reflections on wikis

African-American

The repression of African language, religion and tradition during the slave period, noted in the history section of this wiki, is both closely related to much of our course material and significant for understanding African-American culture. The inter-relation of language, practice and religion has been pointed out; language is culture, and furthermore shapes worldviews. By attempting to deny slaves the right to practice traditions and religions and perhaps most importantly to speak their native tongues, Anglo slave owners sought to essentially destroy African culture. But of course, something had to fill this void since African slaves were not admitted into the Anglo dominated colonial culture. This gave rise to the unique African-American culture that has graced our society with eloquent and passionate preachers like Martin Luther King, and shaped most of our music from Jazz and Rock to Rap and R&B.

However, the attempt to deny African-American culture has not been limited to the slave era. Emerson and Smith noted that when the dominant culture reflects on deviant or sub-cultural art forms, typically “white” styles (e.g. metal) are criticized for degrading individual youth, whereas typically “black” styles (e.g. Rap) are criticized for being dangerous to society as a whole. Furthermore, it is not unusual for white Americans to accuse African-Americans of trying to “live in the past” when African-Americans attempt to salvage some shreds of identity from their more than tragic past in this country. Consequently, the attempt on the part of Euro-Americans to deny African-Americans a culture is not limited to early nineteenth century Mississippi.

Euro-American

It was quite interesting to read about my own culture as researched and compiled by students from a different culture. Often what is striking or important for an outsider is assumed and subconscious to those native to the culture in question. I think this holds true for many of the observations in the Euro-American wiki, and it was enlightening to hear from an others perspective.

Family, of course, is a hot topic for many conservative white Christians, however it is still often taken for granted. The divorce rate is slightly higher for evangelical Americans than for the population at large, which suggests that even if we are aware of the problem we don’t take it too seriously. Something may be going on at the perception level; as Emerson and Smith pointed out, evangelicals tend to think individualistically rather than systemically, consequently family is defined as “nuclear” and any problems in particular families are particular problems. Thus the stock evangelical answer to the high divorce rate is to legislate or otherwise reaffirm individualistic “nuclear” family values, values that emphasize the nuclear family as the atoms of society.

Asian-American

First off, I would like to suggest that this wiki is used as an example of what a good wiki looks like next time this class is taught. After reading this wiki I feel like I have a much better grasp of what was aimed for with the wiki assignments. Excellent work folks, good job!

The history of Asian immigration very clearly demonstrates some of the effects of western and U.S. colonialism. It was pointed out that many of these groups have faced persecution and difficulty upon immigrating here; Asians perhaps more than most other immigrant groups have been viewed as suspicious, foreign “others.” However, in many cases United States imperialism and interventionism has strongly drawn Asians to this country. Koreans, Vietnamese and Filipinos in particular have been caught up in the actions of this country; in many cases the U.S. came to them before they came to the U.S. This does not necessarily mean that we should not be involved in international affairs (isolationism), but it does suggest that we should welcome immigrants from those countries we have been involved with rather than view them with utter suspicion.

The authors of this wiki do an excellent job of raising cultural practices and issues. As the authors point out, Asian-Americans have particularly struggled to maintain their ethnic identity, and often the difficulty of doing so has resulted in a division between first and subsequent generation Asian-Americans. Korean-American scholar and seminary professor Jung Young Kim has pointed out some of the positive contributions Asian-Americans (and other hyphenated-Americans) are able to make to Christian living. These hyphenated peoples know on a deep level what it is like to live in two realities; e.g. to be both Chinese and American, and as a result to be something entirely new as well. Similarly Christians are to live in a sort of hyphenated state; the kingdom is already here but not yet complete, we are in the world but not of it, and so on. Kim uses the term “marginality” to define the space occupied by hyphenated people; they live at the margins of two identities and cultures. We can learn much from this place as Christians, and particularly as Christians seeking to embrace cultural diversity and intercultural communication. To live on the margin rather than in the privileged center means one touches the margins of other cultures--if we stay in the center, comfortably ensconced in our own native culture, we will never truly communicate across those margins.