RE: Cultural Appropriation
January 25, 2016 at 4:37 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2016 at 4:43 pm by Regina.)
From a "taking the piss" point of view, I get it. That's offensive. Blackface, exaggerated accents and the like would probably come under "taking the piss".
I don't agree with the argument that culture is something you can steal, which is what seems to be the gripe of a lot of Tumblrinas squealing over "cultural appropriation". If you take anything "ethnic", let's say dreadlocks for example because they're the first thing that comes to my mind, unless I physically snatch the dreads off your head and put them on mine, nothing has been stolen. Just because someone is doing something that originates in "your culture", that doesn't suddenly mean you can't do it anymore. Nothing has been stolen, culture isn't a finite resource.
I also find there's something racist in itself of trying to claim that every "cultural" thing a brown person does has deep spiritual significance. First off not all people of colour are religious. LOTS of black people wear certain natural hairstyles purely for aesthetic/fashion reasons, and there is a massive fashion industry made out of bejewelled bindis within India. It's hypocritical going off on a white girl for wearing henna and a bindi "for a fashion statement", when there are millions of people within said cultures who do it as a fashion statement already. You can't get mad at Becky for wearing African braids "for fashion" when Rihanna did exactly the same thing.
I don't agree with the argument that culture is something you can steal, which is what seems to be the gripe of a lot of Tumblrinas squealing over "cultural appropriation". If you take anything "ethnic", let's say dreadlocks for example because they're the first thing that comes to my mind, unless I physically snatch the dreads off your head and put them on mine, nothing has been stolen. Just because someone is doing something that originates in "your culture", that doesn't suddenly mean you can't do it anymore. Nothing has been stolen, culture isn't a finite resource.
I also find there's something racist in itself of trying to claim that every "cultural" thing a brown person does has deep spiritual significance. First off not all people of colour are religious. LOTS of black people wear certain natural hairstyles purely for aesthetic/fashion reasons, and there is a massive fashion industry made out of bejewelled bindis within India. It's hypocritical going off on a white girl for wearing henna and a bindi "for a fashion statement", when there are millions of people within said cultures who do it as a fashion statement already. You can't get mad at Becky for wearing African braids "for fashion" when Rihanna did exactly the same thing.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
