An Issue of "Whiteness"

Idealy I was having trouble accessing the reading this weekend and can foresee that it is going to take me more time to develoup a responce to both readings for this week. However I wanted to start by saying that the idea of learning salsa in order to become more 'ethnic' (pg.19) reminded me of the concept of impersonating other cultures. Take for instance Wiggers. Although this is a racially derogatory term the concept of a Wigger is a person who has adopted to 'black' culture in order to be accepted by the general culture. These types of people are often seen as 'Posers' or people who are culturally or racially displaced. They are using other peoples cultures in order to establish their own identies. This in my opinion is both wrong but reasonable, since the concept of folklore itself is steeped in the idea of combining different cultures and interests in order to form others. The discussion of the two types of Ball room dancing reminded me of this, since becoming or acting like a wigger has to do with taking on anothe cultures identity. There are certain things associated with each form of dancing. The Idea of performance as a part of folklore is important because it ties in with the concept itself; since folklore is based on ritualistic behaviors this seemed to make sense. Performance as a concept in regards to race is an interesting concept. In relation to the article on Ballroom Dancing by Joanne Bosse I think that it can be stretched so far as adopting the customs of other cultures, since in a way the adoption of customs, slang and in some cases identities has to be performed. This applies to the idea of becoming more ‘ethnic’ through learning Spanish ballroom dancing. I saw this as a positive way of picking up a culture or tradition, if anything wanting to become more ‘ethnic” and less white through leaning dance could be seen as a way to personally improve ones self and become a more well-rounded person. On the flipside of this attempting to learn a new with culture or way of doing things may indicate boredom with your own culture, so this for me raised the question, even with the stereotypical dominance associated with the idea of being white and the influence of white culture is whiteness itself boring? According to the article “minorities are as artificial as the majorities the are seen to threaten” (pg.20) so is this saying that the whole idea that whitness as a concept and an influence is just merely the result of other cultures allowing themselves to be cast aside and dominated by popular white America? Ruth Frankenburg’s fourth point in her research (pg 20) n whiteness in regards to how the influence has survived and been maintained is interesting, she has offered us the idea that whiteness can be applied to difference aspects of field research and the maintaining of power over society is even justified as well as “rationalized legitimized and maintained.” The word performance concerning race for some reason brought up the idea of black face with me. Even though black face was seen as a racist form of comedy towards African Americans it was still a way to perform pre conceived notions of happy go lucky, dumb people. This in my eyes turned performance into something negative and can even be compared to the concept of wiggers. In a way wiggers can be seen as an answer to black face, on some level they are less offensive on a modern standard but the end result isn’t any less racist. A popular cop out for wiggers or people who choose to act like that is that they are not ‘acting black’ but adopting a culture. Since Hip hop and rap had stemmed from Black culture, it is extremely hard to argue this because you cant associate one without the other.