The concept of cultural appropriation seems to be pretty useless in practice.
The cases I’ve encountered where it makes some bit of sense fit better under the concepts of racism or exploitation. The complaints about cultural appropriation online seem to more often attack innocent behaviour or someone genuinely appreciating another culture.
Drink tea, make tacos, wear a kimono, don’t be an asshole
now i want a t-shirt/tote-bag with that line.
On one hand certain things have certain meaning in the culture and maybe some people will look sidewise but on the other hand people that practice that culture probably don’t expect some random dude to know everything it their culture. But “cultural appropriation” has mostly been used to virtue signal
Culture is meant to be shared, as long as you’re respectful and you’re not caricaturing or mocking the culture you’re trying to portray, most people from said culture would be flattered.
Yeah context and intend make all the difference. Cultural appropriation is when you try to clad yourself in something that is a facsimile of another culture, usually for marketing or influence purposes, but you neither understand nor have any intend to understand the culture itself or the meaning behind the parts you use for your (usually financial) gain.
IDK, even then, I don’t think you need to understand the culture about it so much. E.g. there was some incident about a white girl wearing a qipao to prom and she got called out for it. In the end, it’s just a piece of clothing that looks nice. It isn’t some deeply symbolic thing for people.
I don’t expect her to try to understand Chinese culture before wearing a qipao (which originated in Mongolia before Chinese appropriated it BTW), and I don’t expect Chinese to understand Western culture before wearing a suit and tie.
But obviously there are some cases, as you said where context does matter.
I’ve never heard about “cultural appropriation” outside of jokes making fun of it. And it’s one of the right’s favourite strawmen. Maybe it’s time to let it go?
The counterexample to Mexicans and their Sombreros is Plains Indians and their War bonnet (those feather crowns they used to sell as “Indian kids costumes”), whenever cultural appropriation is mentioned this comes up, so I’d be rather surprised if you hadn’t heard of it before.
Any spicy takes on that one, or have you really just never heard of it?
Lol, reminds me of one of the Mario games a while back - no idea what the context was, but Mario took on different personas, which I’m assuming gave him abilities specific to whatever ‘form’ he took kinda like Kirby.
Anywho, one of them was a Mexican theme, which made Mario don a sombrero and poncho. Lots of touchy white people on the internet were PISSED cuz how could Nintendo be so insensitive to the Mexican culture?!
…meanwhile, Mexican gamers were fucking ecstatic cuz HOLY SHIT MARIO’S WEARING A SOMBRERO! LET’S GOOOOOO!!!
Good times.
That was either Super Mario Odyssey or Paper Mario: Sticker Star (Mario can wear a sombrero in both). In Odyssey it’s just a themed cosmetic that can be bought with coins. In Sticker Star, it’s an attack.
Case in point: Mexicans loved Speedy Gonzalez.
When I was 12 or 13, we took a trip to Mexico and took public transportation and stayed in small non-touristy places where the people staying in the hotels were more likely to be Mexicans than Americans (not to save money, my parents just thought it would be more fun). I remember sitting in a hotel lobby with a TV on and some Mexican kids sitting around watching Speedy Gonzales cartoons dubbed into Spanish with their parents casually chatting and I was like, “WTF? Isn’t Speedy Gonzales racist? They don’t care? They like it?”
Like VindictiveJudge says, he’s the hero who outwits his opponents and always wins. I’d add that the opponents are always American.
Probably because he always outwits his opponents and always wins. He’s not any more crazy than the other Looney Tunes, he’s as smart as Bugs, and unlike Bugs, he’s never cruel and remains firmly heroic.
That’s the crux. He’s a Mexican stereotype, but at the time, it was rare to have a good guy who looked like that.
He was also the exact opposite of the other stereotype of the “lazy Mexican” - which, for anyone who’s ever worked construction with actual Mexicans, is comically inaccurate.
Interestingly, they also made a heroic “lazy” Mexican in the form of Slowpoke Rodriguez. (He pack a gun.)
They aren’t thongs unless they come from the Thong region of Australia, otherwise they are just sparkling flip-flops
Don’t be silly, thongs have nothing to do with Australia, they were invented in the 19th Century by Frenchman Philippe Follope.
