Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!aplcen!samsung!psuvax1!psuvm!auvm!HMCVAX!BEVANS From: BEVANS@HMCVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU (Mathemagician) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet Subject: Re: Positive color codes Message-ID: Date: 20 Feb 90 00:13:00 GMT Sender: Gaynet Distribution List Reply-To: gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Lines: 42 Approved: NETNEWS@AUVM.BITNET Gateway X-Envelope-To: gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU X-Vms-To: IN%"gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU" X-To: gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU LCREW writes: >If your guest book and friendship registers don't include several people >from many different ethnic backgrounds, you're a white person turning into >chalk, vastly impoverished from the lack of nurture for which hundreds, >nay thousands of people of all colors have dreamed. Kind of a blanket statement, don't you think? While I admit that my friends definitely look the "white section of town," what makes you think that they don't have a varied culture as well? My own upbringing is a mixture of Greek and Norwegian heritage (my mother told me the Greek myths when I was young and I believed her verbatim...came as quite a shock to my Catholic school teachers when I told them that the tallest mountain in the world was Mt. Olympus "where the gods live.") I have one person I can truly call friend who is not Caucasian (not counting Steve who's adopted so he don't know what he is save that he has a bit of Indian blood), but I don't think I've "turned to chalk" by my lack of acquaintances "of color." I don't KNOW the ethnic backgrounds of most of my friends...it DOESN'T MATTER to me what part of the world their parents came from. My background is Norwegian/Greek/English/Irish. I wasn't brought up with any English/Irish culture so am I being inconsiderate by not associating with myself that part of me which IS? I don't think so (and for those of you who care: no, I didn't study English History or British Literature in school. My knowledge of Shakespeare is virtually nil and I'm an ACTOR, fer cryin' out loud. I've never gotten around to it.) There is a difference between actively avoiding people of a certain characteristic and simply having a void of that characteristic in your clique of people. I didn't actively seek out the people who became my friends...it just happened. People who say that white people all have the same culture don't know what "white" culture is. *I* don't know what "white" culture is and *I* am white. I'm sorry if I seem pissy, but I'm getting sick and tired of people lumping me in together with all the other people with the same color skin and claiming we all have the same culture. I KNOW it isn't true with black people (the best example I've heard of this is "My family is from Jamaica") so why should it be true of white people? -- Brian Evans bevans at hmcvax.claremont.edu, hmcvax.bitnet, jarthur.claremont.edu