Should white people perform the blues?

[Horatio Parker]

If I were put in jail for not liking the blues, my main focus of defense come court day would be that the blues are not and should not be considered anything close to a "genre". If instruments could burp and moan on their own they would sound like the blues. That of course is my opinion which is usually right.

Skep... Even B.B is stuck in the blues chord progression and drunkard... archaic structure known as "the blues". He could be considered a good freestyle musician. Too bad so many musicians are held back by this assumption that the blues is so important in music. I play a blues riff every time I tune my guitar. It is a stationary and uninventive trap that some musicians fall into. I love tuning my guitar and smacking that first blues riff out. After my guitar is tuned, I play less limited music. Why is soul associated with the blues so much anyway? The only reason the blues can assume to take credit for being the backbone of any other genre is because of pentatonic scale being mutilated yet still strictly adhered to. The limitation the blues has is my problem with the assumption that anyone could consider the blues a genre. It may be a cultural byproduct of bile, yet cute as can be, but break down what is actually being played and you get nothing more than a whiney warm up for actual music to be played. That of course is my opinion. It isn't like I have ancient scales and chords that predate the blues longer than B.B can sustain a note on the thing be beats on called a guitar in real genres of music.

Yes, it's simple music, though often deceptively so. Charles Ives wrote scores depicting frantic performances with wrongs notes etc(I'm thinking particularly of the "Bringing in the Sheaves" section of the First piano sonata), and they are amazingly complex and difficult to play. But it's not a matter of complexity, but effectiveness of communication. A bunch of illiterate drunks, OK. But why do they sound so damn good?

You want complex, difficult blues? Here ya go:

[YOUTUBE]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=teCy3ogCGiE[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Metaphor]

The question is whether the blues are still an integral part of Afro-American culture.

That's a question. It's not the question. But I also don't say the relevance. If the answer were 'yes', so what?

I like to think that the blues are a gift to the world. A gift that should be accepted with the appreciation for what they are, beautiful art born from unbelievable grace in the face of oppression. Art that deserves to live forever, no matter who sings them.

But the OP article does not believe the blues have been 'gifted' for the use of all (although he certainly believes Black people own it).

 

[Sabine Grant]

Since you made a broad wide statement in the absolute that "no-one can own a culture", I will submit a report which disagrees with your contention.

http://www.frankellawyers.com.au/media/report/culture.pdf

Starting with defining the why of the recognition of " Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property" duly illustrated in the introduction of Chapter 1 :

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights refers to Indigenous Australians rights to their Heritage. Such rights are also known as Indigenous Heritage Rights.

Heritage consists of the intangible and tangible aspects of the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge systems developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people and passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity.

Note the term "Property" which confirms the significance of "owning". I will await your counter argumentation to the above where I challenge you to demonstrate that there is no legitimate value to Heritage, no possible legitimate claim to Heritage and therefor no possible legitimate claim of Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights.

The above specifically challenges your broad wide applied statement which you formulated in the absolute :

No-one can own a culture

I am not going to read a 380 page report to see how (or if) it challenges my assumption. I want you to make an argument that someone can own a culture.

The argument has been staring at you from the get go. Do you think that I quoted from Chapter 1 ,

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights refers to Indigenous Australians rights to their Heritage. Such rights are also known as Indigenous Heritage Rights.

Heritage consists of the intangible and tangible aspects of the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge systems developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people and passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity.

for no reason at all?

Do you deny the legitimate value of Heritage? Do you deny that Heritage is the source of the claim for Cultural and Intellectual Property? I guess what I should ask is :

Do you not understand why Heritage is the source of the claim for Cultural and Intellectual Property?

I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture.

Which means that you reject the premise that based on the legitimate value of their Heritage, Indigenous people have a claim to Cultural and Intellectual Property. Are you somehow in disagreement that "owning a culture" is semantically similar to " Cultural and Intellectual Property"?

Further, what is your reasoning behind your initial " No-one can own a culture" which you rephrased to mean the same as in " I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture"? Derec referred to your statement as an "argument". No matter how many times I re read your statements, I see no "argument". What I can see is a statement without any efforts to explain which reasoning led you to your conclusion :

1) First formulated conclusion (without any reasoning presented by you) : "no-one can own a culture".

