If hypothetically it were, then no one would have a real problem with it. “White Pride” conjures images of KKK, Nazis, apartheid, neo-Nazis, trump supporters, and all kinds of distasteful groups, several of whom have used it as a slogan while killing people of other ethnicities. European pride would be different.
The other point is that the reason there are Pride events is because those subcultures don’t get daily exposure in the mainstream, whereas cis/het/white is the disproportionate majority in media and exposure.
Oh thank god I'm not the only one who thought that. I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but can't we stand above that? If we're this unable to take other people's opinions then we're not much better than him.
When the kkk expressed support for trump, he welcomed them. And the only neonazis I know are avid trump supporters. There is far too little condemnation of actual hate groups by trump and his supporters
I know many folks in what could be considered Nazi groupings and none of them truly like Trump. That's not to say what you said is untrue, just that it's a weird nuanced kind of hate.
The main reason they do not support him, for those who may wonder, stems from the thought of the Zionist Occupation Government. Many are also Third Position economic supporters being anti-capitalist and anti-communist. So his rampant pro-capitalist belief and support of Israel puts him in a bad spot with those who are more than simply racist but hold hardcore views about National Socialism in America and the Federal government.
Interesting, thank you. From this article it doesnt seem like its true, I'll keep looking though, for now I'll just assume that its false, though ill definitely do that with a grain of salt.
Ah yes, having certain political views means you’re a neo nazi. There are moderate people on both sides and extremists on both sides. Grouping them all together isn’t a very smart way to go about things. There are plenty of Trump supporters who acknowledge and look down on hate groups like the ones mentioned, but of course the media would never show that.
Not every Trump supporter is nazi but every nazi is a Trump supporter.
He said there were good people on the side of the nazis in Charlottesville. Trump welcomes the KKK and has welcomed them for a long time since he attended KKK parades with this dad Fred Christ Trump.
Basically if Trump’s racism wasn’t a deal breaker, you’re either ok with racism or you’re a racist.
Not quite true. Many of them dont like trump because they claim he hasnt lived up to his "promises". They think he's "soft" on minorities. This is straight outta Stormfront
I’m sure there are, but at the end of the day, trump panders to the hate groups and his supporters turn a blind eye to that. They’ve grouped themselves together.
Sure. People standing with trump puts my life at risk on multiple fronts in the way that the hate groups want. So it ultimately doesn’t matter why one is standing with Trump. Clearly their disagreement isn’t strong enough to make any real opposition to those policies if they still support him.
Not sure how your life is at risk, and Trump and his supporters are “monsters” until they step aside and your rights are taken away by the government and suddenly you’re living in a communist country.
I can’t figure out how to say no shit politely, but when critical thinking is put into place, agreeing with some of Trump’s policies doesn’t make you a neo nazi just because others don’t agree.
The hierarchy was largely white/non-white with the exception of East Asians getting put up near the top because of the alliance. Whatever the stated philosophy, the people of color always ended up at the bottom.
Neo-Nazis and white supremacists share a lot of similarities.
Unless you can make a very compelling argument as to why the respectful distinction of the degrees of pro-genocidal/segregationist racism is vital to the discourse, I’ll continue to lump all pro-genocide/segregation racists together.
Yes Neo Nazis, because they are so stupid they even got their stupid ideology wrong, but nazis had a different progression system for "white races"
Polish whites were considered less worth than german whites, or whites with desireable traits
Unless you can make a very compelling argument as to why the respectful distinction of the degrees of pro-genocidal/segregationist racism is vital to the discourse, I’ll continue to lump all pro-genocide/segregation racists together.
The distinction is important to me at least because it shows you just how nonsensical that idiology is as it was not just "I'm better because I'm white" but rather "I'm better because my eyes are 3mm further apart and I'm blonde, that's illustrating my superiority"
I think they mean the culture of black people whose ancesters came to the Americas as slaves, because there is definitely a distinct culture that has developed that is different from other African cultures on the continent.
However the claim they are making about asian pride is far fetched , it is too large a continent for any sort of unifying "pride" to exist. This post I think is wrong in it's conclusion, I think the real reason "white pride" is considered racist is because racist people use it.
No because we had our original heritage stripped and beaten out of us. You can trace a white American's ancestry back to find out what country their families emigrated from. You can't do that with most black Americans who are descended from slaves.
They forcibly removed our cultural heritage based on the color of our skin, then get upset that we united on the same basis.
You seem to be talking about ethnicity, not culture. Just because a white American is ethnically German or Italian, doesn’t mean they have any cultural link whatsoever.
Every slave had their culture erased. DNA tests weren't widely available back then, or in the subsequent few centuries, and so while it is an interesting tidbit now to get a test that tells me I'm "85% Northern African with 70% certainty," that's not exactly a basis for a new shared culture to celebrate. Even if I could precisely locate my country of origin, it's been a bit too long to consider their culture traditions any sort of meaningful part of my culture.
So we celebrate our shared history in America, which was determined by the color of our skin. That's why we have black pride.
Most white Americans are not descendants of that level of erasure. And it sure as hell wasn't black people that linked the phrase "white pride" to white supremacy. That was the white supremacists.
None of it changes the fact that white Americans do not share any culture with European ancestors.
I’m just unsure what you want them to do? You don’t want it called “American culture”, as that omits lots of Americans, you don’t want it called “white pride” because that’s used by white supremacists, it can’t be “European pride” because Europe is many different countries with individual cultures and they can’t all pretend to be proud of their German/Italian/Dutch culture because it’s not their culture.
