You hit it on the head, exactly my point, look at the bold and reread what you wrote prior, I think that you are missing the point in its' entirety. Something of this stature happening for black people would be a great chance for social improvement, . The bolded is a reason why affirming a cultural identity is important for a unified race or to be a unified race. I am fully aware of Esperanto, it is a very big international language now, and another prime example.
wouldn't disagree that a language could have that affect, and not that any other action should exclude it, devising a new language is no small or quick undertaking, and to have it formalized and taught seems like it would be a massive thing especially given the current shortcoming of the current system, the same end goal might be achieved by a different framing easier? is esparanto big? i've actually never heard it spoken or met a speaker..not that that means anything
Cultures can only appropriate things from other cultures that they can translate into their own, if not then they cannot call it their own and that could change many things. Selling out your own is always easier when you don't personally identify with them, but whatever-- a sellout is a sellout.
i don't think you need to translate to appropriate...things are transmitted to & from cultures often without context & without any understanding; and all appropriation isn't bad; it can lead to understanding. isn't the main issue with the type of appropriation that happens today that creators of a thing may not have the means, knowledge, and/or wherewithal to distribute and own that thing? the flipside of which is when a creator does manage to openly seek to actualize/access some way to gain by profiting off the thing they create they tend to be called a sellout (this is maybe becoming more rare, as the unabashed goal of profit over everything seems to be more acceptable at every level) for doing so...obviously there is a middle ground between these two extremes
@ the bolded: None-- and I mean NONE of those things have anything to do with what I wrote, NONE-- and I do mean NONE of those things have much of anything to do with the point of this very thread. Culture is never dead, there is no such thing as not having culture or someone having more culture than someone but culture is what identifies/unifies a race, what sub-cultural differences which makes us diverse. That might not matter to you but losing culture or simply letting it die because "it doesn't matter" is the type of anti-intellectualism that is constantly keeping us separated. Those things that you mentioned are important but on a whole nother' topic and not what is internally plaguing us at the moment. So culture and identity are not synonymous to you?... cultural identity? what do these words mean to you then? let me know, I am here to learn, teach me, srs. And trust me I seen the rest of that paragraph and I don't think it is worth responding to
Also, can't help but wonder-- why are you always trying your best to play devil's advocate after every other post in here, I don't mean to come at you, I am just truly curious if you are being genuinely sincere or trolling because I really don't see the meaning in some of your post and you seem like you are really capable of having a sensible conversation so I just wanted to know your take on it.
well, you are right not as much to do with culture but i would say that all those things either disproportionally effect and/or people of color are underrepresented/underserved in those things (tangentially recently read
these two pieces on
minneapolis illustrate a divide familiar to almost every metro area), and maybe there is some way culture can be apart of explaining/solving that...and to my mind the extent that isn't part of the discussion, something is missed. at various point in the past, when racism & segregation was not de facto but law of the land, people of color where still able to improve on their standard of living, educated their children, lived in communities that were actually communities, but not not necessarily any less splintered in terms of the individual communities...done under the oppressive veil of white supremacy, because the economy was robust enough for all strata of men, education sufficient enough, opportunities available enough to make that possible...
presently, however persistent racism/white supremacy is today, it probably doesn't limit people like it once did, but the bigger difference is the economics, in the ways that globalization & technology have affected the way we live, in the switch from a manufacturing country, with lots of low-skill employment with one wage earner, to one that deals in products & services, which tends to require more education/investment/training over a longer time and both parents working (there of course other factors as well, tax cutting, over criminalization, poor education, etc.)...it may be apocryphal, but there seems to be evidence that MLK jr was planning to form of a coalition around these very politics, this is not an abandonment or a devil's advocation on race in america, just a realization that race is often used as a wedge to divide people who are in fact in the same position from forming a larger, stronger voice...inclusion not exclusion, this may be naive, but i do believe that "the arc of history is long, but bends towards justice..."
i agree on your assertion on sub-cultural differences enrich the whole, making for diversity...but doesn't that very diversity definitionally makes for splintering? it is not a given that people should want to group up if it in fact it is at the expense of whatever particular autonomy or agency of that sub culture; and indeed that is/has and maybe always will be a contentious thing. (to make an extremely archaic, exaggerated example, some subset of people may practice ritualistic sacrifice of their own; to what extent is the larger society to honor that? and how is that dynamic affected if that subset of people has substantial influence/power in that group?) i guess there are ways that culture & identity might be synonymous, but i'm not sure they always are because i think of identity being generalized & culture being specific...
as for ethnocide...to some degree in such a pluralistic society there will be have to be some acculturation, and as the world continues to get smaller, that is probably going to crowd out some aspects of some cultures...which as mentioned above is always a point of conflict to the degree the larger culture actively seeks to limit or change another...to what degree is this the case in terms of 'black culture?'
i mostly lurk on nt, but i'm generally interested in culture discussions and i saw basically 2 modes of thought in the thread, the conspiratorial "plot against the black man" and the lamenting "if only blacks would get it together/smarten up/wake up," which to me are really kind of the same argument (granted there is enough in the public record to give enough credence to make that thinking very tangible), and everyone patting themselves on the back for "seeing with their 3rd eye"and being wiser than the next man so i interjected; i'm no scholar, so it probably isn't always the most coherent...just someone with a different opinion...in some ways i guess it is trolling because i saw what the discourse was and chose to enter the fray, thus i'm called all types of agents, *****, and the like; which to the earlier point about grouping, is what happens with differing outlooks...i'm sure if i were to meet any one of those calling names under different circumstances we'd agree on the majority of things, but the on the internets, though more exaggerated than in real life, the differences create tribes of hyperbolic proportions and the similarities get minimized over the point(s) of difference/disagreement