The title link will be added to my list. I stumbled across this site, which in turn took me to the title link. It's all terribly interesting reading. I would say I find it odd that groups like the Conservative Brotherhood aren't more widely acknowledged in the news, but I don't.

Anyhow, I titled this post Americana because I see an illustration of traditional American folk culture here. I wrote a little about it in this post.

It's often commented that America is the only place in the world where people can come and become nationals. Americans can't move to Italy or Egypt or Japan and become Italian or Egyptian or Japanese. But people from anywhere in the world can come to American and become Americans. All one must do to become American is demonstrate their commitment to American ideals and values. The bureaucracy part can be disregarded for my purposes.

I grew up in a very small town in Wyoming. My folks lived there for about eight years before I was born. I remember that the generational families were a little standoffish towards us. My parents weren't usually invited to card parties or things like that. The neighbors were always friendly and civil towards us, but vaguely cool. We moved a couple of times, but so far, my family has always found its way back to that little town. It was when I was in high school that I realized what had been going on and also realized that we actually were finally and still are a part of the community. At some point, there's no defining moment or time period, the town agreed that our family were good respectable folks and proud members of the community. Others who moved there while we lived there didn't fare quite so well. A number of families came and went because they didn't understand what it meant or took to belong. Their words and actions decided for them how welcome they would be. Some of them hung on and pretended not to notice or care, but were overheard complaining and backbiting (which certainly didn't help their efforts). Eventually most of them moved on.

Anyhow, this illustrates American folk culture. My family noticed but didn't care. They were there to make a life and raise a family. They worked hard. They took care of business. They were committed to making a life in that little town. We did move away a couple of times, but that is still our home (even mine though I'm now in California). Because we held the same values and ideals of the people in our little town, we became members rather than residents.

This happens over time throughout America. Immigrant populations eventually find that if they fail to adopt American values, they fail to find the success they seek. As generations are born and raised, they slowly abandon their own roots and become more American.

The traditional American values are complex and sometimes seem contradictory, but they boil down to some fairly simple concepts. Personal integrity, hard work, willingness to do unto others, and cautious generosity are what I would claim to be the backbone of traditional American values.

These values are sometimes contradictory because we are also a nomadic people, because our first loyalty is to ourselves and our immediate family, and we often place efficiency above integrity.

Americans are friendly and curious about strangers, but remain shallow and slightly distant. It doesn't pay to get too close to somebody who might pick up and leave at any time. And until one has proven one's dedication to the American way, you can't be sure of their motives or their worth.

It makes for a fascinating twist to history. We created a cultural paradox because of our ostensibly contradictory values and actions, and black people have been more or less trapped at the center of it for nearly the entire duration of our history. Now I think the twist is smoothing out, however slowly. We brought Africans here to be slaves. They did not come voluntarily, and were barely recognized as people much less Americans. Our inherent moralism eventually led to war. We were fighting ourselves and our conscience. The fight continued, though not necessarily with weapons. Instead, the war became one of ideology that persists to this very day.

The ideological war is between what might be called the moralists and the traditionalists. It's a fascinating contradiction. On one hand, our moral voice tells us that we owe something, especially to black people. On the other hand, we can't accept them as Americans until they turn away from dependency and prove they can carry their own weight independent of entitlements. Americans don't trust people who don't earn their keep. We offer a cookie with one hand and slap with the other. I think they are deciding that the cookie isn't worth the slap anymore.

I wrote about Bill Cosby's speech at the NAACP, and he sees what must be done. He wasn't castigating black people, he was trying to make them see that they must be responsible for themselves if they are to find success.

I can't say any of this is necessarily fair, but since when has history been fair? People perceived as potentially un-American have to worker harder to cover less distance. They carry the burden of proving whether they believe in the American way and deserve to be recognized as Americans.

Members of the Conservative Brotherhood demonstrate an understanding of this facet of American folk culture in their writing and an acceptance. The American folk tradition runs deep especially in the South and Midwest. In the end, accepting and adopting that traditional culture will go further towards erasing inequities than any amount of legislation will do.
Link: ;http://www.conservativebrothe...