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Popular Thug Drink posted:That's just fitting in the appropriate context. If you were a white European person running around in saris and a bindi all the time talking about how much you totally love yoga and the Bhagava Gita and the deep ancient wisdom of India you'd be appropriating. It's the superficial treatment of someone else's culture which is the offense, versus respectfully participating in a different culture like wearing more culturally standard clothing to a wedding. Who does this sort of idiocy materially harm though, beyond people who invest part of their self-conception in being gatekeepers of an ossified vision of their ("their") culture? And how do you actually separate "respectful participation" from "superficial treatment?" There has been some incredible art created by people who were primarily interested in the most superficial aspects of a culture, and the idiot in your example might be completely sincere in their desire to participate in Indian culture in an entirely respectful manner (even if they're doing so very badly). Is there actually a difference that doesn't amount to an accusation of having exhibited bad taste?
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Mar 24, 2015 23:10
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Mandy Thompson posted:Its completely subjective but it does have consequences sometimes, and we should be willing to hear out people who have a problem with their culture being appropriated, especially without much permission or credit. An example is the offensive use of Indians as mascots by white owned teams, or the use of Indians in branding. For example, the real Cherokee tribe was sued for trademark infringement by a white owned company that trademarked the name "Cherokee" for blue jeans and other clothing and lost. Crazy Horse is considered a cultural hero and its rather demeaning to see him used as a mascot to sell malt liquor, something that harms the native american community. But are all of the issues brought up here "cultural appropriation" as a unique and distinct phenomena, or is it simply a convenient heading under which a collection of complaints about people tolerating racist stereotypes when they shouldn't be, godawful IP law, and accusations that people are exhibiting really bad taste are lumped? The complaints may all be valid, but they're valid because people are behaving like insensitive assholes towards other people, not because some essential aspect of a unique culture has been meaningfully "stolen." The accusations that someone is exhibiting extremely poor taste may be correct (as with Crazy Horse malt liquor), but it's still the sort of judgement call you should receive skeptically, and most cases of "cultural appropriation" brought up in this thread are nowhere near as clear cut as these. I just don't think "cultural appropriation" is a particularly useful concept. Reprehensible behaviors that falls under the heading are still obviously reprehensible without making reference to it, while its use in other circumstances is mostly as a rhetorical bludgeon to enforce (or move) "good" taste (while encouraging cultural essentialism). While good taste is something I try to cultivate myself, it's also not something anyone should be taking too seriously, and attempting to conflate enforcement of such judgments with genuine efforts towards fostering social justice is pretty laughable. I just really like Graceland ok? LGD fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 00:29
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