This may be inappropriate to some, but is heartfelt..

[cilla4progress]

I appreciate other cultures more than my own - white American.

This is how I was raised - to value all equally. But it has accelerated in my adulthood, and especially recently.

I hate to sound pandering, or like a wannabe. But be it African-American, Native American, Afghan, or whatever: I believe we will be better off if white America - or more precisely, white imperialist western culture - takes a breather and lets other perspectives, viewpoints, value systems, take the lead. We have not succeeded in our mindset, and in fact, on many levels, have brought destruction.

Whether in leadership, organization, philosophy, values, artistic priorities - it's time for a different "dominant/mainstream culture" to emerge. I welcome it, and look forward to it.

[Laffy Kat]

1. We certainly could use some humbling. That's for sure. nt

[Kath1]

2. I'm a white American female and I agree with you.

We have brought a lot of destruction and could learn a lot from other cultures and value systems. I am looking ford to t, also.

[mythology]

3. I think you underestimate the capacity of other cultures to suck

The west is hardly alone in committing atrocities. For as much as say Japan values certain positive ideas, they also don't welcome outsiders and committed massive war crimes that they still honor the criminals who committed them.

[cilla4progress]

10. I hear you.

And the whale hunts. Another imperialist culture?

[mythology]

35. Off hand, China, the Aztecs, the Assyrians, the Mongols, Russia, and the Maoris

all committed mass murder. The Mongols killed an estimated 40 million people back when the world had an estimated population of around 400 million people.

[cilla4progress]

38. And all those cultures have values and views

that ought to be integrated into leadership styles.

This isn't about all bad or all good. It's about domination by one mindset, generally imposed by force and brutality. Nowadays. In the "developed" world. Incorporating the best of the perspectives of multi-cultures.

[Aristus]

4. Not pandering at all. I'm a 47 year-old white Christian male American.

And the squalid, anti-intellectual 'culture' that has grown around the dubious goal of protecting people who fit that description is utterly repellant to me.

I was raised from a very early age by unreconstructed Kennedy liberals to seek out and learn about different cultures, and to be open to ways of doing things that are different from my own.

A broad world view has enriched my life more than the power to describe. So I can't get in the gutter with people who insist they are trying to preserve 'our' way of life.

The sooner Western white capitalist imperialism is swept away on a flood-tide of human rights and global liberty, the better.

[H2O Man]

5. Recommended.

Discussions about certain issues can be uncomfortable, perhaps especially on DU -- and even more so during primary season. However, even in this context, "sincerity" come through.

Thank you for this OP.

[cilla4progress]

11. An honor

To receive your thanks, H.

[yuiyoshida]

6. okay, but please stop

trying to be Japanese...

[Buzz Clik]

14. That's a lot to ask.

What would we do without the Mikado?

?quality=80&strip=all&w=640

[yuiyoshida]

15. Hire more

Asian actors

[REP]

20. Singers. The Mikado is an operetta. But yes, we need more singers!

It's actually a send-up of English mores in a "Japanese" setting, but aside from made-up Asian names and setting, I don't recall* there being anything Japanese in The Mikado! Not that there shouldn't be more Asian bel canto singers - I actually like those JG Wentworth commercials because they have a rainbow of singers, all joyfully belting out a bel canto jingle!

*I am an Old and memory may be more defective than it appears

[betsuni]

23. That's not a kimono.

[yuiyoshida]

30. its certainly not

its a costume.

[Shandris]

7. Perhaps you can be the one to help define what culture is 'white'.

I'm not familiar with it, but apparently everyone else is. On that point, it's starting to remind me of Teh Gay Agenda; everyone else tells me it exists, but I never once laid eyes on it. Go figure.

[Scuba]

8. This old white man agrees.

Thanks cilla.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. Afghan facts...

85% of women have no formal education and are illiterate.

40% of women are married before they are 18

Total live births per woman – average of 6

1 out 10 children die before their fifth birthday.

Life expectancy for women is 51.

70% of the people lack proper access to drinking water. 70%

The lives of children there, you should read this link:
"A report published by Unicef identifies Afghanistan as the “worst place to be born in the world”: Indeed, Afghan children are subjected to extreme poverty and violence on a daily basis. Their situation is in fact critical: child mortality, malnutrition, forced marriages, sexual abuse…
http://www.humanium.org/en/asia-pacific/afghanistan/

[cilla4progress]

12. I understand.

However, having been host mom to a teenage Afghan girl in 2010-11, I bore witness to her deep and real love for her country, culture, and religion. Perhaps before 20rth century invaders f***ed them up.

[jwirr]

16. Yeah if we think we are going to improve the world it is

going to take more than exchanging cultures. It is never that simple.

[Buzz Clik]

13. My heritage impacts me strongly, and I embrace it.

I love going to various festivals that focus on my heritage and the pure joy they tend to bring.

We all have our comfort zones, and a lot of that is influenced by our ancestry.

Although I enjoy other cultural festivities from Africa, India, Mexico, etc, I always feel like a spectator.

Sorry, but I'm just not feeling "ashamed of my white culture." The problem with white America is not our culture, it's the biases against others we just can't seem to shed.

[cilla4progress]

21. "Ashamed"?

Not sure where you came up with the quote of being ashamed of my culture. Not from me. I am speaking on behalf of the value of diversity in any and all of its forms and formats.

[Matrosov]

17. The problem isn't white culture, it's human nature

For all the horrible things that white imperialist western culture has done, I'm finding it difficult to blame any particular race or culture.

