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Cultural Appropriation.

If you're a member of a dominant culture who wears something from a culture that is still in the throes of grief, resentment and an unreconciled past due to your dominant culture, then I would call that cultural appropriation. I get why some native people get upset when they see white people wearing war bonnets, for example. If you don't see the irony of wearing native attire while you're standing on land that was taken from them and stained with their blood, then there's no hope for you.

Everything else is fair game, really. We live in a globalized world now and everybody is sharing everything. My daughter wanted to dress as a geisha when she was 8 and we had no problem with that. She's entering college next year and plans to study Japanese, not that that even matters. It's been my experience through traveling that most places are happy when white people take an interest in their culture, even if it's just dressing like them.

The leftists in the USA have blown cultural appropriation out of proportion and as usual it has become part of their politics of power manipulation. Then you have the flip side where some Americans behave like conquerors with a "you lost, so just deal with it" attitude when they parade around in the attire of the conquered with zero empathy. Melting pot indeed.
 
OlNate said:
hehe...so, not wanting to dragged into a beating...as it would appear this thread is shaping up in a rather specific direction...but since you asked, I think it boils down to the respect shown. As with anything, some people are going to have a point, others are going to take it too far, which is why, as with anything, you need to look at each as a separate incident and decide which side you fall on.

Here's a couple articles, since you asked...

https://www.thoughtco.com/cultural-appropriation-and-why-iits-wrong-2834561

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-africa/cultural-appropriation-wh_b_10585184.html
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The problem with that is "too far" is totally subjective. For some people a black man sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter is "cultural appropriation". For others a white kid wearing Air Jordans is "cultural appropriation".

Like I said before, some people simply live to be pissed off about certain things and it's best to ignore them.
 
Lutherf said:
The problem with that is "too far" is totally subjective. For some people a black man sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter is "cultural appropriation". For others a white kid wearing Air Jordans is "cultural appropriation".

Like I said before, some people simply live to be pissed off about certain things and it's best to ignore them.
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I hear you...it's a tricky one. And I'm not saying I 100% agree with all of it either... I try to stay away from the obvious stuff, and call it "my best". I don't need to understand or agree with everything, though, to not want to stop doing something that someone else says is hurting them. It's usually a pretty easy concession to make...I've never been put out by not being able to walk around in indigenous ceremonial headdress, for example. Not being able to wear black face has never ruined my day, and I've never really felt deprived because I haven't grown dreads, or wear one of those hats that have the dreads built in...hehe...
 
Napoleon said:
The problem is people who believe they can simultaneously integrate into a society while claiming a monopoly on cultural elements.
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You misunderstand the distinction between an homage and an insult.
 
Lutherf said:
The problem with that is "too far" is totally subjective. For some people a black man sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter is "cultural appropriation". For others a white kid wearing Air Jordans is "cultural appropriation".

Like I said before, some people simply live to be pissed off about certain things and it's best to ignore them.
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Ah, it's subjective, so it doesn't exist.

Yeah; being respectful is too much, better to just ignore them. That's the courageous move here.
 
TheGoverness said:
So, the recent debacle with the whole Moana costume stuff, has got me interested in talking about the concept of cultural appropriation in general. Now, for those that have no idea what the **** I'm talking about, cultural appropriation is the "adoption of the elements of one culture by members of another culture". Some people, view this as a negative thing.

My question is: why is it a bad thing? "Cultural appropriation" has been doing since societies arose. Throughout our history, we've mingled and co-existed. And we'v borrowed plenty of elements of each others cultures, and morphed it into our own. For the most part, Humans don't just mingle in our own separate enclaves and keep to ourselves; we interact with one another. I think the United States is a great example of this. Just look at how ****ing diverse this country is. That diversity, is due to different cultures coming together (people coming from all over the world), and sharing and implementing ideas. There are endless examples of this: food, movies, folk tales, clothes, hairstyles, religious traditions, etc, etc. There's too many to list.

