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[Vector]

. . .

Spoiler: I do indeed study white culture. (click to show/hide)

I don't play the mbira, I play the violin and piano.  Classical music, by the way--on the violin, at least.  Italian.  Austrian.  Also American bluegrass.
I don't know anything about African dancing.  I studied Irish dancing for years, after a little tap and ballet.
I don't eat injera, I eat muffins.  I teach myself about the cooking of Europe.
I read novels, politics, and history from the pens of dead white men, and living black women.
I have read parts of the Bible and can quote passages from it.  I know only one passage from the Talmud.  I know none of the Qur'an, Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Confucius' Analects.  I own all these books on my shelf and am reading them, one by one.  All the same, I have not read them.  The first religious or philosophical text I ever read was a child's edition of the Torah.
I live in a country built on principles established by white men.  When I was younger, I knew the full preamble of the Declaration of Independence by heart.  I don't know it anymore, but it is the only section of any speech that I have ever memorized.
I wear clothing in a style initiated by white men.  I have spent time learning about the history of this fashion.
I know most of the parts of a knight's set of armor.  I know nearly none of the parts of a samurai's set by name.  I don't know if Africa ever had armor beyond shields, even though I do know bronze was first smelted in Africa, 200 years before evidence was shown in any other continent and 300 before Europe.
I have read multiple versions of the King Arthur legends; 5 or more, and I own perhaps 10 different accounts, all told.  I have not read Journey to the West.
I know most of the parts of a cathedral.  I know nothing about the structure and form of Japanese temples or tea houses.  Similarly, I know about different branches of Christianity.  I know a few of the theoretical 40,000 branches of Buddhism.  I don't know the differences between Sunn'is and Shi'ites, and I know almost nothing about African religions.  I'll admit that in my youth I did read a lot about the Native American creation myths, and I grew up on the Brer Rabbit and Anansi stories.  But those are culture, not religion.
I know some of the history of western medicine, from the Greeks through the dark ages through today.  I know almost nothing of African history.
I can name most of the countries in Europe, and every American state if I really work at it.  I also know most of the capitals.  I do not know where most of the African countries are, nor the differences between them.
I watch trains go by.  One of the most important parts of the steam engine was invented by a black man named McCoy, who holds over 50 other US patents (your second scientist is George Washington Carver, by the way, and the third is my roommate.  He recently received an award from the French government for his studies in physics, so I figure he's eminent enough.  For your list of female scientists, try Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock, and Rosalind Franklin.  Female mathematicians?  Emmy Noethur, Sonya Kabalevskaya, and Sophie Germain).  Most of the rest of it was invented by white men.  The original rails of the cross-continental railroads were laid by chain gangs, whose composition held many black men.  They were also laid by the Irish.  I have learned about both of these things.  They are both necessary to remember.
I speak French and English and a little of an assortment of Asian and European languages.  I know only one phrase in Swahili and perhaps a hundred words of Arabic.
I spend my time reading novels by Baudelaire, a depressed Frenchman.  Our literary theory was invented by white men.  Right now, I am reading the works of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche.  More white men.
I first read a book written by a black person as a freshman in high school.
I first read a novel written by an Asian person as a sophomore in high school.  None of our assigned reading in high school was written by someone in Asia.  I believe only one book was written by a woman.

I have studied the American eugenics movement and the development of fascism in Germany.  I know the Christmas traditions of five different European countries... and this is mostly what I was taught in school, not what I have studied on my own.  The emphasis is very heavily on white culture.  Ancient culture, current culture, and so on.  If anyone managed to leave my high school without knowing a good deal of white culture, it was because they didn't care, not because they were not being taught.

We do study white culture.  We study a lot of it.  Perhaps you don't realize quite how much of it you have learned.

[fqllve]

Ah, I see. Conteperary culture, something shared by people from all walks of life, contributed to by countless cultures, is 'white' culture because it is the defult.

Look at popular music. The vast majority of it is based on diatonic harmony, which is a European tradition. Popular literature is based on the novel, again a European tradition. Film is an extension of the European tradition of theatre.

And where do we draw the line what's white or not? Does it mean European? Are the Spanish white or the Greeks? And if not, how can we look at what's "white" outside of the context of European history?

[Urist is dead tome]

I wouldn't count the Bible* as part of white culture. In that it originated in the Middle East.

*I'm counting the Torah as part of the Bible.

[Vector]

I wouldn't count the Bible* as white culture. In that it originated in the Middle East.

*I'm counting the Torah as part of the Bible.

If you're talking about the list, it's debatable but in any case there's lot of Christianity happening nowadays among the (Caucasus-westward) people of the world.  In this case I'm not talking exclusively about origin--but you're absolutely right that for Max White's definition I should have been more correct.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

That list is nonsensical. It draws on the bizarre, faulty idea that a single superficial cosmetic trait creates monolithic "racial cultures," which ignores the extreme fragmentation of groups now lumped together, and the violent hatred they've historically held for one another. Up until only a few decades ago, every European nation hated just about every other, with some shifting of alliances and enemies throughout the centuries. Varying African tribal lines still hate and slaughter each other, and would certainly take offense to being lumped in with their longstanding enemies. The various Asian nations still fear and hate each other, even if it's been toned down over the past few decades. Arabs and North Africans, though unified by a religion, are fragmented into sects within that, most of which decry all the others as heresy (the Sunni are basically the original sect; the Shia hold that a certain hereditary line related to Muhammad were rightfully the spiritual leaders, and basically treat them like Catholics treat saints, with shrines to them and whatnot; the heretical Wahhabi sect (of Sunni origin) sanctions the line of Saudi kings as rightful rulers, and takes various radical stances, in addition to backing violent proselytization, etc). Native Americans of all stripes carried out brutal genocide against one another, and most were all too eager to hop in bed with the European explorers to gain a leg up over their longstanding enemies or rivals.

