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Americans don't get it because Americans have no American race; they only have an American identity. Only the Native Americans can claim that their race is the original 'American' race, but then they were wrongfully called Indians and as far as I know at that time no Indian (from India) lived on the American continent.
Yes "Native American" is the new PC term, Nevertheless all the folks I know from the tribe herebouts still call themselves "Indian". or "American Indian". Notice though, the word American appears first unlike ALL other ethinic groups, A small but pertinant detail.
Well, I myself have both European and Cherokee Indian blood running through my veins. But I am simply American. I do take pride in my heritage but I don't see the need to call anyone who lives here anything other than an American as long as they are here legally. I have no problem with calling out illegals, but that isn't a racial issue. It is a legal status issue. Point being many of us do get it here in America. We are the original melting pot, and we need to remember that when you make a cake, you don't call it flour,sugar, and eggs. We call it a cake. So maybe when we see a black man or an Asian man we should just call them Americans, instead of listing their ingredients.
Considering the fact that migration was known long before the Europeans discovered the American continent I'd say that is not true. But I agree that the assumption that America is the original melting pot definitely is American romanticism (or is it nationalism?) in action.
Originally Posted by Reads2MUCHConsidering the fact that migration was known long before the Europeans discovered the American continent I'd say that is not true. But I agree that the assumption that America is the original melting pot definitely is American romanticism (or is it nationalism?) in action.
I believe my statement is true in the wider sense that far more people of different cultures have come here of their own free will(mostly) and become part of this great country. Sure, there has been migration in the past, but no nation has ever contained the vast numbers of different peoples we have here. Unless perhaps, by conquest. I am sure there have been nations bent on dominion in the past that at one time or another controlled so much of the world that they also controlled many different cultures and kinds of people. But we, the United States, are the original melting pot. People of all cultures came here of their own free will(mostly) and established themselves in this new world. Thus my statement that we are the original melting pot.
Last edited by Reads2MUCH; 10-04-2008 at 10:26 AM..
I believe my statement is true in the wider sense that far more people of different cultures have come here of their own free will(mostly) and become part of this great country.
You're talking about the American dream and not the US.
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Thus my statement that we are the original melting pot.
You forgot all about slavery in the US.
I don't think the black Americans came to the US by their own free will. I doubt the Mexicans nowadays would be eager to go to the US if there still was segregation.
So I wouldn't call America the original melting pot, especially when it was only in the 1960's that the segregation between the different races truly ended.
In the Middle Ages whenever the Jews were hunted down by the different other European countries they fled to Holland, because only in Holland were the Jews treated as normal human beings.
There was no difference in how the local Dutch government treated a Dutch citizen and a Jewish Dutch citizen. I'm not saying that there was no anti-Semitism in Holland, but the Dutch were savvy enough to acknowledge that the Jews were highly educated and very competent in trading.
So the Dutch Jews were not 2ndclass citizens; the Dutch authorities granted them rights which only encouraged integration into the Dutch society.
We never demanded our Jewish citizens to be exactly like the Dutch so they were free to decide to which level they wanted to integrate, as long as they shared their knowledge with us and paid their taxes (like every other Dutch citizen). The Dutch sense of trade has had always been greater than their sense of religion or nationality.
I remember when Burt Reynolds played a half-Indian on Gunsmoke.
He was called a breed (half-breed) and got trouble from both sides. And so it has been in real life.
BTW, one of the prez candidates is half n half. He properly would be called a half breed, because he is half and half. Why is he "black?"
If there had never been slavery, and never the great migrations from Asia, and no American Indians, there would still be strife. And please don't confine it to America, it is the way humans are.
(If Euros had never set foot in North America, there was plenty of strife between and within the Indian tribes. And there would be today if life was as it was in 1300 on this continent. It was not a pristine land where everyone chanted, consulted with the Great Father, danced around the fire, and smoked the peace pipe. Get a grip.
Oh, and Indians too killed more buffalo than they needed. Not just whitey.)
It would be Italians, Irish, Poles, Hunkies, Scots, Jews, and on and on it goes.
High schools would still have cliques of jocks, hoods, geeks, rebels, you name it.
Strife is part of the human condition. Detroit vs. Chicago. Philly vs. Pittsburgh. NYC vs. LA.
