"Cultural Appropriation"

[bennyboy]

If you say so....but I'd suggest that you might have been sourcing your news from bigots to reach that conclusion.  It wopuld be an impressive feat if the minority oppressed somehow managed to match the majority oppressors for bigotry.  That would have been a neat trick for the oppressed to have had up their sleeve throughout history.  To be able to match the man who holds the levers of control.  

No doubt, but to what degree am I my brother's keeper. Should I, knowing other white people's bigotry, attempt to counterbalance by being a shining beacon of virtue? The kind of bigotry you are talking about is antithetical to me, so this plural "we" stuff bothers me. "We" didn't rape and pillage early native populations-- some fuckers from England did that, and some assholes who aren't of my family did that recently. Nobody I know, so far as I know, has really done anybody any serious wrong. On what basis am I meant to participate in the atonement process?

Not sure what that has to do with bigots trying to do genteel racism to people by pretending that cultural appropriation didn;t happen or was a good thing because we got stuff.

Fair enough. For sure saying "We did these here black folk a big favor by taking them away from their savage upbringing and teaching them the word of God" doesn't sit well with me. . . and I've definitely heard that logic applied to natives. (Keep in mind that I come from a small town near Vancouver, which has a pretty substantial native population, and I think it had literally only one or two black families in the whole town).

Two examples of racism that wouldn't draw much ire over here, even from blacks or asians.  Meanwhile, some people do manage to draw the ire.  perhaps it;s because their racism is less benign and more overt than your own?  Or, you know....theyre just bigoty bigots bigoted against white heteros.  

Well, I look to evolution for a narrative as to why different people might have turned out differently. The hardcore bigots you're talking about ONLY EVER talk about evolution in the sense that "survival of the fittest" means he who's doing well, is right to do so at others' expense.

-and here you are talking...and here they are talking.  Bigots don't have the right not to be talked back to.  They don;t have any right to not be called bigots, and they don't actually have a right to do genteel racism (though they always seem to think they do..you call them out on it and they yap endlessly about -their- rights...the irony obviously escapes them).  That's not what american freedom is.

Okay it's nice that you and I seem to be pretty much seeing eye to eye. However, I've definitely been on the end of the hate stick for discussing much the same things, in much the same way, with left-leaning people. And it seems to me that these days things are going more toward immoderation, and irreconcilable differences, than toward understanding and mutual tolerance.

To be honest, I've met straight-up racists-- like KKK level-- who I liked for their honesty; they think races should separate, and they don't want their communities to change, and while I totally disagree with them, I can see that they are sincerely expressing their ideas and opinions. And I've met Black Lives Matter people who I've disliked because they seem manipulative, insincere, and opportunistic. Some of those fuckers will shut down a goddamned university if they think it will get them laid, methinks.