Cultural Inferiority

What is culture? The anthropological definition is as follows: Culture, as a body of learned behaviors common to a given human society, acts rather like a template (ie. it has predictable form and content), shaping behavior and consciousness within a human society from generation to generation. So culture resides in all learned behavior and in some shaping template or consciousness prior to behavior as well (that is, a "cultural template" can be in place prior to the birth of an individual person) http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vcwsu/commons/topics/culture/culture-definition.html.

There used to be a time in the not so distant past that Negro people were believed to be genetically inferior. This was not simply the opining of uneducated Western masses, but the work and findings of white scholars, whose methodologies have sense been debunked. Notwithstanding, the belief in the inferiority of the Negro has persisted through the years. However, in this era in which whites fear the label or accusation of being a “racist”, the term “culture” has thus manifested to replace “Race” to qualify that which whites use to explain inferiority amongst the Negro population.

Biological and or Genetic explanations to black pathologies are obvious signs of a racist, but "culture" is a stealth euphamism that essentialy targets the same group. In short, the term protects whites from being called a white supremacist....when really that is what they are propogating. Note that the belief in inferiority of blacks has not changed, just the qualifying reason for it...ie "black culture"...a culture emanating from and endemic to people of black biology. If one is not talking about race...per se...then they cannot be accused of being racist, in their own minds or the thinking of others.

Given that culture is essentially learned behavior, how is it that blacks and whites are perceived to have different cultures while existing in the same environment of America for the last 300 years? Is not environment the teacher of culture and have we both not been exposed to the same environment of America? How could America have taught whites one thing while having taught black another, if two separate culture indeed exists? What phenomenon was the cause of the schism? Whose behavior created the isolation and segregation that would be a necessity for different cultures to incubate and grow while in the same nation?

It’s an interesting concept of which I find fascinating. Given that culture is learned and passed generationaly, what did black people learn from the peoples who were oppressing them? When one thinks back, did not slave owners father illegitimate children from some of their black slaves, yet they remained slaves? Did that teach black males to be illegitimate fathers too? Did the slave masters and overseers use of violence to control and intimidate their slaves teach blacks to be just as violent? Did the fact that the slaves did all the hard work while the slave master virtually did nothing in comparison teach blacks that to be successful is to be lazy? Did the general degradation and disrespect for black humanity and worth by slave masters and whites teach blacks to look at each other in the same way? Ect…ect.

If culture is a learned behavior then what is the resultant of a culture of racial oppression upon a people? What did they learn from it and how does it affect the behavior of the oppressed group? Hence, can a people develop an inferior culture by virtue of its people being treated as inferior for centuries in the same nation? If a culture is inferior due to a nation allowing and facilitating the oppression of a people is it not the responsibility of the nation to attempt to fix what it broke and can that fix be implemented without recognizing and targeting the group that it broke in the effort? Culture is essentially socialization via emulation.

I think a good test for the belief in racial superior and inferiority is to ask a white person if they believe this to be true: If white people had been taken to a black nation as slaves, and had essentially the same situation as blacks have had in the West, but in reverse, would they be in a better or worse situation than blacks are in America today? Would they have risen faster? Would they complain less? Would they seek Affirmative Action?

Of course, for them to assume that they would be better off clearly points to the belief that white humanity is superior to black humanity and can hence overcome odds in a superior fashion. To suggest that the situation would be the same is to suggest that the black condition of today is predictable given what they were exposed.

Whites will not answer this question. Why? Because it threatens to expose them as something they deny to themselves and others. Of course, some will dismiss this hypothetical as absurd due to the premise of the hypothesis implying that blacks could actually ever have the capacity to dominate whites…..which is absurd on its face when one essentially believes in white supremacy and its corollary of black inferiority.