It’s an honest question, in what way would it be permissible for a white American to show some pride in their culture? Is there a way at all?
White American culture is celebrated every single day. It is the dominant culture of this country. Again, it's not my fault that the phrase "white pride" has been taken by white supremacists. If you want it back, take it back, and make a movement that isn't about white supremacy. But just describe to me what that movement will look like, what aspects of white culture do you feel need more protection and attention?
I never suggested it wasn’t celebrated, nor that it need protection or attention.
White supremacists coined the term “white pride”, they didn’t take it
This post is about semantics. I’m trying to figure out the semantics of how a white American could vocalise pride in their culture. Currently it would seem there is no way for them to do so. It’s pointed out in an incredibly clumsy way in that god awful FB post, but I think there is something there.
.
Btw, it’s not my culture either. I’m not from the US.
I don't see why they need it. I've explained why black people need it, because the other options were taken from us. Whenever you see a club celebrating any ethnicity other than black Americans, you see it broken up into smaller factions within it that celebrate individual cultures. An Asian student club will include support Korean students, it Filipino students, or whatever. Again, black Americans don't have that option. We could have just as easily gone with "Slave Pride" but that probably didn't catch on, for obvious reasons.
I don't see what benefit is gained from a club celebrating white people as a single unit, other than as a means toward supremacy, unless it is formed specifically to combat that supremacy. And that's a form of white pride I guarantee damn near everyone would support.
Black pride is used to combat racial inequities perpetuated against us because of the color of our skin. White pride would be used for... what? If used for the same purpose it would be fine. But it never is. Sorry about the semantic difficulty, but it's really a minor struggle to overcome.
I’ll bite. I’ve got a Greek last name with mostly English and Irish genetics. I’m about as Greek, English, and Irish as most native born black Americans are African. I don’t really know what St. Patty’s day is about, nor do I have a connection to it like I imagine the Irish do. I don’t care if someone is Protestant or Catholic, and I don’t even know what my great grandparents were. I speak no Greek, and I take no afternoon tea. After a few generations in America, none of us really have our cultural heritage.
The tragedy of it all is that none of us had any choice in being born and in what manner. It’s a roll of the dice, a genetic mutation, and the luck of the draw for everyone. In this regard, “all men are born equal.” I used to be proud of my Greek last name until I lived outside of America. Now I think it’s silly to give any emotion to something in which I had no choice in the first place.
Because America prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, we care a lot about where you are “from,” as if it really matters. In a way, this ancestral focus helps maintain racial segregation as the status quo. White children become proud of their lineage while black children learn resentment for historical wrongs; both groups taking pride in something they really have no right to claim as their own. Why take pride in what your father, mother, and ancestors did? Take pride in what you do while you are here.
Everything you just wrote about your history is information you have freely available to you, that you choose to believe isn't all that important. Some people find it important, some don't, but you have that choice.
You might be about as culturally greek or Irish today as i am African, but at least your last name gives you a clue to your ethnicity should you choose to investigate. My last name is the name of a slaveowner. I could just as easily have the same last name as you, but which of us do you think is more likely to have their ancestors in Greece?
I don't know where my lineage traces back to, or even how long my family has been in America. I can't even find reliable records more than 100 years old. Even long after slavery ended, they didn't exactly care to keep reliable records of black people.
You can choose to ignore your ancestry. That's fine. I bet most people do. But black Americans don't have that choice. It was made for us. So then to try and trash us for taking pride in the one thing we do have in common, something that is at the core of our shared history and experience in this country? I just find that laughable. But it's why we are proud to be black.
I'm sure we would have assimilated just like everyone else if we came here willingly, but we didn't.
Yes and no sure every white person proudly tells you what they think their heritage is but few actually know genetically what exactly they are it’s like playing ethnic telephone through many many years to know they need a genetic test and by that same test any black American can know their exact heritage
In the U.S., the context of pride for minority groups has generally been a statement that just because we are different doesn’t mean we are less of humans for it. When it comes to white pride, the statement is white people are superior than others.
Being black in America is a different story than being white. Two big things:
Most black Americans descend from slaves where their histories were wiped out systemically. It is hard to keep your traditions when your children are sold off and you never see them again. There are many white Americans who don’t know their background, but that wasn’t done through a mass systematic effort.
When talking about black American culture, we aren’t talking about African cultures. We are talking about the culture here in the U.S. of black Americans. This culture was suppressed. The media was overwhelmingly white American culture. It was so bad that BET was a big deal. Most every other channel was (and still is) white culture. Take Hallmark channel, it is so white and no one would even think that when seeing it because it is so default.
Black Pride in the United States encompasses African Culture & Heritage because most African-Americans can't trace back their lineage to particular countries/regions due to that part of their history being erased from them.
Except there’s really no such thing as “African Culture & Heritage.” People from Morocco, Egypt, Congo, and South Africa have very, very, very little in common. And even with that, I’m being overly inclusive, because most African nations are random inventions of European monarchs. Even within a single country (like Kenya), you’ll find a number of distinct tribes with very different cultures of their own.
So you literally run into the same problem that the poster is mocking—saying that all Africans have the same culture and heritage is at least as dumb as saying all Europeans have the same culture and heritage. That’s just reality.
Well think about how many Irish, German, Italian, etc. Americans know very little about their own culture or traditions. In the Sopranos there is an episode where they visit Italy. Part of the identity of half of the gang is being Italian American, but over there they are the odd ones out. They embarrass their hosts and are laughed at as socially inept. That's America though. Every cultural group is removed from where they came from and eventually some of us lose it entirely.
