Steve Nash Double Swirling Gone Wrong!!

Perhaps 'assimilate' is a poor word choice. 'Amalgamate' is more precise.

 

Well what I meant is I often hear AA's say they have assimilate into white culture in the US atleast in the business world and such. I was just pointing out their has to be some sort of white culture out their that all US black people are assimilating into or else their culture would be no different when they go to work, etc.

 

However, the immigration patterns in the US are such that immigrants are usually surrounded by a culture of their homeland for the first and second generation. After that, it can in fact be less of an issue if the offspring have outmarried, etc. But most people until the modern era married within their ethnic group (no less true of Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, etc), so the degree to which they 'become' African-Americans is a work in progress. I have noticed a tendency of all immigrants with any black ancestry to navigate African-American culture (not just Jamaicans, but Cape Verdeans in Boston, Puerto Ricans in NYC/Orlando, and more), but I have not seen the ancestral culture totally shelved. My father's identity was like that. He was black in America, and a black Puerto Rican in a Spanish-speaking context. So the different elements of who you are became more or less salient depending on the context. I am the same way. I am a black man at all times, American at times, Puerto Rican at others.

Puerto Rico's Spanish heritage is predominately linguistic. However, the African elements that are the same are found almost uniformly throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The way in which the British ruled in the Caribbean was not very determinative apart from sport, the education system, and civil governmental structures. European colonialists, unlike the US white governing structure during slavery which maintained a direct/coercive control, largely allowed the cultures and people to develop freely, so what you have is essentially an African-Carib Indian culture that developed on all the islands with an 'overlay' of whatever European country colonized them.

 

My mistake. In that sense you are correct. I thought you were referring to me talking about the development of white cultures in multiracial societies and I was trying to correct myself. That would be an amalgamation, not an assimilation, because they are creating something new that formerly did not exist. In the case of black Americans, we are in fact 'assimilating' because we have to navigate another culture, namely white American, in the larger society.

On another note, I've noticed a glitch when we quote each other: the quotes are being attributed to the wrong person when you quote something was responding a prior remark. The way to correct it is to delete the extra (2nd) quote in brackets at the opening of the quotation, because it contains your name instead of the person to whom you should be responding.

 

Ok give me one "white" example of music or one example of "black" food.

 

I think the same thing happens with European immigrants. Those that move to place like NY, etc in ethnic communities are able to hold on to their culture but those that do not just live in white communities assimilate into the white culture they are surrounded by which is the "general" white American culture. The immigrant though will still hold on to their culture but as generations go by their descendants loose most of it. They may hold onto holiday traditions and things like that but their everyday life culture is pretty much assimilated.

 

Okra is a black food. It came from Africa. African slaves knew how to grow and prepare it in the US. and taught whites how.

Music. Country music. It's Appalachian folk music. It came from the Scot Irish people. In the US whites evolved it into country music.

 

She is absolutely incorrect. I have far more in common with an Asian banker from Greenwich than I do with a dude from Kansas City who pumps gas but happens to be black.
The white face has been used to depict middle class suburban culture but isn't limited to white people.

 

That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So what about fish? What culture gets to claim that since everyone eats it or my favorite hypocrisy chicken. Is chicken a black food even though everyone eats it.

I truly don't know the history of country music but if you've ever done any kind of art you'd know that's the one place that transcends race. I don't think of artist like Eminem as a white rapper or Darius Rucker as a black country artist because they make good music. Even rock which is considered white music was influenced and originated by blacks but to me its just music.

Btw the way okra isn't a black food its a west african food. Calling it a black food would imply that all or even most blacks make and/or eat that and until now I have never heard of it.

Labeling something white or black implies its only unique to that culture.

 

I meant 'black' as shorthand for 'African', which is itself a regional marker, because even races develop in a regional/locational context. Thus, there are no 'black' people (even though we are actually dark brown) without the existence of Africa itself which is the environment that created us as a 'race' or racial subgroup.

