cultures under one nations

J.Reardon

When you think about cultures and then you think of the term nation you think that they would go hand and hand and that they would go right together. Especially if we are using the United States as the nation we are speaking of seeing the United States has been known for being a melting pot of multiple different cultures. However, after reading the article about “culture poverty”, and just living in the U.S, it has become evident that many Americans would rather not have as many cultures as it does now. The article goes into specifics about how certain cultures are looked down upon and being labeled just by the way they live their life. In the article it tells us about how just because someone acts a certain way in this article they give the examples of inner city Blacks, that the culture that many of them would label them as would be that they devalue the need for education, thus not moving forward to achieve an education and getting a good job to get them out of their living situations now. However, the article educates us as readers to understand that just because a black man wears baggy jeans it does not mean that he devalues education it just means that that is his culture and his culture doesn’t reflect of the type of education he wants to receive. Just because this man does not want to “act” or “dress” white does not mean that he doesn’t want a good education. A problem that this nation has today with culture is that there is a large group of people who make it almost seem like they want to diminish certain cultures completely and have all cultures act like a “refined”, “white” culture. Even though that the article states that: “there is a lot of evidence that inner-city blacks share the dominant values of USA society, including the positive evaluation of hard work and a commitment to education.”(10). This proves that just because a certain culture dresses, listens to certain music, speaks differently and overall just acts differently then the white normalities does not mean that they will not have the same wants educations wise as these “normal” white cultures.