For some reason Americans really can't be happy with their cultural identity being "American", the ones that actually know their lineage cling to it, and probably very incorrectly. The difference is that most Black Americans haven't a chance in hell of even doing that. Other Americans get to pretend to have a rich cultural heritage a few times a year but they are without that. If anything it seems that over the last 100 years this has led the Black Americans being one of the only groups with a strong American specific culture because they had to invent one from the ground up.
I agree with basically all of that. Most white Americans who think they know something about the cultural traditions of the cultures they claim descendence from are also wrong—either about the traditions, about their descendence, or about both.
Really go to ireland out of bigger cities and ask around, same can be said going around whole europe. We know our own cultures, each of them have there own festivals, traditions, folklora and so on. You just cant claim we dont know what we are.
The difference is african americans dont know where they came from, so they dont even have the option to exercise their distinct tribal culture. That option was destroyed via slavery through no choice of their own.
They had to recreate their own cultural identity which came to be African-american as a whole.
That isn’t a difference. I, as a white American, have no idea where my ancestors come from. That’s not uncommon at all.
Further, given that most black people have no real connection to whatever tribe their ancestors were abducted from, it’s hard to imagine they have any real connection with those cultures. It’s a bit like how, for one day in America, half the people are suddenly Irish.
I definitely DO agree that there’s a unique and relatively cohesive African AMERICAN culture. But that’s totally different than the “African culture” mentioned in the post this is all about. Which doesn’t exist.
It is a thing. Regardless of race. Even more so regardless of race given that so much of what might be deemed truly American culture has its roots in black American culture. Jazz and rock and roll as only two very easy examples.
while i agree that the post says african culture, which isnt a thing, i dont agree that white people are on the same boat. Whether you yourself feel it or not, you are the product of a culture that was inherited from generations descending from immigrant families. Each generation thereafter evolves away from their origin but there are multiple distinct branches which some people identify more strongly with and others dont (polish, irish, italian, etc etc)
African americans never had that, they all started from a blank slate. Thats why they evolved into a more cohesive and singular ethnic group within the US, rather than having subdivisions like white americans have. They also had to create that cultural identity from scratch, unlike asians or whites in the US.
Outside the US at least 90% of white Americans are seen as exclusively American in culture. From an outside perspective the subdivisions are completely irrelevant in the vast majority of cases
That’s actually not necessarily true. A lot of folks who came through major points of disembarkation (like Ellis Island) will find that the records flatly end there. The immigration people didn’t necessarily care where you came from and immigrants were occasionally counseled to lie, as immigration policies at different times favored immigrants from different places, so it would behoove you to say you were from there.
I’m not trying to host a “difficulty of finding ancestry” Olympics and crown a champion of having no data. I’m just pointing out that your comment suggests all whites people can find out and no black people can, and that’s wrong on both counts.
It's kinda like arguing with a stump tho. It's a bad faith argument "It's literally impossible to know where my great grandfather, jacob kowalcyzk, came from. We asked him but he only spoke polish"
Uhhhh maybe brazil? Uruguay? It's really a mystery. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Meanwhile black people can only tell who owned great great grandfather last by their last name.
How do you know? Lots of people do that. Where their genetic ancestry comes from, where their name comes from, matters to a lot of people.
It's also not that binary - you could identify as American, but be proud of your (let's say) Swedish ancestry. You could know a story about one of your great-great-grandmothers, a Swede, that makes you proud to be related to her, or that reminds you of your living family, and that connection could be meaningful for you. Lots of people, especially older people (who tend to be more interested in family history), have stories and feel connections like that.
A point being made in this thread is that most black Americans have absolutely no way to access that information, even if they try to.
Then he'd be the sort of person they laugh about over at r/shitamericanssay . Swedes would find it very odd that an American who does not speak Swedish, does not follow events in Sweden, has never been there, and does not participate in Swedish culture somehow identifies as Swedish-American based on genetics alone.
I live in Norway. I am only aware of my heritage all the way to my great grandparents, but if I should find out every single ancestor older than that is Spanish I would still 100% identify as Norwegian. As should Americans
Why should people behave that way? I think I'm a bit closer to this question than you are, as my ancestry is near 100% Irish, my parents were Irish, I was born in Ireland, but I grew up mostly in America and am a citizen of both. The US has perhaps the most stories like this of any country, which is why so many Americans relate to their ancestry. For many, foreign ancestry is extremely recent.
America is also not based on a particular historical ethnicity or linguistic group. Many immigrant families therefore feel a part of both America (ideologically) and, for instance, a European country (ethnically, culturally, historically). There are parts of America that were heavily influenced by particular immigrant communities - big cities are a bit obvious, but there were hundreds of small towns where the language of the town wasn't English. German towns in Texas, Italian ones on the east coast, and nordic ones up north.
This is all just to say that this is a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be, for a lot of people. I also don't understand the desire to draw a rigid box around "identiy" something that is incredibly hard to define and ultimately subjective.
You could equally question the lines drawn around nationality, ethnicity, religion, and any other category with which someone chooses to identify themselves. As I said, it's all very subjective, and decisions about how to identify yourself seem pretty hard to criticize without a lot of context, let alone as a sweeping rule.
I mean I have a great book showing where all my ancestors came from before America and basically it’s all of Europe.
Which European country’s culture should I choose to associate with? Or should I just stick to American culture as it’s the only one that’s been relevant to my family in the last several hundred years?
