Culture and Politics become one

Today in class we discussed politics vs. culture, when thinking about this I began dealing with the concepts of how they coexists together and on what level, all issues brought up in class as well. What I started thinking about was how much apart of our culture is politics and vice versa.

The thing that I find interesting is that ones political stand can also be much a part of their culture. What comes to mind is the fact that most minorities, especially African-Americans vote Democrat, now my focus isn’t on what political party they choose to align themselves with but rather the social pressures that they have to vote a certain way because of their culture. Me, being an African American have never even thought about researching or really understanding any conservative views and I feel that it has a lot to do with the fact that I have been not taught or told but at least conditioned to believe that Republicans do not represent me and/or my best interests as an African-American. Because I have never even considered conservative views I do not feel cultural pressures to vote liberal but I know other African –Americans that do. Obviously one can fathom the social repercussions that may follow among the community if it is learned that some one who is African American has voted Republican. Also consider the fact that I’m sure that there are some communities made up of mostly white upper-middle class American who vote republican and would not feel any shame in telling anyone in that community that they did so. I doubt this is not true among communities of American-Americans of the same social class, because the general standpoint among the culture is that you vote Democrat. As I stated before I know that there is an actual reason as to why most minorities don’t vote Republican and I know it does have something to do with their priorities not being in line with issues minorities have to deal with but as far as I am concerned, where my interests are in politics at all I know I speak for many minorities when I say it really is a cultural thing.