I hate cultural appropriation

Do you mean you hate cultural appropriation in the sense of people who take things from cultures they aren't apart of or the general idea of what cultural appropriation is?

 

First you'd have to define exactly what "cultural appropriation" is. It's my understanding that the definitions of it are contested.

My instinctual reaction is to dismiss the entire concept as ludicrous, but perhaps my definition needs amending.

 

I can't explain much further unless I'm given a definition of it to work with, along with several examples of 'appropriating culture'.

 

Ah, understood. I didn't want to take anything you said out of context by misunderstanding you. And honestly, I don't know. I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt if they don't know what they're doing is appropriation (ex: Wiccans/Pagans who aren't Native who do smudging/smoke cleansing). But if they do know and just don't care, then that's pretty bad. Educating ourselves is so important so we know not to overstep our boundaries, and it's also remember that it's okay to make mistakes as long as you're able to learn from them.

I had a talk about this with my partner today about us possibly having our wedding theme Day of the Dead centered. He's latinx, and I asked him if it would be appropriatative and gross as hell for me to get involved with that (ex: "sugar skull" face painting)--since I'm not Latino or Mexican myself. He said I'm not, since we're sharing cultures; so that made me feel better.

 

See this exactly what I suspected: the examples are all over the place and hardly have much coherence to them.

For one thing, degree of "appropriation" can certainly fade. Depending on how exclusive a practice is to a culture, it may not be considered "appropriation". When white people first started practicing yoga, it may have been considered appropriation because it was so tied with Indians and Hindus. Now that it has been ingrained and modified in Western culture, it would be difficult to accuse housewives going to their afternoon yoga class as "appropriating culture".

Furthermore, how can you argue that something is being "stolen" vs. being "borrowed". One word clearly sounds more negative than the other, yet there is little to differentiate the two in the examples. Is Miley Cyrus "stealing" because you don't like Miley Cyrus? Would someone who doesn't have the negative image of her consider her only to be "borrowing"? Would someone then have to prove that black people invented twerking and that Cyrus observed all the moves she performed being performed by black women before doing them herself?

I'm full Mexican, but I could not give a rat's ass about who sings mariachi music. Anyone can sing it. As a Mexican, I give them permission to do so.

There is also not a necessity that any of these examples be viewed as negative. You can't have a multicultural society and then claim that everyone must stay inside their cultural boundaries and that no sharing and borrowing can occur between them.

 

I personally think the cultural appropriation argument gets a bit ridiculous sometimes. It seems people get worked up over petty things and make real cultural appropriation seem like a joke.

It really depends. Is wearing a nun costume any less offensive than wearing a gele?

 

If we should start hating people for taking/borrowing stuff from other cultures then everyone on earth would be hating each other. That's because there are so many things from different cultures that we've appropriated and this has become integrated in our daily lifestyle.

Not to be offensive, but in this context, it looks like you're the only one who has a problem with it. I see no problem.

Does it bother me a little when I see certain people appropriating culture and not utilizing it the right way? Yes. But then I think what is the "right" way? There is no right or wrong way. That's the good thing about learning new things and integrating them into our lives.

 

Yeah, I don't get it.

Should we avoid drinking tea, because that's appropriating British culture? Or should the Brits stop drinking tea, because they appropriated it from the Indians?

How can it be a bad thing that people encounter a thing they appreciate in someone different from them, and attempt to emulate it...and wouldn't it be worse if they attempted to emulate it exactly, rather than putting their own spin on it?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, no?

 

Cultural appropriation is not a real thing. At least not a "problem". Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

The point is that something that would normally be considered "wrong" for someone from a minority culture to perform is suddenly "cool", "deep" and "exotic" when a white person adopts and reduces it to some fad.

I feel the way about Day of the Dead skulls becoming chic. It's normally something you'd see during Halloween in indigenous communities, or Cholo artwork. Now? No different than Chinese tattoos.

A bigger double standard might be how some white female artists have made a living from "black music" while actual black artists are overlooked. A lot of problematic stereotypes are played up, too.

 

Am I not allowed to eat sushi? Or drink green tea? Or wear a beret?

...I guess we're just supposed to keep segregating ourselves from each other and never understand other cultures.

 

I think that the idea of cultural appropriation makes it seem cut and dry, but in reality cultures don't own patents or the rights to stereotypes of their culture. I live in America as a (somewhat) free person, and if I pay a lot of money to buy a kimono I don't think I should be told I can't because it's cultural appropriation.

On the other hand, I do not like a lot of the "cultural appropriation" that goes on with the Native Americans. I feel like America and Christians in particular did a lot of damage to the Native Americans themselves and to their cultures. Victoria's Secret putting on a bikini and headdress seemed disrespectful to me, but at the same time I've come to expect no respect for any culture. People appropriate and make fun of everyone else and only a few are targeted as bad.

 

I don't really care about cultural appropriation. I do get embarrassed for people who take something from another culture and get it totally wrong. An example is super white people playing Latin music. They look ridiculous to me, but they don't offend me.