I would say that that's an entirely subjective call. If part of your family came from an ethnic minority, say they were Basque and were oppressed for that, or they were Ashkanazi jew, or they were Irish and fled during the famine, those stories of hardship that your family suffered in the last might be meaningful to you and you might want to have that reality be part of how you see yourself.
I'm not saying you would say "I'm Irish and not American" but you might say "I'm American and a little bit Irish, a bit Basque, etc." What would be wrong with that?
Yeah the only people who seem to care about those types of things are the ones who recently moved here.
My family has an excellent record book of all our ancestors. One of them is William Penn, showing just how long my family has been in America. My ancestors came from several European nations, meaning I don’t just have a single one to celebrate. I don’t know even know which would be most appropriate, prolly none of them.
Yeah, my family has been here for hundreds of years and thus we have zero ties to any other culture besides American culture. This is true for most Americans, even those who can track their ancestry perfectly
And even if true, the point I'm making is about the ability to find out if you choose to care at any point in your life. If you're white and ever choose to care, you can figure it out. If you're black, you can't.
You don't have to think that's the most important thing in the world, and you can say that it only matters to a few people, but you can also acknowledge that that difference exists.
For that minority (again, to go along with your assertion) of black people who care, it might be painful to have no way of figuring it out.
Oh piss off man. You’re ancestors weren’t slaves and had their history FORCIBLY removed from them. It sucks you don’t know your ancestors but I’m sure you have some ways to trace it.
That literally has nothing to do with anything I’ve said, but if you need your ticket punched for “today I totes stood up for black people apropos of absolutely nothing” then I’m happy to do it for you.
I have a book showing my exact family lineage for a substantial period of time. But it doesn’t matter at all because that was several hundreds years ago.
Also, my ancestors are from multiple different European nations, all with distinct cultures. The same would be true for most African American people, having ancestors from multiple different areas with totally distinct cultures that existed several hundred years ago.
It might not matter to you, but it matters to me. You’re very lucky to have a book that details so much of your family lineage. That’s a privilege I wish I had.
Sure, wanting to track your ancestry makes sense. I understand that. I can actually only do so for my Father’s side of the family, due to great record keeping being handed down from generation to generation.
But I hope you get what I meant. Even if one can track their ancestry with great detail, it doesn’t really tell them much other than “damn, I’m related to a fuck ton of people who came from all over the place”.
I don’t even know which European country’s culture should count as my own, as my ancestors are from several different ones. Should it be Welsh, German, French? Would it even make sense to celebrate their culture when none of their cultures have been taught to me by my parents?
So yeah, I get feeling robbed about being unable to trace your lineage. It’s quite interesting and awesome to do so. However, it’s unlikely to tell you anything about your culture unless your family recently immigrated.
As someone else pointed out, the difference between you not knowing and a black person not knowing is that you could do some research and figure it out pretty easily. I have a family member who does this for a living, specializing in people with Irish and English ancestry.
Most black Americans can't do that, because there never were records of their ancestors, because their ancestors were considered sub-human when they arrived.
While this may not matter to many people, there is a difference that I think we can agree to acknowledge between "it's not important to me and I don't care to find out" and "I could not find out even if I was intensely interested."
And as I pointed out to that person, that argument is factually wrong. You can read my response.
I will agree that there is a difference between “don’t care” and “couldn’t find out even if I wanted to.” But for the purposes of the argument made in the post we’re all reacting to, that difference isn’t important. My comment was limited to debunking the notion of a pan-African culture, which doesn’t exist now, hasn’t ever existed in the past, and is largely the invention of white people.
For sure, I think the post itself was unnuanced. I was trying to address your point, and I don't think we're disagreeing anymore so I'll leave it there.
The difference is you can easily discover your heritage. Your argument is bordering on that dangerous territory where you would be claiming disadvantage for being white. That ALWAYS comes off as weak and whiny. I hope that is not who you are.
As I pointed out to another commenter who made this point, that’s wrong. Many European immigrants can’t trace their roots either. So your all/nothing black/white argument is just factually wrong. I’d refer you to my other comment for some details.
I mean but nowadays white Americans can very easily trace back their heritage. Hell even 20 years ago white people could trace down their heritage easily through the vein of boat manifests and things of those sorts while black Americans (who aren’t from recently immigrated families) line was destroy completely
I mean, we know what countries slaves were originally captured in, and we can assume that most black people today probably aren't descended from just one tribe, just like there aren't many Italian-Americans that stayed Italian after more than one or two generations.
I'm not saying there wasn't a destruction of culture from the slave trade, but it isn't some unsolvable mystery either.
Obviously, you miss out on a lot using statistics to find your heritage: as a white American, I have the privilege to know who some of my ancestors were all the way back to the 17th century. All I'm saying is that you can narrow down black American heritage a lot further than "Africa".
What African culture do most american blacks have? None. As you said, they lost the lineage as well as any culture they had.
So how can black pride be called celebration of African culture and heritage? No, it's about unity of dark skin toned people opposing the treatment they get.
If your family kept the family name you can. Lots of Europeans can trace back their lineage through names alone. Maybe not all of them but certainly far more than slaves ever could.
Slaves were given names by their masters when they arrived in foreign lands. They didn’t get to bring their family’s history with them when they were forced onto boats.
What? Many whites in the US have grandparents, etc., who were immigrants.
Also, a white person in the US with the last name O’Brian can fairly easily guess where their family originated. A black person with the last name O’Brian, probably not.
Yet the American O'Brian will have more in common with the American Fitzgerald than he will with the Irish O'Brian. He has little if any Irish culture, he has American culture, which is ok.
