Letter to the Editor: White culture

I’m reading a book by Ishmael Reed in which he discusses among other things American culture or as known by many, white culture and that this is one of the many issues facing black, yellow, brown, and red people in this country because of the prevailing view, by white Americans, that we can not allow America to have a black, yellow, brown, or red culture — that it is not American and every effort must be made to stop it from happening.

This has been and continues to be the underlying impetus for the current onslaught against DEI. Now, I am not familiar with black, yellow, brown, or red culture for the very good reason that I am not black, yellow, brown, or red. The only culture that I presume to know anything about is white culture. Unfortunately, I don’t appear to know much about that either.

The first issue would be that I’m not sure what they are talking about when they say white culture. When I look around and take note of the people I see and converse with on a daily basis. white people mostly, it doesn’t appear that our culture amounts to much. What has occurred to me though is that without football we have no culture. Football appears to be the extent of whatever culture we, as Americans, can claim.

Clearly, other sports also play a part, but only secondarily. Football appears to take up most of the time, thought, and emotion of the average citizen. This would cause me to think that our culture is limited to that of a fan of some sport’s team. This would apply to all levels of sports from grade school to the pros with constant discussions of the abilities of various athletes, teams, and who is going to win. Always who is going to win.

I drive by movie theaters: from what I can gather from the quick drive by is that the offerings are 95 percent movies made for children under ten; they have no content. Then you have netflix, hulu, apple tv, Disney, youtube providing round the clock entertainment. Being entertained is not culture. Sitting in your living room watching a sporting event or netflix is not culture — it is its antithesis.

So my question is what are we in fear of losing? Will we be required to watch a show that has black, yellow, brown, or red actors in it. They say baseball is losing fans. Is that because they have baseball players that are black, yellow, brown and red? Maybe so.

But I am at a loss: I can’t see I would be losing much if I lost what purports to be white American culture. Although many of us would have to find something to fill the time with activities other than football and that could be jolting. With all the black people playing football, maybe football is black culture too. Ever think of that?

But what can we do if we can’t sit in front of the tv on an evening drinking beer and watching a game of some sort such as, let’s say, pickle ball, sand volleyball, ax throwing, hot dog eating, cornhole, first grade golf, etc.? After all, most of the people playing these games are white which must be examples of American or white culture; the culture we are terrified to lose.

Richard E. H. Phelps II

Mingo