Culture as weapon

Culture is has been used as a weapon. The issue is not "culture" wars but culture as a weapon of mass destruction in a war of ideas. People of African descent have experienced as much. Having both gone through a 'dehumanization' process in the European imagination with "white" transformed into super human and Black transfixed into subhuman, we have become defined through the lense of "Black" and "White." We, both Black and White, must begin the process of rehumanization that reconnects, renews and reorders the deeply held beliefs, the a priori assumptions and the.assumed benefit structure of society.

How is culture a weapon? When is culture a weapon? Why would culture be used as a weapon? I think these are the questions that the enslaved died with on their lips, that the sharecroppers counted when the harvest didn't add up, that the Occupy Movement must define if they are to get the answer they seek. There are both hard and soft manifestations of the weapon of culture. Benefit structures that reward and reinforce cultural practices is the soft side. Punishment for oppositional behavior with the hammer that is designed to smash all resistance is the first stiffening  of the hard side.

Culture offers the gift of humanity or the goad of insanity.