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Effectronica posted:Oh, okay, you're too dumb to communicate with. The blog in the OP is about the context of how the item is worn, which cannot be controlled by the person who sells it (who is in turn not necessarily the producer, either, you loving moron). Sorry. It's actually up to you to not be a cock, hard as it may be. You should really consider taking that shitposting hiatus. Badger of Basra posted:Would you like all Indians to write you a personal letter saying they promise not to be offended? Try reading my comment in the context of the thread. I'm responding to the statement "you cannot appropriate your own culture".
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Mar 31, 2015 02:40
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Obdicut posted:And it was necessary to erase the cultural insiders in order to do that? Cultures get "erased." That's what happens to cultures. You're trying to draw a distinction between different kinds of borrowing, and between individuals and systems, which is a distinction without a difference. Whichever artists you particularly like are almost certainly a part of the very process you're decrying here. Those "participating" white musicians were just as much a part of the system as the assholes. In the end it doesn't matter who plays jazz or makes hip hop or wears headdresses or uses kanji or whatever the gently caress. Good art is good art.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:44
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dogcrash truther posted:Cultures get "erased." That's what happens to cultures. You're trying to draw a distinction between different kinds of borrowing, and between individuals and systems, which is a distinction without a difference. Whichever artists you particularly like are almost certainly a part of the very process you're decrying here. Those "participating" white musicians were just as much a part of the system as the assholes. In the end it doesn't matter who plays jazz or makes hip hop or wears headdresses or uses kanji or whatever the gently caress. Good art is good art. No, I don't think that's true. Granted, I'd be glad to make that true, for you, and prevent you from ever engaging with any kind of culture, if I could.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:47
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blackguy32 posted:That video really doesn't point out anything other than a guy got a tattoo without really knowing what the hell it meant. No, it points out a claim of racism isn't necessarily valid. The tattoo was a joke, but the point of the video was that many claims of racism by foreigners in Japan are bullshit. There is racism in Japan, but the solution isn't to treat all claims as equally valid. This isn't some theoretical issue, there are lots of foreigners in Japan and discrimination in employment and housing is 100% legal and been upheld by courts multiple times. The existence of said discrimination does not mean all claims by this particular group are correct. Each claim has to be weighed on its own merits. So even though there has been discrimination against Japanese Americans, claims of appropriation by Katy Perry are bullshit, even if some feel otherwise. Claims of racism in regards to giving a multi-million dollar sports franchise a racial-slur for a name seem pretty legit. Claims that white women wearing an everyday garment from another culture constitute racism and oppression, probably bullshit. Each of these cases can be discussed and considered independently of each other. 90% of this thread is in agreement with each other as to what specific behaviors are appropriate or inappropriate. The disagreement lies in whether cultural appropriation is a useful, informative, or valid rubric through which to judge these matters.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:50
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Let us English posted:No, it points out a claim of racism isn't necessarily valid. The tattoo was a joke, but the point of the video was that many claims of racism by foreigners in Japan are bullshit. There is racism in Japan, but the solution isn't to treat all claims as equally valid. This isn't some theoretical issue, there are lots of foreigners in Japan and discrimination in employment and housing is 100% legal and been upheld by courts multiple times. The existence of said discrimination does not mean all claims by this particular group are correct. Each claim has to be weighed on its own merits. I disagree. Just because a bunch of people agree on something doesn't make it right. You are no one to judge if people's claims about Katy Perry are bullshit. People say the same thing about Iggy Azalea and people have real grievances against her. You are basically taking the "stop being so sensitive" stance instead of simply being respectful of people's wishes. blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 03:06
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Oh man I wish you hadn't edited that post. E: This whole thread is what happens when you get liberalism all mixed up with leftism. We are supposed to give a poo poo about people's feelings getting hurt? If economic exploitation isn't at the root of the issue then who cares? And if economic exploitation IS at the root of the issue, then address that without the pointless cultural appropriation rhetoric. Miltank fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 03:16
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Effectronica posted:No, I don't think that's true. Granted, I'd be glad to make that true, for you, and prevent you from ever engaging with any kind of culture, if I could. How would you do that?
