In the article “WHITE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE ETHNIC” by Pamela Perry the author states that the lack of white "culture" is a compelling argument about culture, and if you are white, you are not obligated to be aware of your own culture. The author interviewed two high school students, both being white. One of the students went to high school in a predominantly white neighborhood. The other went to a high school in a racially diverse neighborhood with not as many white people. The author found that in a white school, white culture is naturalized, meaning that students do not doubt what white means to them. For the students who went to the white minority school, they had to ask themselves what it meant to be white. Children from white …show more content…
schools find it difficult to define what is white. Most children describe there being social groups, those popular and those not suitable for what is considered normal, but nothing goes beyond. At the minority white school, the children realize that they are different from other races in their interests, music, and clothing.
But for both of these two schools, students were unable to define what white is. Many students said that white culture did not exist. White students believed to be white there is no common characteristics. They were not aware of what their cultural backgrounds were. They believed they came from Europe but they had no reason to know their own culture. The article states that “if at one time Western Europeans had to define themselves as cultural to set themselves apart and superior to “savages,” today, with much of the world “civilized” under Western domination, whites must claim a new and higher rung—the post-cultural—to maintain their privileged status." To claim proudly that they do not associate themselves with a culture is only a behavior found in white people, which they use to raise themselves to a more privileged position than others. The author states that culture is normal and results of culture is normal and not unreasonable. White culture is defining it individually. They believe themselves. They do not believe they have their own culture. They are unlike other cultures where they must follow …show more content…
rules. To them, because of the rationality of white cultural ideas, a rational emotional culture is only worth being regarded as inferior and underdeveloped. The main point of this article was that white people had no relationship or loyalty with their European descent and culture. They have no traditional and/or historical attachments to their identity. They do not believe that they must carry on traditions from their family. They have no continuous past meaning. They do not have the culture to measure their race. They have rationalization, their whiteness embedded as western ideology and vale. White people apply scholarships called “bounds” that define whiteness. They need a culture to earn this scholarship. White people define themselves as being without a culture. Their behaviour is just human nature. The author went to a high school to interview students of different races about their own cultures. Those students said they wanted their parents to respect who they were. They do not need to follow their parents’ rules for their culture. In the article, the author mentions that “Clavey whites demarcated white culture and identity boundaries through their popular cultural tastes and leisure activities, they also imagined whiteness as cultureless, as post cultural. This was not as explicit as it was at Valley Groves.” White meant that white culture reflected their identity in popular culture. They can imagine themselves as white but no culture as post-cultures to their own. The one in Valley Groves was not clear in defining white culture. White people had to call other races but the race did not have to be white to understand the call. In the conclusion, the article showed that race and whiteness scholars understand. The construction of white culture as one of the invisible norms is one of the most, if not the most harmful, white constructions. White meaning to white people said that whiteness is hegemonic, therefore, unchallenged and undefined. In order to break the white culture of insidious forces, white people must try to challenge and transform the principles. They must try to go beyond culture and post-culture to reveal who they are. White people are indifferent about their lack of culture. The Caucasian identity of the variability and the white process race dominates and replicates in different contexts. White people get to decide who they are as they do not need to subscribe to any culture but their own. They are allowed to figure out what they need to do on their own.
In my own experience, it is similar to this authors. White people choose to be their individual. They do not feel the need to be traditional and follow their ancestors. They create their own. They have no culture because they are white. I feel the same, though, sometimes I feel I do not need to follow my traditional culture. I wonder why I need to learn about them. I do not really look like I will follow my culture. Sometimes, I do not want to follow my Chinese culture. Sometimes you will see some Chinese people with cultural skills but no education. Sometimes Chinese people are in the news for peeing on the street. I feel embarrassed for associating with them. I just want to be myself. Some people see you as your culture. They will think that I do the same thing as other people. It is okay to be yourself and not follow all your rules. I do need to learn my traditional education at school but I do not learn old Chinese traditions. I feel like they do not make sense. Also, I did not have any freedom in China. I was not able to speak badly about the government. They spy on every citizen. If they find you saying something bad, you will be put in prison. Sometimes culture does not make you who you are. You are the one to decide that. Sometimes it is not beneficial to learn about it. It depends on your person. What does culture mean to me? I have to learn Chinese tradition and pass them on. When it is the Chinese
new year, everyone needs to follow the rules to develop into a young adult. When I came to America, I saw some American Chinese people that did not follow their traditional ways. They believe they are not related to this. They do not want to be part of this. They want to be who they are. They do not follow the rules their parents gave to them. I relate to them. I want to create my own person. I want to learn culture only if I am going to pass them on. I want to figure out who I am. I am my own human being. I do not need to know too much Chinese culture for my future. I like to be me.
Everyone has an ethnic background, whether it is Chinese or European, we all come from somewhere. Barbara Ehrenreich has come to the conclusion in her article “Cultural Baggage” that the race and religion of our ancestors should not be what defines us. While she agrees that everyone has different roots, she shows the reader that you do not have to be defined by your roots and that the traditions do not have to be followed.
The term “ethnocentrism,” meaning the sense of taken-for-granted superiority in the context of cultural practices and attitudes, described the way Europeans looked at their “culture” as though they were superior to all others. Westerns even stated that non-Westerns had no culture and that they were inferior to the culture that was building in Europe.
