AMERICAN IDOL

hello?

Racisim exist everywhere. Even within the urban walls of your esteemed Portland. If the South is guilty of one thing, it's people actually say their inner thoughts. A friend of mine from Bama visited a friend in NYC. They went to dinner with a bunch of New Yorkers. My friend grew tired of hearing their implications and round about speaking. Finally he said, why don't you just go ahead and call them niggers. Now the entire dinner had been about classifiying black people without using the term. But upon hearing this, they all acted appalled, and chatized our NYC friend for being friends with a racist southerner. Funny thing is he aint' racist. He was trying to point out their racism.

I know I watch less tv than the average joe, but I've never seen any of those shows, not once.

I don't think you can put them in the same league in terms of binding us as a popular show when there were only ten or so channels people could watch in the pre-cable tv days with the networks dominating.

Still I'd imagine those shows reflect American culture even if they don't have as great a direct impact on it.

One redneck voice to rule them all. One redneck voice to find them. One redneck voice to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

I have a couple questions...

1. Is pop culture something that is important in defining the broad aspect of "american culture"? I noticed a lot of mentioning of t.v. shows and music as referrence points for signifying american culture. Is that a significant part of what culture is about?

2. How much of our "lack of culture" could be linked to our relatively short history? Sometimes it seems like there are more noticeable and established cultures, particularly in Eastern Europe and Asia--some western europe--as opposed to the United States. We barely have 230 yeras of actual existence as a country, who already had a link to a people that existed and were planted in one place for centuries before that, which is why I think there are a lot of comparisons between american culture and British culture. And, on top of that, a good portion of our history is fast to the oppression of a particular group. NOTE: I am not picking on the south. I live in the south and have for many years. My point is simply that as a country, we weren't necessarily tied to together in a majority sense over the issue of race until the courts made separate but equal doctrines unconstitutional--and we really still haven't healed and moved on from race issues. In the county I live in Federal enforcement of Brown vs. Board of Education did not take place until late 1969. Shortly after that, all the white people, some really wealthy ones, got together and created multiple private academies so as to avoid integration. Even into the 80's, although violence was not prevalent, we had significant tensions over race. All that to say, this issue divided our country and put us at war against ourselves just shy of 150 years ago. I think we are too young to have a drastically defined culture, especially because we all came from other places in the relatively near past. I may be 4th generation Italian and Irish, but that's not that significant in the history of civlization.

3. Is it possible that a lot of culture grows and forms out of oppression and persecution, not necessarily religious? It seems that there is evidence of a unifying aspect of life that comes from being oppressed, instead of being the oppressor. The United States needs to bond. I am not suggesting or even hoping for some significant form of oppression. I think maybe why we are perceived as fat and lazy is partly because we have always sort of had whatever we wanted, at least the majority being whites, in the United States. Even the other races. There is a lot that is taken for granted across the board and so it seems like sometimes, places like eastern europe resent the fact that we have not suffered like they have. I have had a similar conversation with my SLovak friend which is very interesting because she is 25 and was alive and cognizant when the USSR was still in control of them. It's such a different conversation than defining what "american culture" is.