RE: "Cultural Appropriation"
June 26, 2017 at 6:21 pm
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2017 at 6:21 pm by paulpablo.)
(June 26, 2017 at 3:44 pm)Khemikal Wrote:(June 26, 2017 at 3:40 pm)Crunchy Wrote: That's a great way to look at it and you're right to want to try and understand.The "real harm"..is in air-quoting that and not mentioning all of the harm that is required for something to -be- cultural appropriation. To ignore the discussion entirely, talk about something else, and pretend until you;re blue in the face that it either never happened, or was a good thing.
BUT, just because something is upsetting to someone, it doesn't follow that that is proof positive that something bad is going on. Feelings are not always rational and hurt feelings are not always warranted.
If people find some artifact or musical style or clothing to their liking and they start to "appropriate" it, what's the real harm
The harm has a name. Racial apathy. It's the new genteel racism.
Quote:There are so many examples of good things that have come from cultural appropriation. The sauna, tea, rock and roll, democracy... Maybe I'm just being optimistic but good ideas get appropriated far more often than bad ideas.Well, as long as we got something nifty out of it, no harm...no foul. Just look at all of this cool shit! Look at all of these sweet, sweet profits - and all we had to do was exploit some browns? Deal.
The right answer is that there is no harm in cultural appropriation in and of itself.
There's harm in exploitation, stealing, vandalism and so on, but there's no harm in a black person wearing a kilt, a white person playing the blues, or a Nigerian singing an Abba song.
As long as there's no actual theft, vandalism, or exploitation going on it's fine.
And you can't steal culture. And you if in anyway you can every culture is guilty of it.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
Impersonation is treason.