“vulnerable to manipulate” and that it is “more often than not a willful ignorance and acceptance of stereotypes.” Bissoondath’s article discusses through examples of two men who are very friendly, who make unconscious insensitive remarks that are based on stereotypes. He also goes on to describe
My research is in response to the essay “Culture Baggage” by Barbara Ehrenreich on page 298. In her writing, Ehrenreich discuses on language, race, and ethnicity and how it applies to cultural baggage. Ehrenreich points out that there were many of other people who already knew of their beliefs and culture and they stood proud for their roots and in heritage, as she slouched back into her seat as if she knew nothing about her culture or where she really were from. Culture refers to the learned and shared behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, values and material objects that characterize a particular group or society. Which is a group of people who share a culture and a defined territory, however society and culture go hand in hand neither
McIntosh’s idea of whiteness as a subconscious race that carries its own advantages can enlighten why Anzaldua feels like she needs multiple languages to identify who she is as a person. Because of this standard that has been so widely accepted throughout society, people coming to the US experience a feeling of needing to belong, of needing to become the typical white family. Anzaldua and her fellow Chicanos’ experience of being “required to take two speech classes.to get rid of [their] accents” supports McIntosh’s idea. When students go to school and they have some trait that isn’t “American,” they are often required to put in extra effort to either change or get rid of that trait, whether it be an accent or belief.
“Our own culture is often hidden from us, and we frequently describe it as “the way things are.”” People do not even realize their own cultural identity, so then how do people know what shapes it? A person’s identity is shaped by cultural experiences that make them into the person they are today. Some of these experiences include someone’s parents, the media, and where they grew up.
In the article White Silence, White Solidarity, the author is an Euro-American and an educator of multicultural education. What she thinks of multicultural education is a fiend that she criticizes as skirting around white racism, and celebrating the European ethnic immigrant experience. She thinks that white people of their common whiteness or the privileges gained from white racism and they fear losing material and psychological advantages when they screen out the color of people. She also states that white people learn to talk about race-related issues through several communication strategies. First, they equal racism with individual prejudice and personal ignorance, which allow them to assume every group is racist, and to avoid acknowledging the differences in power and privileges between whites and groups of color.
As the author in Chapter 9: Culture and Education mentioned, “culture is not a given, but a human creation ”. Culture can change over time through human activities. People interact with people with other cultural groups to share their own languages, skills. Therefore, we, as a value exist, has the abilities to be producers of culture. However, Nieto considered culture can be influenced by Social and Political elements. Dominant social groups in a society often determine what counts as culture. A dominant cultural group such as White, they can determine itself as the norms of society, and people from other culture as “culturally
Some people may still think that being from a certain culture is strange due to the way that a person dresses, acts, or portrays themselves. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine how they may feel. They may be the only person out of all their peers from a different background. Culture should not be the foundation of life’s choices but, instead should be the opportunity to change minds for the good of
One way to distinguish a person from the billions of other people in the world is by looking into their ethnicity. Ethnicity may be simplified as just a person’s origin, but arguments have been made that there is more to the world. Joane Nagel, author of “Constructing Ethnicity”, writes about what makes up the word ethnicity along with its uses in social and political spectrums. Nicholosa Mohr also writes about the different perspective of ethnicity and the way people embrace them in her writing “The English Lesson”. From reading both texts, it is possible to make the argument that Mohr’s text supports Nagel’s ideas on the fluidity and situational nature of ethnic identity in the United States. Mohr finds themes from different scenarios in the classroom that can perhaps correspond to many of Nagel’s ideas and theories about ethnicity.
Anzaldúa mentions, “It is difficult for me to break free of the Chicano cultural bias into which I was born and raised, and the cultural bias of the Anglo culture that I was brainwashed into adopting” (Anzaldúa, 1981, 207). In this quote, Anzaldúa reaffirms the fact that she has difficulty leaving her Chicano cultural bias for internal reasons and the cultural bias of Anglo culture for psychological reasons. Based on this quote, Anzaldúa does not identify as white because she believes that the cultural bias of the Anglo culture was mentally instill in her since childhood. Anzaldúa holds a feeling of pride in breaking free from her Chicano cultural bias and she does not identify as white because she was brainwashed into adopting Anglo cultural biases such as adopting their language, and customs. Hence, Anzaldúa’s lack of identification makes it difficult or impossible to create a connection with white
A person 's beginnings do not completely define a person, but it does serve as a permanent foundation from which their identity is built around. As children, we absorb every sight and experience like porous sponges. Family, religion, environment, culture -- all of these aspects slowly form the background of one 's identity. As an Asian American, this identity is very different from that of a native Chinese woman 's, for I have parts of both cultures within me. It is a unique identity which I believes acts as a double edged sword. Being born into two cultures is a wonderful in that one can be a part of two cultures, but it is also a very confusing to be "divided" between two very different cultures.
Having a strong foundation is something that has been passed down from our ancestors post slavery, which was used to help my family form their ethnic identity as African Americans. Ethnicity refers to a social group’s distinct sense of belongingness as a result of common culture and descent (Organista, Marin, & Chun, 2010). This influenced my family to raise me with awareness of family structure, old fashion southern culture, and valuable beliefs that molded me into the woman that I am today. Along with my family’s ethnic identity, I also have my own self -identity, which is my identity as a mother and a student. However, my family’s ethnic identity along with my own self-identity was not always seen as socially excepted or
Culture can also shape individuals’ development of self, which also influence their behaviors. According to Smith (2014) an individual from Western cultures tend to develop independent self-construal which he or she tends to “strive for self-expression, uniqueness and self-actualization, acting autonomously based on his/her own thoughts and feelings, and pursuing his/her own goals” (p. 160). In contrast, an individual from East Asia tends to acquire interdependent self-construal where he or she tends to view “the self as closely connected to the social context” which he or she strive “to fit in and maintain harmony with relevant others, basing their actions and expectations and social norms” (Smith, 2014, p. 160). The different types of self-construal give rise
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.