To paraphrase Hank Hill:
“That’s called “The Double Standard”, Bobby. We got the long end of that stick, so don’t knock it.”
One more thing.
There are in fact Nigerian festivals and celebrations of Zimbabwean culture here in the US. These events are put on by, wait for it … Nigerians and Zimbabweans. Black Americans are usually invited, along with everyone else, but these aren’t black American festivals. At all. (I say “usually invited”, because there are plenty of Africans who dislike black Americans. An issue for another thread.)
Black American culture is a distinct thing with it’s own linguistic, musical , religious, and food traditions, all of which come out of the distinct history of the United States. It isn’t just a function of having African ancestry.
More specifically, it was what arose after centuries of dedicated efforts to erase any trace of their native culture from African slaves. The reason why you don’t see very many cultural practices associated with specific African nations is that most blacks in America have no idea what part of Africa their ancestors came from.
That would be ethnic pride.
White people are the majority in America (and Western society in general) so “white” culture is by default American culture.
When a minority group, like blacks or Hispanics or Asians or Jews or gays, celebrates its “pride” it’s essentially taking about the things that make it unique - those aspects of its culture that it doesn’t share with the wider general culture of America.
But when the majority group, which already defines the general culture, celebrates its pride, the message becomes different. They’re not highlighting some unique culture because the mainstream culture everyone lives in is their culture. Instead they’re basically saying that mainstream culture is white culture - and by implication they’re saying that non-whites have no claim to mainstream culture.
When somebody only has ten percent of something, it’s acceptable for them to say “Remember me. I’m part of this too.” But when somebody has ninety percent of something, they don’t need to remind people of their presence - it’s too pervasive to be ignored. In that situation, the message of telling people you have ninety percent becomes “This is mine. Ignore everyone else.”
Same here, and in fact some of them were more like me than I’ll ever be.
Re: the OP: I’ve had this argument many times and with many people and I’ve yet to see one “get it”. It’s a touchstone that they’ve no real interest in debating.
It is because of white racial pride and exclusion that minority institutions even exist. Anyone who can’t understand that doesn’t want to understand anything besides their own limited pov and I wouldn’t waste my time trying to convince them otherwise.
You might have a point if HBCUs excluded white folks just for being white, didn’t offer them scholarships or didn’t try to recruit them.
But they don’t. My sister attended a HBCU and guess what! There were more white students in her program than black students. I was shocked when I saw her graduating class. Predominately black school my ass!
I didn’t attend an predominately black university, but I can certainly sympathize with those who do. It SUCKS being a racial minority sometimes. Especially on the social front. Yeah yeah, going to college should be about challenging oneself and learning to handle different cultures and blah blah blah. But navigating college is hard enough without dealing with racial tension. Sometimes you don’t want to deal with confronting stereotypes, being a “testament to your race”, and being the goodwill ambassador all the time. Sometimes you just want to have fun and relax.
Just tell him that this is because black Americans are not Nigerian or Zimbabwian…they are black Americans. The same black Americans that produced tap dancing, jazz and rock n roll music, soul food, and the liberal use of “be”. People pretend they don’t know what black culture is, but they most certainly know it when they see it.
Don’t give up working on your father, by the way. He may not change his mind, but he probably will learn to stop saying shit around you if you confront him enough times. My father used to say unenlightened things. But I let him know that I don’t like listening to stupid shit, and he stopped being such a blowhard around me.
Long ago (80s) a Caucasian friend of mine went to a historically predominately black university for a masters in Library Science. Curiously, he got a partial scholarship, as he was part of an underrepresented group at this University.
Look. White people took blacks away from their homes for hundreds of years. From their countries, from their nationalities. Now all a lot of them have is “black”. What’s the point of being proud of, say, your Nigerian heritage, if you or your ancestors haven’t set foot on the land for 300 years? If no one’s been born there or raised there and has no familiarity with it? Essentially they have no country, and their only nationality becomes “African” which is really vague. So they celebrate being black. And having some kind of identity which the white man did not take.
Or, what Miller says.
While it is clearly a double standard, the solution is to bring everyone up to the higher standard not to go down to the lower standard. So the answer should not be that whites get to be racially exclusionary but that racism amoung everyone get called out as the wrong it is.
A culture is usually built on common traditions. What traditions separate white people from everyone else? Is there an answer besides the oppression of everyone who isn’t white?
White people do not share linguistic, musical , religious, and food traditions that they can take pride in. Other cultures made up of white people do, but not all white people.
That’s because race is an arbitrary social construct. A person’s behavior is not influenced by their race. People behave according to common experiences.
Unfortunately, this means that the only way you can build a culture on race is if everyone has the common experience of being discriminated because of their race. Or if your race is doing the discrimination and comes up with arbitrary reasons why it is superior to other races.
Since the white race doesn’t find common values from being oppressed, its values can only come from oppressing others, and defining themselves in ways to promote the oppression of others (e.g. whites have less propensity for violence than blacks do.)
White pride is the oppression other minorities. Try to think of something else it could be. Name another tradition that all white people share and other races do not.
Hispanics share a race only by the old meaning, in which race and culture were one and the same. Being Hispanic doesn’t involve any kind of common ancestry at all.
Suntanning, tanning booths, spray tans and the like.
What exactly does your Dad want to be proud OF?
I know what kind of music/food/dancing/art/whatever to expect at an Irish St. Patrick’s Day festival, an Italian Columbus Day festival, a German Oktoberfest, a Greek heritage festival, et al.
But what’s “white” music? What’s “white” food? What’s “white” dancing (this is where wiseacres will reply, “Lawrence Welk,” Wonder Bread," and “That lame two-step”)? But I’m being serious. My favorite authors include Dostoevsky, Roddy Doyle, Dick Francis and Michel de Montaigne. All are “white,” but is there any commonality to their work? Would it make ANY sense to group them together under the heading “White Literature”?
Can you group Modest Mussorgsky, Woody Guthrie, Eddie Van Halen and Dave Brubeck together as “White Music”?
Could we lump wienerschnitzel, lasagna, baklava, paella, beef bouvignon, bangers and mash, and gelfilte fish together as “white food”?
Bottom line: there’s no ONE “white” culture. So, what is there for a generic “white” guy to take pride in?
Tell him he should blame the racists for co-opting “white pride” as a euphemism while trying to push their, well, racism.
In a way, it’s the other way 'round. In the US, “white” often isn’t used to refer to an ancestry, but to mean “the socially-dominant group; those considered acceptable by the upper classes”. That’s what’s reflected when people talk about the Irish or the Italian “becoming white”; it’s not that previously they were polka-dotted, what they were is “unacceptable in good society”. When other people accuse people from their own group of “acting white”, they’re not saying “stop bleaching your hair”, they’re saying “stop putting on airs”.
Very popular among Asians. Sometimes too popular.
I’ll take ‘Brubeck’ for 100.