Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Wade just keeps on going, and going, and going...

Responding to the several examples of organizations I provided which dedicate themselves to "Black Culture," Wade says:

Wade, Wade, Baby...
"It appears that the phrase "Black Culture" has some meaning to Americans (of color and otherwise) living around the continental United States."

You actually sat down and composed that sentence, and didn't get the hilarious irony of how you essentially just proved my point.

America isn't a skin color. There are black people all over the world who aren't "African American" because they're NOT AMERICAN.

Do you see what I'm saying yet? There might be "Black New England Culture" or "Black Cuban" culture, but there is no such thing as one single monolithic culture that encompasses all human beings with black skin.

I see.  So the Schomburg Center for Black Culture is dedicated to something which doesn't exist. As are the several other organizations I linked to.  Because Wade Long says that "Black Culture" doesn't exist and that "black" is a skin color rather than a culture.  Well then, I guess that clears things up and we can all go home now.

This reminds me of those glorious days in the 1990s when Temple of Set representatives repeatedly claimed that the Church of Satan had been "legally dissolved" by Anton LaVey's Chapter 7 bankruptcy, despite the fact that several representatives from the Church of Satan were posting to the newsgroup where they were making that claim.  Or that Michael Aquino wasn't thrown out of the Army despite losing a lawsuit wherein he sought reinstatement and wherein West's Federal Reporter claimed "he was processed out of the Army."

Apparently if you spend enough time in the ToS you get the idea that you can change objective reality just by repeating things over and over until the universe warps itself to fit your claims.  Seeing as how the Church of Satan hasn't "legally dissolved" yet after going on 20 years, and seeing how Aquino never got reinstated into the Army Reserves, I think we can all see how well that works.  Perhaps next Wade can try holding his breath until he turns blue and see if that will make these various groups change their names to better fit his Subjective Universe.
For example, even your "white knight link" the Schomberg Center, *by its own definition* doesn't even acknowledge that there is any such thing as "black culture". From its page:
"The Schomburg Center promotes the study of the histories and cultures of peoples of African descent and interprets its collections through exhibitions, publications, and educational, scholarly and cultural programs."

"African Descent". No mention of skin color. All races, creeds and skin colors are represented in Africa, K. And they're all different. It's not one single culture. I suppose you just googled "black culture" and took whatever came up, focusing on the nomenclature rather than the spirit of what I last wrote.
ITYM, "doesn't acknowledge that there is any such thing as 'black culture' other than in naming itself  'The Schomburg Center for Research in BLACK CULTURE.'" [emphasis added].
Every single link you posted goes to some reference to black people WITHIN a larger culture. This pretty much underlines exactly what I've been saying.

Thanks for doing the legwork for me.
The definition of "culture" to which I linked in the earlier post also includes this useful paragraph:
The second layer of culture that may be part of your identity is a subculture. In complex, diverse societies in which people have come from many different parts of the world, they often retain much of their original cultural traditions. As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of their society. Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the United States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Members of each of these subcultures share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience. As the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry. That is generally the case with German Americans and Irish Americans in the United States today. Most of them identify themselves as Americans first. They also see themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.
Red Diaper Jews and Hasidic Jews are both subcultures within a larger "Jewish culture."  Mr. Long seems to have trouble grasping this, but I trust my other readers (with the possible exception of Sith Lord Sean the Vampire Sorcerer) will have no problem with what appears to me to be a relatively simple concept.

4 comments:

Wade said...

"So the Schomburg Center for Black Culture is dedicated to something which doesn't exist. "

The Schomberg Center's own web page says that "Black Culture" doesn't mean what you claim it to mean. I pointed that out last time. The rest of your links were about "African AMERICAN Culture" which is a very different thing from "Black Culture" since most blacks in the world aren't actually American.

Hell, you yourself even admitted that it was about regional subcultures, and not skin color. Why is this still an issue for you?

Go back and read what I wrote, and get right back to me.

Yvonne said...

Tell your friend to read something by Schomberg, or better yet, Melville Herskovits, so that he doesn't think that you made up the idea of "black culture" or "African American culture." These are academic subfields for god's sake.

These ignorant assertions are tedious. Some of us study this stuff for a living.

Unknown said...

I find this discussion hilarious. The history of the world consists of waves of invaders/migrants/immigrants. Some assimilate, some don't, but all enrich the culture. Oh, never mind...

Wade said...

"Tell your friend to read something by Schomberg, or better yet, Melville Herskovits, so that he doesn't think that you made up the idea of "black culture" or "African American culture." "

Hilarious! You're using two different terms interchangeably, and they don't mesh. Either it's about skin color (which applies to all people of that color all over the world) OR it's about regional distinctions (which applies to all skin colors in that region).

You might want to use the term "Black Culture" out of convenience when you really mean "African-American Culture", but it's not applicable in the sense that K was originally using the term when referring specifically and ONLY to skin color.

Now that he's been called on it, he's attempting to cloud the issue by focusing the discussion on deliberately vague terms that can be used to refer to both mutually exclusive groups at the same time.

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