> once you subtract "Latino Culture" and "Black Culture" and "Asian Culture" from "American Culture" why is it so offensive to call whatever residual that's left that's only associated with non-blacks/asians/latinos "white culture"?
Perhaps because on the one hand you still need to subtract so many other immigrant cultures (Italian American, Polish American, Irish American, etc.), and on the other the "melting-pot" residue is still a set of (largely regional) subcultures that don't have all that much in common (California Surfers, Utah Mormons, Mountain Westerners, Texan Cattle Ranchers, Minnesota Nice, New England Yankees, Deep Southerners, etc.), and if you subtract those what's left over is a fiction that mostly exists only in media and advertising, like the Standard American Newscaster accent that no-one actually speaks natively, although you might make a case for the existence of a generic Suburban American culture that, if it can be said to exist, only came into being after World War II.
The same sort of decomposition can be done towards black culture as well though.
It also strikes me as untenable that one can simultaneously support the notion of "white privilege" while attacking the notion of "white culture" - many things that are commonly-cited as reflective of white privilege are cultural in nature.
> The same sort of decomposition can be done towards black culture as well though.
You can, and it has been done, but that's a bit more like noting regional differences within a subculture than it is, for example, like examining the differences between Americans who identify as Latino/Tejano/Hispanic.
There are fewer differences between East Coast vs. West Coast Rap and Hip-hop than there are between "Country" and "Western" music.
> It also strikes me as untenable that one can simultaneously support the notion of "white privilege" while attacking the notion of "white culture" - many things that are commonly-cited as reflective of white privilege are cultural in nature.
There are plenty of privileges that have cultural markers that don't necessarily have a corresponding culture per-se. Rich, straight, and male privileges come to mind.
The privilege, in many respects, often simply comes from the assumption that members of your group are in some sense considered the default type of human, and that other humans are the exceptions (even if they actually outnumber the 'default') that the world may or may not choose to accommodate in various ways. That doesn't necessarily imply that the privileged 'default' groups have distinct cultures surrounding that core assumption.
Gah. Intersectionality is hard.
Perhaps a bit of nuance is in order. Rather than saying that "there is no such thing as White Culture", it would make more sense to say "in America there are many white cultures"?
>The privilege, in many respects, often simply comes from the assumption that members of your group are in some sense considered the default type of human, and that other humans are the exceptions (even if they actually outnumber the 'default') that the world may or may not choose to accommodate in various ways.
Sure, but obviously the modally-raised examples of privilege are not stuff like "'flesh-colored' crayons correspond to white skin tones." It pertains to perceived social norms and such that benefit white people as a class at the expense of non-white people. But if you posit that those social norms may constitute a shared cultural experience, then you've crossed a line? I don't buy it.
If you go on Twitter and find someone talking about hating white people for whatever reasons (shouldn't be too hard), I'm sure that many of the critiques will be cultural in nature (eg. look at all the culturally-laden digs towards "white-girl feminism".) But again, this shouldn't be taken to imply the existence of white culture? Why not?
I'm not particularly hung up on trying to prove that white culture exists in particular, but I just don't think the arguments for why black culture exists but not white culture are very good, and I think they are clearly subverted by how woke narratives collectively treat white people in pretty much any sort of critical context.
Perhaps because on the one hand you still need to subtract so many other immigrant cultures (Italian American, Polish American, Irish American, etc.), and on the other the "melting-pot" residue is still a set of (largely regional) subcultures that don't have all that much in common (California Surfers, Utah Mormons, Mountain Westerners, Texan Cattle Ranchers, Minnesota Nice, New England Yankees, Deep Southerners, etc.), and if you subtract those what's left over is a fiction that mostly exists only in media and advertising, like the Standard American Newscaster accent that no-one actually speaks natively, although you might make a case for the existence of a generic Suburban American culture that, if it can be said to exist, only came into being after World War II.