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angst about the difficulty of being "modern" without becoming American, of defining ourselves without relying on rigid outdated jingoism.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

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I don't really care how Americans feel about their culture.

For me, my culture, is, sadly, defined by a negative, my culture is 'I'm not American'. This 'I'm not American' is a culture that is common in the world, Kiwis (who probably also define themselves as 'Not Australian'), Canadians, British) any white, especially english speaking nation, defines itself by the fact that it's not American.

That's how bloody dominant American culture is. It's almost to the point sometimes where I wish I was French, or German, because at least they are protected by their language.

American culture is so dominant, that I've spent most of my time travelling around the world, telling people 'No, I'm not American' because everyone always assumes one is. It gets a bit old, but heh, that's the world we live in right?

ETA: I did also spend most of my travels in South-East Asia with a Chinese-Canadian (almost third generation Canadian, who could not speak Chinese to save her life) who spent a lot of time explaining she wasn't Chinese, which just goes to show how cultural dominance does shift from place to place, but 'being perceived as American' gave me protection/freedom that 'being perceived as Chinese' in many parts of Asia, didn't. Because as long as I was considered American, my independence was excused because American girls are wild sex fiends, but my friend, was just a big slut/prostitute who slept with American men. And she was threatened a couple of times because of it. I only got propositioned a few times. Perception is a bitch.

[nicholii.livejournal.com]

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.

How does the colour of your skin have anything to do with this? Of course you could argue that there is an inherent pro-Western bias in terms of accepted vs. non-accepted culture, but this has little to do with them being white or black or whatever. Our own Australian society thinks disparagingly of the cultures of Slavic immigrants, for instance, and Italian and Greek cultures have only become mainstream in the last generation or so. Non-European cultures do get a harder time, but I would argue that the only way skin-colour really comes into play, is when people make generalisations that are ignorant of the similarities between other cultures and our own: assuming that just because people look different, their culture has different ideas of hygiene or the treatment of women, or whatever.

If you take 'race' as a social/cultural grouping, rather than one of appearance, then the story is of course different. And I can accept that the generalisations that racism within our society makes will lead many people to believe that their culture is frowned upon, when it is only a matter of ignorance, rather than anything actually "wrong" with that culture, that is to blame.

But when you get to the aspects of other cultures which actually do diverge from the accepted customs, the issue becomes more difficult. Female circumcision is something that our Western values cannot accept, and our ideas of universal human rights are inherently bias towards our own culture's views of what is, and is not, fundamental. We can argue that there are some basic things shared by all people, such as murder being evil, but where does that put "honour killings"?

I do realise that I am simplifying things, but, like it or not, our "enlightened" values demand us to reject parts of other cultures.


(Which is why I don't actually agree with exporting democracy etc. I don't want to tell other cultures:
"It doesn't matter about the colour of your skin, you can still be white inside! Please bring your food, festivals, language, and pretty costumes, just as long as you change to our system of values! You want to be free, you just don't know it!"
But I am over-simplifying again :P)

[nicholii.livejournal.com]

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.

I actually disagree with this strongly. There is certainly an argument for saying that only the individual can say whether something is personally insulting/abusive/discriminatory.* But the thing is that different people who experience Xism are going to have different views of it. So how can you define Xism as anything but how society overall views it? Of course this doesn't give me a right to personally say whether something in general is Xist, but in this case no individual can. But I can certainly say that I feel that someone is being cruely Xist towards me, even if society doesn't agree.


* Though at this point there comes the question of whether society is allowed to have certain expectations of how sensitive the average person is. Am I allowed to think someone to be an over-sensitive wimp if they aren't to takee the amount of criticism I think is reasonable and fair?

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Without wanting to engage with Nick right now, because on first skim I think he's wrong in important places but I am in an extremely foul mood right now...

I think there's scope for non-X people to judge something IS Xist, it's just a dodgy position from which to say something ISN'T. Also, re: apologies: I do get to decide whether an apology is adequate for *my* offense. Because, for example, I may not be black, but I find racism personally offensive, especially the brand that assumes that because I'm white I won't have a problem with it.

To hell with that.

[melberon.livejournal.com]

I believe that "have a nice cup of toughen the fuck up" should be considered an adequate apology for any form of offensive speech.

[v01d3d.livejournal.com]

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.

Having actually convinced women who were convinced that something was sexist that it wasn't I disagree. Broadly speaking if someone is discriminatory towards someone else because of X that is Xist and sure there are some cases in which a person with more experience as X or with Xism can say something is or isn't but I think if someone says "you are dumb because you're a woman" even though I'm a man I can say that that is sexist. Speaking as someone who has experienced racism I disagree If someone who has not can explain to me why something I took offence to is not offensive in a rational way then I can be conviced this is the case. I think people are too willing to let people use their emotions as an arguement.


"What do the people who experience Xism and were hurt in the first place think?".
What because they all will have the same response? I think not.

[edible-hat.livejournal.com]

Whever I see an icon with stick figures, especially one I know is made from an XKCD strip, I over over it to see the alt text.

[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.