The culture of black people in the US is also American culture, but is commonly referred to as "black culture" in Americentric circles, so why not label the culture of people of European heritage in the US by using the same logic?
Which American O’Brian? The black one will have less in common than either other in most cases.
There likely would be more specific heritage pride among black Americans, except that many have literally no way to find out from which specific region or country in Africa their ancestors were kidnapped. Meanwhile, Italian neighborhoods, Polish communities, etc., are still common.
I’m not even saying that the Polish communities here have that much in common with Poland necessarily. The only real things that have been maintained seem to be food and drink as often as not.
This is impossible with many (most?) Americans of African descent, as they were immediately integrated with one another, and ties to Africa were intentionally cut by the white ruling class. Also, it’s not as if we have only one black culture either. Black communities in Louisiana aren’t necessarily similar to ones in Virginia, but they do share African heritage, even if it has to be relearned or reimagined.
I’m not even really disagreeing with you, I don’t think. Just trying to give some perspective, maybe?
That explains why it is natural to use the term "black culture" in the US, though I do wish they would call it "American black" or something even domestically, but it does not give a reason for why also using skin colour as the common descriptor for the American culture of Americans of European heritage is racist, considering Americans calling themself Irish or Italian is more often than not seen as exclusively American by actual Irish and Italians. Just look at r/shitamericanssay for half a minute.
So what label do you use for the shared culture of Americans with European heritage? Simply calling it American culture seems excluding towards black Americans, but it is wrong to call it Irish and Italian when Americans of random European heritage have much more in common with each other than any European
Yeah, I’m glad that sub didn’t exist when I was younger and less introspective; we are definitely indoctrinated into a weird sense of superiority as kids. Or maybe I wish it had existed.
Anyway, there are PLENTY of Americans who just identify as American and don’t even know where their last name originated. It’s not as ubiquitous as it may seem, because only the “proud” ones talk about it, with some exceptions, usually in the first couple of generations after immigration.
I think “Caucasian” is still the PC term for people of European descent, but again, we weren’t forced to assimilate with one another as quickly as those of African descent were. I don’t have a good explanation for you, I guess. Just more dumb American stuff.
White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the chattel slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as North Africansand the Muslim world), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or the Viking's thralls). Slaves of European origin were present in ancient Rome and the Ottoman Empire.
On the European continent under feudalism, there were various forms of status applying to people (such as serf, bordar, villein, vagabond and slave) who were indentured or forced to labor.
Under Muslim rule, the Arab slave trades that included Caucasian captives were often fueled by raids into European territories or were taken as children in the form of a blood tax from the families of citizens of conquered territories to serve the empire for a variety of functions.[1] In the mid-19th century, the term 'white slavery' was used to describe the Christian slaves that were sold into the Barbary slave trade.
The modern legal term applies more narrowly to sexual slavery, forced prostitution and human trafficking, with less focus on the skin color of victims or perpetrators.
Btw... you attention wh*re. I cannot reply to all the comments as there is a time limit to comments. I have to wait to reply.
I didn't say it never happened, I said white Americans aren't the result of it. European/White people in other countries are by and large because of colonialism (when Europe took over those areas or dominated them in one way or another), almost never because they were enslaved like is the history for most African Americans.
Nope... not true. Last names have changed A LOT throughout the years. Also, purely last name does not tell you a lot.
That is just a poor argument too shit on whites.
Also, many of you morons forget that Europe had powerfuly countries that terrorised other smaller countires (Germany vs Poland; UK vs Ireland; England vs Scotland...). Basically, anyone who had power tried to destroy the weaker. No matter the continent and race.
Nobody is arguing that why did you bring the countries up and I'm White (Spanish) I have pride in my heritage. Also its pretty easy to find heritage from your last name.
That's not the argument however, the argument has to do with having pride in your culture and heritage,and why people call out obvious racism. Black pride has to do with having pride in being black despite the horrible history they have,they can't claim a specific culture because of slavery. While when it comes to white pride it's more associated with white supremacy , and it doesn't make sense to claim white pride when it's easier to figure out the specific country your ancestry is from and claim that culture. Example: my last name is garza it's Spanish, my friends last name is smith it's English. As you can see my friend and I can specifically figure out our cultures. While my black friend who's last name is Brown can't really claim a specific culture.
Like.. white pride is a known white supremacists thing.
I don't even understand why you're defending it so much. You look up white pride, you'll see literal Nazis, literal skin head, literal KKK members chanting it.
Are you even thinking this through? Just use basic common knowledge about the groups that use it as their actual motto.
Key word is roughly. You could find the farm your great whatever was born in. It's just facts, stop being a little bitch about it.
Like how inadequate must you be to wish you where some heritage less victim of oppression just so you can say white pride? Start by not being a growling little worm first.
Well.. the fact blacks use suffering of the slaves in the past as today's argument to be racist and whine about is just pathetic.
My ancestors were taken into slavery as well. I am a Croat and Ottoman Empire took the children and women from our countries to slavery for 800 years. Yet.. you don't see us being racist, whining and beating up the Turks on the streets today.
Stupid arguments just so you can shit on the whites. Bravo you arogant prick.
The difference, at least for blacks in America, is that many don’t know where they come from ethnically or have no roots to their homeland, so for many American Blacks (and other countries too) it’s not like they can exactly celebrate their country of origin. So instead, you have black pride.