Correct. And if they don’t come from the Sandalé region in France, they’re not thongs. They’re just sparkling toe slippers.
insert Ricky Gervais cultural appropriation joke here
Literally no Latin American is going to be bothered Or annoyed in any way whatsoever if you don typical dresses of their culture.
We love our culture and love it even more when we influence gringos to dress as our ancestors did.
The joy is palpable. It makes you part of the family. And that’s plenty
Besides, no one here knows what the deal is with getting offended on behalf of someone else. If anyone has a problem, they speak up their minds.
Slurs? Motherfückêr, that’s half our language.
Also, plenty of Latin American culture was basically forced on the indigenous by the Spanish. There’s a reason why poor people in countries like Bolivia dress more like 16th century Spanish peasants than their indigenous ancestors. Those bowler hats people wear in Bolivia aren’t part of Incan culture.
If you dress like what people consider to be traditional Bolivian dress these days and you’re American, I guess you’re appropriating Spanish culture from centuries ago? I don’t think anyone would give a shit.
This is one thing ive never understood about “cultural appropriation.” If someone is partaking in your nations/cultures traditions, apperal, food, etc. Why is that a bad thing? Wouldnt people want their traditions known and shared and experienced by many?
Idk im just a white guy who loves dia de los muertos
There’s a big difference between participation and appropriation, and the “anti-woke” hive mind goes out of it’s way to conflate the two.
It’s a thin line between celebrating indigenous cultures and heritage and exploiting it. The Washington Redskins being something I feel everyone can clearly see was over that line, but wearing a sombrero is clearly nowhere near it.
I mean I’m Bavarian and if people wear Lederhosen and set up their own Oktoberfest it’s kinda lame. Not that I think it’s bad, it’s just that I’m not a fan of that stuff here either. You can totally have all of that. I keep the many many small breweries making fantastic beer.
IMO it’s appropriation if it’s done disrespectfully or in an exploitative or profiteering way. Otherwise, it would just be cultural segregation. Imagine liberalism turned full apartheid.
Enjoying other cultures isn’t appropriation. I think the line where it becomes appropriation is profiteering. If you are commodifying and profiting off someone else’s culture that’s pretty shitty. Obviously that’s not a perfectly clear cut line (who ‘owns’ culture?), but it’s a good place to start.
I think that’s still tricky. For instance, most parts of the world have few Japanese migrants, yet Japanese restaurants are almost everywhere. Usually these are owned by other Asian migrants. This is clearly profiteering, but I don’t see it as particularly problematic.
also when it becomes an issue is influenced by how accurate it is, how overused it feels, and (obviously) if it was made with the intent to insult
It’s a tough line to draw, because even if they aren’t the main profitees, the culture where the thing originated often still profited. e.g. AFAIK rock’n’roll getting popular with white americans was pretty good for black americans, even though many of the best selling artists (e.g. Elvis Presley) were white.
Clothing and food are surface, but important, cultural signs. It can be easy to observe and emulate these for one’s own gain either socially or econically. All the while the culture from which these signs are derive are ignored.
Dressing up like a war chief for Halloween is partaking in the costume, but not the culture.
But who cares, right?
It’s important to root these in a history of colonial exploitation, marginalization, and erasure. A group of people whose way of life has been noted as barbaric, backwards, or savage were often the same reasons colonial powers saw it fit to steal from them, enslave, and murder them. Donning a cultures dress or making their food tastes “better” has done nothing to restore connection with that culture. It is just a more polite form of their erasure. They have been robbed of their soveignty.Another phenomena, as noted in the comic, is the chill acceptance of this by the appropriated culture. Here, they face no real erasure. Heck, you don’t really see this in newly immigrated peoples who want to make a better life for themselves. Being seen is success. But you speak to their first generation children and having their culture flattened to the surface signs can be infuriating if you are the type who views assimilation as a type of loss.
I personally think there is space for a member of the dominant culture to appreciate the culture if they’ve been invited. But it is important to be careful here as well. Because you may have earned that right with one group from within the culture, but that is not transferable and that exception must be earned again.
Heck, it gets even more complicated when people looking to just keep their schools open and working sge adults employed couldn’t care less when asked, but will ask if there’s anything that can be done to stabilize their community.