And then you have all of the people that say it's "racist" for a white person to wear a Moana costume, or have dreads or whatever. Now, if someone is wearing a costume, simply for the purposes of making fun of another culture, then yeah, I could see how that is racist. But if someone just wants to wear a costume of a character they like, or they want to wear dreads, or have hoop earrings, that's shouldn't be a problem. If someone (of whatever skin color) wants to wear something from a character, of culture that they enjoy, then who gives a ****?

And to anyone that has a problem with that, you need to rethink your life choices. Lots of actual problems to be worried about, than whether or not it's okay for a white girl (or boy?) to wear a Moana costume.

/END RANT
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Cultural Appropriation. What a bizarre concept.
I want the last names of everyone in the Police Dep't. Pipe Band.
 
Absentglare said:
You misunderstand the distinction between an homage and an insult.
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I understand that no such distinction is necessary because there is no such thing as a right to exclusive cultural expression.
 
Absentglare said:
You misunderstand the distinction between an homage and an insult.
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And you misunderstand that taking something as an insult doesn't mean it was meant as an insult.
 
TheGoverness said:
So, the recent debacle with the whole Moana costume stuff, has got me interested in talking about the concept of cultural appropriation in general. Now, for those that have no idea what the **** I'm talking about, cultural appropriation is the "adoption of the elements of one culture by members of another culture". Some people, view this as a negative thing.

My question is: why is it a bad thing? "Cultural appropriation" has been doing since societies arose. Throughout our history, we've mingled and co-existed. And we'v borrowed plenty of elements of each others cultures, and morphed it into our own. For the most part, Humans don't just mingle in our own separate enclaves and keep to ourselves; we interact with one another. I think the United States is a great example of this. Just look at how ****ing diverse this country is. That diversity, is due to different cultures coming together (people coming from all over the world), and sharing and implementing ideas. There are endless examples of this: food, movies, folk tales, clothes, hairstyles, religious traditions, etc, etc. There's too many to list.

And then you have all of the people that say it's "racist" for a white person to wear a Moana costume, or have dreads or whatever. Now, if someone is wearing a costume, simply for the purposes of making fun of another culture, then yeah, I could see how that is racist. But if someone just wants to wear a costume of a character they like, or they want to wear dreads, or have hoop earrings, that's shouldn't be a problem. If someone (of whatever skin color) wants to wear something from a character, of culture that they enjoy, then who gives a ****?

And to anyone that has a problem with that, you need to rethink your life choices. Lots of actual problems to be worried about, than whether or not it's okay for a white girl (or boy?) to wear a Moana costume.

/END RANT
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It's an incredibly stupid concept that gets applied VERY selectively. It would be like me telling a little black boy that he can't wear a Thor costume because he's appropriating my Scandinavian culture. Me, I'm proud of culture and I think that everyone should do things which honor my Viking ancestors (I think that an annual pillaging of Great Britain should be mandatory). But all this "cultural appropriation" crap makes it sound like only people who a a part of a culture are allowed to enjoy it. It's selfish and childish.
 
Napoleon said:
I understand that no such distinction is necessary because there is no such thing as a right to exclusive cultural expression.
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Again, you misunderstand. The issue isn't that culture should be exclusive, it's that representatives of the dominant culture should be respectful.

Apparently, asking for mutual respect is too much to ask, and people act like Neo-Nazism is dead...
 
Cephus said:
And you misunderstand that taking something as an insult doesn't mean it was meant as an insult.
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Not at all. You seem to not realize that it's possible to have a misunderstanding where you inflict harm on others unintentionally.
 
MrPeanut said:
How many people do you think that is? I agree with your overall point, but I have never met anyone in real life that cared that much about it. It seems like most of the time that I hear about this stuff is from some right wing rag online.
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Except for the plethora of left-wing leaning sites that blather on and on about it....

