Comment by quinnchr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by quinnchr | Hacker News Reader

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People do say they are proud to be white all the time, just in a different way. I hear "I'm proud to be Irish!" all the time. The thing is "white culture" isn't really a thing, "white culture" is simply the dominant culture in our society that we tell other cultures they should adapt to.

No one is saying white people can't be proud of their heritage. They can be proud, and they do celebrate their heritage all the time. Acknowledging someone's race isn't extending racism, it's embracing them and their culture.

To be honest I used to think similarly, I never got why people had to be proud of their race, or why it was part of their identity. Eventually I realized it's because the dominant culture is white, I don't have to ask myself what it means to be white or what it means to be american. It is part of my identity, I just have the luxury of not having to think about it.

Anyway, I would highly recommend watching "The Color of Fear", it changed my mind on a lot of stuff I'd never thought about critically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vAbpJW_xEc

Of course there isn't a "white culture" because people are not homogenous in their customs by their skin color alone. Finnish culture is separate from Polish culture is separate from American culture and so on.

Black culture isn't a thing, either. What, you think all people have the same traditions and customs because they have a common skin color? What idiocy. What frivolity. What (inadvertent?) racism.

Being overly attentive to race is not an embracing of their culture. It is a fallacy, a misunderstanding of how the world works under the lens of this Western postmodernist narrative that people as an entire superficial group are responsible for misdeeds of their ancestors, whom they share no relation to whatsoever beyond their whiteness.

You're not embracing culture. You are erasing culture with your narrow, Western-centric guilt narrative where everything works in binaries. That being black dictates a common culture, and that Irish people have no culture, because they're white.

You sound like a racial nationalist.

Ummm, I kinda explicitly pointed to the Irish having a distinct culture that people celebrate.

And where did I say people are responsible for the misdeeds of their ancestors? You definitely aren't responsible, but you do benefit disproportionally from a long history of oppression. You shouldn't feel guilty, but you should be aware of it.

Nor was I saying we should be overly attentive to race, I'm simply saying that acknowledging someone's race isn't racist. And I hate to break it to you, but yes people do have a shared experience based on their skin color. Whether you're black and 8th generation American, or you're from Africa, there is a shared experience in the way you are perceived and treated in a society dominated by "white culture."

You sound like every defensive white dude ever who can't handle the fact that just maybe our society is built around us. You are the one who is erasing culture.

Seriously watch that video I linked (better yet, watch the whole movie).

Everyone benefits from the oppression of others in some way. Everyone who participates in consumer culture: white, black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. are benefiting from it. I'm not a special case.

To say there is a "shared experience" between all people of the same skin color is completely ignoring cultural and socioeconomic rifts that are present in the equation. There is common ground between subgroups, but ultimately, what you're speaking about reeks of an ethnic nationalism.

Is our society built around white people? Western society? Yes, most likely. It's hardly surprising when it has a predominantly white racial makeup.

Good to know I'm a defensive culturally erasing white dude for not buying into a narrow and binary white guilt narrative where some 80% of the world's population is under a homogenous yoke, that is inconsistent with how the world works at large. Some history lessons might do you well, I believe.

I saw the video. All I saw was an emotional man yelling out a black nationalist argument, largely as a reaction to how he may have been personally mistreated.

The modern world was invented in a cosmopolitan Europe. I think we should recognize that and preserve the best parts of that legacy, and yes, even be proud of it.

I don't buy into the whole white-guilt complex

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