should the usa have one official language?

soulsinging

sponger wrote:

I didn't say they're all white, but none of them are japanese. And, again, you making up the view that I believe they are conspiring against me. Go find it and post it.

I am merely discussing the possibility. I have not accused them of any conspiracy. However, I do acknowledge that the typical workplace environment consists of sewing circles.

actually, i dont really know what a sewing circle is. it sounds like the harmless gossip the ladies do around the water cooler to vent.

soulsinging

sponger wrote:

But, you also think most people think the "N" word because of skin color. That's why you are in contradiction to your own "advice". And I can go back and find where you called her question stupid, as opposed to reasonable. But, damn, do I have to spoonfeed you your own points of view?

Also, I did not say she is white. She is not white. She just isn't japanese.

im not sure what your point is here. i said her response was stupid, her question seems like harmless conversation. if i said otherwise, it's becos my typing was careless cos it is exhausting trying to talk to you.

the entire beginning of this debate was kicked off by you whining about how culture is stupid and we should do away with it. that sure sounds like you want people's prejudices to change, yet now you claim that you have no desire to do so. i dont know what your purpose in any of this was... to rant? vent? dream about how humanity would be better off if we all did away with the backbone of human society for the last 10000 years (which will never happen)?

sponger

soulsinging wrote:

actually, i dont really know what a sewing circle is. it sounds like the harmless gossip the ladies do around the water cooler to vent.

I'm bored. Obviously I am. Otherwise, I would not be sitting on here wasting so much time. But, you seem genuinely interested in what a workplace sewing circle is, so I'm going to explain to you my background with understanding this phenomenon.

I worked for a company that has problems with the union. It's so bad in fact that management training consists mostly of dealing with union politics and defusing union strong-arming tactics.

There's a lesson in this training called "Understanding spheres of influence".

A sphere of influence is a circle of workplace acquantances who are influenced by an "informal leader".

An informal leader is a person who may or may not have title or rank of any kind, but still has influence because he/she might just be likable for whatever.

So you take a blank piece of paper and you draw a bunch of circles within circles. You start writing down names along the rings of each circle.

The more conversations you observe a person having, the closer to the center circle goes the name. If the conversations are few, but a person has a way of influencing those conversations, you move that name up just as you would a person who has many conversations.

Eventually what you end up with is a person in the middle, and a map of people who inhabit the outer rings.

To break up a union strong-arming conspiracy as it happens or before it happens, go directly to the person in the center of the circle and make buddy-buddy with him/or and see if he/she can't use his/her own influence to help further the corporate goals.

After I left that company, I found that the same logic applied to every workplace regardless of whether or not there was a union. There are "informal leaders" wherever you go, and they carry the weight of an angry mob if need be.

Go ahead. Accuse me of being overly reactive.

sponger

soulsinging wrote:

the entire beginning of this debate was kicked off by you whining about how culture is stupid and we should do away with it. that sure sounds like you want people's prejudices to change, yet now you claim that you have no desire to do so. i dont know what your purpose in any of this was... to rant? vent? dream about how humanity would be better off if we all did away with the backbone of human society for the last 10000 years (which will never happen)?

If you had been reading my posts thoroughly from the beginning, you would have discovered that I no intentions of actually forcing that change. I wanted it to be voluntary.

My statements regarding my lack of interest in reacting to that prejudice were in response to your calls for either "proving them wrong or proving them right." Such a statement implies that I am going to take action that would leave them with no choice but to either continue to buy into those steretypes or change them.

I'm saying that this choice on their part would not even be presented to them for the simple fact that my mere contemplation of the possibility of job-threatening discrimination on their part would never be something that they would ever take notice of.

And what do I want? I just wanted to express my view that there is nothing helpful about ethnic cultural identifiers, and that any sort of categorization based on ethnicity, even while seemingly harmless or even positive, perpetuate the tendency to just simply categorize people based on criteria that has more to do with how they should be instead of how they really are.

And my personal experience example was an example of how cultural identifiers can still be dangerous even when they are not overtly discriminatory. I'm only trying to point out the fact that the possibility is there, and that there is no practical need for this possibility to even exist.

That's all.

Deni

RavennaSeattle1911 wrote:

you just dont care if the culture of the english /american etc people is minimized and while places in florida and california and texas have spanish only and arrogantly dont care if they knOw spanish only and while places in usa put up on gov biulidings only the mexican flag and ban english books in public libariries - THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENEING!1DO YOU CARE?!!WAKE UP!

