From: Fran.O'gorman@f94.n272.z1.fidonet.org (Fran O'gorman)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: DEAF CULTURE
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:35:44 GMT
Reply-To: Fran.O'gorman@f94.n272.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:272/94 - Monroe Electronic M, Monroe NY
X-Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference

Index Number: 23926

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Hi Laurel,

 LG> I agree that there can be good ways and bad ways to retain a folk
 LG> culture.

I guess you're referring to my msg to Jim Brown in which I said
retaining traditions and such is good as long as the group doesn't
become exclusive, am I right?

 LG>  But I do not believe that all questions of good and bad
 LG> are purely relative, and that it just depends on what culture you
 LG> belong to.

I'm trying to think of what I said that made you say this?  I
don't think it depends on which culture it is either (whether it's
'good' or 'bad') just that cultures should not exclude
others....otherwise my msg was advocating the preservation of
cultural diversity where possible.

 LG>  What I am going to say may sound very racist, but it
 LG> is a question I would like to discuss.  Blacks say we have to
 LG> accept their Black culture.  But then they say it is "white" to
 LG> get good marks at school and study and get a steady job and marry
 LG> and have legitimate children.  Then I am supposed to be a willing
 LG> victim to crime, because that is "Black culture", and I am
 LG> supposed to spend my hard earned money supporting another woman's
 LG> illegitimate children, because it is "white" to work or to get
 LG> married.  What kind of sense does this make?

What you're saying here has nothing to do with culture or
traditions in the sense I was talking about at all... you're
referring to racial stereotypes.  Plenty of blacks get good marks
in school, have stable homes and marriages, etc.  The kind of
stuff you're talking about is endemic to inner-city economically
blighted people whose problems BTW cross color and ethnic lines
ALOT...  actually nowadays it is not just an urban thing either...
here in Orange County we see a certain am't of this also, and this
is mainly a rural small town area.

When I spoke of traditions, heritage and culture I was talking
about things like... well, for an example, Black people are more
expressive and sing alot in Church and I think that that is a neat
thing... now if the existing majority culture were not so
demonstrative, the new group might feel a need to repress that
style of doing things and I think that it's nicer to keep the
variety and keep ethnic practices alive.  That's all I was
saying...and the singing in Church is just an example I'm using
now.

I sure hope you don't view the bad welfare system as the fault or
'tradition' of Black folk... if anything it's the fault of the
economically empowered (predominately) white political machine to
provide a band-aid fix to a problem that runs deeper and needs
more fundamental steps to cure.  As the ranks of homeless and
unemployed increase you'll find this phenomenon that you describe
very much closer to your (and my) doorstep and their ancestral mix
may very well be 'white' in the WASP sense...

Also the lifestyle of crime and poverty that you describe is not
something that is touted as 'black' or ever upheld as cool and
good; where it exists it's a life of desperation where the normal
things have not been in place... I don't think if you spoke to
people in the grip of drugs, crime, or poverty that they would
advertise this as a great way to live.

The welfare system is a mess and needs revamping and it's easy to
look at the deficit and then look at the welfare system and see it
as the culprit.  But if you look at all the scandals in Washington
and the whole picture of federal spending you'll see the welfare
problem is only a small tip of the icebergh in representing the
expenditures of your overtaxed dollar.

--Fran

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