I started thinking about this while people watching today on my lunch break. I noticed that I can separate white passers-by into any number of subcultures, niches or categories - there goes a frat boy, yuppie, hipster, punk, goth, euro creep/trash, stuffy professional, student, hippie, blue collar mook, skank, preppie, biker, etc.
But when it came to the African American passers-by, there was significantly less variation - thug, business professional, thuggish professional, and whatever you call hoochie mamas these days.
What’s up with that? Is it that we’re already dealing with a smaller subset of the general population, so there’s just going to be less social variation?
Looking down your list I’ve seen/known black people who were in all of your categories. I’ve also seen plenty of white people who looked like the stereotypical “thug”, “hoochie mama” and so on.
Because they had hundreds of distinct tribes and subcultures in Africa; and then they were enslaved, and their tribes and families broken up, and melded into white culture?
I think there are just MORE of the thuggish types, but there are definately blacks in all those other groups. As a white man who mostly has had black friends, I found it was really about socio-economic things than anything else.
It’s rare I run across any black person who can’t at least understand lesser economic ability, even if they have a lot themselves.
Also the time of day may be a factor. All the blacks I know tend to be very concerned in the office they maintain “an office,” image then after work they will turn into a thug/gangbanger look. I had a reservationist, Marion (When I was a revenue manager) who spoke perfect English on the phone to the customers. But as soon as she hung up every word was this “ghetto slang.” But as soon as she picked up the phone, it was perfect English, exact pronounciation.
So pershap black people are more able to turn the “types” on and off. Where as white goth or emo people want to carry that persona to all aspects of their lives
Well in musical style alone you have a ton of various subcultures, from the Oakland/Bay Area Hyphe Movement, to the Houston Chopped and Screwed music scenes, to of course East vs. West Coast Rap cultures, the ATL Southern rap movement- pretty much the Dirrrty South style, to the Detroit city rappers, to the Chi-town and Philly Hip Hop cultures, each of which with their own dialects, dress, beverages of choice/dances even and musical stylings. So I’d say there’s plenty of subcultures within subcultures, it’s just how close you take to examine them and try to understand them.
I generally disagree with your question. Like Valgard, I’ve know black people in those categories. However, some food for thought: A lot of white culture comes from being proud of being Irish/German/Italian/Scandanavian/Catholic/Protestant, etc. Whites have also always been free to move around to where they want and associate with whom they want, allowing subcultures to develop. I would guess a lot of black people don’t know much about their pre-Columbian past, except that they’re all from Africa, and most of their ancestors were brought here against their will.
What the . . . ?! I thought this post was a joke but I got to the end and there was no punchline. Reminds me of the movie (was it Blues Brothers?) where the guy says, “we play both kids of music: country and western!”
The thing is, the distinction between country and western was important to those guys. Same thing with the various locales of rap for those involved in the subculture. Old money, upper class whites, whom many feel all belong to the same monolithic culture, will be readily able to identify differences based on whether you grew up in Westchester or Conneticut, went to Grotton or Andover, and went on to Harvard or Yale.
There are real differences in subcultures, and people being lumped into a category will often make an honest protestation that ‘their people’ are all alike.
Did you not notice that every musical style that Ro0sh mentioned was a type of rap? No soul, R&B, gospel, blues, jazz, motown, or rock and roll. I guess it’s possible that this was somehow part of his or her point and I misread it, but it seemed awful funny to me at first.
I think that it is possible that you are less familiar with black people than white people and therefore do not notice distinctions. If I was observe people from a country I have never been to, I would not be able to pick up on the things that identify them as a members of a particular group, but someone familiar with that culture would have no problem making the distinctions.
Another thing is that a lot of what the OP called white sub-cultures have black members. There are black frat boys and yuppies and hipsters for example.
I would say that it’s because there are fewer blacks than whites, and thus fewer subcultures that would form that would be dominated by blacks. However, a number of blacks would find themselves part of subcultures that are traditionally white (“Stuff White People Like” upper-middle-class liberal, preppy, etc) based on their upbringing or education, while others may be in subcultures that aren’t really associated with any one race or ethnicity (serious businessperson, athlete, etc.).
One could probably say the same thing about Italian-Americans. There’s subcultures that are exclusively or heavily represented by Italians, such as modern BMW/tanning salon/blowout hair Jersey Guidos, old-school Monte Carlo/freeweight gym/Chess King Jersey Guidos, bodybuilders, overly stylish and flashy professionals, middle-aged goombahs, and so on. Meanwhile, there’s Italians leading the SWPL lifestyle, taking a break to look through yoga magazines while shopping for free range produce at Whole Foods.
I tend to think of subcultures populated primarily by African-Americans, and others, as part of a larger whole of American subcultures, rather than an isolated set of black subcultures to be compared against “normal” white subcultures.
That being said, there’s probably a number of historical and socioeconomic factors why there may be a lower percentage of blacks in other subcultures compared to other ethnic groups.
Exactly. Freejooky, without disclosing the “social/subculture” you’re from your observations are meaningless. You are going to be far more sensitive to the flavors if you’re a native of the cuisine.
Another vote here for “you probably just don’t know enough about African-American culture to accurately distinguish its subcultures”.
For instance, I notice that one of the “subcultures” you claim to be able to identify among white passers-by is “student”. But that’s not one of the categories you list for the blacks that you observed.
From which I can only conclude that either there were no students among all the African-American passersby that you watched (which IMHO would be unlikely), or else you can’t tell a black student when you see one. Which does not inspire a lot of confidence in your ability to identify African-American subcultures.
There are more white-dominated subcultures than black-dominated ones simply because there are still far more whites than blacks. There are hippie blacks, Euro-creep blacks, etc., they just don’t make up the majority of the group because blacks are only 10% of the population and thus, even if they had the same per capita representation in those subcultures, they’d still only be 10% of that group.
They layman doesn’t even know whether or not this question is valid.
You’d need to do extensive ethnographic studies, and spend a few million doing it, to count subcultures by social origin and “race”.
Counting EITHER white or black subcultures would be a complete bitch.
Do you count gay ‘leathermen’ types?
How do you research that?
Does the whole leathermen scene vary across the country enough that you give the guys in Seattle the same group as the ones in Miami?
I’d LOVE to read the ethnographic write-ups on all of this, especially if it was done fresh.
It’s quite possible that there’s no factual answer to the OP’s query, since the needed ethnography is quite possibly not done.
That’s an interesting example, because I did encounter that on my walk back to my workplace. I was following a couple of “thugs” - young black dudes walking with the slouch, wearing big baggy roca- stuff, one with a do-rag, the other with a bandana…and then they walked into the community college. I’d still call those guys thugs to differentiate from “student,” which refers to the backpack-toting, slightly preppy white that were also entering the building.
So in other words, the white example is the norm, if the black example doesn’t conform to the white example then you can’t possibly draw a parallel outside of the narrow preconceived boxes you’ve already constructed for blacks.
Do you have any concept of how offensive that is? As is the continued description of people who are very clearly students by your own admission as “thugs”?