Huh? Ok I have never heard of this. You'd think if this were happening all over then it would be on the news or something. Are you sure you're not just being paranoid?

My cousin and her kids lived in Texas for a number of years and their kids did take Spanish in school, but English wasn't banned. That's the craziest thing I ever heard.

And if this IS happening... then no... I don't really care. America has no culture of its own. We are and have always been a mesh of cultures. Each group of people having their own culture, but no overall culture exists. If we all spoke 5 languages then we could enteract with all the cultures that live in this country. Do you think my Italian and Swedish (respectively) friends lost their culture by learning other languages? I'd tell you they would say no they didn't! Besides there's more to culture than language anyway.

onelongsong

Deni wrote:

Huh? Ok I have never heard of this. You'd think if this were happening all over then it would be on the news or something. Are you sure you're not just being paranoid?

My cousin and her kids lived in Texas for a number of years and their kids did take Spanish in school, but English wasn't banned. That's the craziest thing I ever heard.

And if this IS happening... then no... I don't really care. America has no culture of its own. We are and have always been a mesh of cultures. Each group of people having their own culture, but no overall culture exists. If we all spoke 5 languages then we could enteract with all the cultures that live in this country. Do you think my Italian and Swedish (respectively) friends lost their culture by learning other languages? I'd tell you they would say no they didn't! Besides there's more to culture than language anyway.

did you just get off the boat? what do you mean america has no culture? i could write for hours about american culture. ever hear of a museum? american culture may have been pushed aside to allow minority groups to cover the culture; but come out west and tell someone america doesn't have a culture. except california maybe.

onelongsong

i just read a post that i found insulting; ego-centric; condecending; short sided; and narrow minded.
now i've read the anti-american threads and knew it was directed at government and policies for the most part. i laugh to myself because i know ya'll are lined up by the thousands trying to get in. and i'm not talking just mexico. every country has applicants to immigrate here.
but this post attacked the people. maybe it's no big deal to you. if it isn't and you're american; you're part of the problem. this poster said america doesn't have a culture. our culture began in the 17th century. with a group of people willing to take a chance on the unknown and inspired only by a dream. that group of people forged what is now known to the world as freedom. what existed prior was monarchies and dictatorships.
now i don't mind you knocking america because of it's policies. after all; we invented the freedom of speach you enjoy now. but when you attack a culture or the people themselves; that is wrong. so please; we respect your opinions but don't attack a culture or the people themselves.
i'm sure this thread will quickly drop out of sight but i had to speak my mind.
thank you for reading it.

Byrnzie

onelongsong wrote:

that group of people forged what is now known to the world as freedom. what existed prior was monarchies and dictatorships....



we invented the freedom of speach you enjoy now.

What?

ledvedderman

What the hell are you talking about

RavennaSeattle1911

i think my great grandfather was in war of 1812 and maybe revolution and have ansestors on both sides maybe tories as well

some of the new arivals may as well be from mars they know so little and care nothing for what usa is and they look at me like im from mars with these grim serious faces some of these weird immigrants ,not all just some i guess-then again noone seems happy in usa anymore -so they all look like serious grimsters

some east indian girl saw me in a store and just smiled

i think east indians are about the friendliest people in the world maybe

RavennaSeattle1911

ledvedderman wrote:

What the hell are you talking about

obama sucks midwest usa douchbags in the back rows on oprah show

floyd1975

onelongsong wrote:

america doesn't have a culture

I heard this from almost every political science, history and sociology professor in College. I got in a little trouble for arguing against it using almost the exact same words that you used here.

Ms. Haiku

RavennaSeattle1911 wrote:

some of the new arivals may as well be from mars they know so little and care nothing for what usa is and they look at me like im from mars with these grim serious faces some of these weird immigrants ,not all just some i guess-then again noone seems happy in usa anymore -so they all look like serious grimsters

I would think any immigrant would look serious. I'm 2nd generation Italian-American on my Dad's side and 5th generation German-American on my mom's side. Those generations of immigrants didn't come here because things were good back home, they came over to start anew. They wanted to get to work quickly to start a new life. They have done something very difficult. How many people who are registered to vote actually vote? Is it only immigrants, if it is in fact immigrants, who do not care about the USA?

