Yep, that pretty much defines it.
Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Canadian, sure. “Black” as in a shared culture of all the social/ethnic groups currently identified as racially black? No, not in any meaningful way. “White” as in in a shared culture of all the social/ethnic groups currently identified as racially white? No, not in any meaningful way.
I completely agree that it’s reasonable to talk about some cultural factors that are common to many of today’s middle-aged working- and middle-class American non-urban, non-rural, non-Latino, non-“ethnically”-identified white males, especially those born between 1965 and 1985. However, that is a far more specific designation than simply “white male”.
And even with those additional restrictions, most of the “cultural factors” you describe also broadly apply to a lot of groups that don’t meet all those restrictions. Some of them apply equally well to, e.g., Latino and/or black men of similar demographics, and some of them apply equally well to women of that era also.
It’s about racism again???
In other words, after msmith537 has proven you wrong, and shown clearly there is a such a thing as white culture, you want to get back to your hijack about racism again? :rolleyes:
Why fight the hypothetical? If you think there is no such thing as white culture, why are you here? You could, if you should so choose, start your own thread about white male privilege, to join the dozens already out there.
With some people, it’s always about racism. They have exactly one card and only one card to play- and it’s getting kinda worn out and grimy.
Nonsense; msmith537 didn’t even come close to “showing there is such a thing as white culture”. As I already pointed out, he listed a bunch of cultural factors that are common to many of today’s middle-aged working- and middle-class American non-urban, non-rural, non-Latino, non-“ethnically”-identified white males, especially those born between 1965 and 1985. But, as I also pointed out, many of those factors apply equally well to, e.g., Latino and/or black men of similar demographics, and some of them apply equally well to women of that era also.
So no, what msmith537 described wasn’t “white culture”, and it wasn’t “white male culture”: it was a bunch of cultural factors that a particular restricted subset of a particular generation of American white males, along with large numbers of American white females and/or American nonwhite people, are apt to have in common.
Trying to equate that scattershot set of characteristics with a coherent description of a culture specific to white males as a group just shows how desperately you’re grasping at straws.
Well, for the same reason that all the other posters in this thread who are saying that its core issue is “white privilege” and related concepts are here, although somehow you don’t seem to be pursuing such a personal vendetta about it with anyone but me.
Namely, we’re arguing that the phenomenon the OP started this thread to ask about—i.e., “fears held by whites, especially white males, over losing majority as non-white immigrants enter the country, and/or non-white birth rates exceed those of whites”—is not really about threats to a specific cultural heritage, but rather about potential loss of racial (and gender) privilege.
This argument is strengthened by the fact that nobody in this thread who’s trying to claim that “white male culture” is a legitimate specific cultural heritage distinctive to white males as a group has managed to articulate what it supposedly consists of. So the issue of racial privilege wasn’t in fact a hijack back at the start of this thread, and is still not a hijack.
I didn’t say “all the social/ethnic groups currently identified as racially white”. I would characterize it more as “Middle Class American culture that is largely white”. I’m really talking about people who grew up in the USA within the past 50 years. Otherwise you are correct. They may have stronger cultural ties to some other country.
What is a “culture” besides a “bunch of cultural factors that a particular restricted subset …have in common”?
And it doesn’t have to be “specific” to any group. Various cultures around the world share various traits and characteristics.
Well put.
Bro, when the discussion is about racism, you gotta steel yourself for that race card coming down. I mean it’s going to come down at some point, the only variable is how long woke people think they’ve got to spare your fee-fees, you feel me ?
As I pointed out earlier, there’s nothing wrong with that definition of white male culture. The only problem is that it is incompatible with a negative connotation. It is possible to use “white male culture” without a negative connotation, but I don’t think that is the case in the original post.
~Max
I’d go so far as to say that the OP is kind of off the mark; there’s not any kind of inherent racism or sexism or anything there, at least as far as something that’s consciously though about. Very, very few people in “white male culture” as **msmith537 **defined it, are going around thinking about race or sex at all.