2) Second formulated conclusion ( without any reasoning presented by you) : "I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture".

It is fine and dandy that you communicate your rejection of the said premise, but you have not explained why.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The blues is a part of american culture.

And the question isn't about whether or not Eric Clapton gets to play with BB King at the next Grammy Awards.

The question is a moral one.

The question is this one.

How does a person eat another person's food, drink another person's wine and revel in entertainmenta provided by another and then neither respect gifts taken from the other person or the other person himself?

How does one do that and still think himself good and moral and just?

 

[Sabine Grant]

Since you made a broad wide statement in the absolute that "no-one can own a culture", I will submit a report which disagrees with your contention.

http://www.frankellawyers.com.au/media/report/culture.pdf

Starting with defining the why of the recognition of " Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property" duly illustrated in the introduction of Chapter 1 :



Note the term "Property" which confirms the significance of "owning". I will await your counter argumentation to the above where I challenge you to demonstrate that there is no legitimate value to Heritage, no possible legitimate claim to Heritage and therefor no possible legitimate claim of Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights.

The above specifically challenges your broad wide applied statement which you formulated in the absolute :

No-one can own a culture

The report does not make an argument as why such claims of ownership are legitimate. It simply asserts that such ownership should be legally-recognised and afforded the protections offered by IP law.

It certainly does not refute Metaphor's stated position.

The notion of cultural ownership is completely antithetical to cosmopolitan society, where people freely exchange ideas and develop upon them.

Rather than repeating my most recent reply to Metaphor, I will link you to it and ask you the same questions I asked him.

http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...erform-the-blues&p=80281&viewfull=1#post80281

 

[Metaphor]

Note the term "Property" which confirms the significance of "owning". I will await your counter argumentation to the above where I challenge you to demonstrate that there is no legitimate value to Heritage,

There is value to heritage, as there is value to all ideas that have not been forgotten by time. In fact, if heritage were valueless there'd be no debate. One does not 'appropriate' things that have no value.

no possible legitimate claim to Heritage

No, nobody has a legitimate (moral) claim to own a heritage, because no single person created it, no single person owns it, and indeed it is simply ludicrous to think anyone could own a series of intangible interconnected ideas.

But not only is the claim ludicrous, it would be deeply deeply immoral to believe it and practice it. The Japanese came up with putting ingredients in cooked rice and rolling them up with seaweed, but it would be monstrous to say non-ethnically-Japanese people can have their access to sushi controlled and regulated, or that they owe ethnically Japanese people money every time they take a bite.

and therefor no possible legitimate claim of Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights.

That is correct. It is a ludicrous claim, and a deeply immoral one.

Which means that you reject the premise that based on the legitimate value of their Heritage, Indigenous people have a claim to Cultural and Intellectual Property. Are you somehow in disagreement that "owning a culture" is semantically similar to " Cultural and Intellectual Property"?

I do not deny and I have never denied that any ideas that have survived time have value. What I have denied is that anyone can own that value and control it and profit from it.

urther, what is your reasoning behind your initial " No-one can own a culture" which you rephrased to mean the same as in " I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture"? Derec referred to your statement as an "argument". No matter how many times I re read your statements, I see no "argument". What I can see is a statement without any efforts to explain which reasoning led you to your conclusion :

1) First formulated conclusion (without any reasoning presented by you) : "no-one can own a culture".

2) Second formulated conclusion ( without any reasoning presented by you) : "I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture".

It is fine and dandy that you communicate your rejection of the said premise, but you have not explained why.

I reject the premise that a culture can be owned , or 'legitimately' owned. It is a morally wicked idea that people should have the power to restrict and hamstring human happiness by controlling aspects of a culture invented by people who themselves have no claim to the things they invented, let alone their descendants.

You cannot pass on what does not belong to you.

Or if you really believe it, then human happiness will plummet. If somebody can own their heritage and demand property rights to it, let's divide the world into tribes and assign who invented what by ethnicity, and you can't use ideas from someone else's culture without paying a fee.

That is the world you're advocating when you believe moral wickedness like that somebody can own a culture.

