I don't really understand "cultural appropriation"

[stardream]

I think most posters here know I'm 1/4 Cherokee. If you were to walk into my house you wouldn't see a lot of Cherokee artifacts or knickknacks laying around with the exception of a Cherokee wedding vase that belonged to my mom. I don't 'dress' up like an Indian. I'm not ashamed of it, but I think about it the same way someone else might think about their maternal grandmother's people being German or whatever. It's just something that's there. (on the flipside of that I do have this niece who goes all out, pictures of wolves and dreamcatchers etc all over but even then, it is HER heritage even if I think she's being silly. Don't tell her that.)

If someone has an authentic intense interest in all things Native American and likes to study and learn about it, I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when someone who doesn't do his or her homework and mishmashes them all together (cough-Chakotay-cough) or puts it all on a pedestal as some sort of new age enlightened utopia and doesn't think of the different nations as real people, with real problems.

I honestly don't know what to say to people who claim to have an animal guide or say things like they 'follow the spirit of the wind' or ask for an Indian name (you have a name. The best I can do is give you an Indian nickname). I just usually smile and say 'that's nice' even though I'm not sure what they're talking about half the time nor do I know how they expect me to react. They also seem disappointed that I'm a Christian and not practicing the traditional ways...learn your history. Christianity wasn't forced on the Cherokees. They embraced it, one of the few times in history the missionaries did it right.

 

[cultcross]

@cultcross - Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I think perhaps some things that have been called cultural appropriation in the media in the last few years were not then, and may have been exaggerated for clickbait. For example a recent article calling Iron Fist cultural appropriation - as far as I know they aren't really other-ing a community or taking ownership - although I'm not really familiar with the comics and it's possible they were full of exclusionary views of Asians.

I can't say I'm familiar with Iron Fist to comment, but a good example of something that I think is problematic is The Last Samurai. Here is a film where our white male American military star dresses up as a Samurai, learns their ways in a montage, and ends up being the spokesperson and champion for all the Samurai, and seemingly their only survivor (the titular last Samurai). To me this is an example of a narrative where we actually watch the appropriation unfold on screen - the one white person who has 'discovered' some outside culture which other white people are suppressing has, in the space of a single film, completely appropriated it as their own, and very literally excluded the original owners, to the point that all the actual Samurai are dead. Only the white American man who learned this stuff five minutes ago is Samurai enough to survive! He is the most Samurai of all the Samurai! If ever there was a metaphor for colonial appropriation of culture, it is that film. I'd almost love to think that was the point, and maybe it was, but I don't detect the fragrance of irony.

 

[Nyotarules]

All that has happened is that another concept of someone else's world has been stolen and made part of the culture of those who already had dominance and power

Black American music is a dominate part of American culture, despite race relations being pretty low in the USA, even if Oprah Winfrey is the ONE black billionaire in the country, and the existence of President Obama (and look how respectful the Right were about his ethnic origins) so hands off hip hop, jazz, spirituals, blues and most popular western music all ye Caucasians??????

 

[cultcross]

Black American music is a dominate part of American culture, despite race relations being pretty low in the USA, even if Oprah Winmfrey is the ONE black billionaire in the country, and the existence of President Obama (and look how respectful the Right were about his ethnic origins) so hands off hip hop, jazz, spirituals, blues and most popular western music all ye Caucasians??????

Not entirely sure how to parse that, but if you're talking about cultural appropriation applying to musical styles as well, that is certainly a topic of discussion, especially in regards to rap. Iggy Azalea and Macklemore have both been caught up in it. There is a feeling that by elevating white rappers above largely identical black ones, the industry is taking away what little representation black kids see at that level of fame. I'm not saying I agree, I don't know nearly enough about the area to comment, but that conversation is out there.

 

[Nyotarules]

If you look at the history of American popular music once 'black music' goes 'mainstream', 'crosses over' etc the black, working class community where most, if not all the music originates creates a new genre; consider the history or ragtime, blues, jazz, rock n roll, soul, house etc. Now jazz seems more popular with middle class, white folks, hardly a brown face to be seen if you visit a jazz club.
Is this a definition of cultural irony?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What is criticised is when you take ownership of a piece of someone else's culture, incorporate it into yours (rather than the other way around), and act for all the world as though it was yours all along, while those who you have taken it from are still othered and excluded, often in part because of the very thing you have appropriated. When that happens, there's no gain for diversity, acceptance, or fraternity between cultures. Nobody has learned anything. All that has happened is that another concept of someone else's world has been stolen and made part of the culture of those who already had dominance and power.

I'm not convinced that it's always a negative thing for this to happen. The rebranding of Roman customs observed during Saturnalia into Christmas traditions, such as gift giving around the Winter solstice, is a preeminent example. Imperial Rome was a great and historic state, but I can't say that I'm sorry I'm not a citizen of it. In the case of the disintegration of the Roman Empire, this sort of appropriation simply could have been the price for progress, as it were.

 

[cultcross]

I'm not convinced that it's always a negative thing for this to happen. The rebranding of Roman customs observed during Saturnalia into Christmas traditions, such as gift giving around the Winter solstice, is a preeminent example. Imperial Rome was a great and historic state, but I can't say that I'm sorry I'm not a citizen of it. In the case of the disintegration of the Roman Empire, this sort of appropriation simply could have been the price for progress, as it were.