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...ropriated-in-2015_us_566ee11de4b011b83a6bd660
Colleges Gear Up for Halloween With Warnings and ?Cultural Appropriation? Workshops
https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/04/honoring-culture-appropriation/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/10/23/halloween-cultural-appropriation-questions/780479001/
https://www.theatlantic.com/enterta...s-and-donts-of-cultural-appropriation/411292/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...n-this-years-halloween-costumes-a6715376.html
 
MrPeanut said:
Personal experience doesn't include the internet. It maximizes everything. Where did you go to college? I've been hearing about this kind of thing a lot, but I haven't experienced any of it. I'm not from a particularly left area though so maybe that is a big factor.
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I included personal experiences and macro-experiences. It's all over places like buzzfeed and youtube.... articles about it all the time. It's not a right wing hyperbole... it's a popular idea that's everywhere with huge media companies producing articles on it almost on the daily...

And I went to large/major college in Georgia
 
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Absentglare said:
Not at all. You seem to not realize that it's possible to have a misunderstanding where you inflict harm on others unintentionally.
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And therein lies the problem. Sometimes in life it isn't all about you. Sometimes things happen that negatively impact you. It's up to you to deal with these things. If, instead of dealing with the situation, you choose to blame the offending party for being careless or worse then YOU are part of the problem.

This morning I stopped in a local convenience store to get an iced tea. As I was walking toward the counter I passed behind a woman getting coffee. Just as I was passing she backed up and I couldn't get out of her way fast enough so there was a little bump. She gave me a look that could kill even though she's the one that backed up without paying any attention to her surroundings. As far as she was concerned I was at fault for being in "her" space. I apologized as soon as we bumped because that's the polite thing to do but she just glared. Like I said, the perception of offense is totally subjective and if you are totally self absorbed you will always feel like you are the one being treated unfairly.
 
Absentglare said:
Again, you misunderstand. The issue isn't that culture should be exclusive, it's that representatives of the dominant culture should be respectful.

Apparently, asking for mutual respect is too much to ask, and people act like Neo-Nazism is dead...
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As Brennus said to the Romans, “Woe to the conquered.”
 
Lutherf said:
And therein lies the problem. Sometimes in life it isn't all about you. Sometimes things happen that negatively impact you. It's up to you to deal with these things.
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We are in agreement up until here. I realize that being told that blackface, for example, is racially insensitive may cause discomfort to someone who chose to wear blackface, but it is important to consider a context more broad than the personal because we live in a big society. Our signals often travel father than we realize, and they are often received in ways that we did not intend.

This isn't a horrible thing where "violators" are evil, it's just part of the way that we communicate toward an environment of mutual respect. Some people take their side too far, but that's not a reason to abandon the entire enterprise altogether.

Lutherf said:
If, instead of dealing with the situation, you choose to blame the offending party for being careless or worse then YOU are part of the problem.
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Honestly, i feel like this is an oversimplification. And i don't think we should be blaming people. Guilt is not a path to mutual respect, it is a path to mutual resentment.

Lutherf said:
This morning I stopped in a local convenience store to get an iced tea. As I was walking toward the counter I passed behind a woman getting coffee. Just as I was passing she backed up and I couldn't get out of her way fast enough so there was a little bump. She gave me a look that could kill even though she's the one that backed up without paying any attention to her surroundings. As far as she was concerned I was at fault for being in "her" space. I apologized as soon as we bumped because that's the polite thing to do but she just glared. Like I said, the perception of offense is totally subjective and if you are totally self absorbed you will always feel like you are the one being treated unfairly.
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That sounds like she was incredibly rude and failed to appreciate the context of the situation.

I think society needs to be much more willing to extend forgiveness to one another. We don't know what's going on in other people's lives, maybe her mother just passed away, maybe she's just having a bad day, maybe she's just a wretched person on a regular basis. None of those things are your fault.

But we also need to be willing to listen to each others concerns. That's the other side of the coin here, we have to consider one another.
 