So I’ve written a lot and feel like I missed so much and glossed over much of what is important. What have you read about the subject that really attempted to wrestle with the concept?
Obviously intent comes into it, where wearing a reductive costume without any awareness (your Halloween costume example) is callous and ignorant of that person. I think some ignorance can be excused if this person couldn’t reasonably be expected to understand all the implications of a costume, even if it’s someone who should be expected to (thinking Trudeau Jr or Prince Harry when younger).
Regardless of the hypothesised (or real) impact to the community of someone wearing clothing arguably offensive to minorities with ancestry in the culture being mocked, those aspects aren’t what this cartoon is about. It’s about idiots who don’t understand nuance and repeat shit they see on social media unthinkingly until you get this absurd situation where someone wearing a hat and wearing it well is screamed at in public for no discernible reason.
Lots of people seeing it will do the same kind of wrong-generalisation in the opposite direction though, and take the valid point the cartoon makes to write off all concerns with cultural appropriation, including the valid ones you just made in your first paragraph.
The world is nuanced, and that’s nearly never conveyed well in our current public communications systems…
Idk im just a white guy who loves dia de los muertos
How dare you
“Cultural Appropiation” is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever fucking heard.
All cultures grow by learning about and adopting customs of other cultures, or in other words by appropiating things from other cultures.
And if they did that didn’t we wouldn’t have things like anime (Japan took the art of animation from America, not only did The US invent cartoons, but anime evolve from styles used on early Disney cartoons), rock music (Rock musicians are predominantly white, but rock itself evolved from distinctly black forms of music), or really most food in general (Pizza’s from Italy, French Fries are from Belgium, Hot dogs are from Germany… Need I go on?)
At best, demonizing cultural appropiation is just encouraging segregation.
Now if you’re wearing the colors or clothing of another culture specifically with intent to insult or in a less-than-glamorous way… That’s a different story. (I’m talking about those of you who think putting on an ET Mask and a Sombreo and claiming you’re an illegal alien is hillarious)
This is the kind of Neo Liberal nonsense that makes me wish I had a party to root for that wasn’t the Democrats
“Cultural Appropiation” is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever fucking heard.
Really? Because I’d say it’s the perfect term to describe shit like this.
Because that is not respecting an indigenous culture. That is taking something extremely important to them and perversely twisting it into some corporate sports team bullshit.
What else is that asshole doing if not appropriating someone’s culture?
I have no problem with that at all. Please dress up for the 16th of September, the Mexican Independence Day, or as a catrín on Día de los Muertos. My Korean friend looked so good as an Adelita and I was so proud of her.
I guess I’d only have a problem with a Halloween costume that exaggerates a negative and unrealistic stereotype but I don’t think people make those anymore, or at least I haven’t seen one.
negative and unrealistic stereotype
which would just be racism really
Some people just love to find reasons to get offended.
Hell, a way to carry a baby was called cultural appropriation by some black people where I live when first Nations have been carrying their baby the same way on our territory since way before any black people set foot in northern America but we don’t hear them complain.
It’s damn true. I ran a crew of workers that were Spanish speaking. After two years all I gotta say is, is there a word that isn’t used as a dick?
Besides, no one here knows what the deal is with getting offended on behalf of someone else. If anyone has a problem, they speak up their minds.
I can explain. In theory the person who SHOULD be offended is a member of a minority and speaking their mind would open them to backlash from the majority so they say nothing. Its mental gymnastics that let’s a member of the majority “be a hero” for a minority even if that person doesn’t exist. But who cares about that as long as the white lady can think she is a good guy.
Its stupid and is not really about the appropriated culture.
So, virtue signaling?
Ah, as expected
Snowflakes: “It is offensive for a westerner to wear a Japanese kimono. You are not Japanese!”
Native Japanese: “We insist you wear this kimono so you feel like part of the group.”
Based on a true story.
I remember seeing a child have a japanese themed birthday. Some white person was giving off to her parents for cultural appropriation while Japanese people were flattered
It turned out that although she looked white and her parents looked white, her extended family was actually asian. So it wasn’t even appropiation to begin with.
