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How would you define your white American culture? (lemmy.selfhostcat.com)

submitted 2 days ago by ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I ask this having been to events with national/ethnic dress, food, and other cultures. What can a white American say their culture is? It feels that for better or worse it’s been all melted together.

Trying to trace back to European roots feels disingenuous because I’ve been disconnected from those roots for a few generations.

This also makes me wonder was their any political motive in making white American culture be everything and nothing?

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[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

I'm not technically white, and I'm Canadian which is only technically "American," but -- close enough. IMO, it's mostly people who are not white americans that define to me what white american culture. Like, if you were to ask me "is this part of your culture?" for various things, I would say "yes" to many things and "no" to many things.

But many of the things that I would say "yes" to, other people might inform me, "no, that's not part of your culture." Jazz, Super Mario bros., rap music, anime, chickpea stew, spaghetti -- I identify these as elements of my culture, or at least my "idioculture" as it were, but people have told me these are not part of my culture.

I think maybe let's stop gatekeeping culture so much and let people live how they like to live. If somebody likes wearing a yukata as a houserobe and they're not japanese, is there really a problem? It's not like they're pretending to be japanese.