Here is some things that can be attributed to "white culture"- or "white American culture" not limited tojust whites, but shared by others who are
also American and european/african american.
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Source-
abagond.wordpress.com...
Here are some of the features of White American culture. Again, keep in mind that not every white person follows all of this. And again, many of these
things will be found in other cultures, especially British and African American culture, its closest cousins:
language: American Standard English. Stiff, long-winded, impersonal.
religion: a private affair, but mainly Protestant and Bible-based.
weights and measure: English, some metric.
law: common law from England based on precedent; trial by jury; no man should be above the law.
government: democracy, presidents.
freedom: makes society stronger and richer, not weaker.
the future: what you make it.
music: rock, country, gangsta rap, swing.
dress: blue jeans, dressing down.
cows: for meat, milk, leather.
pigs: eaten.
dogs: loved, not allowed to run loose, almost seen as one of the family.
diet: cows, pigs, chicken, turkey, wheat, maize, potato, sugar, cow’s milk, beer, chicken eggs.
breasts: not commonly bared in magazines or in public.
beards: rare.
books: rarely read after age 25.
poverty: a moral failing.
wealth: worshipped.
intelligence: looked down upon: geeks and nerds.
race: colour-blind racism: lip service is given to colour-blind equality, but in practice whites are seen as better than blacks and their lives matter
more.
homosexuals: accepted to the degree that same-sex marriage is now a matter of debate.
female beauty: white-skinned, thin, long yellow hair, big breasts, empty blue eyes.
drink: beer common among men but not allowed for children.
coffee or tea?: coffee since the 1920s.
sports: an important part of life; baseball, American football, basketball, ice hockey, golf, tennis.
family: parents with young children; divorce common; personal desires over family.
parents: try to be friends with their children; avoid physical punishment.
managers: try to be friends with their employees.
source-
abagond.wordpress.com...
Do whites have a culture?
Mon 17 Nov 2008 by abagond
Macon D, on his ever-interesting blog Stuff White People Do, quoted anti-racist writer Shelly Tochluk. Here is a bit of it. She is speaking as a white
American:
However, many of us find ourselves looking at other groups and longing for the connection we imagine they feel with their roots, their homeland, their
culture. Many white folks can be heard saying, “We don’t have culture. They have culture.”
…
I know that I am not alone. I hear the same sentiments too much from other white people. If anything, this is one of the truest hallmarks of whiteness
that I have yet encountered. There is a hole within many of us, created when our families gave up our culture in order to be successful in the United
States.
Heartfelt and honest, no doubt, but it is still maddening to hear it.
A lost homeland? Their homeland is made up of the lost homelands of others: the United States of America.
No rootedness? They live in a country – in a world! – where their culture is top dog. Where their culture is taught in schools across the country
and shown on televisions round the world. Where their food and drink is sold in the four corners of the earth! How much more rooted can you be?
Lack of a culture? They have one of the most powerful cultures in history, like the Romans, the Persians and the Chinese, one that threatens other
cultures.
White Americans have a culture just like everyone else: they have strange holidays and special foods, they have their own way of dressing, of talking,
of family life, their own feelings about dogs, their own ideas about music, female beauty, skin colour and disciplining children. They have their own
books, songs, television shows and films. They have blue jeans, rock music and hamburgers. Baseball and Starbucks.
They have their own language, which is taught in every school in the land as “proper English”. White Americans even speak English with an accent
– which they call “having no accent”.
Whatever old ways Tochluk’s family lost from the old country they were replaced by their White American counterparts. It is how they lost their
foreignness. The hole was filled. It had to be. How else can she sing and dance and talk and cook and tell stories to her children?
Many white Americans seem to see themselves as plain, ordinary and boring. “Generic”, I think, is the word. It is everyone else who is different,
interesting, colourful or “exotic”.
Well, that is a point of view. They are so used to their own culture, like water to a fish or refrigerator noises, they take it so much for granted,
it is so much a part of what they think of as “being a normal person”, that they do not see it. Just like how they do not hear their own accent
– or see themselves as “white”.
Source-
abagond.wordpress.com...
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[edit on 5-8-2010 by Common Good]
[edit on 5-8-2010 by Common Good]