Actually, they care very much about the USA.

onelongsong

zstillings wrote:

I heard this from almost every political science, history and sociology professor in College. I got in a little trouble for arguing against it using almost the exact same words that you used here.

so now we edit quotes to to turn them around i see. and this is ok? i can remove words from your quotes to say the opposite of what you really said? this is bloody rediculous.

floyd1975

onelongsong wrote:

so now we edit quotes to to turn them around i see. and this is ok? i can remove words from your quotes to say the opposite of what you really said? this is bloody rediculous.

What?

soulsinging

sponger wrote:

I'm bored. Obviously I am. Otherwise, I would not be sitting on here wasting so much time. But, you seem genuinely interested in what a workplace sewing circle is, so I'm going to explain to you my background with understanding this phenomenon.

I worked for a company that has problems with the union. It's so bad in fact that management training consists mostly of dealing with union politics and defusing union strong-arming tactics.

There's a lesson in this training called "Understanding spheres of influence".

A sphere of influence is a circle of workplace acquantances who are influenced by an "informal leader".

An informal leader is a person who may or may not have title or rank of any kind, but still has influence because he/she might just be likable for whatever.

So you take a blank piece of paper and you draw a bunch of circles within circles. You start writing down names along the rings of each circle.

The more conversations you observe a person having, the closer to the center circle goes the name. If the conversations are few, but a person has a way of influencing those conversations, you move that name up just as you would a person who has many conversations.

Eventually what you end up with is a person in the middle, and a map of people who inhabit the outer rings.

To break up a union strong-arming conspiracy as it happens or before it happens, go directly to the person in the center of the circle and make buddy-buddy with him/or and see if he/she can't use his/her own influence to help further the corporate goals.

After I left that company, I found that the same logic applied to every workplace regardless of whether or not there was a union. There are "informal leaders" wherever you go, and they carry the weight of an angry mob if need be.

Go ahead. Accuse me of being overly reactive.

no, that makes perfect sense to me and i've seen ti in every job i've been in too. im assuming this lady who made the comment was towards the center? my point mainly was that i dont see anything in your story to indicate she would try to use her influence to get you canned due to her little prejudicial comment there. it'd be like her telling me "oh, you're irish? you must drink a lot then huh?" it would be rude and unfounded and reveal sterotypical views, but i wouldnt be concerned that she was going to start telling people im an alcoholic and pushing to have me fired. that's all im saying, is i doubt your job is truly at risk here just becos she made some off the cuff remark that shows that she, like almost everyone, carries some latent stereotypical views aorund and occasionally they pop out inappropriately.

soulsinging

sponger wrote:

And what do I want? I just wanted to express my view that there is nothing helpful about ethnic cultural identifiers, and that any sort of categorization based on ethnicity, even while seemingly harmless or even positive, perpetuate the tendency to just simply categorize people based on criteria that has more to do with how they should be instead of how they really are.

and that is probably true, but slightly different from what i thought you were saying originally. you were talking about how culture is stupid and should be done away with and i disagree. i take great pride in my irish history and many other cultural influences that have helped shape who i am. doing away with them would do away with things that are important to me. and many others are the same.

what you're arguing against here is prejudice, or stereotypical views of individual people based on misperceptions about what their culture is or means and what kind of control it has over who they are. and i agree with you there.

soulsinging

RavennaSeattle1911 wrote:

i think my great grandfather was in war of 1812 and maybe revolution and have ansestors on both sides maybe tories as well

some of the new arivals may as well be from mars they know so little and care nothing for what usa is and they look at me like im from mars with these grim serious faces some of these weird immigrants ,not all just some i guess-then again noone seems happy in usa anymore -so they all look like serious grimsters

they're scared. they were driven from home by not nice people. now they're in a country they aren't familiar with and don't speak the language of. they want to be part of it, but dont yet know how.

and they know that there are people like you around who hate them and are hostile to their efforts to try to join the country.

soulsinging

RavennaSeattle1911 wrote:

obama sucks midwest usa douchbags in the back rows on oprah show

classy.

soulsinging

onelongsong wrote:

did you just get off the boat? what do you mean america has no culture? i could write for hours about american culture. ever hear of a museum? american culture may have been pushed aside to allow minority groups to cover the culture; but come out west and tell someone america doesn't have a culture. except california maybe.

oh, california has culture, it's character they lack