Loving USA Culture - eviltoast
  • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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    4 months ago

    The difference is that Brazil was a slave state were the slaves and local populations became the dominant culture. In the US, white settlers persecuted everyone that wasnt a white English/German protestant. Catholics were ostracized to the point where an entire colony was established to keep them. Millions of native people were slaughtered and their cultural identity stripped and suppressed. Africans taken from their homelands to be sold as property had their entire identity stripped from them while they worked the fields as slaves and denied their own culture. After “liberation” they were still second class citizens who lacked equal rights and had their interests and culutre viewed as lesser. Now those cultural elements have been commercialized, but it’s the descendants of the oppressors who profit, not the oppressed. Irish Catholics would be enraged and protest if London had a soccer team called “The Wimbledon Mickeys” or if the RUC did a river dance before official events.

    The US is a multicultural state, but that is despite the best efforts of oir leaders, not because of them. I’ve met plenty of people who scream 'Build the Wall!" and call Mexicans all sorts of slurs, but are then happy to get blackout drunk on Corona and margaritas at a Mexican restaurant on Cinco De Mayo. Jazz music and the blues were forbidden from radio stations because they were associated with black communities, but suddenly white people started to incorporate elements of the blues into music, creating the mosern rockstar. And while Mic Jagger, Elvis Presley, and Steven Tyler are household names, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Muddy Waters are relagted to music history classes.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      So your saying opposite teams won their countries, with the US being dominated by the oppressor and Brazil dominated by the oppressed?

      That would change the perspective on older culture in each country.

      • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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        4 months ago

        I wouldn’t describe it as “winning” or “losing”. In the US, Canada, and Australia, the white majority rried to eradicate any non-conforming cultures, whereas in Latin America, Africa, and India, the white settlers in power were so drastically outnumbered that they used various forms of racial hierarchies amd segregation. When those colonial empires collapsed the governments became more representative of the local populations. They still oppressed (and continue to do so) various groups, but indigenous and historical cultures were able to survive due to large populations that were able to carry on those traditions.

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I am aware I can phrase things poorly often, but thank you for replying with more to learn about.

        • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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          4 months ago

          Brazil actually merged the freed slaves into society because people at the time thought that over several generations, everybody would end up being white again. In a different way they were also trying to suppress them.

          As for the indigenous population, before Portugal arrived here there was one large tribe already dominating all the others. The Portuguese then negotiated with that large tribe and that one tribe’s culture managed to survive, but the colonizers also had no respect for it or any of the others and grouped them all together as if being the same thing. The other cultures ended up being either absorbed or erased by that larger tribe.

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            Do you think people would feel better about how america handles culture if they would stop replacing their culture with things like shopping malls and business center?

            Maybe the problem is more about Americans destroying culture and not replacing it with anything that will last or represents them.