Absentglare said:
Not at all. You seem to not realize that it's possible to have a misunderstanding where you inflict harm on others unintentionally.
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And life's a bitch, isn't it? Far too often, it's people taking things far too seriously and insisting that everyone is out to get them.
 
Absentglare said:
Lol holy ****, that is brutal. Great quote, thanks!
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Isn’t it? Lol. The story goes that Brennus conquered Rome and the Romans were holed up in the citadel. They negotiated his departure from the city in exchange for a certain amount of gold, but when they complained how unfair it was he threw his sword down on the scale and said that.
 
faithful_servant said:
Additionally, we need to be making sure that everyone who gets drunk on St. Patrick's Day really is Irish.
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If they're not they get a ride in the Paddy Wagon.
 
Zyphlin said:
Here's the one thing I'll say on that though...

My sad guess is there are more nutters out there all over the place then I think we all fully realize. The reality is that all these blogs, forums, social media, and other forms of communication has not just given voice to such people but allowed them to actually congregate and realize that they're not quite so alone. I'll take something that's actually not political but more up your alley perhaps...

Bronies.

Go back to the 90's and something like Bronies is not a word that would make it into the lexicon. It would be a crazy, shameful, laughable thing that people would never dream of sharing with most anyone, and if they did its probably because the person in question is a leper within society anyways. Now? Now you can get 8 to 10 thousand of them congregating yearly for a freaking convention while hosting large online gathering places.

But here's a bigger issue. It's not simply the realm of crazy out there blogs or some guys rambling Geocities page anymore. Thanks to social media, where I think you have a higher saturation of nutters than you normally run into in the "real world", these kind of things gain steam and a following. Then you have the marketing and decision making portions of more mainstream businesses seeing it and thinking "this is what people want now, we need to get on board". Suddenly, the reach and scope that the nutters have to get their message out expands massively. And this is how things that seem out there begin to slowly become more mainstream.

Think I'm crazy?

Look at anime now. Look at comic books. Look at Dungeons and Dragons. Recognize that all these things have FAR less stigma now than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Why? These kind of "nutters" were able to band together more online, found that they weren't as rare and isolated as they used to be, started to get recognition in various places that led others to look at it and go "maybe there's something there", major companies and entities decided to grasp ahold of them as a means of touching into some new audience, and slowly they become part of the normal culture as opposed to a strange thing you used to point and laugh at the nerds about.

So while yes, I think people freak out FAR too easily with some random person saying some random stupid thing...and I think the broad attacks to large groups based on a nutter who identifies with a far smaller segment of a segment within that larger group are horribly dumb...I think there's a big difference between someone complaining about something crazy written by a majorly distributed magazine or on a widely watched TV show or something compared to some random guys blog that gets 500 clicks a day prior to someone making a big deal about its content.
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Several things need to be said here:

1: Bronies are not, in any way, shape nor form, up my alley. Bronies are an American invention, based on an American TV show. The only vague similarity is that anime is animated, as is the show Bronies like. That type of fandom is nothing like the kind of fandom I have, nor is My Little Pony really anything like the anime I watch.
2: Did I mention Bronies are not in any way up my alley? Cuz that is important.
3: Comic books, anime, D&D, gaming, these things are not "nutty". They are forms of entertainment. Mostly, I tend to think of them as less nutty than things like 50 Shades of Gray, or Twilight. Further, I am not sure if your reason they are more socially accepted holds up. I think they are more accepted because people who rode the wave when those things exploded are now adults, and continue to enjoy their hobbies from when they are kids. And compared to things like 50 Shades of Gray, these hobbies look pretty tame.
4: Isolated nutters being a little less isolated still is not a reason to get all outraged because there exists a few pockets of isolated nutters. They are still isolated, still few, and still nutters.
5: Bronies are not up my alley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Cephus said:
And life's a bitch, isn't it? Far too often, it's people taking things far too seriously and insisting that everyone is out to get them.
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The fact that life is inevitably difficult is not sufficient to justify making life more difficult for others.
 
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