 

[Ford]

I worked at a R&B radio station as an engineer in college. It was a daytime only AM station and 24 hour FM station when FM wasn't much of a factor. We ran jazz and blues programming after 10 pm. We traveled over North Texas to the local juke joints recording the music to play on the air. More than a few times we of course also went to Clarksdale, the crossroads. This was in the late 1960's. It was the norm then that I was the only while person there.

Since I have lived in Atlanta we have gone to Clarcksdale half a dozen times, the last time maybe five years ago, the last time I drove a car. The audiences are now overwhelmingly white, especially in the bigger touristy clubs in the town like Ground Zero. But even in the little jukes the crowds are mainly whites.

The performers are half and half black and white. But the only young people preforming are white. From all over the US and Europe. Without the white audiences and performers the blues would be dying as live music in clubs where it is the best, where new musicians learn. Even in Clarksdale the young blacks line up to get into the hip hop clubs.

Listen to the blues on the radio, I am listening to KKJZ right now. The music is all from before 1980. The blues are the original made in the US music, along with gospel, and is the parent to rock, hip hop, r&b, soul and jazz. It is American classical music. I refuse to apologize for anyone who is keeping the genre alive. More power to them.

This whole idea of race has got to go. The blues comes from life's pains, not something as trivial as the color of one's skin.

This^^

One of my favorite albums is from the late Gary Moore called "Still Got The Blues." While he wasn't known for being a blues guy, he did it right, inviting Albert Collins and Albert King to play on the record. He was using his opportunity to say "these are the guys you should listen to if you want to hear the blues...oh, and here's one of them to show you why." Moore was nothing like a classic "blues man," but he clearly loved and respected the music and the people who made it. The next album I bought after that was from Albert Collins.

Can white people play the blues? Sure.

Should they? As others have said, all you need to do to play the blues is have the blues. Just make sure you respect the music and aren't doing it in order to make a fast buck.

 

[another1]

Duplicate

 

[another1]

Horatio that is a good song. I like how Jazzy it sounds. The blues deconversion thread on the morrow I should start eh?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Why were those young people playing blues? They're still inside their first pair of shoes, FFS.

Their mothers should have let them play some rock'n'roll.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Should black people perform Classical music?

This really says it all, and Athena's initial reaction to it says even more. The point you make is obvious. It is blatantly racist what the writer of the article is saying.

I will argue that for those interested in the support and study of African-American culture, blues as purveyed by whites appears unauthentic and deeply impoverished; further, it too often represents an appropriation of black culture of a type sadly familiar. Finally, it can be economically crippling to black artists through loss of jobs and critical attention.

The author says white people who do blues music make it "appear unauthentic and deeply impoverished". If we said that about the black people in the photo you posted, I can just imagine the reaction. And then the writer complains that black artists lose jobs because white artists compete with them. Sounds a lot like white racists complaining about them foreigners takin' their jobs.

I reject the premise that a culture can be owned , or 'legitimately' owned. It is a morally wicked idea that people should have the power to restrict and hamstring human happiness by controlling aspects of a culture invented by people who themselves have no claim to the things they invented, let alone their descendants.

You cannot pass on what does not belong to you.

Or if you really believe it, then human happiness will plummet. If somebody can own their heritage and demand property rights to it, let's divide the world into tribes and assign who invented what by ethnicity, and you can't use ideas from someone else's culture without paying a fee.

Well said.

 

[Sabine Grant]

There is value to heritage, as there is value to all ideas that have not been forgotten by time. In fact, if heritage were valueless there'd be no debate. One does not 'appropriate' things that have no value.

Which leads me to ask you once more if you have any issue with the given definition of Heritage in the paragraph I now quoted twice under Chapter 1 of a report relating the case of Australian Indigenous People and why their claim to Cultural and Intellectual Property. There is this definition , again :

Heritage consists of the intangible and tangible aspects of the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge systems developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people and passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity.

The content of that definition will be important for my next point.

no possible legitimate claim to Heritage

No, nobody has a legitimate (moral) claim to own a heritage, because no single person created it, no single person owns it, and indeed it is simply ludicrous to think anyone could own a series of intangible interconnected ideas.

Let's go back now to the content of the definition of Heritage and once more applied to the Australian Indigenous people :

the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge systems developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people and passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity

Key words : "whole body", "developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people" "passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity".