Most American whites can trace their roots - maybe not the actual people, but the ancestry - because most white Americans ancestors were not forcibly brought to America and other parts of the world irrespective of their country of origin. From my friends that live in Rwanda and some other parts of Africa, Black pride isn’t really an ideology. You are proud of your country of origin or ethnicity, not being Black as a whole (only speaking from personal conversations, so this may not be 100% true.) The reason Black people were dispersed around the globe is in a large part due to the slave trade where they were treated a single way because of their skin color. No one stopped to judge them if they were Kenyan or Somali. This is very different for white people obviously. Sure the Italians and Irish were discriminated against (as well as many others) but it wasn’t based on their skin color, it was based on their country of origin.
The issue is that when a white American traces their roots, they won't find out "Oh, I'm Czech," they'll find out "Oh, I'm German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, British, Irish, and Czech." Still more exact than what most black people can do, but that brings me to the second point:
The slave trade was happening in a pretty specific region of West Africa. There were hardly any Ethiopian slaves being brought into the U.S, for example, if any at all.
Statistically, it's actually pretty unlikely that a person descended from only African slaves would have any Somali or Kenyan ancestry at all. Sure, you can't narrow it down as well as your average white person, but a black American can narrow down their ancestry a hell of a lot further than "Africa." You can at least be pretty certain in saying "Western Sub-Saharan Africa, north of present-day Namibia."
The issue is that white people who can’t trace their roots weren’t economically forced together as African Americans were/are, so it’s not like white people who can’t trace their roots in America have created a culture.
I mean, white Americans without specific roots definitely have created their own culture: it's called American culture. With the exception of a few areas on the coasts with strong immigrant populations, American culture is pretty much independent of a person's country of origin, and more dependent on the region of the country. Besides everybody landing on English as the common language, there really isn't much in American culture tied to a specific European nation.
That’s just called American culture not (white) American culture. Maybe a lot of Americans or Americans in those cultures are white, but that doesn’t make it white culture at all. Also, that homogenization may seem pretty true now, but even 20 years ago it much more evidently wasn’t. Ethnicity still defines a lot of communities, especially when it comes to their religion. There are many Greek Orthodox, Irish Catholic, German Protestant churches around.
Maybe so, but look at the people in those churches: they aren't particularly descended from the country listed in the name of the church. There are a whole lot more Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, and Roman Catholic churches around than any of those others. I'm sure there are also plenty of Ethiopian churches, but there are also a whole lot more AME churches.
All I'm trying to say is that for the vast majority of white Americans, the only part of their original ethnicity(s) that has any real effect on their lives is how easy their last name is to pronounce.
Anyway, if it's just "American culture," and not "White American culture," then why does it not also cover black, Asian, and Hispanic American culture?
I agree with that, mostly. But, when people were originally settling down in America, they definitely divided based on ethnicity and that leaves lasting impacts to this day on the culture.
Maybe that’s only geographic now, I.e. the culture of New Jersey was heavily influenced by the influx of Italians, so you see a lot more symbols of Italian culture regardless of if you are Italian or not, just by being from New Jersey.
I can trace my roots quite clearly and what I’ve learned is I’m related to a fuck ton of people who came from basically every country in Europe.
So I’m European-American. I could’ve fucking told you that without the great ancestry book my dad’s side of the family has.
Being able to trace your ancestry back many centuries doesn’t really give Americans a great clue about their culture, as it’s unrelated to the culture we have built in America.
Nope, discrimination is not ok. You missed the point. What I’m saying is that is why Italian pride or Irish pride is ok - those are cultures - but white pride isn’t because white is not a culture. Black pride is ok because, at least in America and wherever the slave trade was prevalent, being black has become a culture because they’ve been treated the same way regardless of ethnicity of which they may not even be aware.
Brother, I’m Irish and Italian American. My Italian grandfather was beaten to death by police for being Italian. I’m not minimizing the discrimination, I’m saying that the reason white pride doesn’t exist is because white people were divided by ethnicity in America and discriminated against based on that, while for Blacks it was simply based on skin color. They are different forms of discrimination and the reason Blacks are treated as a single group, but whites are treated as many different ethnic groups. So again, you can’t have white pride because whites were never discriminated against a whole. Groups of white people were based on their ethnicity.
That’s quite the mental gymnastics to discriminate against whites. Either skin color can be a source of pride or it can’t. Can’t have it both ways.
If you say African American I am 100% with you. You can say white pride isn’t ok and saying African American pride is ok. Or European American. Each developed a subculture inside America. Can Elon Musk be proud to be African American, of course he can. It just that people forget that African Americans don’t have to be black or mixed black-n-white, they can be white too.
But discrimination based on darker skin and being black is prevalent all around the world - even in many parts of majority black countries. It’s just not the same for white folks globally.
The truth of the matter is black people are treated differently (generally worse) because of the color of their skin. Oppression generally drives together a group of people and creates culture.
Also Africa is a continent so really there is no specific broad culture. Culture and groups are dictated by their experiences. Elon Musk obviously has drastically different experiences than most African Americans. Because discrimination against African Americans is not about being from Africa, its about having darker skin. That’s the difference.
I live in America and would be classified here as white. I’m from Europe but have lived here for years. I’m darker than many of my black friends (who I presume are mixed and black). Here I’m white and assumed to have a privileged upbringing. The reality is that I’m south European ethnically but was raised in Northern Europe. Most of my friends were much fairer and had lighter skin tone than I had. I was very much discriminated against, called slurs and so on. So to pretend that only blacks can be discriminated against is a false American view point.
