How do African Americans feel about white American culture?

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mujun

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I've always wondered this.

I get the feeling that most? many? almost all? only a small percentage? try to avoid it.

Between music, movies, TV, etc the overall impression I have is that African Americans feel that they are better off sticking with entertainment, media, etc made by other African Americans.

Do you avoid books written by white people? Only vote for black politicians?

What about video games? Movies? Restaurants? etc?

I'm asking out of interests sake. I don't think either way is better than the other and firmly believe that provided what you do doesn't hurt others then you should live your life what ever way you want to.

I hope this thread is just people answering the question and not people judging how others choose to live their lives.
 
Minorities can't really avoid white culture, if they did then they wouldn't be on a video game message board.
 
mujun said:
I've always wondered this.

I get the feeling that most? many? almost all? only a small percentage? try to avoid it.

Between music, movies, TV, etc the overall impression I have is that African Americans feel that they are better off sticking with entertainment, media, etc made by other African Americans.

Do you avoid books written by white people? Only vote for black politicians?

What about video games? Movies? Restaurants? etc?

I'm asking out of interests sake. I don't think either way is better than the other and firmly believe that provided what you do doesn't hurt others then you should live your life what ever way you want to.

I hope this thread is just people answering the question and not people judging how others choose to live their lives.
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Well I can only speak for myself but I don't really care about "white" culture I would just prefer equal representation across all boards of media whether they be PoC or other minorities.
 
I'm a white dude and I honestly don't know what white culture is.

That isn't to say I'm downplaying racial differences or am against equal representation in media, but I legitimately don't know what it is, haha.
 
I wonder how those gays experience things made by straight people. Like do they even ENJOY the stuff? Can they? Is it possible? I don't know.

And what about them there Moslemz? Do they celebrate Christmas? Do they know of it?! Probably not.

Seriously, people do what they wanna do. Not everything they enjoy is contingent on one aspect of themselves.
 
Lebron said:
Paul Mooney was right
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tumblr_m4ygzfSxii1r33r0fo1_r1_500.gif
 
you mean irish american? swedish american? german american? southern american? northern american?

you gotta be more specific OP!
 
Fracas said:
I'm a white dude and I honestly don't know what white culture is.
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Seems harder to define since it's more or less the "default" of American pop culture. It takes something extraordinary to really make people think "wow, this is so white". Like... that's the feeling I got when I was exposed to Vampire Weekend.
 
I'm not black but I highly doubt the average black person prefers only watching movies made by other black people, besides I'm not sure why every movie or book made by white people can only speak to other whites, the fact is that experiences by white people aren't always a world apart and can't speak to minorities.

Besides, only playing video games or eating at restaurants made/run by other african americans? What? I mean maybe like an indie team but what game studios are there made up of all black people?

I feel like you really didn't think your question through, unless you segregate yourself off from the entire world and really limit your media exposure on purpose there is no way people live without being exposed to media produced by white people.
 
I think you're over thinking it. I'm black but I don't actively avoid books written by white people, mostly because I typically don't pay that much attention to the author.

Also, what's white culture? Like alternative rock or something? Because I do listen to Green Day.
 
You're talking about Go-Gurt and stuff? That stuff is basically candy. It's all artificial.

You want some Greek or Bulgarian white culture. That's the real stuff.

Total-Fage-cup.gif


Of course, with how many of these high quality yogurt brands are making their stuff in upstate New York nowadays, you might have an argument in saying it now belongs to America as well.

Anyway, these white cultures are really healthy and everyone should appreciate them, including African Americans.
 
Fracas said:
I'm a white dude and I honestly don't know what white culture is.

That isn't to say I'm downplaying racial differences or am against equal representation in media, but I legitimately don't know what it is, haha.
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Nascar, hunting and shit like that?
 
Whenever I think about the concept of "insert race here" culture, I think back to reading an article about black metal fans in a US city (Detroit?), and it makes me realise how daft a concept it is. Even saying "white culture" out loud sounds stupid, so why are the terms "black culture" and "asian culture" used all the time?
 
ISOM said:
Other than redneck, mid west and southern culture it's really hard to pinpoint what is white culture.
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As an Alabama native, thank you for separating redneck and souther culture from each other. However, Southern culture can't really be called a "white culture" due to a lot of it, in particular food, coming from the black community. That may be getting off-topic though.
 
Maybe the OP is relating to the fact that white people aren't allowed to use certain styles or music types as it is black culture and they are appropriating it and get told off for doing so.

Maybe if cultural segregation is taken to the nth degree then people will not partake of white culture.

