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Returning to the thread title, if not the evolving topic, Is black culture part of Southern culture? I would argue that southern culture has an outsize influence on American culture. Country music, not entirely but mostly white, morphed through rock in the form of groups and performers such as the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Credence Clearwater Revival and (you'll think I'm crazy) the Grateful Dead and its offshoot New Riders of the Purple Sage. Black forms such as jazz and blues morphed into Rhythm & Blues, and colored such groups as the Motown artists, Elvis, Blood Sweat & Tears, Cream (yes, I know, British) and its members and just about every group not assuming a self-consciously country-rock or folk-rock identity. Other black forms of music were Latin Rock. Think Santana. The British Invasion formed much of the rest of American popular music.
Southern culture has had more impact on American culture than any other region.
It makes sense considering it's probably the oldest, non-Native American culture in the U.S. Northeast and Midwest culture seems to be dominated by (relatively) more recent arriving European immigrants while the West had a mix of Eastern transplants plus Asians and Latinos coming over at various points going back to the Gold Rush and even earlier in some cases.
Blues, jazz, gospel, country...you name it. Our best food is southern though our most well-known exports are probably pizza and burgers, which are decidedly NOT southern.
I think a foreigner would say California and New York are the most influential places in America because that's what's broadcast to the world but what makes us "American", I think, is mostly southern...and then everything branches out from there.
Simple question
Is black culture part of Southern culture?
Or is Southern culture only the white part of Southern culture
Yes.
If you’re implying that black culture also represents the very worst of southern hillbilly culture, the answer is also yes.
When Africans arrived on ships, all they knew was southern hillbilly culture because it’s all they were exposed to. Church, religion, conservatism, slang, Bible Belt, dialects, soul food, iced tea, promiscuity, accents, fried chicken, anti-education.
Unfortunately, many people assumed this redneck culture was black culture, which is not true, but sadly became a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway.
Quote:
Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture originates in the dysfunctional white southern redneck culture which was prominent in the antebellum South. That culture came, in turn, from the "Cracker culture" of Welsh, Highland Scots, Ulster Scots, and border English or "North Britons," who emigrated from the more lawless border regions of Britain in the eighteenth century.
American slavery essentially took a clean slate of Africans with no culture, and turned them into the black version of southern hillbillies, intentional or not.
American slavery essentially took a clean slate of Africans with no culture, and turned them into the black version of southern hillbillies, intentional or not.
The Africans did have their own tribal cultures--cultures that were functional in their own territories. But the slaveowners stripped them of those cultures and inculcated a deliberately dysfunctional slave culture.
It wasn't all a matter of the slaves absorbing the southern cultures of poor whites (which isn't "hillbilly" culture, btw. Hillbilly culture is a different and more specialized thing). This was a culture inculcated by wealthy white slaveholders, deliberately a broken subset of their own culture.
An example is a special "slave bible" to be taught to slaves...that was missing everything that might rouse slaves to hope of freedom, such as the emancipation of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt and Paul's letter to Philemon. Also Ephesians 6 was excised from the "slave bible."
That wasn't just a matter of the slaves being exposed to poor whites, that was part of a deliberate slave culturalization program.
All of a sudden Washington DC is in the North ... even though the Mason Dixon line is North of Washington DC
I've lived in DC. Its definitely a northern city, populated by northern people and with a northern culture. I dont think residents of actual southern metros (Atlanta, Charlotte..etc) would consider DC a fellow southern town.
Off-topic but isn't Delaware on the wrong side of that line?
Wait, what? Why would you think Delaware is part of the South? Maryland shows as part of the South if you go strictly by the Mason-Dixon line, but it was part of the Union.
The Africans did have their own tribal cultures--cultures that were functional in their own territories. But the slaveowners stripped them of those cultures and inculcated a deliberately dysfunctional slave culture.
It wasn't all a matter of the slaves absorbing the southern cultures of poor whites (which isn't "hillbilly" culture, btw. Hillbilly culture is a different and more specialized thing). This was a culture inculcated by wealthy white slaveholders, deliberately a broken subset of their own culture.
An example is a special "slave bible" to be taught to slaves...that was missing everything that might rouse slaves to hope of freedom, such as the emancipation of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt and Paul's letter to Philemon. Also Ephesians 6 was excised from the "slave bible."
That wasn't just a matter of the slaves being exposed to poor whites, that was part of a deliberate slave culturalization program.
I'd say most of the negative aspects of Black culture mostly come from the British/Welsh/Scottish influences.....but most of Black culture is positive and uplifting, counter to what white America would have us believe.
Up to 40% of the Africans brought over were devout Muslims, so I can imagine the cultural shock of being force fed an incomplete version of Christianity. I feel the influence of my ancestors, just eating goat, fish and chicken. Not a big fan of pork. Can't even explain it but eating jollof rice with dried fish tastes more "natural" to me than steak and potatoes.
Agreed on the "hillbilly" thing as those whites didn't have enough money to even purchase slaves. Their culture feels like a mix of Scots-Irish, rebelling against the status quo with a touch of Native American being more in-tune with the land around them.
Wait, what? Why would you think Delaware is part of the South? Maryland shows as part of the South if you go strictly by the Mason-Dixon line, but it was part of the Union.
Remember, Delaware was a slave state until the 14th Amendment passed. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply in "loyal" territory.
I'd say most of the negative aspects of Black culture mostly come from the British/Welsh/Scottish influences.....but most of Black culture is positive and uplifting, counter to what white America would have us believe.
Up to 40% of the Africans brought over were devout Muslims, so I can imagine the cultural shock of being force fed an incomplete version of Christianity. I feel the influence of my ancestors, just eating goat, fish and chicken. Not a big fan of pork. Can't even explain it but eating jollof rice with dried fish tastes more "natural" to me than steak and potatoes.
Agreed on the "hillbilly" thing as those whites didn't have enough money to even purchase slaves. Their culture feels like a mix of Scots-Irish, rebelling against the status quo with a touch of Native American being more in-tune with the land around them.
Would you still feel that way if you knew that the tomatoes in jollof rice are native to South America? Not far from the origin of the potato in fact. I don't know when exactly Africa got a hold of them, but my guess would be sometime around the Transatlantic slave trade, and they were likely introduced by Europeans.
Black Americans are not Africans, neither is our culture exclusively African and certainly not hillbilly. We are a unique people whose culture is a broad mix of global influences, not much different than the Jamaican or the Brazilian (who are also not Africans but are never pressured to identify as such, yet here in the USA it has become black people's duty to denounce the land we've called home for hundreds of years)
Remember, Delaware was a slave state until the 14th Amendment passed. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply in "loyal" territory.
I am aware. And it was the 13th Amendment that ended slavery, by the way, Mr. Lawyer .
Slavery did not end in my home state of New Jersey either until the 13th Amendment was ratified, and NJ was a southern-sympathizing state that upheld the Fugitive Slave Law, but that didn't magically relocate it to the south any more than Delaware.
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