Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-25184427-20140722165407/@comment-6383956-20140727062603

DManCO wrote: It's not expected that white people will drop indicators of ethnic culture. Somebody with English ancestry isn't expected to take afternoon tea every day or speak with an accent unless they literally just came from England! As I said, I don't go around wearing some kind of Polish symbol or using Polish language (except when somebody sneezes) - because I'm not from Poland! I grew up in NJ and now live in CO. Humorously, like many people from NJ, I do use occasional Italian or Yiddish words and phrases, even though I am neither Italian nor Jewish. I picked them up from the people I lived around. Both groups are considered "white" (even though Italians have very mixed ancestry and Jews are technically Semitic, not Indo-European) and have a lot of cultural overlap in places like NJ even though they are very different ethnicities (although all do intermarry a great deal). Why is it that only non-whites are expected to exhibit specific cultural or linguistic traits that exactly match their ancestry? Still kinda missing the point there. I literally said that people assimilate, I just said, since they've put so much emphasis on there not being any homophobia or racism, that that claim doesn't work since there are not other cultures. And then I gave two possible examples -- that, yes, were totally stereotypical -- of ways that different cultures can be shown without spending a lot of time on them. (Or really any time.) There's a lot more ways as well, I just didn't want to list every single way for every single character since my posts on this topic are rather lengthy as it is.

As for your other complaints -- you do realize that white culture is the culture you're talking about everyone else assimilating into? The privileged, mainstream society? That's white culture. Much like how heterosexuals don't notice heterosexuals, people who are a part of that culture don't see it as exhibiting specific cultural or linguistic traits. But literally they do.

Every single person is part of a culture. It is not possible not to be part of a culture, unless you're a hermit. (And technically, hermits were a subculture back when there were, y'know, more of them.) Ergo, every single person displays cultural traits. It is not possible not to display traits from the culture of which you are a part. You can consciously or unconsciously shift those traits as your cultural identity may shift, but nevertheless, you will always be exhibiting cultural specific traits. White or non-white, it's totally irrelevant.

Does everyone's every single cultural traits match their ancestry? No. Do a lot of people have some small cultural trait that does match their ancestry? Yeah, in real life, that's very common even for people who have mostly assimilated. Not everyone, mind you, but it's wildly unrealistic in a town the size of Beacon Hills that nobody does.

Is it total and complete BS that Jeff Davis gets praised as some savior of television for his "world without racism or homophobia" when what he's actually gotten rid of is almost every trace of the cultural diversity that really drives such prejudices? Why, yes, yes it is.