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Mar 31, 2015 03:23
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Effectronica posted:No, I don't think that's true. Granted, I'd be glad to make that true, for you, and prevent you from ever engaging with any kind of culture, if I could. And yet, you can't. And neither can anyone else. You should think through the implications of that.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:26
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Miltank posted:Oh man I wish you hadn't edited that post. Maybe I am not understanding you properly, but what I am getting from what you are saying is that if people aren't being economically exploited then it doesn't matter? dogcrash truther posted:And yet, you can't. And neither can anyone else. You should think through the implications of that. You can't do it, so you shouldn't even try. I disagree with that. Blackface is a easy example of appropriation that has largely been viewed as bad because of people speaking out. blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 03:27
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Miltank posted:E: This whole thread is what happens when you get liberalism all mixed up with leftism. We are supposed to give a poo poo about people's feelings getting hurt? If economic exploitation isn't at the root of the issue then who cares? And if economic exploitation IS at the root of the issue, then address that without the pointless cultural appropriation rhetoric. So one shouldn't care about destruction of culture unless there is a economic basis? Interesting.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:39
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blackguy32 posted:You can't do it, so you shouldn't even try. I disagree with that. Blackface is a easy example of appropriation that has largely been viewed as bad because of people speaking out. Erm. The thing about blackface that's a problem isn't the culture part.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:41
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dogcrash truther posted:Erm. The thing about blackface that's a problem isn't the culture part. Interesting, how so?
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Mar 31, 2015 04:00
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Zeitgueist posted:Interesting, how so? Why don't you explain what's confusing about my statement so I can better understand how to respond, because it seems self-evident to me.
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Mar 31, 2015 04:06
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blackguy32 posted:Maybe I am not understanding you properly, but what I am getting from what you are saying is that if people aren't being economically exploited then it doesn't matter? If the people aren't suffering then it doesn't matter. If they are suffering, then its probably because of exploitation rather than cultural appropriation.
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Mar 31, 2015 04:24
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dogcrash truther posted:Why don't you explain what's confusing about my statement so I can better understand how to respond, because it seems self-evident to me. Im with Zeitgeist, you are being kind of vague. What exactly is the problem with blackface in your eyes. Miltank posted:If the people aren't suffering then it doesn't matter. If they are suffering, then its probably because of exploitation rather than cultural appropriation. Portrayal of negative stereotypes goes along with cultural appropriation and isn't necessarily economic in nature. There is something to be said about the "Psychological wage" as Dubois puts it. blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 04:27
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Miltank posted:If the people aren't suffering then it doesn't matter. If they are suffering, then its probably because of exploitation rather than cultural appropriation. Yellow face is perfectly fine because Asian Americans have a higher household income than white people.
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Mar 31, 2015 04:29
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How do negative stereotypes go along with cultural appropriation? Miltank fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 04:38
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Miltank posted:How do negative stereotypes go along with cultural appropriation? Blackface is a perfect example. Blackface is white people appropriating what they perceived to be how black people acted and then presented to people in the form of minstrel shows. Some of those stereotypes still exist today.
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Mar 31, 2015 04:42
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it's hosed up that white people managed to appropriate having dark skin imo, that takes it away from black people
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Mar 31, 2015 04:45
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blackguy32 posted:Blackface is a perfect example. Blackface is white people appropriating what they perceived to be how black people acted and then presented to people in the form of minstrel shows. Some of those stereotypes still exist today. Isn't blackface about making fun of black people?
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Mar 31, 2015 04:48
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blackguy32 posted:Blackface is a perfect example. Blackface is white people appropriating what they perceived to be how black people acted and then presented to people in the form of minstrel shows. Some of those stereotypes still exist today. Why is it ok for men to appropriate a crude parody of how they perceive women to look/act and then present this to the public as a drag show? It seems like this logic isn't consistently applied.
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Mar 31, 2015 04:49
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Miltank posted:Isn't blackface about making fun of black people? Yes it is, is it not appropriation?
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Mar 31, 2015 04:56
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blackguy32 posted:Yes it is, is it not appropriation? Hard to call it appropriation if the act is intended to keep a culture or perceived culture at a distance.
