Race: The Cultural Misnomer

Race: The Cultural Misnomer

By

Matt Steininger

I grew up in Silver Spring, MD in the Washington D.C. Metro area. The culture there is separated in equal amounts of black and white skinned people, some separated by economic class but there is also a blending of the two in other areas. I was raised by my parents to be what they called, “color blind.” They wanted my brother and I to treat everyone the same as we would want to be treated by them, regardless of the color of their skin. As I got older and learned more about genetics, philosophy, and culture I realized that there is no such thing as race and the differences people associate with “race” are actually economic cultural differences. Any person that grows up in a specific culture will have those differences, but skin color has nothing to do with it.

The area of Silver Spring is a mixed culture of middle class. We were apart of the lower middle class culture. Cultures are more based on economics then race. In fact there really is no such thing as race. All humans are 99.9% genetically the same. The ideology of “race” is a fairly new idea and was created by slave owners near the end of the 18^th century. There was anti-slavery pressure coming from Europe and the slave owners had to come up with something to justify slavery. They did this by exploiting differences between different ethic heritages and colors, they explained this difference as race. The idea of race had became ingrained in the minds of Americans and spread to the rest of the world to explain differences in culture everywhere. This idea was taken by Hitler during Wold War II and he had many scientific studies done on the Jewish people to prove racial differences are physical and mental. Because the idea of race became so ingrained in our minds people started to separate each other based on race and forcing others into a racial box that over time became a cultural difference. If you forcefully separate a group of people then eventually they will create their own culture based on their economic status, location, politics, and treatment by others.

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) had written a paper on their opinions of race. They say, “Biophysical diversity has no inherent social meaning except what we humans confer upon it.” (American Anthropological Association). So, if race has no inherent social meaning then what creates this social meaning. The AAA says, “...we conclude that the concept of “race” has no validity as a biological category in the human species. Because it homogenizes widely varying individuals into limited categories, it impedes research and understanding of the true nature of human biological variations.” (American Anthropological Association). A persons economic status will create differences in culture, not their color or ethnic heritage.

The area I grew up in was a lower middle class culture. In a low income culture everyone is trying to find ways to make money and survive, there are usually underground economies of drugs, porn, and black market merchandise. Bourgois, did an anthropological study on this type of culture in New York and he describes the mindset of those areas well by saying, “Regular displays of violence are necessary for success in the underground economy – especially the street-level drug dealing world. Violence is essential for maintaining credibility and for preventing rip-offs by colleagues, customers, and intruders. Thus behavior that appears irrationally violent and self-destructive to the middle- or working-class outsider can be interpreted, according to the logic of the underground economy, as judicious public relations.” (Bourgois). My area was mixed with white and black people that were just like that. In the D.C. Metro area there is what I call a “prison mentality” and in school when a group of kids wants to be feared by everyone else they will take out the biggest and toughest guy to establish dominance. I was the biggest guy and would get jumped and verbally degraded on a regular basis so that this group could keep their dominance over the other kids in the school.

Culture has nothing to do with color. I have seen white people that grew up in poor areas with black people and their culture was just as Bourgois described. I have also see black people that grew up in upper middle class or wealthy cultures and they adopted what would be considered a “white” culture. Kottak says, “Every person begins immediately, through a process of conscious and unconscious learning and interaction with others, to internalize, or incorporate, a cultural tradition through the process of enculturation.” (Kottak). Our society tries to keep these economic cultures true by making it extremely difficult for anyone to change their economic status. Dworkin agrees by saying, “In the real world people do not start their lives on equal terms. For luck (e.g. of inherited genes, or of educational privilege) can play a devastating role in deciding who gets or keeps the best jobs.” (Dworkin)

I first moved to Longmont, Colorado, when I was 16 years old and I had a culture shock. Longmont was a middle class rural culture of mostly white people. Actually I didn't see a black person in Longmont until three months after living there. Because the area was prominently white and middle class the culture was naive and believed that race created cultures and not economics or politics. I would meet many people that would assume that people were black or white when I told stories of growing up in Silver Spring. When I would tell someone that I was jumped and made fun of on a regular basis they would assume they were black and if I told a story about a friend they would assume they were white. If someone was violent or mean they assumed they were black and if they were nice then they assumed they were white. I had to point out multiple times that there were also violent white people and nice black people. The concept of race had nothing to do with it. We are all the product of the culture we grew up in and learned. If a person is white and grows up in a low economic class then they will act accordingly and usually be more violent to hold onto the credibility needed for that culture. Also, if a person is black and grows up in a middle or high economic class then they will be nicer and calmer because they do not have the stresses of a low economic class. This is evident when a black person of low economic class meet another black person of high economic class, they will consider them to be acting “white.” This is also evident when a white person of high economic class meets a white person of low economic class, they will consider them to be acting “black” and have nick names for them like “wigger.”

Culture is everywhere and is different depending on the area you are in. Many things can create a culture like, location, economic status, politics, and available resources. But, the color of a person's skin or their ethnic heritage does not create culture. Culture cannot be genetically inherited, it must be learned and experienced.

Bibliography:

American Anthropological Association, . "Official Statement on "Race"." Anthropology Newsletter. 38.6 (1997). Print.

Kottak, Conrad Phillip. Mirror for Humanity. 7th ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. 236-257. Print.

Bourgis, Phillippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.

Dworkin, Ronald. A Matter of Principle. New York, NY: Harvard University Press, 1985. 205-213. Print.