to have some merit.

I might add that if that is the case then I don’t think it’s solely or primarily because white is seen as bland or common. I think it is mostly because “true” white transnationlism has become so tarnished that it is no longer acceptable to most individuals or to society. And I define my true Scotsman as White Transnationlism which is directly comparble to Black Transnationalism in adressing issues of injustice, the value of white culture and percieved threats of destruction and white solidarity, just as Balck Transnationalism does for Black culture. Any cultural template that actually did that for white culture would be widely percieved as racist/fascist and very likely hijacked by those ideologues of those groups.

So Celtic culture has become a watered down version. It vaguely defines a white cultural group without the members of that group having to actualy espouse the superiority of the group or adopt any political postion in favour of the group and thus be percieved as racist/fascist. Members of other groups have no problem with proudly and openly espousing the superiority of the group or adopt a strong political postion in favour of the group and so they don’t need to disguise their cultural identity with euphemisms such as Celtic culture.

In short I don’t think that Celtic culture exists because white is seen as uncool. I think it exists because young white people are very cagey about adopting a strong, active pro-White identity the way that young people can adopt a strong pro-Blacks or pro-Homosexual identity. Instead white people have to adopt a watered down, euphemistic “Celtic” identity, and even that has been hijacked to some extent by neo-Fascists.

8

I guess it couldn’t have anything to do with the Irish being among the largest immigrant groups in the U.S., Irish music being a significant progenitor to Country-Western (via the Scots/irish of Appalachia), U.S. folk music having a strong tradition related to the same roots as Country-Western, (so there are two significant strains of current popular music with a common source), and Irish, Scots, and Welsh musicians having an “in” with British and U.S. record companies in that there is no language barrier.

Nope, it just has to be a “multicultural” fad, (that somehow endangers the “real” American culture or white culture or something).

:wink:

9

This black girl loves Celtic music. Who am I trying to be like?

10

A Dark Elf? :wink:

11

I’m glad this got it’s own thread - I was feeling a little guilty about talking at length in the Celtic Woman thread, but it’s interesting in its own right.

As I said there, I experienced some of this growing up. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so, very white, and very liberal. I got a fair amount of the whole other-cultures-are-cool hippie stuff, in an environment where nobody actually had an ‘other culture’. Well, there were the farm kids with tight jeans, but… Anyways, I’d like to point out that I, at least, am not saying it’s bad for people to latch on to a culture that, really, they don’t have much attachment to. Rather, I think it’s unfortunate that a lot of us felt like we weren’t special unless we did.

For instance, I went through a phase of totally playing up my ‘Jewishness’, because it was COOL. I mean, come on, I’m about as Jewish as a ham dinner, but it made me different, so I went with it. One of my friends had a Canadian mother, and got a maple leaf tattoo on his ankle. Basically, we were all pretty constantly exposed to the idea that culture was cool, but that white people didn’t have any.

That, of course, is ridiculous - everyone has culture. But, being in the overwhelming majority meant we didn’t notice it, and all the emphasis on multiculturalism meant that we did notice other people’s. For example: go watch a PBS kid’s show, preferably a cartoon. There will be a group of kids, usually of different colors, and at some point, the main character will go over to a friend’s house to learn about the meaning of Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, or Chinese New Year’s, or… something. And it’s totally overdone, because really, the kids celebrating Hanukkah aren’t thinking about the meaning of Hanukkah, they’re thinking, ‘Oh boy! Latkes!’, or maybe, ‘Ooh, presents!’.

Now, I’m not really blaming PBS for this, it’s just an example of the kind of education I got. Lots of emphasis on world culture, but dropping out the standard Western European bits. This meant that I can tell you the story of Hanukkah, but the only thing I know about Easter is, ‘Oh boy! Candy!’. I mean, I can appreciate the impulse - you don’t want your kids to not know anything about the rest of the world, and that’s laudable! But the amount of emphasis put on the ‘other’ meant that I always kind of wished I was special, too, and I don’t think I was alone.

The basic point I’m trying for here is that it’s okay for people to get interested in their heritage, or other people’s heritage, or whatever! But it sucks that some of us thought that unless we did, we were just kind of lame.

Oh, and also, even though I’m not a bit Irish, I still think Flook kicks ass, so nyah!

12

What do you mean, “doesn’t reward plain things”? Financially reward? What percentage of non-“white mongrels” do you think make up the wealthiest people in this country? What do you think the percentages are for non-white CEOs, film actors, etc? How about Ivy League admissions? Or do you just mean “reward” as in, “Wow, you’ve got a distinct set of cultural values and food items from the culture at large - that must be cool! How exotic!” Well, what do you expect when people assimilate from a different culture? Tell you what: if you, as a white American mongrel, move to the Sudan, I guarantee you they’ll be impressed with your quaint ways as well.