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Mar 31, 2015 05:04
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PINING 4 PORKINS posted:Hard to call it appropriation if the act is intended to keep a culture or perceived culture at a distance. Blackface is at its basic form the packaging of what was perceived to be African American culture and broadcasted to others. So yes, it is still appropriation. One of the most easily visible forms in fact.
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Mar 31, 2015 05:11
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blackguy32 posted:Blackface is at its basic form the packaging of what was perceived to be African American culture and broadcasted to others. So yes, it is still appropriation. One of the most easily visible forms in fact. That sounds more like communication rather than appropriation.
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Mar 31, 2015 05:14
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blackguy32 posted:Blackface is at its basic form the packaging of what was perceived to be African American culture and broadcasted to others. So yes, it is still appropriation. One of the most easily visible forms in fact. The reason it is wrong and the reason why it has so much cultural inertia, was because black people were and are being exploited economically. Appropriation is a very weird word to be using in relation to minstrel shows imo. It's a completely different use of the word then in the way it's used to refer to wearing traditional native clothes.
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Mar 31, 2015 05:20
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Badger of Basra posted:No one would call this cultural appropriation though. I didn't say it was. It is an example of NA culture not bein erased.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:49
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All right serious posting for a minute to try and tease out a definition of cultural appropriation that will satisfy everyone, somehow. Cultural appropriation refers to the phenomena in which one cultural group adopts or incorporates the cultural practice or norm of another Because of the incredible variety of actions that can fall under the umbrella of cultural appropriation, I believe it is prudent to exclude an inherent ethical judgment from this term, but rather form value judgments on a case by case basis. Of course, some acts of appropriation will consistently be obviously harmful, if for no other reason than the presence of the structures of oppression that tend to become ingrained within dominant cultures. Ok i think thats an okay start A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 08:11
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A big flaming stink posted:Because of the incredible variety of actions that can fall under the umbrella of cultural appropriation, I believe it is prudent to exclude an inherent ethical judgment from this term, but rather form value judgments on a case by case basis. Of course, some acts of appropriation will consistently be obviously harmful, if for no other reason than the presence of the structures of oppression that tend to become ingrained within dominant cultures. I think you hit the nail on the head, and this is what's been missing from a great deal of discourse in the thread.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:18
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blackguy32 posted:I disagree. Just because a bunch of people agree on something doesn't make it right. You are no one to judge if people's claims about Katy Perry are bullshit. People say the same thing about Iggy Azalea and people have real grievances against her. You are basically taking the "stop being so sensitive" stance instead of simply being respectful of people's wishes. Who are you to say a wolf otherkin is bullshit? Just a bunch of people agreeing on something doesn't make that rigbt. You are no one to judge it. People say the same thing about blackface and people have real grievances against it. If someone wants something to be true, who are you to say otherwise? Unless it's bigoted according to my personal definition, of course, then no holds barred.
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Mar 31, 2015 09:50
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dogcrash truther posted:Cultures get "erased." That's what happens to cultures. You're trying to draw a distinction between different kinds of borrowing, and between individuals and systems, which is a distinction without a difference. Nah, those are both really important distinctions. In the first case, one kind of borrowing is both destructive and is likely to lose important parts of the original when borrowed, so that even if you're ascribing to the 'outsiders challenge the insiders' thing (which is of limited truth because insiders challenge the dominant paradigm all the drat time) then it's obviously better if you actually know what you're challenging in the first place. To put it in musical terms, at one end of the scale you have Mulatu Astatke, participating, borrowing, blending, being a cool-rear end dude, and on the other hand you have Michael Bolton, rifling through various musical styles to find a genre where he could be commercially successful, and finding it in the area of music that is the heart of appropriation, easy listening, which sands off any remotely challenging or outsider element from music to present it. quote:Whichever artists you particularly like are almost certainly a part of the very process you're decrying here. Those "participating" white musicians were just as much a part of the system as the assholes. In the end it doesn't matter who plays jazz or makes hip hop or wears headdresses or uses kanji or whatever the gently caress. Good art is good art. I don't think they're not part of the process, and I don't think it's impossible for someone to appropriate and be a great artist, either. You couldn't be a white player and not be part of the system, but some