The Vastness of American Culture
It’s funny. Before leaving America to study abroad in China, I never really thought of myself as American. I was black. This isn’t to say that I thought white people were American either. They were white, I was black, and American just was. It wasn’t until I got to China and realized that I had exponentially more in common with a white person from Connecticut than I do with a guy from Nigeria. It seems pretty evident in hindsight that I would have more in common with my countrymen rather than with someone from another continent, but I think it’s the result of segregation and systematic racism in the U.S. that attempts to divide its populous that kept me from this conclusion.
I bring up my blindness to my Americanness mainly to illustrate that even though I fathomed myself to be awfully astute in 2012, I still had some work to do with my cultural competency, but surely by 2018 I would be self aware enough to see what was right in front of my eyes and gather myself together? Also no. What I’ve learned from this trip is that American Contemporary culture is popular for a reason. It’s vast, and I don’t just mean that we make a good amount of movies and songs, but rather, I mean that per every piece of art we produce through any medium has an intrinsically American foundation that other cultures lack in their contemporary portrayals of culture. When one hears a song on the radio in 2018, they are also hearing the culmination of the creativity of hundreds of minds that led to the creation of this new piece of art. I’m surmising that due to the sheer number of Americans with leisure time and disposable income that over the past 200 or so years of American culture, we have been able to amass a cultural wealth that equals that of any other nation on Earth. It’s humbling and blinding, yet I never noticed. I don’t think most Americans notice. I’ve written about this in the past as well, but this topic continues to come up over and over. Everywhere I go I see Americanization, and while I shouldn’t be surprised, I can’t help but to wonder what else am I missing. If America is indeed the 8000 pound cultural elephant in the room, and I’ve been overlooking it because the elephant is draped in red, white, and blue, then might there be an even bigger gorilla that I can’t see?
The purpose of this trip was for me to learn more about myself and more about the world, and I think it’s going well. I wonder what else will I notice that’s right in my face?
