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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
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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