of them, like Brubeck, actively fought back against the system too. Calling that a distinction without a difference is silly: there is a difference. It's the same difference between a guy in a union who is fighting to get that union integrated and a guy in the union who isn't.. You wouldn't be interested to hear what rock-and-roll would sound like if black musicians hadn't abandoned it after it got ripped away from them? What what have happened to Mo-Town if it had been developed in collaboration with rock-and-roll, instead of as an alternate? Let us English posted:I think you hit the nail on the head, and this is what's been missing from a great deal of discourse in the thread. Everyone, including me, has said that cases should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Remember, the 'remedy' for most cultural appropriation is 'participate, rather than appropriate', and I can't see why that'd ever be resisted as an idea. It's much rarer for a minority group to appropriate from a dominant culture; they're usually participating, not appropriating. They understand the dominant culture. That's one of the key things about minority-majority interaction: The minority culture is generally misunderstood, but the minority culture has no choice but to understand the rules and mores of majority culture. This is an understanding that goes back to W.E.B. DeBois. Obviously, they're not going to fully understand every aspect of subculture, but in the whole, it's a truth. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 11:09
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Obdicut posted:Everyone, including me, has said that cases should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Remember, the 'remedy' for most cultural appropriation is 'participate, rather than appropriate', and I can't see why that'd ever be resisted as an idea. If you are an outsider, the boundary between appropriation and participation will always be blurred, though. Your interpretation of the culture you try to understand will be influenced by yours and, by being able to communicate faster and be understood by more people, your interpretation will always trump theirs. A dominant culture will always do that by definition. You can either avoid any contact with a minority culture entirely, or accept the fact you're going to contaminate it simply by interacting with it.
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Mar 31, 2015 12:37
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I always found it weird that people here need to find political justifications to make fun of someone's fashion.
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Mar 31, 2015 12:54
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Gantolandon posted:If you are an outsider, the boundary between appropriation and participation will always be blurred, though. Sure. I don't know why people obsess over this. It is true about anything. There are no sharp dividing lines. quote:Your interpretation of the culture you try to understand will be influenced by yours and, by being able to communicate faster and be understood by more people, your interpretation will always trump theirs. A dominant culture will always do that by definition. You can either avoid any contact with a minority culture entirely, or accept the fact you're going to contaminate it simply by interacting with it. You're not 'contaminating' it. The point isn't to keep that culture pure, it's to make the transmission voluntary, and a real exchange. A big part of this happens at the economic level, and you're focusing only on the cultural bits. There can be cases where the cultural transmission is completely voluntary, like with Brubeck giving black musicians the chance to learn from him by integrating his bands. But it doesn't end with that, it's also the decision of Time Magazine to choose Brubeck and not Ellington for their cover, it's the choices of owners of music venues to segregate, and in the end the unwillingness of the culture as a whole to listen to black music because of moral panic, which wasn't just some gestalt of human consciousness, but was an active policy pursued by outspoken racists. Human beings are not naturally fanatically racist. Humans may or may not be naturally kinda racist, but the amount of racism in the US was insane. It got that way because of actual people doing actual things, fomenting hate, using it for political ends, and making money off of it, sometimes by directly ripping off black songs and sometimes by just not fighting to integrate, to get white audiences to listen to black music, to just going along with the racism while shrugging and saying there's nothing they can do.
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Mar 31, 2015 12:58
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Bifner McDoogle posted:How would you do that? Lock him in an undecorated room, feed him nothing but well-balanced meals of mush, carefully balance the lighting to disorient him, electric shocks every time he hums something or appears to be thinking- it's all just a matter of having money and no morals and nobody to stop you. dogcrash truther posted:And yet, you can't. And neither can anyone else. You should think through the implications of that. Sure, people can. It's all just a matter of having enough control. By isolating and torturing you over and over again, eventually you will completely collapse. Once I have sufficient control of your environment and your movements, I can observe you. Hurt you when you look like you're trying to go somewhere else. Confine your mind through agony and confusion. Having less control, early Christian missionaries parlayed their initial conversions into hollowing out the local religion and turning all of its figures into more appropriate ones and making all of its holidays their own. Later Christian missionaries had more control and attempted to exterminate the religions they faced more thoroughly. Of course, the destruction of knowledge is, according to you, a good thing, so let's all give three cheers for ignorance.