How in the world can you claim that because it is not one single person who created it, such Heritage cannot be owned by the very people who developed, nurtured and refined and passed it on by them as part of expressing THEIR cultural identity? Considering that the "it" addresses " the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge (another key word) systems and again "developed, nurtured and refined" BY the same very people. In this case being the Australian Indigenous People. To add that the same very people are the ones who pass it on... certainly not British colonials.

Similar reality regarding Heritage is to be applied to Native Americans (which Derec referred to as "American Indians"....ahahahahaha). To also be applied to the Maori people.

But not only is the claim ludicrous, it would be deeply deeply immoral to believe it and practice it.

I will make sure to e-mail the Elders of the Seminole Tribe of Florida and let them know that their practicing the preservation and protection of their Heritage is "deeply deeply immoral". Hey... though it might be easier for me to contact our Maori resident, Jo, and inform her of your stances regarding the "deep deep immorality" of her own people preserving and protecting their own Heritage.

The Japanese came up with putting ingredients in cooked rice and rolling them up with seaweed, but it would be monstrous to say non-ethnically-Japanese people can have their access to sushi controlled and regulated, or that they owe ethnically Japanese people money every time they take a bite.

I knew that there would be one of those bizarre analogies thrown in the midst of our exchanges where I actually provided you with the definition of Heritage, clearly quoted several times, under Chapter 1. You are now drawing an analogy between a culinary practice and this :

the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge systems developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people and passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity

and therefor no possible legitimate claim of Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights.

That is correct. It is a ludicrous claim, and a deeply immoral one.

Because you keep stating it does not make it so. Your attempt to demonstrate that it is "ludicrous" based on this reasoning ,

No, nobody has a legitimate (moral) claim to own a heritage, because no single person created it, no single person owns it, and indeed it is simply ludicrous to think anyone could own a series of intangible interconnected ideas

failed and that because you did not pay attention to how Heritage is defined and clearly described as it certainly applies 100% within its entire listed specifics to the Australian Indigenous People. Same with Native Americans. Same also with the Maori people.

Which means that you reject the premise that based on the legitimate value of their Heritage, Indigenous people have a claim to Cultural and Intellectual Property. Are you somehow in disagreement that "owning a culture" is semantically similar to " Cultural and Intellectual Property"?

I do not deny and I have never denied that any ideas that have survived time have value. What I have denied is that anyone can own that value and control it and profit from it.

It is interesting to see your absence of moral outrage regarding outside groups, who had NOTHING to do with the development, nurturing and refining of the "whole body of...", exploiting and using all those specifics undeniably part of that "whole body" for their own financial interest. You do not appear to be that consistent when it comes to standing up on the pedestal of being a judge of other people's morality.

Further, what is your reasoning behind your initial " No-one can own a culture" which you rephrased to mean the same as in " I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture"? Derec referred to your statement as an "argument". No matter how many times I re read your statements, I see no "argument". What I can see is a statement without any efforts to explain which reasoning led you to your conclusion :

1) First formulated conclusion (without any reasoning presented by you) : "no-one can own a culture".

2) Second formulated conclusion ( without any reasoning presented by you) : "I reject the premise that anybody can own a culture".

It is fine and dandy that you communicate your rejection of the said premise, but you have not explained why.

I reject the premise that a culture can be owned , or 'legitimately' owned. It is a morally wicked idea that people should have the power to restrict and hamstring human happiness by controlling aspects of a culture invented by people who themselves have no claim to the things they invented, let alone their descendants.

Oh really? I specifically chose the case of the Australian Indigenous people while assuming that you would be familiar with their culture. Now, it comes down to you claiming that somehow such Australian Indigenous People have "no claim to the things they invented" ? You have got to be kidding.

You cannot pass on what does not belong to you.

You keep relying on the circular thinking that since Metaphor claims that "no-one can own a culture", consequently it cannot belong to anyone and cannot be passed on. Are you denying that whether it be the Maori people, Native Americans or Australian Indigenous People what they have been passing on is NOT their Heritage as defined in the quote I have now brought up several times. I have now covered the specifics within the content of that definition and their meaning.

Or if you really believe it, then human happiness will plummet.