In reality, human nature is to blame. Many people are still very 'tribal' and only care about the success of their group, even it is causes great harm to another group.

There is no shortage of examples of horrible things that have been done and are still going on in non-white and not-western societies. The horrific Japanese war crimes during WWII, the Khmer Rouge atrocities during the 1970s, numerous conflicts in Africa in the 1990s, and so forth, and those are just a handful of examples from the 20th century.

Imperialism, atrocities, genocide, oppression, persecution, bigotry, all go back thousands of years.

The only reason that other cultures haven't been as effective at it over the past hundred years as white imperialist western culture isn't because they are somehow more noble, but because they haven't been as powerful.

I realize it sounds very cynical, but as someone who loves to study history, I have yet to find any specific race or culture that isn't perfectly capable of being assholes to everyone else if a) they feel it benefits them and b) they have the opportunity

[smirkymonkey]

18. +1000

[Arugula Latte]

19. That can be narrowed down by half, though, to "male nature."

“We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it's almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

Yeah, there is a small percentage of violent women, but overwhelmingly those wielding power and violence on this planet are men.

“How can I tell a story we already know too well? Her name was Africa. His was France. He colonized her, exploited her, silenced her, and even decades after it was supposed to have ended, still acted with a high hand in resolving her affairs in places like Côte d'Ivoire, a name she had been given because of her export products, not her own identity.

Her name was Asia. His was Europe. Her name was silence. His was power. Her name was poverty. His was wealth. Her name was Her, but what was hers? His name was His, and he presumed everything was his, including her, and he thought be could take her without asking and without consequences. It was a very old story, though its outcome had been changing a little in recent decades. And this time around the consequences are shaking a lot of foundations, all of which clearly needed shaking.
Who would ever write a fable as obvious, as heavy-handed as the story we've been given?

...
His name was privilege, but hers was possibility. His was the same old story, but hers was a new one about the possibility of changing a story that remains unfinished, that includes all of us, that matters so much, that we will watch but also make and tell in the weeks, months, years, decades to come.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

[bettyellen]

36. Powerful and though provoking. Thank you!

[RobinA]

25. It's Not Cynical

It's history beyond the last 250 years of American history. People dis American exceptionalism and than talk about all of history based on...American history. Like the other 1000 + years don't exist.

[Shankapotomus]

22. Different ideas sounds great

But I would say the concept of a "dominant" culture is something that shouldn't be replicated in any culture.

[RobinA]

24. There Will Always

be a dominant culture and it/they will act pretty much like the dominant cultures that exist today do. This nonsense about horrible white people subjugating the world while everybody else sits around singing Kum-bye-ya and loving their neighbors is unbelievably naive. People need to crack a history book. Preferably one that goes back more than 200 years and takes some time to discuss continents other than North America.

[cilla4progress]

31. Is that what you think this conversation is about?

Because my OP was about welcoming, inviting, encouraging, proactively, in politics and culture, disparate world views - divergent from the currently predominant western imperialist one.

Do you believe that Muslims, African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, Africans, south Asians,Pacific islanders, etc. etc. have as loud a voice in the "1st world" as white northern Europeans do?

[daleanime]

26. There's a easy test for pandering.....

which candidate do you support? Sad to say that appears to be the difference between being concerned or being condesending.

[tazkcmo]

27. The more the merrier.

You've hit the nail on the head. Fresh ideas, fresh enthusiasm, new perspectives. This is what immigration brings to us.

[cilla4progress]

32. THANK YOU!

You get me.

Not better or worse, necessarily, as some here have suggested; just different, and yes, FRESH!

[Nye Bevan]

28. If we are going to "take a breather" from imperialist western culture,

can we at least keep things like vaccines and antibiotics?

[cilla4progress]

33. haha

some, perhaps. But they are not without their dark sides!

[The2ndWheel]

29. The good and the bad, or just the good?

On a finite planet there's also a downside to everything.

The way you say it makes it sounds like there's some switch somewhere. Just push that button over there, a horn will go off, and that will signal that the next group gets to run things. Just a normal shift change.

[cilla4progress]

34. My point is

that since the "age of exploration" or of "discovery" (blech!) white Europeans have dominated the "developed" 1st world. Have there been positive contributions? Yes. Has there been mass exploitation and destruction? Definitely. Are there other cultural values that would add value in the mix, if encouraged to surface? Most certainly.

I am primarily thinking of the values of indigenous cultures. And these are the ones that have been most heinously shut down.

[PersonNumber503602]

37. You don't think any other dominate culture would do have played out similarly?

Humans (or perhaps life in general) is violent and messy. I'm not sure swapping out one culture for another give you the results you think.

[cilla4progress]

40. I'm not "advocating" for

another dominant culture taking the place of ours.

What I want to see is those cultural values and perspectives that have been ignored and denigrated by political leadership in the western world be raised up to an equal level - to truly bring in diverse viewpoints.

Some examples: indigenous cultures' reverence for the earth and conflict resolution processes in some of those cultures.
African or Asian modes of interrelationships among people, or of conducting themselves in business.
Prioritization of work, play, or pace in traditional cultures - Latin and others.

These are often typical and indicative of these cultures. They become stereotypes when they are mocked.

Ask an anthropologist.

[cigsandcoffee]

39. Be careful what you wish for. n/t

[cilla4progress]

41. This.

https://m.

&feature=youtu.be