Still everyone needs to chill, my fellow honkeys, please stop getting offended on behalf of others. Playing the role of the “White Savior” comes off as more bigoted than progressive.
“whites”
Point taken, reworded it
I saw a The Onion video where a white woman pledged to never say a word that began with the letter N. Not only the N word, all N words.
“I was shouted down for wearing black facepaint and white lipstick, so why does Tom get to wear a kimono?”
Ahh… The Onion, my favorite, most reliable, 100% not parodic news outlet
I want a Green Hat that says “Make The Onion Satirical Again”
Yes, The Onion is satire, but we’re talking about the idea The Onion was satirizing.
please stop getting offended on behalf of others
You, and the rest of the posters on here, completely misunderstand. I, a white guy, don’t get offended “on behalf of others” - the fact that white people have to constantly reference other cultures because we sterilized and sacrificed our own for the sake of white supremacism and “westernism” so long ago is offensive, period.
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Found it
I’m more concerned that they’re dressing their kid up to look like what is essentially a member of an escort service (albeit a traditional one) than that they’re appropriating Japanese culture.
She’s wearing chopsticks in her hair which is generally frowned upon. She could’ve used a broach or a traditional kansashi instead which would’ve made her look more elegant.
I love this
Cultural appropriation is when you take something sacred or special and don’t treat it with respect. Sombreros and parkas are just clothes.
Thanks for explaining. I never understood the American outrage about cultural appropriation but it’s just about respecting sacred symbols from other cultures? Sounds about right, please feel free to dress as a Frenchman with beret and baguette as long as you respect our no-tipping policy.
Next item to discover on my list: why are Americans so upset about “black face”. And that’s what I witnessed in Sevilla (Spain) recently which did not seem racist to me at all: https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/01/05/polemica-espana-blackface-reyes-magos-trax/
To add to that explanation, dressing as a French person in a mocking way is not the same because the French were not enslaved people in the Americas. In fact, they were taking part in the enslaving. It is basically continuing to show that you are the superior party in the power dynamic in an extremely hurtful way.
The other comment explains most of it, but when it comes to acting specifically there’s also some level of “why didn’t you just get an actual black person”
Next item to discover on my list: why are Americans so upset about “black face”.
That’s because of minstrel shows. They were American comedy acts where actors would paint their faces black and act out racist stereotypes. The premise was “look at me! I’m a black person!” and then they’d do something stupid and everyone would laugh. Note that black people were slaves at the time. When slavery was (mostly) abolished after the civil war, the shows and makeup became symbols of racism.
It’s kind of like how a swastika in a Buddhist temple is fine but a swastika tattoo on a white American isn’t. The swastika doesn’t have to be racist symbol, but there are few places you could display one without it being interpreted as a racist symbol.
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Great explanation, thank you very much!
It’s also when someone takes from other cultures and then claim it as their own without acknowledging the origin. Like how Elvis covered songs from black artists and didn’t credited the original artists and now white people think they solely invented rock n roll.
He didn’t credit the white artists he covered either. But the fact that he gets the credit for inventing rock and roll when you had black people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe doing the crazy shit with guitar that Chuck Berry would later emulate all the way back in the 1930s. By the 1940s, she was playing what I think you could arguably say was as much rock and roll as what Elvis was doing.
Yeah this comic is just for snowflakes trying to feel better.
At my wedding reception, my wife’s cousins plopped a giant black and gold sombrero on my head to welcome me to the family. I’m expected to bring said sombrero to family get togethers and smash beers con mi familia
Are you sure it was black and gold and not white and blue?
It was definitely black and gold or their name isn’t Yanny.
I see muchos Modelos in your future!
I’ve had so many people claim I’m racist online for saying stuff about China. Even after I point out that I’m Chinese, it still doesn’t help for some reason.
You’re speaking english on the internet. Not only are you white, you are American and Male by default.
I’m from a time where it was accepted there were no girls on the internet. Only kids and FBI agents. So yes, I’m male :)
i mean why would anyone other than an incel use these parts of the internet (lemmy/reddit/4chan/…)
Nah dude we’re all 16/f/cali for reals
Whats your ICQ?
i remember it started with an 8
It seems like literally every Chinese person I’ve talked to is absolutely delighted when a westerner is interested in Chinese culture. I remember being assigned a trip to a buffet for a high school Chinese class, and my atonal 你好 got about as much praise as a baby sputtering out “da-da” for the first time. I posted some calligraphy on 小红书 a couple days ago and I am getting gassed up for it.
