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Melissa Knox's avatar

But aren't you trusting her "research" a bit too much? I have the book right here. She writes (I've picked a page at random): "I have a white frame of reference and a white worldview." This isn't footnoted because it's mere assertion. There is no "white" worldview, unless you're talking from the perspective of a NeoNazi and I have seen what they do here in Germany where I live. Ugh. I could write quite a bit about that. Cultures don't necessarily (if ever!) go by skin color. Thomas Sowell has written (extensively--and documented) about the ways in which Scots Irish culture became "redneck" Southern culture became ghetto culture. Here's a short summary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pls-Z0KOOgw&t=64s

but I'd recommend his book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals. As it happens, descended as I am from Southern whites of Scots-Irish "cracker culture," his research has particular poignance for me--and if you saw me, you'd say, "Oh, there's a white person." My family background and culture is entirely different from that of a friend whose William-Wilberforcey John Singer Sargenty family resided for generations in Boston.

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Lightwing's avatar

Very good book. An excellent piece of scholarship. I recommend it as well.

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