"Cultural Appropriation"

[Amarok]

That's just my point a dream catcher in my culture is not just art it's a sacred ceremonial object . And using it as a wall decoration is as awful and disrespectful to it's role in my culture as the above .

Maybe, before chastising us, you should convince the other member of your culture that selling "sacred ceremonial objects" to white tourist who don't understand the roll they play in your culture is a bad idea. For fuck's sake, you can buy those things everywhere from native as well as non-native sellers. How in the fuck can we appropriate what's essentially been given to us?

I already have I already in this very thread condemned natives who do just what your saying and have done so IRL  . As for the mass distribution I agree it's problem . But that's the point it should not have simply been given .

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Sigh as I have already said over and over . If you own out of respect for another culture then fine. If your just owning one because it looks cool without respect for the item then I must disapprove . Now I'll admit I don't know the reason losty owns one . But neither do you. But considering the tone of the post I'm not confident in the former. Thou I totally open to being wrong and revising my post .

Hope that clears things up

Actually someone gave it to my daughter because she has nightmares. I think it's silly but I let her keep it because she thinks it helps. I never considered any culture when I made the decision.

I can get being offended if someone is out screaming bad things about your culture but to be offended by someone simply owning a Dreamcatcher in the privacy of their own homes is beyond ridiculous.

Not really and you confirmed my point . And it's anything ridiculous

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I presume you are talking about Rachel Dolezal. I don’t know all the specifics other than the headlines. It appears she was presenting herself as something she wasn’t in other to attain something she could not otherwise get from a group of people for whom certain criteria were important. It seems to me that Ms. Dolezal engaged in a kind of fraud but that is between her and the people she was apparently trying to fool.

Now you seem to be hung-up on the notion that appropriation is different from exchange. What you’re doing is using those words in an economic sense and sneaking in the idea that people and groups can have ownership rights to cultural products. How exactly does that work? What is the mechanism of exchange? From whom does the purchaser buy the rights or gain permission to use a cultural product. In most nations, there are legal mechanisms to grant ownership rights to a limited range of cultural products through copyrights, trademarks, and patents.

So what is your opinion about the Portland ladies that were shamed into closing their taco stand? It seems to me that two enterprising and resourceful ladies in Portland managed to replicate the traditional recipe for tortillas by asking questions and careful observation, even if it did involve snooping around. So what were they supposed to do? Pay royalties? To whom? And with whom could they have negotiated?

Now what is sometimes is objectionable is trivializing, disrespecting, or desacralizing symbols that are important to others. With respect to dream catchers, I went on made-in-china.com and saw that one could buy all kinds of dream catcher merchandise. Dream catcher ear rings for $0.80 each with a minimum 1000 piece order. Dream catcher temporary tattoos for $.10 each with a minimum 3,000 piece order. And my personal favorite for this discussion…a yoga matt with a dream catcher image printed on it ($9.89 each for a minimum 50 piece order)…a Chinese product for practicing Hindu rituals decorated with a Native American symbol! Do these trivialize the ceremonial aspect of dream catchers? Yes. (btw I don’t think uber-liberal Minimalist worries too much about the meaning his avatar had to ancient Egyptians.)

But just as often people trivialize their own culture. When I was at the Vatican, there were venders selling everything from jigsaw puzzles of the Sistine Chapel, to plastic Rosary beads, to beer bottle openers with cameos of Pope Francis. That’s not an act of oppression; it’s just the very human tendency to make vulgar and trivialize things that should be authentic and sacrosanct.

That is the nature of symbols, their meanings shift under different circumstances. The economic model doesn’t apply. Use and context are what matter. Marcel Duchamp puts a urinal in a gallery and elevates it to an artistic statement. Serrano photographs a crucifix submerged in a yellow fluid and titles it “Piss Christ”. Is it offense? Yes. Does it trivialize and disrespect a traditional Christian symbol? That’s one way of looking at it. Would its significance been different if the title was “Pineapple Juice Christ”? Absolutely.  

In a free society, people are free to be as annoying or disrespectful or inconsiderate as they want to be. The problem is when some people arrogate to themselves to be the sole arbitors of what symbols can and cannot mean, how they can be used and who can use them and then use threats of violence and force of law to impose their interpretation onto everyone else.

As I have said already I can't stop someone from doing it and I have intention nor are advocating force

Seriously read the stuff I write before commenting or going on a rant

And I have already stated how it's acquired legitimately

So this whole rant was pointless