You can inherit wealth, but not style. Style comes from culture, often enough separated from wealth these days, and to be honest, culture can’t ever be owned because it’s literal “culture” that ferments within the hearts and minds of folks practicing it. The issue with how “western culture” has developed from English colonialism is that those with wealth co-opt style by purchasing it, and in fact, any of us growing in this “western culture” are encouraged to purchase new identities as often as possible. But this also dilutes the actual culture, and in fact fucks it all up, cheapens it by attaching wealth to it rather than practice. (Practice is always worth more than wealth.) So western culture, which waves the flag of the great melting pot of cultures, also is just as much a consumption of all other cultures at this point as well. It’s like a buffet of culture, with the blandest, least spicy version of every culture, under one big heat lamp, and that’s supposed to be great. I was thinking on this earlier today as I conversed with a young creative cousin about AAVE and a meme I saw about how use of the habitual be was common in both West African and Gaelic languages, and kids shown a picture of Cookie Monster sick with Elmo eating some cookies got asked “Who be eating cookies?” and black kids knew to answer Cookie Monster while white kids answered Elmo. But if the kids were asked “Who is eating cookies?” all the kids knew the difference and answered Elmo, thus bad English actually had more depth and nuance.
Anyways, I’m a first generation college student, and I learned a lot, and was horribly embarrassed about how I was when I first went off to there. But over time, I’ve realized all my style came from before college and if anything I’ve had to make sure I didn’t learn all the wrong shit while learning all those things to get that expensive ass piece of paper that says I was highly educated. I always try to remind myself, as Jerry Clower said (whom my dad played often), to not get educated beyond my intelligence.
Anyways, I’m a first generation college student, and I learned a lot, and was horribly embarrassed about how I was when I first went off to there. But over time, I’ve realized all my style came from before college and if anything I’ve had to make sure I didn’t learn all the wrong shit while learning all those things to get that expensive ass piece of paper that says I was highly educated. I always try to remind myself, as Jerry Clower said (whom my dad played often), to not get educated beyond my intelligence.
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