White Pride and White Nationalism

[columbus]

Again, I'm conceding to you because I cannot readily define White culture, but I'm not the best person to define White culture.

I would bet that you could do a better job than most Usonians because you are more bi-cultural than most of us.
It's like being bilingual. You can better describe either one than someone who only learned one.

But something you may not grasp, having grown up here, is that there is no white culture. Here in the USA, white people are a mixture of many European cultures plus other ones like African and indigenous. You are from an ancient culture, even if you identify with Usonian.
It gets messy in a place like this, especially with our history of violence and oppression.
Tom

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Again, I'm conceding to you because I cannot readily define White culture,

That's the point of the thread. No one can. In America generally a white person (and even black, but that's besides this specific point) will be quiet different from region to region, from coast to coast. They even talk differently. In Europe, it varies from nation to nation, with even their own region variances within the larger nation. My ancestral pride is knowing the Celts and Germanic tribes were a thorn in the side of the Romans, but everything else is minute, heavily diluted, and really not claimable, so no French, British, Dutch, Russian, Italian, or any others for me.
But the majority of black people in America don't get to be that specific, because for the most party they know, at best, they came from some part of Africa. Thus it is a pride of community and forming a post-African heritage where very little of their heritage actually survived.

 

[psychoslice]

Still I'm proud, wouldn't have it another way.

 

[suncowiam]

That's the point of the thread. No one can. In America generally a white person (and even black, but that's besides this specific point) will be quiet different from region to region, from coast to coast. They even talk differently. In Europe, it varies from nation to nation, with even their own region variances within the larger nation. My ancestral pride is knowing the Celts and Germanic tribes were a thorn in the side of the Romans, but everything else is minute, heavily diluted, and really not claimable, so no French, British, Dutch, Russian, Italian, or any others for me.
But the majority of black people in America don't get to be that specific, because for the most party they know, at best, they came from some part of Africa. Thus it is a pride of community and forming a post-African heritage where very little of their heritage actually survived.

American black history does not go back to Africa as the name suggests. It celebrates great Black Americans. Why can't White Americans do this without being perceived as being racist?

This is obviously a double standard. Let me focus on double standards. IMO, this is the root of racism and inequality. It is very ironic and troublesome, at least to me, that we using a double standard to prevent more racism.

Cultures can be very arbitrary. Just because I couldn't define a specific culture doesn't mean it does not exist. Any individual and population should be able to define their culture. My Vietnamese culture in California is much different than the Vietnamese culture say in Texas and then definitely different from Vietnam. I'm sure most Vietnamese from the mainland would argue that my Culture is American and not Vietnamese, but I would argue that it is not entirely American. I do many things Asian and then many things American. I have my own culture and I can be proud of that. How I label it is simply arbitrary and, frankly, is the cause for meaningless debates.

Look through the labels before jumping to conclusions, is all I'm saying.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

American black history does not go back to Africa as the name suggests.

That's pretty much what I said. The difference between a European-descended white American who typically doesn't have too look hard to find where they are from because their ancestors came here as people, compared to black Americans who typically can't find such things out because their ancestors came as property and inventory.
And, white people can do that. But calling it "white pride" is silly, embarassing, and pointless, because white people as a whole aren't all the same, we haven't had the same struggles, and other than butchering each other in centuries we don't have much that is in common ancestrally. It also ignores the fact that not all white people have had it easy in America, such as the German and Irish immigrants who themselves were looked down upon by other white people, even considered somehow fundamentally different from the more mainstream white Protestant American. Black people are also, technically, no different, but the real and key difference is their immense difficulty in knowing if they came from Nigeria, Cameroon, or Sierra Leone. Thus, they have "black pride" because it's often impossible to have a communal identity more specific than that, unlike German, Irish, or even Chinese immigrants group who came here, faced difficultly, and formed their own communities, instilling their cultural norms and values into their children.

Any individual and population should be able to define their culture.

Yes, that is true. But I've also gotten to travel around a bit, enough so that I know white people in Indiana don't necessarily act or talk like white people in Tennessee, or Maryland, or other regions.

 

[suncowiam]

That's pretty much what I said. The difference between a European-descended white American who typically doesn't have too look hard to find where they are from because their ancestors came here as people, compared to black Americans who typically can't find such things out because their ancestors came as property and inventory.
And, white people can do that. But calling it "white pride" is silly, embarassing, and pointless, because white people as a whole aren't all the same, we haven't had the same struggles, and other than butchering each other in centuries we don't have much that is in common ancestrally. It also ignores the fact that not all white people have had it easy in America, such as the German and Irish immigrants who themselves were looked down upon by other white people, even considered somehow fundamentally different from the more mainstream white Protestant American. Black people are also, technically, no different, but the real and key difference is their immense difficulty in knowing if they came from Nigeria, Cameroon, or Sierra Leone. Thus, they have "black pride" because it's often impossible to have a communal identity more specific than that, unlike German, Irish, or even Chinese immigrants group who came here, faced difficultly, and formed their own communities, instilling their cultural norms and values into their children.

Yes, that is true. But I've also gotten to travel around a bit, enough so that I know white people in Indiana don't necessarily act or talk like white people in Tennessee, or Maryland, or other regions.

Not all white folks want to celebrate their ancestral roots of being slave owners or oppressors. Not all white history is about racism.

If we do meet folks that celebrate such things like the alt right folks, then, yeah I'll be first in line to condemn them. Let's just not assume because they're white and celebrating their own history, that they are racists. This is just jumping to conclusions and the very same process that we use for other races to label them as criminals or thugs.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

We could all use a little more humility and empathy, and lot less pride.

Also, thank you once again English for having a widely used word that has so many connotations that it's rendered virtually useless for clear, effective communication.