"Race" and "Culture"
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: Archaeology & Anthropology
Forum Discription: Topics on archaeology and anthropology
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=20277
Printed Date: 24-Apr-2024 at 05:00
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Topic: "Race" and "Culture"
Posted By: konstantinius
Subject: "Race" and "Culture"
Date Posted: 15-Jun-2007 at 21:25
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This topic is inspired by the Parthenon marbles thread on Regional History. Thanks to the advances in molecular biology and biological anthropology, we know that at this point there is no such thing as a biological concept of 'race' and racially-pure theories have been generally discounted from the field expect in die-hard nationalists with an agenda to prove. So, is "race' defined by the culture that produced it? In other words while 'races' come and go, cultures have a staying power that transcend the phyletic elements that incurse upon them. In this case, we can talk about Chinese "culture', Indian "culture", Greek "culture" without nesseccarily implying racial purity. what are your oppinions on the issue?
------------- " I do disagree with what you say but I'll defend to my death your right to do so." |
Replies:
Posted By: think
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2007 at 02:16
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Well Greek culture is "Greek" Just as how Chinese culture is "Chinese" When people think of culture they are usually implying a group of people aswell, whether or not science proves or dissa-proves race. Put it this way Constantinius (im assuming your Greek) if theyre were no Greeks then Greek culture would just fade away. For the record i really dont think that Greeks would regard say Ethiopians or Germans as fellow Greeks just because they may eat a yiros, speak Greek, smash some plates or dabble in more traditional Greek culture. |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2007 at 08:48
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Well, "Anglo-Saxon" culture has never been racially defined, and in the modern world it encompasses people from Martin Luther King to Salman Rushdie.
At a guess I'd say culture is more defined by language than anything else. ------------- |
Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2007 at 12:50
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Cultures can assimilate people of all matter of linages, so yes Culture > Race. And i'd agree with gcle, language is the most difinitive aspect of culture. -------------  Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2007 at 13:00
For the Anglo-Saxon culture perhaps. But cultures can surpass language borders. Look at the huge amount of multilingual countries in the world. In some, the languages may signify cultures, but in many, culture is larger than language alone. ------------- 
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2007 at 13:13
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Agreed!
Hispanic (or better, Iberian) culture is not monoracial either. It is a mixture of people of different backgrouds comming from all over the world, plus the people that was once here. Even Spaniards and Portugueses are an endless mixture of peoples of Mediterranean and European background.
But it is not only about people but civilizations. The roots of the Hispanic peoples are found from Tarsis, Hispania, Al Andalus and Portugal and Spain, to Mayan, Aztecs, Mapuches and Guaranies, plus Germans, Blacks, Arabs and Japaneses, to name a few.
It is not even a single language, although most is impregnated in two: Spanish and Portuguese.
Above all, it is just a flux of events and traditions.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2007 at 13:17
But even there you'll find the language breaks it down into seperate cultures within that country, French and Dutch in Belgium for example, or even Welsh and English in the UK. What tends to happen is that the dominant clanguage will be more or less a universial culture, and the minority ones more 'provincial'. ------------- Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: think
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2007 at 00:05
Those are people who speak the language. I dont think speaking the language makes ones Anglo-Saxon. I see American Blacks as a slightly different people.. Americans or people outside of Latin America may peg you all as one, but within latin America is there some kind of Hispanic brotherhood Pinguin ?? |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2007 at 07:15
Of course. I speak German but don't consider myself part of a German culture. One can obviously study a different culture or even in some cases move between them.
Well, there are sub-cultures. Geordie and Scouse cultures within England for instance.
But how many major American black writers write in other than English?
How many American black religious leaders do not use the English bible - in particular the King James version?
How many major American black politicians don't share the belief in the US Constitution and the principles it enshrines?
How many people sing the blues in anything but English?
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2007 at 18:41
It works something like this. If you have a Spanish ancestor, no matter you have 1023 others, you are welcome to the club
 . Actually, if you speak Spanish and love our culture, you can become an honorary member of the tribe as well.You are Hispanic if you love our culture and don't discriminate us: that means, you are willing to intermarry with our people. That's all.
That covers 99.99% of the people of Latin America, indeed.
Pinguin
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Posted By: think
Date Posted: 21-Jun-2007 at 02:42
I guess i was more seeing the question as someone else adopting another "different" culture that wasnt forced upon them because Native Americans, aboriginals an African Americans kind of had the culture forced or indirectly imposed on them. I see what your saying with the English being the dominating language of the Blacks just as how the ex slaves in Brazil speak Portuguese...Its kind of like this. Is bling Bling an Anglo thing or a gangster Black thing because if it wasnt a Black thing then the saying "wigga" couldnt exist...Im not even sure if Black gangsterism is a sub culture of Anglo Culture but more something that is "their" subculture rather than ours. Same goes for rap also...Feel me dogg  |
Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 21-Jun-2007 at 03:45
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Bling Bling is very much part of Anglo-Culture, Jimmy Saville basicly started it back in the 60s. ------------- Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 21-Jun-2007 at 08:28
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For example too, if you take the 'gang culture' of contemporary American cities, while it is now common among blacks and hispanics as well as the other segments of American society, it traces back very simply to the gangs of the early nineteenth century, which at that time were mostly of English descent, though successive waves of immigrants were absorbed into it, from the Irish through the Jews to the Italians.
A worthwhile read on this is Hebert Asbury's Gangs of New York, from part of which the plot of the film was derived. Modern black American and Hispanic speech is a similar phenomenon to the cants and argots of earlier periods.
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Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 21-Jun-2007 at 08:42
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'Bling-bling' is not an exclusively Black style, there are, as mentioned, also plenty of hispanic and white people in the movement. On the other hand, there is also a large group of black Americans who are not Bling-bling, and whose cultural lives are pretty much the same as white Americans. Bling-bling is, for the most part, a culture connected to social class and income. Those who live in poor areas are more likely to be drawn to it than middle class people, of whatever background.
Martin Luther King was no Bling-bling gangsta for sure. -------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 21-Jun-2007 at 10:43
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In Latin America, and I guess around the world, low class people also have its own argot. More that a different culture, it is a subculture inside the mainstream. I have always considered the "Black culture" as an U.S. phenomena, that has no much to do with the racial origins of that group. "Black" culture in other countries is absolutely different. What has in common Samba and Blues for instance, more than the fact they were developed by descendents of Africans slaves living in the Americas? However, real African rooted cultural patterns still exist in the Americans, like the Yoruba religions of the Voodo, Santeria or Candomble. Curiosly, those cultural manifestations are not exclusive of Black people in Haiti, Cuba or Brazil, but belong to all the population of those nations. In a real sense, they survived because becomed mainstream.
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