"Cultural Appropriation"

[The Grand Nudger]

What was leftist about it?  Is it the lefts position that rebulicans should be shot?  Is it the position of authoritarian socialism that private citizens should be engaged in the assassination of political dissidents?  

A crazy leftist does not equal aggressive leftism.  So, maybe some other example (I know there are plenty)?  Aggressive leftism is -not- killing dissidents, whereas aggressive rightism is facism.  

Is this the only place you hang out on the Internet?

Is the internet the statehouse or the shithouse?  The seat of power, or the throne of crazy?

Well, no. Your argument seems to be that socialism can't be fascist. It absolutely can. These are not mutually exclusive things. Just because something's an ism doesn't mean it occurs in a vacuum of isms.

They are, actually, mutually exclusive things.  Fascism is a form of far right authoritarianism.  Something being far right excludes it from being far left.  

They can certainly both be fascists, both the finger pointer and the pointee.

-not if one of them is on the left, and the other the right.  It would be a far left authoritarian socialist pointing a finger at a far right authoritarian fascist.  I'm neither, and neither are the people expressing the reality of cultural appropriation.

You're talking about stealing wealth, not cultural appropriation. A pizza is culturally appropriated. A baguette the same. You're looking at instances where people wound up with culture because of some horrible colonization. You're ignoring the vast majority of cultural appropriation, which simply occurs because people travel. Go figure.

Cultural wealth -and- actual wealth, Shell.  When our black person hating and oppressing culture took black music..got themselves a white boy to sing it - and then profited from it, while denying the proceeds even to the people who wrote the damned songs and were still alive...that was a textbook example of cultural appropriation.  Great songs, sure, I enjoy them. People are free to enjoy them..though, I imagine some of that enjoyment must have been lost on the people from whom they were stolen.......

The part where bits of their culture were saved is morally neutral.

It;s really not, because the stuff we saved was convenient to our narrative of them at the time..and not representative of their culture.  We kept the bits that furthered our cause of dehumanization and oppression...and some of it, well...we just made it up.  Nothing about it was morally neutral.

What they did to come about that culture is horrific. People enjoying that culture today is neutral.

Agreed, but people denying that cultural appropriation took place, or arguing that it was a good thing by reference to how it all ended up today (laying aside that it doesn't seem to have ended up all that well) or how we got cool stuff out of it, and by consitently ignoring that cultural appropriation was never about -them-..but what had been done to others........is not neutral. Go, enjoy our culture....all of it.  Just don;t stick your head in the sand when somebody brings up the shittier elements of how we got parts of that culture.  I'm absolutely certain that I don't need to tell you this....but I seem to have to explain it over and over to the usual suspects™.  

 Not using any of that culture at all for anyone's enjoyment will not stop what happened or make restitution for it. Furthermore, knowing that people in the future would ignore the culture stolen from these people would not have demotivated slavers from keeping slaves. I will never feel personally guilty for that which people did hundreds of years before me. I will not suggest that people refrain from enjoying African-American culture because of it, either. Not to mention the fact that most of what we know of African culture comes from actual Africa and not what slavers "saved." That culture is still well alive. I know this is a tough one, but we know this because we travel.

Exactly why the usual suspects "should I stop listening to rap" bit is nonsensical.  Precisely why I say there will be no acres or mules or royalty checks.  You do not have to feel personally guilty, no one does..that;s not what cultural appropriation is about..and one does not have to feel guilty simply for acknowledging that yes..it happend..and yes..it was bad.  It seems, though, that in this flight from white guilt the usual suspects™ end up saying or doing things they -should- feel guilty for.  Because the things they say and do today cannot be washed away by saying "well, I didn't do that personally".  

Most of what -we- know now..yes, but not what african america knew at the end of bondage, Shell.  They only knew what we had told them. They had not traveled...nor had we, in manufacturing that cultural identity.