Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If we got rid of labels, we could unite our self as a country.
Yes, but on the other hand it's not always the people being labeled who are labeling themselves. A person of black descent or Chinese descent or Mexican descent born in America can proclaim, "Hey, I'm just an American, that's it." They can be as average in terms of American culture as any other American. But most people are still going to label them as a "black American" or "Chinese" or "Hispanic".
"Divide and Conquer" defined;
"a way of keeping yourself in a position of power by making the people under you disagree with each other so that they are unable to join together and remove you from your position. A small minority have continued to govern by a policy of divide and conquer."
First of all, never get your information from Wikipedia. When I was there, the tour guide said 6%. I'll take that over some wiki.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deezus
Yes, but on the other hand it's not always the people being labeled who are labeling themselves. A person of black descent or Chinese descent or Mexican descent born in America can proclaim, "Hey, I'm just an American, that's it." They can be as average in terms of American culture as any other American. But most people are still going to label them as a "black American" or "Chinese" or "Hispanic".
Yes, because we were brought up by the media to think that way. If the government removed race from a census and the media stopped referring to people by skin color, that would change. Btw, what do you define as avg American Culture.
First of all, never get your information from Wikipedia. When I was there, the tour guide said 6%. I'll take that over some wiki.
Okay random anecdotes from tour guides trump Wikipedia sure, but that's still not a huge amount. The data I see shows 6% being white which includes Afrikaaners and other Europeans as well.
Yes, because we were brought up by the media to think that way. If the government removed race from a census and the media stopped referring to people by skin color, that would change.
Though when the media doesn't refer to a crime suspect by race or ethnicity, you'll find people on here complaining and trying to guess the race of the suspect...
I don't think it's solely the modern media that has to blame for ethnic divisions in this country--considering on one hand pre-1960s, it was still alright to discriminate against blacks in most of this country(leading to a highly segregated and separate division of American society), and you had other policies disciminating against other ethnic groups(Immigration Act of 1924 severly limited any immigration from anyone who wasn't from Northern Europe until 1965). Japanese people in the 1940s who considered themselves Americans and had been here for several generations, weren't considered simply "Americans" by the government. Blacks didn't have a choice to just be "Americans" for most of the history of the US.
One can say, "Well people should get over the past." At the same time though there's white people from the South who haven't even got over the results of the Civil War 150 years ago. So as much as things have gotten better, there still will be different cultural divisions(either by race or ethnicity or even location) in this country for the forseable future.
When you still have threads on CityData with people debating "Interracial Marriage" we are still a ways off from being colorblind. At one point in our history though it would have even have been a big deal for a White Anglo Protestant to marry an Polish or Italian Catholic or Jew--before those groups were accepted into the larger group of being "white".
Quote:
Btw, what do you define as avg American Culture.
If you celebrate Thanksgiving by eating turkey with your family, observe the 4th of July by shooting off or watching fireworks, gather with friends to watch the Super Bowl every year, and speak primarily American English--or grew up doing any of the combination of the above--you're pretty fricking average in my book in terms of American culture. Not to say that there's Americans that might not do most of the above, but sort of general mix of those or other more uniquely American cultural touchstones can be defined as American culture.
1) Yeah, we could get rid of the labels once we have racial equality. Until then, doing so is burying our heads in the sand. When Black Americans walk into restaurants to this day, in 2013, servers still grumble among themselves about the bad tip that they assume will follow. White men can catch taxis faster than black men.There are more Black Americans in prison now than in college. Keep in mind too that until 50 years ago, your race determined your rights. Ideally yes, in a utopian America, we'd all just be American, but until then I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room.
2) Having nothing to do with race, many Americans are insecure about their identity. We live in a society where you can change your identity as easy as you change your clothes -- literally.
Because of class mobility, diversity, the young age of our nation, and our you-are-what-you-buy consumeristic approach to identity, many Americans perceive Old World identities as being more stable and more authentic. This is why there are threads on this very site asking if White Americans look more English or German; this is assuming that there is something pure and authentic about English or German identity, which in reality is a myth.
Because of this insecurity of identity, many Americans will want to anchor themselves in the past, in the Old World. Hence these labels emerge, as well as festivals and parades. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
3) These labels celebrate subcultures. Fortune cookies and General Tso's Chicken don't exist in China. Nobody eats spaghetti and meatballs in Italy. There's no blues music in Africa. Corned beef was invented in New York City. Subcultures have contributed to what America at large is today. These labels celebrate those achievements.
Race, ethnicity, identity, and the labels we give ourselves and other are more complicated than something that's strictly good or strictly bad.
Last edited by Dawn.Davenport; 11-26-2013 at 03:54 PM..
America has always had labels. It's not going anywhere. We label people by race, class, political affiliation, etc. It's part of our history. Many Americans takes pride in it.
i don't think labels are the issue. insecurity is the issue. why can't people just accept that america is a melting pot of several ethnicities. we all have a cultural heritage, and when getting specific, that's what we dub ourselves as. i for one am filipino, spanish, portuguese, german, english, and a little bit of other. since my mom is from the philippines and my dad's ancestors are german, i guess that just makes me a mutt-american. it's a lot harder for someone such as myself to get labeled since i'm heavily mixed. but i understand why labels exist. african-american. mexican-american. spanish-american. filipino-american. irish-american. italian-american. nothing racist or prejudice about it. at least, not in my opinion. then again i just might be the 'minority' opinion, no pun intended.
As a white (English-Irish-Spanish decent), upper-middle-class, law student, residing in Seattle, a citizen of California and the United States, of slightly above-average height, and who dresses in collard shirts from GAP, Nordstroms, and occasionally H&M, who is politically neutral yet would probably be declared as democratic by most with a slight liberal edge, who is an agnostic but raised Catholic, I declare that I am not typified in the least bit!
Um... Most Africans do not relate to African Americans. Black Carribeans have a little bit more in common with Black Americans. I agree these labels do not fit us, but now is not the time to get rid of them. In 20 years? Maybe. Oh and Hispanic isn't even a race...
Labels sprung out of ignorance. In the future, the ignorant will have hopefully perished.
On that thought, I wonder how many Americans know that their local Chinese food store is operated by Koreans, Viets, Thai and not actually Chinese.����
i don't think labels are the issue. insecurity is the issue. why can't people just accept that america is a melting pot of several ethnicities. we all have a cultural heritage, and when getting specific, that's what we dub ourselves as. i for one am filipino, spanish, portuguese, german, english, and a little bit of other. since my mom is from the philippines and my dad's ancestors are german, i guess that just makes me a mutt-american. it's a lot harder for someone such as myself to get labeled since i'm heavily mixed. but i understand why labels exist. african-american. mexican-american. spanish-american. filipino-american. irish-american. italian-american. nothing racist or prejudice about it. at least, not in my opinion. then again i just might be the 'minority' opinion, no pun intended.
Most people in America don't even know what nationalities they descend from beyond their grandparents' generation. I myself only recently found out that I have Polish and Russian ancestors, and I was raised to believe that I've always been nothing but pure Irish. And I'm in my late 40's. The internet has made genealogy much more accessible and affordable in recent years, with sites like ancestry.com, and a lot of Americans are beginning to discover that they're much more mutt than purebred. Hopefully in the future this will help serve to tear down some of the barriers that keep us ignorant and intolerant of each other.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. All the cities are still named in German.