Modern western culture only bears the slightest resemblance to the origins of any of its individual elements. To suggest that it is "white," because the vast majority of pieces ultimately originated with Europeans or their descendants, is silly. Really, if you want to argue that, then almost anything African Americans do is also "white," because most of them have some degree of European blood or another in them, and if something is "black" because it was created by Africans, then everything humans have ever done is "black," seeing as how we ultimately originated in Africa and all. Modern culture is what it is, and trying to alter it because of who created its predecessor is sort of fucked up.

[inteuniso]

Who cares about different nationalities and all? I mean, it's good to be proud of your country, but I enjoy learning about all of history. Frankly, American history is nowhere near as interesting as German history. Besides, nations have shown that they have never existed in a permanent state for all of history. Even China, one of the oldest organized civilizations, has never been the same nation.


I'm all for supporting Black History month though. It teaches me stuff that I may not have known before, and I welcome that.

[Shambling Zombie]

Learning new stuff is good. I'm all for it.

[sonerohi]

All 12 months should be People History Month. It doesn't matter one shit which specific area my ancestors farmed in, however many years ago. We're all just peeps, y'know?

[Vector]

That list is nonsensical. It draws on the bizarre, faulty idea that a single superficial cosmetic trait creates monolithic "racial cultures," which ignores the extreme fragmentation of groups now lumped together, and the violent hatred they've historically held for one another.

The list is nonsensical, but it's an attempt to address the misconception that we don't learn anything about "white" culture in our usual education.  I have a guess as to what is meant by "white culture," which I attempted to address.

I agree with you, of course, that the foundations of such an argument are fundamentally flawed, but I thought it might be pedagogically helpful to address Max White on his own terms.  Erm... an argument by volume, in effect, for those who like concrete information within their given rubrics.

However, your argument is far cleaner on a theoretical basis, which I do appreciate.

[chaoticag]

Really, what point would a White History Month have anyway? Teach them about Founding Fathers? Are you going to teach them the history of computers? Of Classical Music? You pretty much learn about the Greeks, Romans, Middle Ages, Reneisance, Romantic, and Modern periods of European History (And American) so what more can you add to that? Face this with how much you know about India, China, Japan, Katmandu, South Africa, the Middle East. Maybe White History Month doesn't exist because we know all there is about it? Think about that.

[Ricky]

I wonder what would happen if we got rid of black history month.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

The very concept of Racial History Months is assbackwards. Mostly because the whole notion of "racial history/culture" is assbackwards. Every modern conception of "race" lumps together disparate, superficially similar groups. See my post above for enumeration of all that.

[Vactor]

As a white male, I understand how easy it is to be dismissive of something like this.  I remember in college being dismayed that there were scholarships available through my university to just about anyone except a white male.

However, as much as we like to say that everyone is equal, and that skin color doesn't matter, we are only deluding ourselves.   The black people of the US are the children of black people, who are the children of black people.   They are the descendents of people who have had their lives destabilized for generations.  When a city like Milwaukee has unemployment rates over 50% for black males, compared to a state average of 7.5%, When 12% of black men age 20-30 are in prison, and the incarceration rates of black men are 8 times higher than other ethnicities, you cannot say that statistically a child born to black parents is given the same opportunity as a child born to white parents.

It is also very easy for people to look at that 50% plus unemployment and conclude that it is due to a fundamental racial or cultural difference.  I think that something like Black History Month serves to push back against such lazy thinking, and gives people an annual reminder that all people are in fact able to be equal, and if given the same access to opportunity, are able to do great things that better all of mankind.

On a side note, going another step further, my girlfriend is Mexican.  We all know who Martin Luther King is, but how many of us were taught who Cesar Chavez was?

[Urist is dead tome]

Erm... an argument by volume, in effect, for those who like concrete information within their given rubrics.

An argument by volume is like a human wave attack. It just batters the mind until they submit, or you could starve them out of reasoning capabilities.

As a white male, I understand how easy it is to be dismissive of something like this.  I remember in college being dismayed that there were scholarships available through my university to just about anyone except a white male.

And that my friend is the problem. Or at least a problem.

[Vactor]

Erm... an argument by volume, in effect, for those who like concrete information within their given rubrics.

An argument by volume is like a human wave attack. It just batters the mind until they submit, or you could starve them out of reasoning capabilities.

As a white male, I understand how easy it is to be dismissive of something like this.  I remember in college being dismayed that there were scholarships available through my university to just about anyone except a white male.

And that my friend is the problem. Or at least a problem.

not at all i paid for college just fine, and am now employed paying off my student loans