Americans blacks had their culture ripped from them, they had families ripped apart. They had to make their own culture, separate from that of their owners. White Americans can celebrate American culture all they want, the only reason to celebrate white culture would be to do so in the face of non-whites.
Now I think someone could make a compelling argument about how having a black culture is counter productive, but black pride comes from a place of resistance, white pride comes from a place of oppression.
So why is it black pride and not African American pride? If someone decides morally you can’t have white pride then you also can’t have black pride. Either we say skin tone pride is ok or it isn’t. Can’t have it both ways.
That’s quite the assumption that black Americans represent the global black population at large. Hate to break it to you, but America is only 5% of the world’s population.
Because that's the only context where black pride is found and morally acceptable. Black Africans don't have black pride events, they have events for their culture.
In American, black people were reduced to their skin color and as such had to build a culture based on that oppression.
So black pride is about being a "Black American" but white people aren't allowed to identify as "American" if they can trace their ancestry, even if their family has been in Americq for so long all traces of any other culture have disappeared?
Yeah, how can you say that European pride comes in the form of different nations but say that all black people have a claim to "African pride?" There are thousands upon thousands of different nations and cultures in Africa, so grouping all black people into having "African pride" is kind of reducing all of Africa into no more than a skin color.
That's fair, but the guy also made the same point about Asian heritage. It's a lot easier for Asian Americans to trace back their origins, and yet he grouped them all into a single continent as well, which makes me think your point is not what he had in mind.
Very true. The post would be a lot stronger without that. Like you could make the argument that any minority culture has some shared experience of struggle, but there is not really like a unified "Asian culture"
I think the guy just tried too hard to respond directly to the shitty meme format. Like the meme itself oversimplifies it and then he tried to justify what doesn't really exist(people having Asian pride)
All good, but it still doesn't make any sense to be proud about you heritage if you don't even fucking know what that heritage would be.
Even then, beeing proud means you've achivieved something. Beeing born black is not that much of a challange. Surviving long enough to express your thoughts as a black person in the US... i can let that one count. But heritage? Nope.
I mean pride has a broad definition. Like celebrating the cultures and traditions you were raised in is fine. Pride in race or heritage on it's own verges on racial superiority and that's why people have a problem with white pride. There is no associated culture with "whiteness".
Hm. Maybe i'm a bit lost in translation here, i actually looked in up now in my own language and there the definition of pride isn't that broad. I can show you what google got me for the english version:
""1. a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
"the faces of the children's parents glowed with pride"
Ähnlich:
pleasure
joy
delight
gratification
fulfilment
satisfaction
sense of achievement
comfort
content
contentment
2.
confidence and self-respect as expressed by members of a group, typically one that has been socially marginalized, on the basis of their shared identity, culture, and experience.
"the bridge was lit up in rainbow colours, symbolic of LGBT pride"""
I have the feeling the second one is rather new and i wasn't aware of that. I don't really feel comfortable with it either, but in general i accept that words get new meanings as language is something that develops over time. Guess i just become old enough to feel conservative, at least in some things xD
Nevertheless, teling me there is no acssociated culture with whiteness but with blackness still sounds really ignorant to me. There are many many black people on this planet that are not living in america and never have been there. And they have their very own culture. Simply ignoring that and saying "There is no white culture but black culture is american!" is very... american.
Lmao, I never said that black american culture is the only black culture or that every black person is inherently a part of it. An immigrant from Nigeria will have a completely different life experience and cultural upbringing. I'm only using the American example because it's a very easy example of a place where black people fall under the second definition of pride, where they have a shared identity, culture, and experience.
I do appreciate you taking the type to look up and learn new definitions.
You didn't say it but... i mean... many people in this thread were like "Lol, there is no asian/white/african culture, only black culture!"
You seemed to go in the same direction.
And if black is somehow defined as exclusively black american people, that's something new to me that i not only couldn't find but definitly would oppose. It feels a bit like that story about 2 british guys visiting the US, one of them black. They talk to each other and the white calls the other black, then some american woman yells at them that he's not black, he's african american. And keeps insisting on it even when the black guy explains that he is neither african nor american nor both, just british.
When you say black pride is ok because they were brought to america as slaves, how is that different than saying white pride is ok because the brits suppressed them?
I mean it's just semantics at this point, right? Like in America, black has a specific cultural and historical association with it that doesn't make sense when applied to other countries and can erase the identities of people born in Africa. It's the "American" black culture, but like people in America just call it black culture and black pride. Also, that lady is obviously an idiot for not understanding that black people can be born and live in European countries. And as for the British thing, that's be Amercian pride, no? Like more of a patriotism thing, which is fine I guess (Independence day is literally american pride holiday)
For the brits i thought once more about the irish, actually, but sure, US would count as well.^^
And, yeah, it *is* semantics, but... meanings of words *do* matter. We can argue about how much and i don't consider them as important as some linguists and psychologists do, but i think everybody can agree that, well... describing something with certain words influences how anybody that listens thinks about it.
For american pride, or patriotism in general.... well, seeing it as fine is... ok i guess. I don't like it, though. Imho it doesn't make sense. You can hardly argue the US are marginalized by anybody, and considering it as a huge achievement to be born in a certain country... I do realize that *not* beeing patriotic is a rather german thing, but that doesn't make it wrong by default.
A german comedian once said: "I am so busy to be human, i hardly ever have time to be german." That fits my opinion about that topic very well.^^
Yeah, and there is nothing wrong with celebrating American culture (or midwestern culture, or any other regional with unique traditions and identities).
Of course not. That's probably the most relevant thing to be celebrating anyway.
