What is known as the distinct or unique American culture
The NY Times researched the overlap between the race-baiting jargon of Trump and Fox News bullies, and the various racist massacres of the past few years. There’s a lot of it.
To single out one item from a long piece…
Rush Limbaugh issued a grim prognosis to his millions of radio listeners: if the immigrants from Central America weren’t stopped, the United States would lose its identity. “The objective is to dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture,” Mr. Limbaugh said, adding: “This is why people call this an invasion.”
But that’s an illusion. The idea that there’s such a thing as “the distinct or unique American culture,” and that Rush Limbaugh knows what it is, and that it’s a permanent, static, unchanging thing is an illusion, and a damn silly one at that. What culture? Which one? The Sioux, the Cherokee, the Tlingit? The one in and around Santa Fe in the 17th century? Slave culture? Gullah culture? Mississippi Delta culture? Cajun? Lower East Side? The Heights? Chicago? Detroit?
We know what he thinks he means – white people, men mostly, plus their shadowy wives, speaking Murkan English the way he, Limbaugh, speaks it, and growing up reciting The Pledge at school every day, going to church (Protestant) every Sunday and getting misty-eyed when The National Tune is played before every football game. That culture.
But that culture isn’t universal or eternal and it sure as hell doesn’t represent all there is to this country. It’s a big place with a very messy history, and it’s not capable of having one simple monoculture. The culture has never stood still, and even Limbaugh wouldn’t want it to have. Just for a start, where would he be without the culture of shock jock radio and screaming angry white guys?
Distinct American culture is taco trucks on every corner, getting drunk on Cinco de Mayo/St. Patrick’s day, pizza with red sauce instead of tomatoes, Chinese food, a Lafayette in nearly (all?) states, Imperial measurements, Oregon pinot, the Statue of Liberty, etc…
It ain’t a bunch of fucking corn…
Maize originated in Mexico 7000 years ago, actually.
All those immigrants are poisoning the cities with the smells of their foreign food, food like wursts and spaghetti and pierogis. You can’t even walk through the streets of New York today without being overwhelmed by the pungent smell of garlic everywhere.
And don’t get me started on all that godawful polka pouring out of every window.
Oh, wait, wrong century….
I’ve never understood how someone can claim that “American culture” is an empty term while opening a present I just handed them, or walking down the street while drinking a soda, or pouring themselves a glass of wine at a restaurant.
Sounds like my idea of heaven.
iknklast,
When David Beckham was playing with Real Madrid, his wife, Victoria (aka Posh Spice) complained that the whole city smelled of garlic. I lived there on and off for about four years, and I can confirm that she had a point. But for me, it was a feature, not a bug.
Well, I have to say I wish my town smelled more like garlic and less like corporate hog farms. If you’ve never smelled that – lucky you. A lot of the midwest smells that way now. Driving through Iowa on a summer day, you’ll wish for the smell of pierogis and garlic (actually I can wish for that now, and I’m not even smelling the hog farms right now).
Yeah, in case it wasn’t clear, my first post was sarcastic. I’m all for garlic.
The best smelling city I’ve been to is Istanbul, in the spice market. The worst smelling place was the house of some friends of the family when the wind was blowing down from the sauerkraut factory.
You’ve clearly never been near a gelatine factory.
I used to live across the road from a stable. That was bad. I also used to do conservation work. This usually meant removing invasive plants, one of which was wild garlic. The smell was delicious at first, but nauseating before the day was over.
It’s tough to choose which was worse.
Holms, when I did conservation work, the smell of the swamps I tramped in was pretty obnoxious. I never got enough wild garlic to find the smell unpleasant, though. Only the smell of anaerobic mud on my shoes.