If anything, it was/is a sort of comfortable ignorance- a kid growing up in that environment just has NO frame of reference for a lot of the trials and tribulations that say… a child of immigrants, or a child growing up in extreme poverty experiences, or as a different race.
I mean, I can intellectually think about growing up hungry, but I don’t have a frame of reference- we ALWAYS had enough food to eat- at the very, very worst, it was that we were having something cheaper as we approached the next paycheck. But there wasn’t any question or doubt about whether the next meal would be there. Same thing for stuff like shoes, clothes, school supplies and the like. I might not have got the “cool” shoes, but I never had ones that didn’t fit, or were worn out or anything like that, even when my father had his stretch of unemployment.
And the whole system is more or less structured to teach the lesson to kids that if you worked hard, and toed the line on certain things, then you’d be successful job-wise. Not coincidentally, that’s why people are so disaffected with their jobs- they got out, and found out that it was only somewhat true- yes, you get paid and keep your job, but it’s still the same godawful popularity contest that it was in high school, but now your paycheck/job responsibilities ride on it. Or that a lot of the time, it’s more about how you play the “game”, and not your actual work product.
So it’s just hard to effectively conceive of that kind of thing- your reality growing up in it is pretty much that it’s how the world works. Everything else is strange and outside your frame of reference. So the natural reaction is to refactor everything to put it within your frame of reference- people are poor, well that has to be because they’re lazy and/or stupid. There’s not really another explanation within your frame of reference. We all know that’s not the case, but I’d also say that the people around here have expanded our frames of reference to understand stuff like systemic inequality, etc…
I just think it’s a mistake to attribute malice where at least in my experience, there’s just ignorance and unawareness, and some in this thread are attributing a lot more malice than I think there is, at least for people born after about 1965 or so.
Maybe not race…
My description is largely based on my experience growing up in a relatively upper-middle class household. But I can certainly think of some aspects of “white culture” that I may have witnessed or experienced growing up that aren’t all rosy. You mentioned unemployment. I would suggest that culturally, white men have traditionally experienced being unemployed differently from black men. Not really knowing any unemployed black men myself, I have to reference the movies where it is portrayed as a long-term systematic issue. In contrast, white men are usually portrayed as unemployed in an almost comedic “fish out of water” context. Movies like Mr Mom, Gung-Ho, Trading Places or Fun With Dick & Jane (original and remake) where the protagonist often finds themselves unjustly terminated, has to adapt to an increasingly absurd set of circumstances interacting with less affluent classes of people as their standard of living declines, and often wins their lifestyle back through some ridiculous scheme.
But one thing that is rarely portrayed in white culture is the concept of white poverty as a systematic issue. If a white person is destitute in film, it’s usually because they are a petty criminal, drug addict or fuckup. Typically “poor” white people in media are working class blue collar laborers working in mills and factories. IOW, still supporting their families earning a modest living. Not milling about their neighborhood Boyz in the Hood or Friday style.
That bunch of cultural factors is part of the culture of that particular subset, e.g., middle-aged working- and middle-class American non-urban, non-rural, non-Latino, non-“ethnically”-identified white males, especially those born between 1965 and 1985. You can’t equate that to the culture of a much larger group, such as white males in general. (Especially when many of those cultural factors, as I noted, are also shared by other groups that are nonwhite and/or nonmale.)
Well, if we’re going to try to define the “culture” of a particular specified group of people as distinct from others, then yeah, we kind of do have to focus on the cultural factors that are specific to that group.
How about Texas?
This state hasn’t been majority white in over a decade - the only thing which keeps up that fiction is the classification of hispanic people as white… which I see you corrected in the above post.
So, living here, in a non-white state, I have to ask you… what was your point again?
In 2010, Texas had 11.4 million non-Hispanic whites and 13.7 million minorities.
In 2019, Texas has 12.06 million non-Hispanic whites and 17.1 million minorities.
In 2022, Texas will have 12.27 million non-Hispanic whites, 12.3 million Hispanics, and 18.4 million total minorities (including hispanics).
2022 will be the year which Hispanics outnumber anglos in the “white people” department, which means white people won’t even be the majority white people anymore… at least, not in Texas.