Hi there! Using inventions created for the public isn't cultural appropriation. Celebrating a holiday isn't cultural appropriation. Acknowledging and respecting a culture is not appropriation. Taking other's work that is culturally significant, then commercializing it or passing it off as a trend, however, is.
If your parents had a cute nickname for you, and your friends, boss, or sexual partner started using it you may not like it, even if you enjoy your parents or family calling you that name. If you and your sibling/parent have a "just us" ritual like a day out or meal, you might not like it if someone else decides to tag along. If you invite them to, or don't tell them otherwise you are sharing. If you have a tradition you are happy to see spread, or something you enjoy others using freely that is sharing. If someone takes without asking, or takes and then treats something important to you inappropriately, those aren't pleasant things. They are free to do so, you're free to be an asshole if you want. You can rub someone else's holy book in your butt crack. It's a free country, but to them it means something. A good litmus for cultural appropriation is if by and large people of that culture tend to be offended or upset by your actions.
Yes. We should let the standard for appropriate actions be based on how many people we offend. Instead of actually thinking about the actions themselves.
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· 7 years ago
I could find "cultural appropriation," is just about everything.
Wearing cowboy boots if you've never ridden into the Texas sunset on March 2nd firing revolvers from both hands as "Yellow Rose," plays in the background, or celebrating Oktoberfest if you've never invaded Poland.
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· 7 years ago
There's a great Times article about this, I think it's called "In defense of cultural appropriation", or something like that.
One of the best points he makes is that appropriation is taking another cultures "sacred" things without their permission. He then raises the question of who from the appropriated culture is really allowed to give permission.
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· 7 years ago
For example, while I was a Mormon missionary in Chile, we stopped by a large Catholic cathedral, just to see. We stayed back by the door, trying to be respectful, but some Chilean guy who was already there (Catholic, I presumed) invited us to follow him back to the back of the cathedral and check out the bishops' tombs under the altar.
Should he have given us permission to go under the altar and take photos of the crypt? Is that something sacred? Did I appropriate something there?
Questions I still don't really have cut and dry answers to, since the whole topic is inherently subjective.
*shrug*
I don't think you appropriated anything... Appropriating South American Catholic culture would more be along the lines of celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Santos) if a large portion of them were offended by that. I think yours is more of a question of respect for the dead than anything, and even then, I don't think you did anything grave (pun more or less unintended).
They don't celebrate Día de los muertos in Chile, or any part of South America; it's a Mexican holiday.
Chileans celebrate a watered-down version of Halloween they copied from the States.
Idk about the town you were in but Dia de los Santos is a Catholic holiday
deleted
· 7 years ago
I was in Santiago, the capital city.
And nobody celebrated el Día de todos* los Santos. People came trick or treating, because they were celebrating Halloween.
And if you're talking about the holiday with the skulls and the face painting, it's Día de los muertos, and it's a Mexican holiday.
Tree education system definitely failed me. I still can't tell Plucky Little Aspens from the Limping Roo Tree of Nigeria, or the Naughty Leicestershire Flashing Oak from the Flatulent Elm of West Ruislip
Also @diyrouge, the harm cultural appropriation does is directly linked to how little power a group has. Japanese-Americans definitely face racism, but they're also more likely to hold positions of power than say, Native Americans, and seem to be "further up" in society. Therefore, I don't think the big issues in CA come from Asian-American ethnicities
Its like playing the race card. People use it when they can't come up with anything better. I'm not saying that they don't face racism, never claimed that, i'm saying that its a dumb thing to claim when there's more legitimate issues going on. You have people bitching about clothing in museums or people using words from a language whe you have legitimate prejudice.
Like I said with the race card, when I was a cashier I'd have black people try to pull the " its cause I'm black " when I couldn't do something for them, even though the area is HEAVILY black. You have people claim cultural appropation to bring their issue to light, but if its a stupid issue like that people aren't gonna take you seriously.
Also, just because they were invented in Japan doesn't make using them cultural appropriation. Otherwise everybody using the internet outside the US would be appropriating US culture.
Cultural appropriation was ruined by neo-libs and fashies. It is an issue. You liking hip hop and wearing fucking braids and shit is not cultural appropriation. You taking from another culture and using it a your own and changing things to fit your specific trend or some shit is and it is disrespectful. I.e. Native American head dresses used by annoying drugged up raver girls for aesthetics.