I don't know how far we can meaningfully apply those concepts to something so historic - I can't speak to the power relationships between cultures in Ancient Rome, which was a very different kind of empire than those which shaped the Victorian age. The artefacts of colonialism, race struggle, Darwinism, eugenics, and imperialism are the aftermath of the 18th, 19th and early twentieth centuries. That isn't to say race and culture weren't issues prior to this time, but they lacked the political power structures to accompany them, or the devastating association with nationalism. The first British PM, for example, to engage in publicly discernible political race thinking was Benjamin Disraeli, already well into the 19th century.

The Romans just didn't operate that way - they were conquerors for resources, primarily land, and for the security and glory of their existing state, they weren't colonialists or engaged in a philosophy of never ending expansion for expansion's sake like the European nations of the 1800s were in order to forestall the issues with a languishing economy at home (and America was on its own continent). They lacked the imperialist ideas of what Kipling called White Man's Burden to bring culture to the savages. And the fall of Rome came about very differently as well. They weren't left afterwards with peoples trying to live together when one half had traded the other as property only just outside living memory and had created a systematically racist society to make sure they retained as much of their privilege as possible. The issue with cultural appropriation is a post-colonial one, and has to do with the (largely unacknowledged officially) legacy of Western imperialism.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The issue with cultural appropriation is a post-colonial one, and has to do with the (largely unacknowledged officially) legacy of Western imperialism.

OK, I think I understand what you're getting at. If you're saying that the example that I gave and others like just aren't examples of cultural appropriation at all, but instead rather represent something else, something that I cannot name but which wouldn't involve the connotation of stealing but rather perhaps one closer to inheritance, then I can see that that might be the case.

 

[cultcross]

OK, I think I understand what you're getting at. If you're saying that the example that I gave and others like just aren't examples of cultural appropriation at all, but instead rather represent something else, something that I cannot name but which wouldn't involve the connotation of stealing but rather perhaps one closer to inheritance, then I can see that that might be the case.

Yeah i think that's a fair way of putting it. Cultures evolve and intermingle, and always have. The key issue here is the power imbalance and the potential for those who have already taken so much from another group taking yet more from them (often what is used to separate them in the first place) and coopting it as their own.

 

[Stoo]

I can't say I'm familiar with Iron Fist to comment, but a good example of something that I think is problematic is The Last Samurai. Here is a film where our white male American military star dresses up as a Samurai, learns their ways in a montage, and ends up being the spokesperson and champion for all the Samurai, and seemingly their only survivor (the titular last Samurai). .

II think it's easy to get that impression, and the film has its white-hero problems for sure. But I'm pretty sure the title is meant to refer to Katsumoto and not Cruise's character

 

[Refuge]

No one owns a culture and gets to speak for it. No one gets to say what is 'appropriation' or not. Who gives you the right to dictate what other people should be doing? Most of us are mongrels anyway. I am part Maori but I don't get bent out of shape when I watch Voyager and see Chakotay wearing a moko tattoo.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

I remember how dreads had some people mad, but then somebody remembered that Vikings had them too.

 

[Nyotarules]

I remember how dreads had some people mad, but then somebody remembered that Vikings had them too.

anyone without a comb or brush will get dreads lol

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I remember how dreads had some people mad, but then somebody remembered that Vikings had them too.

Vikings didn't have dreadlocks, they had plaits.

anyone without a comb or bush will get dreads lol

Yeah, well, Vikings did have combs, and took really good care of their hair. Their braids/plaits were mistaken by Romans as unwashed/unkempt hair, i.e. dreadlocks.

 

[Nyotarules]

Vikings didn't have dreadlocks, they had plaits.


Yeah, well, Vikings did have combs, and took really good care of their hair. Their braids/plaits were mistaken by Romans as unwashed/unkempt hair, i.e. dreadlocks.

Mine are washed and very kempt

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Cool story bro.

 

[DimesDan]

I'm finding this whole thread very interesting on multiple levels, I do have one question though.

Mine are washed and very kempt

I'm not trying to be rude, dismissive or insulting and if I am, I apologise, this is just to clarify something as I have a fair idea what your answer is, but what is your ethnic background?

 

[Nyotarules]

I'm finding this whole thread very interesting on multiple levels, I do have one question though.



I'm not trying to be rude, dismissive or insulting and if I am, I apologise, this is just to clarify something as I have a fair idea what your answer is, but what is your ethnic background?

I was born in London to Caribbean parents

 

[DimesDan]

I was born in London to Caribbean parents

Thanks, I thought that might have been the case, just wasn't entirely sure and as I don't know you age, I wasn't sure if you were actually born there or your parents or grandparents had moved there. Knowing that now adds a lot more context to what you've said in this thread.

 

[Jayson1]

Am I the only one who wished that people's view on culture evolved from being about race or gender but more about our intrests? I am a white guy but I could give a shit about being white. I think my ancestors came from Germany or something. I asked once and my dad told me but frankly didn't care enough to remember.
I would much rather be seen as being part of the nerd culture or even the mental heath community since I have OCD or the liberal culture since I am a liberal. I don't even think I am sure what counts as white culture. Is it rich assholes, rednecks,nerds, Hockey fans? I would like to know what universal trait we are supose all be into and defines's all of us.
I know some might say people who grow up with similiar experiences make a culture but I know my childhood was way different than it was for Donald Trump or any rich kid born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I'm sure if I grew up on farm I would also have different experiences. Sometimes I think this need to identify with a culture is in away sort of like embracing a sterotype. Don't people want to be seen more than just some label? I live in a Oklahoma but that doesn't mean I want to be seen as a dumb redneck. I want to be seen as a individual and the labels I go with are the one's I choose.
Jason.