Cultural Appropriation

[Dystopia]

I've been thinking about whether there's a "black culture."  Yes, yes there is.


I'd say black culture consists of those cultural institutions which were MADE BY black subcultures.  Blues, jazz and rap all originate with black subcultures, and were appropriated (blatantly and sometimes not very well) by people like Elvis or early white rappers.  They are cultural institutions the existence for which black people are responsible, and not other people.

That doesn't mean that all black people need to care about any of those institutions.  It doesn't mean that rappers even represent the majority of black people.  But they are definitely black culture, IMO.

It's strange that nobody gets mad about other cultural attributions.  No Italians get pissed off when you say opera is Italian culture.  Spanish people don't get pissed off when you say bullfighting is part of Spanish culture.  But some black people (or more often, I'm guessing, white hipsters who want an excuse to get in a huff on behalf of black people) are offended by attributing culture to black people.  That's dumb.

I think it's the other way around. Some people are offended when white people say black people's culture is theirs.