Wasn't there an article or something recently that explained that the native American headdress isn't a good example since it was the equivalent of a knights armor or something? And so if one is CA the other should be as well? I read it awhile back so I'm a bit fuzzy on what was exactly said
Cultural appropriation is painting sugar skulls on your face if you don't celebrate dia de los muertos and putting bindis on your forehead to go to Coachella even though you're not Indian. It's being a trespasser on somebody else's culture, not using things someone else has made.
Not really. There's plenty of Hispanic and Indian people who really don't give a shit. Those a surface things for the most part, and even though they may not know the origin or every aspect of it, they aren't being racist.
If we're counting those as cultural appropriation then everyone but Irish descendants need to stop all Halloween activities and you better not ever make a meal if that meal isn't from your culture ( so no more fried chicken or ice cream if you aren't Scottish or Chinese)
Plenty of Hispanic and Indians does not mean /all/ Hispanic and Indians feel the same way. I'm not saying people are racist, hell, they might not even know what they're doing wrong. Cultural appropriation is a blurry line, and saying that, shouldn't we be taking the cue from people who know these things, who /live/ these things?
I mean its hard to make a solid rule when, like you said, its not ALL. If I grew up around Hispanics and sugar skulls ( which I did) would that make it cultural appropation? Cause I lived in the culture but I'm not Hispanic. Even then, there's plenty of people who DON'T live the culture and feel they can make rules just because they're racially apart of it ( like when Japanese people in Japan not caring about white people wearing kimonos or getting lucky cats but Japanese Americans who's parents don't even know any of the language act as if they're the rule makers for Japanese cultural appropation)
If anything, since its not agreed upon what we should do, shouldn't we be allowed to do something as long as its respectful? Girls wearing bindis to coachella isn't hurting the thousands year old Indian culture, people doing sugar skulls isn't anything other than people doing sugar skulls, its not doing anything negative towards Hispanics.
Culture is meant to be shared, if you want to paint Sugar skulls on your face or wear bindi's, do what you want. I've never seen a case of "cultural appropriation" where the person was being disrespectful to the culture, so there's no point in being hateful towards people who enjoy your culture. Share your culture, let others enjoy it just as you do, don't hoard it to yourself just for the sake of "but it's mine! I don't want them to have it!"
Kissalinda is right. Think about it this way: I'm pretty sure we already have a word for the belief that a person or group of people shouldn't be allowed to do something based off the color of their skin.
@diyrogue Japanese people may be too polite to say it, but they definitely care if you dress up in Kimono. The Japanese even have a word for people who appropriate their culture: weeb
@hopeforall that's not what a weeb is? A weeb is one of those crazy anime fans that think Japan is exactly like anime portrays and that the streets are paved with waifus and use badly broken Japanese. They're annoying to everyone, not just the Japanese, and the majority of them are like 12,13,14.
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· 7 years ago
Didn't "weeb," start in 4chan or reddit or something?
All I know is that my best friend is Japanese and she complains all the time about how annoying weebs are and how Americans think it's cool to steal Japanese culture when it's not
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deleted
· 7 years ago
Okay, so I get why you wouldn't "steal," Japanese culture because of your friend. But should I not do something I want to do because you, who to my best knowledge I have never met, has a friend I have also never met who would disapprove of me doing something? If I did meet you, would you have the authority to tell me I shouldn't do something because of your friend? Do I need a friend that explicitly tells me it's okay to counteract your friend, or is it enough if my friend just doesn't care one way or another?
I don't give a f what you do or don't do. I'm just saying that Japan hates Americans more than we like to think. In fact, the whole world hates Americans more than we like to think. And Japan still hasn't gotten over Hiroshima or Nagasaki
And that's just your one friend. I don't know her or her situation but just because she finds it annoying doesn't mean I have to listen to her when there's plenty more Japanese people who wouldn't agree.
Also " cool to steal Japanese culture " no on goes " oh look at this japanese thing, I like it, its mine now " no, they do what people do with media, they consume it. Just because they see someone say Kawaii on something and start saying doesn't mean they're stealing or appropriating Japanese culture.
And if Japanese people weren't cool with Americans doing any of that stuff in the first place, why would they make it over here? Japanese shows wouldn't get subbed or dubbed, kimonos wouldn't be able to be bought by foreigners, etc.
And I can complain about Americans all day stealing from Irish culture but does that make it anything more legitimate than complaining? No.
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· 7 years ago
So, even though I'm 1/6 Cherokee I can't dress up as Indian?
