Two epiphanies I had today

[sqbr]

First, a rant:
I came across a post today with white americans whining about having no culture, because they're a bunch of immigrants with mixed backgrounds, a dark history they feel ambivalent about, and an emphasis on both conformity and individuality and consumerism. Other cultures, on the other hand, are distinct and uniform and well defined and have a wholly positive effect on people's lives.

Now as someone from a culture with similar issues who finds american culture distinct and rather alien (in an interesting, sometimes cool sort of way) I find this annoying (Australians may whine about not having any culture too, but we don't tend to act like it's a Special Unique Pain Noone Else Understands)
It's like the question of "How do non-white/non-American people feel about their cultures, and what does it have in common with how we feel?" doesn't even register.

For a start, afaict pretty much every non-American in the world has angst about the difficulty of being "modern" without becoming American, of defining ourselves without relying on rigid outdated jingoism. And no culture is an unchanging monolith, everyone has to balance tradition and change, personal preferences with accepted social mores, multiculturalism with flattening and uniformity. Every choice along those continuums has both benefits and costs. And pretty much every culture has dark patches in their past, unethical social practices(*), and just plain unappealing expectations that make it difficult for a lot of people to embrace their "people" unselfconsciously and without caveats. Afaict being a POC makes this more complicated, not less, since you have external and internalised racism to contend with telling you your culture is worthless.

The second is a bit advanced, and is only really annoying (to me!) when I see it from, say, feminist bloggers who should know better. Or myself :)
Hopefully a lot of people have gotten their head around the fact that only people who experience Xism are qualified to say if something is Xist or not. But a lot of people who get that have trouble understanding that even if you do notice something someone did is Xist all by yourself that doesn't mean you get to judge whether or not they apologised well enough for it. On seeing an apology for Xism of a sort you don't experience but still found personally offensive, your first priority should not be "Do I think this is good enough given how offensive I found their behaviour?" but "What do the people who experience Xism and were hurt in the first place think?".

And now I feel better :)

(*)According to ones own personal ethics, whatever they may be

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Hopefully a lot of people have gotten their head around the fact that only people who experience Xism are qualified to say if something is Xist or not.

Only because the definition of what Xism is has been redefined in that direction by the liberal left. Personally I always feel that if I belong to group X then I am the last person in the world to understand what does and does not make people prejudiced against me or how they manifest it. If you want to know if something is motivated by prejudice you need to ask the person doing it, not the person being disadvantaged by it. And yes I know this is frowned upon because it takes the power away from the disadvantaged group but still, if someone turns to me and says 'you're gay, tell me all about homophobia and how to cure it' - well, I've got nothing.

pretty much every non-American in the world has angst about the difficulty of being "modern" without becoming American, of defining ourselves without relying on rigid outdated jingoism.
Actually I'm fairly sure the English don't have that problem. But then a lot of our self-definition relies on not self-defining. We do have one hell of a struggle with multiculturalism though so I agree 100% with your balancing statement.

white americans whining about having no culture, because they're a bunch of immigrants with mixed backgrounds, a dark history they feel ambivalent about, and an emphasis on both conformity and individuality and consumerism. Other cultures, on the other hand, are distinct and uniform and well defined and have a wholly positive effect on people's lives.

My immediate assumption is that this comes down to standard American insularity - their lack of knowledge of any culture beyond their own makes it hard for them to grasp what is unique and distinctive about their own. Plus all that sort of American gets to see of other cultures is the shorthand stereotypes their media is so good at dishing out, so no wonder they think other cultures are neatly encapsulated and distinctive.

Sorry if any or all of this doesn't make sense, I'm not very clear headed today.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that first point.

Actually I'm fairly sure the English don't have that problem

This is what I get for making generalisations about every single culture in the world...

Agreed about american insularity being a major problem with this.