The foods, cultures, etc are derived regionally, but not all people in an area practice the cultures, or eat the foods or play the musics. Now with modern communications people sample many things, but in the past Greeks listened to Greek Music, French to French music and so on and so on. What I would term 'white' (again an imprecise term) would be the cultures that a variety of European groups adopt jointly in a multiracial setting. Rock music would be one (and I am in no way discounting the African origins of the music). Rock music is a cultural norm throughout most of the white youth cultures around the globe. It is enjoyed by many blacks (myself included) Asians, Latinos and others, but it is a phenomenon formed out of black cultural creativity and subsequently morphed and sustained by white youth until it became a global trend.

I am not saying a behavior is 'black' or 'white' but that these things develop in a larger social context that serves to foster their development. The very existence of rock music is precisely such an item. It was adopted by white adolescents because of its identification with blacks, taboo and youthful rebellion. But the very existence of a 'white' (as opposed to just Irish, British, Italian, etc) culture is what enabled it to spread as a boundary-less phenomenon across all Caucasian youth groups. That doesn't mean that others can't enjoy it, but its history is what it is.

 

I have to disagree. I agree with MrFantastic here. Okra is not attached to the race who grew it. It is more appropriately an African vegetable. But the black race did not create okra. Creation is different from utilization.

 

The diffrence in foods is how they are cooked. If your talking about frying fish and Fried chicken. Well US southern way of frying has it's orgins from the Scot Irish. They were frying before they came to the US and they brought their method with them. African American added new spices to make it tatse better.

You may choose not to but many people do.

Black people originated in West Africa. Just as what was just being talked about Caribbean culture has origins from West Africa.

 

Disagree with you here, MrF. Anyone can subscribe to middle class culture and even become a part of it. It is, however, a function of a specific set of cultures and circumstances: post-WWII, white, GIs, with access to education and/or highly paid manufacturing jobs facilitating distant nuclear family living, etc. Its norms are largely the norms of British-descent white America, as opposed to Catholic/extended family America or other groups.

Its approach to family: nuclear vs extended. Its approach to land use and land tenure: expansive and utilitarian. Its attitudes toward work: Calvinist British and German or Protestant work ethic. Attitudes toward time: rigid, unbending.

I agree you have nothing in common with a guy pumping gas because of blackness, and are as suburban in culture as any white suburbanite, but US suburban culture is a creation and extension of US white, middle-American culture.

 

I'm not talking about creation I'm talking about contributing culture.

 

I don't think your analogies of the two hold up. Okra is a plant. Music, however, is in fact a cultural construct. You're right about country music. It is white Scotch-Irish in origin. But okra is not. It is a vegetable, geographically African in origin, but it cannot be ascribed to a race. Its appropriation by blacks is due to geography.

 

A similar discussion is going on in another group I'm in and they are talking about white tendencies and this is what one person says. I understand totally what she is talking about.

But, I like things that if looked at on a percentage level of race, most white people like: Rock and Roll, Redneck comedy, go cart races, etc...White folks party different from black folks, too....I learned that in my 20s. I liked both...lol. But, they are different, BY FAR. Black folks mostly have house parties, with music and dancing and card games and gambling going on. White folks MAY have music going on; but, rarely dancing. They will smoke weed, drink beer and just hang out in different areas, talking shit...maybe watching a game (if one is on). NOT SPEAKING OF ALL. Just what I have seen.

 

But what about the process of how we prepare it?

 

To me, your statement about creation vs contributing culture would be like calling petroleum 'Arab' because they pumped it out of the ground.

 

I think it's accurate to say that the culture of eating okra is Southern black and to a lesser extent Southern white because both groups tastes evolved in close proximity. This is the case in light of blacks as the South's slave class handling much of food preparation, hospitality and entertainment. But that doesn't make it 'black' food. I would agree with 'Southern' before I would say 'black'.