Competition, labels, winners and losers, that is life on earth.
You're not going to change it.
Perhaps God designed it this way. There is a purpose to everything under the heaven.
The PC-ers think they can change human nature, with their no-winners "sports" games and everyone is speshul philosophy, but they are living in a world of stupidity and delusion.
Back in the 50s and 60s, there was a group of Americans which were referred to as 'coloreds'. Today, they are now 'Black' and 'African-American' -- Both of which are simply misleading.
For years, I questioned why Americans grouped very different people into the same bucket. I often wondered why society wanted to label me as a 'Black' or 'African-American' male. Eventually, I grew tired of the nonsense and became a vocal opponent of race in America.
Today, nothing has changed. You can be fairest skinned human being -- Or the darkest -- And Americans will still call you 'Black'. How did we arrive to a day where we're incapable of citing the obvious? Are the varying skin tones not apparent? The features? If you mixed two colors, would one of the two remain? Of course not. Yet, that's how we identify Americans everyday in this country.
What's even more appalling are the millions of Americans hiding behind the 'Black' and 'White' labels. There are plenty of Italians, Irish, Native Americans, Hispanics and others which comfortably identify with the 'White' label. But what is 'White' and 'Black' anyway? It's a mindset. It's a social design. If we were taught 'real history', we would have learned how today's social model was created. How millions of people assimilated to the status of 'Whiteness' or 'Blackness'.
We've become so brainwashed by this social conditioning that we don't really take the time to think for ourselves. Other ideas, other people and other beliefs make the decisions and distinctions for us. It's so easy to give away independent thought, but so hard to question the validity of what we've been taught.
I'll say it once, and I'll say it again: Race is a fallacy. The details are in plain sight.
Society in general is divisive. Race is just the easiest way to divide. Only a blind person can not immediately divide people by race.
Once the race division is removed, there are other divisions. Ask a lifelong northerner who is white what their view is of a southern white. And vice versa. Immediately (in most instances) they will divide based on geographical location and talk stereotypes, which is a divisive way of looking at people.
Get two people of the same race from differing political parties and bring up politics. Lines of division are immediately drawn and a defensive nature typically arises.
In general, humans are a divisive species. All humans are prone to acting divisive. Race is just the fastest and easiest way to become divisive.
at one time in history, bout 50 years ago
a great deal of prejudice and discrimination was shown to italian people.
of course a lot of them were pimping drug dealing and gang banging.
lol huck
OP, if you're asking at what point a person of mixed races becomes physically more of one race and less of another and how this is "officially" determined (and why!) - I dont know. But I do agree with you that presuming a person belongs to a particular culture based on identification or supposition of his race isn't valid, because culture isn't a racial quality. Though we all do it to greater or lesser degrees based on the animal instinct that helps us identify our environments.
Barack Obama as candidate for President is a good example of the fallacy you point out. As "the [first] black man running for President" he's perceived by millions to share what they perceive to be "the" black, American, experience and to share cultural symbols that the individual voter (say) assigns to that group experience and the cultures that he perceives have developed within it. But Obama's actual heritage and experience could hardly be farther from this perceived experience and those perceived symbols. I havent read his books so I dont know when or if he defines the point at which he came to apprehend the different manifestations of what is popularly understood to mean "black in America," but it might have been at Columbia in NYC.
So - you're right, I agree, (perceived) race doesn't define culture and we need to try to force ourselves away from supposition.
If Euros had never set foot in North America, there was plenty of strife between and within the Indian tribes.
True, but unlike the Europeans the Indians would have contained their madness to their own continent while the Euros spread it all over the world.
Only the Christian Euros had the ambition to conquer the whole world and make everyone a Christian and exterminate those who don't wanna be converted to Christianity.
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Only the Native Americans can claim that their race is the original 'American' race, but then they were wrongfully called Indians and as far as I know at that time no Indian (from India) lived on the American continent.
But I agree that the assumption that America is the original melting pot definitely is American romanticism (or is it nationalism?) in action.
I doubt the Mexicans nowadays would be eager to go to the US if there still was segregation.
Im going to dinner!
Only the Christian Euros had the ambition to conquer the whole world and make everyone a Christian and exterminate those who don't wanna be converted to Christianity.
