Senate Why is cultural appropriation a thing?

what's the matter maik?

 

What's the point of having OED access if you don't use it? Linguistics is the best!

 

Dorkaholic.

 

This discussion is very interesting, but I think it sort of misses the point. We don't have a longer video here, but even from the available clip, the issue hardly seemed to be the isolated use of the word "yo." In fact, the proximate cause of their argument is over his hairstyle. But back up a moment.

In the first place, cultural diffusion has to be distinguished from appropriation. Because both phenomenon are constantly at play, it's entirely possible for one culture to have something appropriated that they didn't even originate. For instance, Native Americans clearly did not originate equestrian culture. They weren't even native to North America. However, if a white person were to start wearing a horse stick--something peculiar to the Lakota Sioux--it would be stupid to retort that actually, horse culture originated in Europe so it was Sioux that had appropriated things, and had no right to complain. Or again, the links between Persian heavy cavalry and the later development of European knights of on horseback doesn't mean that someone in modern day Iran dressed as King Arthur is doing something besides an intentional imitation of English culture, well-intentioned or not.

There are a few basic questions that are relevant here. First, whether the form and content of the man's self-presentation is drawn consciously from an African-American source (regardless of whether its individual elements started elsewhere). Two, a look at his motivations for doing so. There are lots of perfectly benign explanations for why he acts the way he does, which is why the young lady's aggression was inappropriate. But it was also understandable, and the questions that motivated are basically valid. If he chooses to dress, speak, and act in a way that he thinks is "black" because its his impression that black people are perceived as cool and dangerous in the broader society, that is as problematic and demeaning as someone wearing Native American ritual garb because they think it's a nice accessory with today's outfit.

 

How do you wear a horse stick?

As a Swede I may be missing something but is dreadlocks and saying 'yo' today something that is "black"? I mean nowadays many non-blacks have dreadlocks and say 'yo'.

 

1. You'd have to modify it, likely. Cut off the headpiece and use it as some sort of jewelry. If you prefer, we can broaden it to "make use of a horse stick."

2. I'll only say there is something familiar in his pattern of gestures, speech, and dress. It seems very much like a whole cluster of behaviors that was popularized by largely African-American rap/hip-hop artists. I do realize these things are quite widespread now. But part of what we're talking about is how and why some things become so rapidly widespread, so it's sort of circular to cite their broad popularity.

 

Just to be certain we are on the same page here, it is something like this we are talking about when we say 'horse stick', right?


If no, what are do you mean with 'horse stick'?

 

Yes

 

Wocky, by extension, would someone who is not white but acts as a white person, would that be appropriation too?

I just like to try and understand made up and nonsensical terms like cultural appropriation and "cisgendered". Makes me feel closer to the academic left in the first world who have solved all other major issues (or more likely not once experienced another culture).

 

I'm not really sure that the "conscious" part is necessary, to be honest. If a teenager who is completely ignorant of the Hindu religion and cultural practices sees Miley Cyrus wearing a bindi and decides to start wearing a bindi because Miley did it, it doesn't really make it less appropriative just because she wasn't consciously trying to copy Hindu tradition.

 

Nekhbet, I would agree. This is a good insight.

Ender, certainly, one can be appropriative of European cultures just as easily as non-white ones. But I'm not sure what "acting white" means, so I guess you'll have to explain that.

 

I can't be bothered to read this thread but I'm not going to stop wearing my Mongolian war hat.

 

Thanks for the valuable input.

 

The word you are looking for is "neologism".

 

How does a white person act? That's an honest and sincere question, not a 'gotcha,' or whatever, type thing.

 

Here. Do some basic research.

 

Well no, I don't. I live in a country that embraces multiculturalism and isn't the equivalent of a PTSD wreck 9n race. It's not perfect but unlike most of your compatriots I've travelled enough to know racial bias isn't the purview of white people only. So there's that.

It's just that when you think about culture and identity it's designed almost, in this age at least, to bleed over previous boundaries. That bleed happens in two directions - ever seen Chinese or German teens trying to look American (the latter is like if Americans were all Fred Durst, Vanilla Ice and Eminem. Terrifying)?

Probably not.

Like in a healthy country cultures mix and mingle. In America, where you combat systemic bias by talking a lot and doing nothing you invent new things to feel guilty about and fret over.

Do you think the Japanese are upset by gaijin watching anime and eating ramen? No, probably they're ok with it or bemused at how inferior the gaijin really is. Not offended though.

And yes I know we're specifically referring to disenfranchised groups in the USA. If you stopped talking and started doing maybe they'd be... enfranchised?

Wo bu zhi dao. //shrug

 

I wear a Mongolian war hat and pick up heavy objects.

 

Guys, you're really funny, and I adore you both (<3), but I'm really interested in Ender's answer.

 

He means like a Steve Erkel or a Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

There are all sorts of pejoratives used to describe them.

Those terms are used to describe and sometimes demean successful black Americans by other black Americans.

 

harps I have no idea. I'm not part of your ridiculous country and it's stupid obsession with ostentatious showings of guilt over actual inclusion. My point was more if some guy with white guy dreadlocks says yo, he's accused of behaving in a manner that appropriates another culture, wouldn't that imply that speaking with strict adherence to correct and non-colloquial English is "acting white"?

I mean this is the issue when terrible people come up with terrible concepts to make the world a worse place; they don't actually think through definitions. If a white, blond German wears his cap backwards or a Chinese kid says "homie" - and I've seen both - it's not actually a thing anywhere but that cancerous spot on the northern hemisphere. Just stop being dicks to one another and start focussing on actual issues.

 

Okay, let's turn off the "murica" schtick for a moment. You are the one who brought up "acting white," so what did you mean?

 

I mean, you're giving examples of white people adopting things from other cultures... but in your earlier post, you asked what would happen of somebody from another culture acted white. What did you mean? Do you have an example of that?


Sorry... meant to edit that in, not double post.

 

Ender, I know you enjoy painting these issues as the domain of bored, misguided white people, but allow me to help you some. In case you haven't read the earlier posts, we were discussing an incident where an African-American woman got upset by what she perceived as cultural appropriation. And, indeed, this leads to a larger point. The discussion about cultural appropriation is one that is being drive in large part by minorities and people of color, and has its roots in the same sort of analysis offered by Edward Said. Although the verbiage here may be American, the phenomenon most certainly is not.

More broadly, though, you speak about making people from the non-dominant culture be included. Have you ever considered that perhaps this sort of dynamic is in fact a contributor to that feeling of exclusion? I am all for addressing the real issues. But I'd hope you agree that the people who suffer from the inequities should be able to define what those issues are and or not. At least moreso than you, who isn't even a part of the same cultural milieu.

Oh, and in answer to your last question: No, it doesn't. In the US, like many places around the world, there are common cultural traditions that were enforced on enslaved and colonized peoples. As I tried to explain in my first post, "appropriation" means something more than "something I happen to do which my ancestors did not originate."

 

In mtg now, will respond soon