Is that it?
 
KmA said:
I wonder how those gays experience things made by straight people. Like do they even ENJOY the stuff? Can they? Is it possible? I don't know.

And what about them there Moslemz? Do they celebrate Christmas? Do they know of it?! Probably not.

Seriously, people do what they wanna do. Not everything they enjoy is contingent on one aspect of themselves.
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Obviously I didn't make my question clear enough.

I realize that there isn't really such a thing as "white culture". I know that given the racial makeup of the States it's almost impossible to avoid people of other races.

I'm also not talking about representation in media, etc.

Remove all the stuff that is subjective like personal taste. Does that fact something is made by white people, depicts mainly white people or portrays a mainly white person's perspective detract from its appeal?

Once again I'm not trying to spark some debate on the subject or a chance to make value judgements.
 
I don't even think about it. Nor would I try to avoid something or some sort of media just because it was considered 'white culture'.

I don't think about that nonsense lol. I like what I like.
 
Here's a thing for you OP, white people don't actually identify themselves as white, so white culture don't exist.
 
When I think "white culture" I think of two extremes.
1: Rednecks. WalMart, fat people, racism and hunting. And Jesus. And Republicans.

2: Trust funds, hedge fudge managing, yachts, golf, ivy league schools, and Republicans.


Also, this thread title reminds me of my Hispanic life and how it's not even part of the conversation.
 
I don't read fiction written by white people, 12 years of school filled that quota for the rest of my life. I'll read non-fiction written by white people.

I watch tv shows/movies with white people on the rare occasion that I watch tv or movies. Mostly watch foreign movies though so it's different.
 
Mr.Swag said:
When I think "white culture" I think of two extremes.
1: Rednecks. WalMart, fat people, racism and hunting. And Jesus. And Republicans.

2: Trust funds, hedge fudge managing, yachts, golf, ivy league schools, and Republicans.


Also, this thread title reminds me of my Hispanic life and how it's not even part of the conversation.
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1: racism culture, old fogs culture

2: 0.01% culture. Totally "white", like the senate is representative of all americans.
 
I would assume people are okay with it the same way anyone should be okay with any culture or diversity (except the negative aspects). But they are probably sick of EVERYTHING in media/ or whatever being seen through this slanted/biased world view of white culture. Dominate cultures often get pushed on everyone, and as a result many things are going to be slanted towards it.

So people probably want more diversity and representation. Which I think is fair.
 
CrazyDogg77 said:
Personally I just can't relate to white culture. What with the mayonnaise, country music, and not using wash cloths.
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EDIT: I guess this was a joke post. My bad. I can't ever read sarcasm. I'll still leave my post below though, as I do think it's a valid point.

That's a sub-set culture. Plenty of white people don't like those things. I don't like Mayo or country music. No idea what you mean about wash cloths. I guess this is the problem of trying to define "white culture" since the West is so massive, that white people (like all people) are extremely diverse between state to state, region to region.

So this is going to be kind of a tricky thread/discussion IMO.
 
I think it's difficult to define "white culture" in America. Even if one only focuses on popular media and art consumption, even that will vary wildly not just between regions and age groups, but within them as well. Immigration also has to be considered; many immigrants to the US are white.

Comedians and satirists have the tendency to distill the concept down to the WASP or preppy, middle class stereotypes that have been prevalent since the 80's. But that only targets a very small and shrinking subset.
 
I think it's important to support the black community/African-American endeavors, but me personally....I've never straight up avoided a product just because it was made/created by a white person.
 
CrazyDogg77 said:
Personally I just can't relate to white culture. What with the mayonnaise, country music, and not using wash cloths.
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I don't understand the bolded. If you cover yourself in a thick layer of mayonnaise the dirt doesn't even have a chance of touching your skin. Using a wash cloth will just remove the protective layer of mayonnaise.
 
Mr.Swag said:
When I think "white culture" I think of two extremes.
1: Rednecks. WalMart, fat people, racism and hunting. And Jesus. And Republicans.

2: Trust funds, hedge fudge managing, yachts, golf, ivy league schools, and Republicans.


Also, this thread title reminds me of my Hispanic life and how it's not even part of the conversation.
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Not intentionally.

I pretty much only listen to hip hop and have been for twenty years or so. The opinions put forth by the artists runs the gamut from "whitey is the devil" to those who don't seem to discriminate one way or the other.

That's why I asked. I live in Japan and although I'm white, I'm not from the States so I don't really hang out with anybody who could give me a good idea of what the general consensus is.
 
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