" In fact, the whole world hates Americans more than we like to think. And Japan still hasn't gotten over Hiroshima or Nagasaki "
My dude. We know the world hates america.
And yeah no shit? It was a tragedy? But the Americans that did that are super old or dead. Be mad that someone killed your family but if their kid or grandkids didn't do anything to you your beef isn't with them.
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· 7 years ago
No. But I need to know if I'm allowed to for future reference.
Maybe I still haven't gotten over Pearl Harbor or the Bataan Death March. Or Unit 731. Or the Rape of Nanking.
I'll agree to drop those if they agree to get over the atomic bombs. Acknowledgement that dropping the bombs instead of invading the home islands saved millions of lives on both sides is optional.
For sure, and you might be more "woke" (I use the term loosely) when it comes to US-International issues, but some people defs think the world thinks we're the shit even when we're not. And you're also right that they don't have a beef with us, the kiddos, but they do still take issue with Americans who think the bombing was justified
On sharing culture: sharing is when you respect and appreciate something. You may share your art with me. That does not mean you're ok with me copying it or reposting it under my name without giving you credit, or altering it and saying "isn't it much better now that I added my line work?" As to "permission" what offends one person won't offend another. No one person speaks for a whole group, and all groups have at least one person who feels differently on most things. Japan is a bad example because of the cultural history of the country. Japan doesn't have a problem with "black face" or dressing up as nazis for fun either. Japan is marked at large by a conflicting idea of inferiority and superiority simulataniously, and has never been the most "sensitive" or "encouraging" of diversity.
Wearing cowboy boots if you've never ridden into the Texas sunset on March 2nd firing revolvers from both hands as "Yellow Rose," plays in the background, or celebrating Oktoberfest if you've never invaded Poland.
One of the best points he makes is that appropriation is taking another cultures "sacred" things without their permission. He then raises the question of who from the appropriated culture is really allowed to give permission.
Should he have given us permission to go under the altar and take photos of the crypt? Is that something sacred? Did I appropriate something there?
Questions I still don't really have cut and dry answers to, since the whole topic is inherently subjective.
*shrug*
Chileans celebrate a watered-down version of Halloween they copied from the States.
And nobody celebrated el Día de todos* los Santos. People came trick or treating, because they were celebrating Halloween.
And if you're talking about the holiday with the skulls and the face painting, it's Día de los muertos, and it's a Mexican holiday.
Like I said with the race card, when I was a cashier I'd have black people try to pull the " its cause I'm black " when I couldn't do something for them, even though the area is HEAVILY black. You have people claim cultural appropation to bring their issue to light, but if its a stupid issue like that people aren't gonna take you seriously.
If we're counting those as cultural appropriation then everyone but Irish descendants need to stop all Halloween activities and you better not ever make a meal if that meal isn't from your culture ( so no more fried chicken or ice cream if you aren't Scottish or Chinese)
If anything, since its not agreed upon what we should do, shouldn't we be allowed to do something as long as its respectful? Girls wearing bindis to coachella isn't hurting the thousands year old Indian culture, people doing sugar skulls isn't anything other than people doing sugar skulls, its not doing anything negative towards Hispanics.
See here: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/08/04/commentary/japan-commentary/kimono-cultural-appropriation/#.WetgwkRMGRM
And this Reddit thread where the consensus seems to be that whites talking about appropriation bothers your avg nihonjin more than whites wearing kimonos: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/4f22q3/is_it_actually_offensive_for_foreigners_to_wear/
Also " cool to steal Japanese culture " no on goes " oh look at this japanese thing, I like it, its mine now " no, they do what people do with media, they consume it. Just because they see someone say Kawaii on something and start saying doesn't mean they're stealing or appropriating Japanese culture.
And if Japanese people weren't cool with Americans doing any of that stuff in the first place, why would they make it over here? Japanese shows wouldn't get subbed or dubbed, kimonos wouldn't be able to be bought by foreigners, etc.
And I can complain about Americans all day stealing from Irish culture but does that make it anything more legitimate than complaining? No.
My dude. We know the world hates america.
And yeah no shit? It was a tragedy? But the Americans that did that are super old or dead. Be mad that someone killed your family but if their kid or grandkids didn't do anything to you your beef isn't with them.
Maybe I still haven't gotten over Pearl Harbor or the Bataan Death March. Or Unit 731. Or the Rape of Nanking.
I'll agree to drop those if they agree to get over the atomic bombs. Acknowledgement that dropping the bombs instead of invading the home islands saved millions of lives on both sides is optional.