I believe the idea of culture is more complex than most people think. On page 52 Toolbox states, “How does one identify a specific culture? what are its boundaries? Can it be usefully conceived of in such terms–or does each culture contain within it several semiautonomous cultures?”
My answer is yes there are several mini cultures or customs within each culture or at least in America it is. In America we have several nationalities which means each have their own way of thinking and living amongst one another. We also have a work/interconnected culture that we share when we are out as opposed to at home with our family and friends.
People of African American descent are more likely to relate in upbringing and how they operate on a daily bases (rich, middle class or poor) than those of other races and vice versa. For example, how parents react to misbehavior, music, hairstyles and ways of cooking meals down to sayings that our mothers would say are quite similar and sometimes exact to a tee. In the same light there is a societal understanding how one greets one another or the social norm amongst a community, in other words what we do as Americans (football Sundays, basketball, celebrating 4th of July).
In connection to this topic I’ve once understood this on a international level as well from taking a communications class. Some countries are different in a sense that how we say hello by waving our hand could serve as an insult somewhere else. Each country, state, city, area, and community is different in how they interact and what they keep as customs.
Some customs/ideals are stolen or exploited resulting in appropriation but that is another story within its self.
I found it amusing and true when you said that people of the same race are likely to relate when it comes to upbringing and how they operate on a daily basis. I certainly think you’re right, but it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend (who is of the same race as me) once on how I felt that trying to fit into one culture felt restrictive and almost like a “trap.” She and I are both black Americans, and grew up in similar ways that definitely reflect many stereotypes people have when it comes to our race. As we got older, we were both called “Oreos” for having black (even though it’s actually brown) skin, but acted “white” instead. With my parents telling me that I’d most likely be an underdog for my entire life because of my gender and race, I first took the Oreo label as a compliment in middle school because it meant that I wasn’t like all the others. But over the years I’ve come to despise that label because it meant that I didn’t take pride in the color of my skin, and that I believed the lie that your skin color determined your lifestyle and actions. I wanted to be as white as I could, but now I don’t think about things like that anymore. While I am certainly black (or brown, whatever), I can like and do whatever I want. This is why I’m glad that there are many different mini-cultures within the United States. It allows me to get a taste of everything.
Ty, I like the way you broke down the different versions and scopes of culture. It is a crazy thing; on the one hand we have to acknowledge our respective social contexts (heritage, class, national and political identity, etc.), but at the same those boundaries are becoming less and less clear over time, which is nice. I mean the biggest factor has got to be the internet, right? except in kind of isolated cases like North Korea the lines of communication and the general fluidity of information has done a lot to sort of breakdown cultural taboos. It seems like more and more the lines we draw between our little micro-cultures have become unstable–even arbitrary.
I’m taking this random Latin American class and its kind of baffling just how arbitrary a lot of cultural boundaries can be. Spain and Portugal and other colonial forces divvied up the Americas, such that one day your a unified tribe with a common cultural identity, if not a straight up genetic one, then the next day a third of you are Bolivian, another Argentinian, the other third Chilean. I mean obviously that’s an aggressive over-simplification, but you kinda get the idea.
Dudes like Che Guevara (above) called B.S. on that kind of arbitrary provincialism, and I think it’ll be interesting to see when, or if, we’ll start collectively calling B.S. on many of the oppressive cultural taboos we use to define each other.