Saturday, January 21, 2012
Perspectives on Diversity and Culture
All three of the people that I discussed diversity and culture with this week limited the discussion to race, ethnicity, food, clothing, and holiday traditions. It was interesting to me that, even though we live in an area where the majority of the population is Hispanic, all three corelated being non-white as being 'diverse'. None of them thought of 'white' people as being diverse. They also were not able to define or see the 'white' culture, but saw the Hispanics as having culture. This told me that all three looked at surface culture but did not concern themselves with understanding deep culture.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I had a similar experience with the three people with whom I spoke. We live in a dominantly white area, but none of the people I spoke to considered themselves in the dominant group. They all generalized culture as groups of people sharing similar values and beliefs. They put no emphasis on race, ethnicity, or gender. It was very unusual to me.
ReplyDeleteInteresting experience. It is interesting to see how many people do not bother to look at the "deep culture" but focuses the surface culture as you stated. Good post.
ReplyDeleteMost of the people I interviewed too related culture to traditions and not really to a way of doing things. I never taught culture was as deep as it is I probably was like everyone of them who never thought they had culture until I was enlightened in our studies.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post.
It is interesting how they see themselves without a culture. I have never thought about people thinking about their own "race" like that. Great post, you have made me think of things that one does not see or does not want to see.
ReplyDelete