Like I said, if you want to enjoy the benefits of the main culture but also have other traditions to draw upon, go ahead and move to one of the few Godforsaken shitholes on the planet that hasn’t yet adopted American culture wholesale. It seems a little bizarre that you’d complain about people moving here and yet still getting to hold onto their native traditions. And your hip hop example works the other way, too - you don’t think urban blacks would face ridicule if they dressed like cowboys and sang country music and changed their names to Gomer? Anyway, I find the whole idea that poor, put-upon middle-class white kids don’t have a strong ethnic identity to call their own somewhat ridiculous. They have a huge cultural identity, and if you don’t believe that, visit anywhere else in the world and tell me American culture isn’t a colossal force. It’s the height of poseurdom to demand another culture’s rituals to latch onto because you notice recent immigrants are seen as “exotic”. There are plenty of people in other countries who’d kill to be able to lay claim to all the benefits of “plain” U.S. culture.

Then I’d have to say that they’re pussies. Everybody, everywhere, has problems with self-image at some point. All teenagers try out different poses for a few years. Eventually, they realize that self-image comes from who they are as human beings, not what clothes they wear or obscure rituals they practice.

Again, maybe I just don’t get it, the same way I don’t get genealogy. What difference does it make to how you live your life right now what your origins are going back generations or who your “people” were? Your origins are America - we have been a country for a few centuries now, after all - and your “people” are Americans. Why do you need to go back to before your grandparents were born just to invent some heritage that really has nothing to do with your experience?

13

Being or pretending to be Irish is cool. Live with it. :slight_smile:
Proper reply forthcoming when I sober up.

14

We’ve always just accepted your claim in your location field; you do not need to actally prove in this way that you are Irish.

15

But the food? The OP doesn’t know the MEANING of “bland.”

OTOH, I was raised on what was, essentially, what those who survived the Potato Famine by emigrating would call “upscale,” with everything boiled or baked well past an inch of its life. I assume what Americans call “Irish Cuisine” was based on the immigrants of the 1850s having no idea how to cook because they had no exposure to anything but potatoes and cabbage.

16

Is this “Celtic-ization” actually happening in a massive way among white youths? I’m not that old (late 20s) and I have younger brothers and cousins, and this is the first I’ve heard of it. Oh, I’ve known people in Celtic stuff, and it seems like every college and big high school has at least one kind of weird guy who’s so into it that he wears a kilt around campus, but it was never a huge thing as far as I could ever see. People who liked Celtic stuff were just one of many different cliques – the stoner kids, the mean girls, the nerds, the jocks, the German club kids…
**

That said, I’ve read articles that predict that as whites slip into a minority in the US, there will be a rising sense of white-consciousness. No longer a the default majority, white people will become very aware of themselves and their ways – witness the success of the “Stuff White People Like” blog.

17

When I was in elementary school, we were taught a some of the more familiar Irish and Scottish folk and popular songs. We also learned many spirituals. I think there was even one song that mentioned a guy named Ruben and a woman named Rachel. There were other songs that I didn’t associate with any particular culture. I thought of them as old-timey or countrified.

I had a natural liking for the Scottish and Irish songs, but many of them were popular on the radio in the early 1950s anyway. I didn’t know the word Celtic until about 1956 when a guy named Bob Cousey was playing basketball for Boston. And it wasn’t pronounced the same anyway. I had no idea what the word meant.

It was 1957 before a book on my mother’s line was published. It is definitely Celt and definitely American. But that’s only one thread. My upbringing in the Southeast probably has more to do with my interest in most things Celtic and Pict. So what?

Monstro, come on down and we’ll be orderin’ ye the clan colours! We canna get it through me mither’s line, but me father’s people were a sept. I’ll make ye some Partan Bree. (My apologies to all people who speak a real Scotish dialect.)

I think it’s a good thing for a group that doesn’t espouse superiority not to be perceived as racist or fascist. Don’t you agree?

18

I think it’s a misnomer to call it Celtic culture, myself - more like Irish-Gaelic culture, IME. At least, you don’t see Americans going on about their Breton roots, and not too much focus on Wales either, never mind Cornwall. It’s all kilts and Guinness, AFAICT.

19

In my experience, many non-white people think white people “don’t have a culture”. Never heard of this celtic stuff.

Here’s what a Canadian-Indian comedian makes of it all…

American Culture

20

I do. I’m just not sure that percieving a group as being fascist purely because it does espouse superiority is a good thing.