IMO, the reason for black pride, or Muslim pride, or gay pride, or any other type of non-white pride is to celebrate that you've faced opression from members of the dominant group, and you aren't scared of them. That's the reason white pride shouldn't be a thing- not because you can replace it with German pride, but because there's nothing in particular about being white that one has to be proud about.
If the tables were turned, and white people were an opressed group, then maybe white pride could be appropriate. But that's not the culture we live in.
My point isn't that white pride should be a thing, it's simply that saying white people can just pick a specific European culture instead is a poor argument against it, and therefore this murder isn't particularly well-constructed.
That's fair. I think I got a little too hung up on conflating pride and cultural celebration, which can often get intertwined in something like black pride. Yeah, it's a pretty weak murder and I feel like we are relatively on the same page.
The reason black people in America have black pride is because Thier blackness was the excuse whites used to justify Thier enslavement first mistreatment later. Being black meant you were sub human, and only worth 3/5 of a white man. Their black pride is in standing up and telling white people they are just as valuable and worthy of respect and diginity as white people. White pride is an excuse to be racist and ignore 400 years of history.
I'm half black, half white. I attempted to do my family tree about a year ago. I got my mother's side of the family, the white side, back to the early 1800s.
My black side, I got to 1904. Our recent history and roots have been deliberately erased. As close as I can get is "African". This is the same for most black people in this country.
We do not have the luxury of claiming Ethiopian-pride, or Liberian-pride or anything other than Black pride, because we were enslaved and then lumped into one monolithic group of "blacks" from the time our ancestors arrived here in 1619.
For white people to overlook that HUGE fact, and cry about not having "white pride" or "white history month" is pretty disgusting. We would LOVE to be able to have pride in our ancestry, but that was taken away from us over hundreds of years. We don't get the benefit of questions about our heritage in this country. People see dark skin, and you're just black. No nationality, no locality. Just black.
That's what I hate about the old go back to Africa argument. Like go back to where. These people dont have family to go back to. They are American now.
Exactly. We get labelled as black by America, and celebrate the 400 years of black culture that we have, and even that is too much for some people. Shit, even people in this thread can't get their heads around this.
It's mostly white Americans that cant accept that there are black and white Americans. Everyone got here at the same time from different countries. Everyone has generations of people going back to the declaration of Independence. Color should no longer be an issue. Everyone in 2020 is an American. And honestly White American and Black Americans culture besides the racism is pretty much the same.
The question is... If you COULD trace your black heritage back to a specific tribe in Africa, would you still be talking about Black Pride, or would you be talking about... say, Nigerian Pride? Would you still be allowed to say you have Black Pride, or is that against the rules because you know your family's history? There are plenty of African Americans that can trace their heritage back to a specific African country, but I'm sure they're still referencing Black Pride. And I think they should. Just because you have pride in something, doesn't automatically mean you hate everything else that's different.
That is a far more nuanced argument than the people who say "why not white pride" would ever care to make. Black Americans are lumped together based solely on our race.
Black pride/culture is what we American blacks have. It just is what it is at this point. But again, it has little to do with skin color and more to do with the monolith we have been made to be in this country.
That said, being proud of your skin color is stupid. It is literally just racism.
I would agree if the black experience wasn't so tumultuous in America. It's hard to be proud of a country where a large number of people see you as less-than before they even know the content of your character. I've been trying to help, to make this a better place where we can all be proud. I want to be proud of America, but I also want America to be proud of me.
In another thread i've argued that black pride makes some things if you're living in america (or anywhere else where black is a minority that is somehow disadvantaged) and they can say "Hey, look at me. I had this disadvantage and i've made it anyways!"
If you're an african in Africa, beeing proud about beeing black doesn't make any sense. Beeing proud about your heritage doesn't make any sense. Proud is the satisfaction of handling a challange well enough. Beeing born is not a challange.
There are a lot of different cultures in Africa, but at least in the US and the Caribbean they have been united by the commonality of being descendants of slaves and systematically oppressed since then. But recent African immigrants might have little in common with the majority of African Americans.
They're talking about black American pride since they dont have a country besides America to claim. Theres African pride, Caribbean pride. Poor Americans dont know where they came from.
no because the vast majority of black people in America share a very similar heritage which is not necessarily about the nation/origin of the slaves in Africa but the ordeal all Africans went through when they were brought to America.
That said, I do think "Asian heritage" has more of the issue because the Asia the continent is so big with so many people of vastly different cultures and backgrounds.
Odd that only white pride has to do with being proud of the color you are. Forget about Polish heritage, Irish heritage, Scottish heritage, Italian heritage, etc.
The only difference is, or rather the reason “black pride” is acceptable is because black people in America have no way of knowing what country they are from because their ancestors were stolen from the continent hundreds of years ago and they can’t really trace it back to a particular country. So “black” is all they have.
Yeah, the OP totally misses the point that simply being proud of having black skin is no different...
They attempt to justify their distinction by grouping massively broad groups of cultures into one in a way that is extremely reductive and shows little knowledge or respect for these cultures, both "Africa" and "Asia" encompass dozens, if not hundreds of distinct cultural groups and ethnicity with independent histories often dating back hundreds or thousands of years.
I think maybe what they want to point out is that "Black American" is a unique subculture and ethnicity that isn't defined by simply skin colour but a shared heritage and experience... at least, this is what they should be pointing out as this is what makes the difference.
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u/Totally_A_Homosapien Jun 15 '20
Shouldn't the same be stated of black pride? As it too is a skin tone not a heritage?