You can say the most basic phrase in mandarin and completely screw it up both grammatically and pronunciation-wise and they’d absolutely love it and applaud you for it
Provided you’re white
Although the Chinese on XHS are actually quite annoyed at the waiguoren invasion right now
Although the Chinese on XHS are actually quite annoyed at the waiguoren invasion right now
My feed is mostly english speakers, but every post I saw to the effect of “gtfo this is a chinese space” was getting mocked by chinese people pointing out IP indicated it was posted from America.
This is a loud wake-up call that the internet is not reality.
I think it’s NIMBYism in a way. Sure, they like to talk to Laowai and like it when they do something Chinese, but they don’t really want them intruding on their social media network. The Great Firewall exists for a reason- Chinese culture and attitudes are vastly different to that of the west. There was a joke going around that watching Chinese short-form videos “is like tuning into interdimensional cable”
You can say racist stuff about a group whether you belong in the group or not.
What is this absurdity of thinking that you get a free pass to say crap?
“Black people should have remained slaves. But it’s ok, I can say it because I’m black”
Nonsense.
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There’s a far cry between me criticising the CCP for things like the Uyghur genocide and other political issues, and your made up strawman argument. Anybody should be free to criticise any country in the first place, without having to worry about skin colour.
Keep saying it, you’re only offending reactionaries and tankies - and it is not even their goal to be happy, as near as anyone can tell.
Oh yeah, I’ve been banned multiple times for being a Chinese who’s racist against China. I plan to keep being racist by that particular definition.
I know someone who said that America is racist for siding with Taiwan on things and then I pointed out to them that (except a minority) Taiwan is predominantly Han Chinese
You implied that being Chinese is a counterpoint to people calling you racist. That’s what I was commenting on.
Whether what you said to those people was racist or not is out of the point. I was criticizing the fact that you consider that being Chinese would prevent you from being racist, which is absurd.
I think pretty much everybody can agree that being of a certain race gives you a lot more leeway and defense against accusations of racism against that race. It would take an extremely radical statement to go beyond that.
… at least, that’s what my black friends tell me when they call each other ‘nigga’.
Most americans maybe, I’ve never seen this idea anywhere else.
And funnily enough people don’t have the same logic with, for example, sexism.
black people are still slaves but now whites are too
This is just completely tone-deaf bullshit. Equating modern working conditions (in western countries) to slavery is like comparing a contemporary Scandinavian prison to Auschwitz. It’s by very far not the same.
It’s real simple; is the group in general okay with you wearing doing thwir traditions? If yes, then it’s okay.
So Kimonos, mostly okay, Native American Headdresses, mostly not okay.
Native American Headdresses, mostly not okay.
funny how no one ever comments on using native words for our apache helicopters and tomahawk cruise missiles, among others
Building an attack helicopter and naming it after a group of people who absolutely fucked your shit up seems like a sign of respect to me.
Like how WB quietly shelved Speedy Gonzalez and the Latin community was like “No, fuck you. He was OUR GUY, we had representation! Now his cousin, the lazy slow one… yeah that shit can go.”
Just not a football team I guess.
You’ll love this example of using native language. During the meeting where federal officials proposed the creation of an Indian Territory, the Choctaw tribe delegate Rev. Allen Wright suggested naming it “Oklahumma”. In the Choctaw language “okla” means “people” and “humma” means “red.” As a result, the area would be named Oklahoma Territory, or literally “Territory of the Red People.”
There are some arguments that “Homma” can also be a war title given for not retreating, but within the context of our racial history I don’t think that’s what they were going for.
And then of course, they named the main university’s mascots/fight song/etc after the “Boomers” and “Sooners” - people so eager to steal indigenous land that they couldn’t bother waiting for the government to make it legal.
There was a group that tried to get them to change it, but culture wars crowd absolutely pissed and shit themselves - they were already pissed after the chemistry building stopped being named after a Klan member.
