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Usually, the culture of those who talk about "white culture" mainly involves wrestling, stock cars, and a beer buzz......In any event, we are Americans, not "whites", and our fate is intimately tied to our darker brethren, who came in shackles and helped to build a continent. We are a Creole culture, in a manner of speaking, which is why all of the authentic American musical forms owe a huge debt to black musicians: jazz, blues, r&b, and rock 'n' roll. But it is larger than that: the rhythms of American comedy were developed by Jews in the Catskills; the railroads, which linked a continent and ensured that America would have the resources to become a great nation, were built by hordes of Chinese immigrants; the coal that powered our industry, and made us the greatest trading power by the end of our first century as a nation, was largely dug by fellows from the wilds of the Balkans and the hinterland of the Austrian Empire; the labor for our steel mills likewise came from the Slavic lands; our other industries were hungry for the labor of Irish and Italian; our rich farmland called to the Norwegian and the Swede. All of these groups, and more, have "sweat equity" in America, and we should be proud to have welcomed the "huddled masses yearning to breath free"..... |