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Mar 31, 2015 13:15
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Zeitgueist appropriates southern plantation owner culture every time he pops a boner. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 31, 2015 14:36
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Obdicut posted:Sure. I don't know why people obsess over this. It is true about anything. There are no sharp dividing lines. It's worth noting that these transactions will never be really voluntary, in the sense that the dominant culture will always have more clout. Even by encouraging majority consumers to listen to minority music creates an economic pressure on minority musicians to cater to the needs of the majority. Obviously it's much better than just copying everything and never crediting your inspiration, but it doesn't leave much control in the minority hands anyway. The problem begins when crediting original authors is not possible, because the copied element is a part of the public domain, like Kanji or kimonos. Cultures are not organizations, there is no committee that could approve your derivative work. This thread's general stance is that even if one person gets offended by you using elements of their culture, this offence is fully legitimate. Even if the person in question has only a tenuous link to the culture in question, it doesn't make their outrage invalid. In practice, this means you should probably steer clear from other cultures unless you want to offend someone.
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Mar 31, 2015 14:36
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Gantolandon posted:It's worth noting that these transactions will never be really voluntary, in the sense that the dominant culture will always have more clout. Even by encouraging majority consumers to listen to minority music creates an economic pressure on minority musicians to cater to the needs of the majority. Obviously it's much better than just copying everything and never crediting your inspiration, but it doesn't leave much control in the minority hands anyway. It makes it all the more ethical imperative to try your absolute best to include that minority group, on every level, I agree. quote:The problem begins when crediting original authors is not possible, because the copied element is a part of the public domain, like Kanji or kimonos Cultures are not organizations, there is no committee that could approve your derivative work. This thread's general stance is that even if one person gets offended by you using elements of their culture, this offence is fully legitimate. Even if the person in question has only a tenuous link to the culture in question, it doesn't make their outrage invalid. In practice, this means you should probably steer clear from other cultures unless you want to offend someone. My stance is that 'fully legitimate' is a dumb thing to call someone getting offended. If someone is actually offended, they're actually offended. It may be dumb, but it's an actual emotion they're experiencing. Some people are offended by white people marrying black people. We're not going to do anything about that, because they're offended at something that's good. All we can do is take a look at the offense on a case-by-case basis and make a decision. If wearing cross-cultural fashion matters more to you than offending a group of people, then go for it. It's hardly some huge sin, and it's arguable that you're doing good, despite appropriating, by challenging the dominant norms. At a certain trivial point, it's like people becoming 'fans' of the Red Sox when they started doing well--those of us who were fans knew they weren't, know their interest was fake, and it kind of hosed up some of our environments and was irritating. I'm perfectly happy agreeing that we should focus on larger issues of cultural appropriation than clothing, but if we happen to be talking about cultural appropriation, might as well cover that too. However, as I've already stipulated, it's a trivial thing, as is the kanji tattoo stuff. We're doing much better in this era about the appropriation of hip-hop and rap, versus to how well we did with the appropriation of rock and roll. Progress is possible. Nifty.
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Mar 31, 2015 15:00
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Perhaps, in an attempt to better understand what Cultural Appropriation is, we should attempt to view it through a legal lens? Can it have a legal definition, and is it something that governments should be legislating against? Should the state seek to monitor and facilitate the interaction of cultures in an attempt to protect the integrity of the more marginalised cultures, in a similar way that it has used Race Discrimination Legislation such as the Race Relations Act, to protect the material and bodily integrity of marginalised individuals? For example, could the state promote cultural affirmative action by establishing a tax (the proceeds going to duly nominated representatives or representative bodies of the marginalised culture in question) that dominant culture Artists, Advertisers, Product Designers and such, would be obliged to pay when using cultural imports in their products for financial gain?
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Mar 31, 2015 15:13
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blackguy32 posted:Im with Zeitgeist, you are being kind of vague. What exactly is the problem with blackface in your eyes. Are you talking about blackface, the act of putting on makeup to change your features into a caricature of a black person, or are you talking about minstrelsy more generally.
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Mar 31, 2015 17:18
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