Human happiness has been plummeting since some US athletic teams have been exploiting and RIDICULING via clownish mascots the Heritage of Native Americans. Is that what you are referring to by "human happiness" which will plummet? Because it has been happening already. Of course not affecting outside groups but the very people who have a legitimate claim to their own Heritage and have the right to preserve and protect it from such disfigurement. Why should you even give a rat's behind about Native American Heritage anyway? You do not appear to give a rat's behind about the very people's Heritage who are Indigenous to your own nation as you believe that they have "no claim to what they invented". Let alone what they" developed, nurtured and refined" over the course of tens of thousands of years prior to European colonialism.

of If somebody can own their heritage and demand property rights to it, let's divide the world into tribes and assign who invented what by ethnicity, and you can't use ideas from someone else's culture without paying a fee.

That is the world you're advocating when you believe moral wickedness like that somebody can own a culture.

Not "somebody". A defined ethnic and cultural group such as the Australian Indigenous People. Their Heritage is their own, not yours or mine. Without them, it would not exist. I value their Heritage. I honor it and respect it as their own, not mine or yours.

Since my childhood I have valued and honored the Heritage of ethnic and cultural groups I have had the privilege to be acquainted with. It is not going to change based on your stances.

 

[Bronzeage]

This maybe a misappropriation of my culture, but fortunately there is enough to share.

 

[surreptitious57]

Cultural misappropriation is when those engaging in it are unaware of what they are doing

White men playing the blues does not qualify as such for everyone knows where it came from

The white rock musicians of the late sixties all knew and respected the genre they borrowed from

The irony is that in doing so they then created their own genre of rock which is predominantly white

However music should be both listened to and played by everyone because like sport it is a unifying force

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The last time I was down in the U.S., a guy held open the door for me just to be nice and friendly, so I kicked the shit out of him for misappropriating my Canadian identity.

In an ironic twist, it turned out that he was a guy from Saskatoon who was just down there visiting as well. We both had a good laugh aboot that.

 

[skepticalbip]

Reading all the posts arguing for one racial culture "owning" their heritage, I have to wonder if they would say that Charley Pride was robbing whites of their C&W cultural heritage.



When will we finally accept that we are all humans sharing our human heritage?

 

[Metaphor]

How in the world can you claim that because it is not one single person who created it, such Heritage cannot be owned by the very people who developed, nurtured and refined and passed it on by them as part of expressing THEIR cultural identity? Considering that the "it" addresses " the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge (another key word) systems and again "developed, nurtured and refined" BY the same very people. In this case being the Australian Indigenous People. To add that the same very people are the ones who pass it on... certainly not British colonials.

I'm sorry, this is incoherent. No-one owns individual cultural ideas, not the people that practise them nor their descendants. One can pass on ideas (like passing on wisdom or advice) but that does not mean you owned it in the first place.

I will make sure to e-mail the Elders of the Seminole Tribe of Florida and let them know that their practicing the preservation and protection of their Heritage is "deeply deeply immoral".

It is not deeply immoral to attempt to persuade people that they own a culture; it is deeply immoral to use the force of law to stop people from benefitting from it.

Hey... though it might be easier for me to contact our Maori resident, Jo, and inform her of your stances regarding the "deep deep immorality" of her own people preserving and protecting their own Heritage.

It is not deeply immoral to attempt to persuade people that they own a culture; it is deeply immoral to use the force of law to stop people from benefitting from it.

I knew that there would be one of those bizarre analogies thrown in the midst of our exchanges where I actually provided you with the definition of Heritage, clearly quoted several times, under Chapter 1. You are now drawing an analogy between a culinary practice and this

the whole body of cultural practices, resources, and knowledge systems developed, nurtured and refined by Indigenous people and passed on by them as part of expressing their cultural identity

Your own quote refutes you!! Is a culinary practice somehow not part of the whole body of a culture?

Indeed, I watched a documentary just the other day about a school-based program that was teaching Japanese schoolchildren about how to cook and eat traditionally Japanese food items. Apparently, KFC is wildly popular in Japan (and Western food getting increasingly ubiquitous) and they're afraid that Japanese cuisine will be lost.

Should the Japanese be paying money to the people in the American South who popularised fried chicken?

The mind boggles.

Which means that you reject the premise that based on the legitimate value of their Heritage, Indigenous people have a claim to Cultural and Intellectual Property. Are you somehow in disagreement that "owning a culture" is semantically similar to " Cultural and Intellectual Property"?

Culture cannot be owned and is not property. Any laws that treat cultural ideas as if they were property that belonged to a particular ethnic group are immoral laws.

It is interesting to see your absence of moral outrage regarding outside groups,

There are no outside groups. No-one can own a culture as if it were property. One cannot steal what nobody owns.

who had NOTHING to do with the development, nurturing and refining of the "whole body of...", exploiting and using all those specifics undeniably part of that "whole body" for their own financial interest. You do not appear to be that consistent when it comes to standing up on the pedestal of being a judge of other people's morality.

I did not express myself properly earlier. Everyone has the right to try to make money off a cultural idea. No-one has the right to use the force of government to prevent people from doing so, or to be rent-seekers and demand a fee for a cultural idea they do not own because nobody owns it.

This includes the people who created it, or helped to create it, and their descendants. Nobody owns a set of cultural ideas. A cultural idea is not a novel or a software program.

And even those have limited intellectual property rights that expire.

Oh really? I specifically chose the case of the Australian Indigenous people while assuming that you would be familiar with their culture. Now, it comes down to you claiming that somehow such Australian Indigenous People have "no claim to the things they invented" ? You have got to be kidding.

More precisely, the things their ancestors invented. I do not have exclusive claim to the things my ancestors developed either. Nobody does. It is morally wicked to claim that people can own cultural ideas.

Are you denying that whether it be the Maori people, Native Americans or Australian Indigenous People what they have been passing on is NOT their Heritage as defined in the quote I have now brought up several times. I have now covered the specifics within the content of that definition and their meaning.

Sorry, again I worded things poorly. You can pass on cultural ideas in the same way you can pass on wisdom or a language or anything else. But you have no right to prevent other people from learning and using those cultural ideas because nobody owns a set of cultural ideas.

Human happiness has been plummeting since some US athletic teams have been exploiting and RIDICULING via clownish mascots the Heritage of Native Americans. Is that what you are referring to by "human happiness" which will plummet? Because it has been happening already.

Well, that's nonsense. Didn't sports fans in the millions enjoy these mascots? And if they no longer enjoy them, then the teams will stop using them.

Of course not affecting outside groups but the very people who have a legitimate claim to their own Heritage and have the right to preserve and protect it from such disfigurement. Why should you even give a rat's behind about Native American Heritage anyway? You do not appear to give a rat's behind about the very people's Heritage who are Indigenous to your own nation as you believe that they have "no claim to what they invented". Let alone what they" developed, nurtured and refined" over the course of tens of thousands of years prior to European colonialism.

This is eye bleeding nonsense, Sabine. No-one is indigenous to Australia. My parents came here 40 years ago; the ancestors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders came here 40,000 years ago. And before that, we all came out of Africa. So what?

The heritage that ATSI people have learned today no more belongs to them than indoor plumbing belongs to me.

Since my childhood I have valued and honored the Heritage of ethnic and cultural groups I have had the privilege to be acquainted with. It is not going to change based on your stances.

There's been no doubt in my mind that I'd ever be able to convince you.

Believing that cultures can be owned is morally wicked.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Yes, they should. Because I said so.

 

[Bronzeage]

Next, we debate interracial marriage, nobody's business, or dilution of the genes.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

When will we finally accept that we are all humans sharing our human heritage?

It is pretty ridiculous, and a form of racism that often goes uncriticized. You don't have to "act like your group". There is no shame in black kids from the inner city playing chess and violin and studying physics and "acting white" (what a stupid term). Nor is there anything wrong with white people being rappers or singing the blues. Nor is there anything wrong with me using chop sticks while my Chinese girlfriend uses a knife and fork and twerks to showtunes. Nor is there anything wrong with Jamaican's skiing or Inuits surfing. And if a country western musician wants to work bagpipes into his music, that's fine too.

Ideas are ideas, activities are activities, and we should all be equally free to have and do them. I don't care if your forefathers have been doing something for thousands of years. That doesn't mean you own the activity, and that you can do it ant stop me from doing it. If I think it is something I want to do, I will do it, and you have no right to stop me.