|
JBP posted:On the other hand, buy all the katanas and Guinness leprechaun hats you can afford.
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 13:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 19:09 |
|
|
Flowers For Algeria posted:I don’t think you get to say "oh but all that’s in the past!" while the social structures born of white supremacy are still so vibrant - especially when it comes to Native Americans. No, you do, because it is precisely the fact that it still endures which is the problem. The case for reparations is not that it will set right the past, because it won't, ever, nothing will. And indeed, is not remotely supported by the past at all because nobody alive today can possibly take either credit or blame for things that happened before they were even born. But that's irrelevant because inequalities exist right now which it is a moral imperative to end, that is 100% of the justification required and is by far the strongest argument. And as far as cultural appropriation goes there are waaaaaaay better arguments you can make about the harm it does than that, as well as infinitely more credible explanations of its mechanism of operation, so I really wouldn't support it with an argument so faulty that it it defames the position you're trying to advance. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 17:56
|
|
|
Little known fact, the reason you can't be racist against white people is because it's cultural appropriation
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 18:21
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:No, you do, because it is precisely the fact that it still endures which is the problem. The case for reparations is not that it will set right the past, because it won't, ever, nothing will. And indeed, is not remotely supported by the past at all because nobody alive today can possibly take either credit or blame for things that happened before they were even born. I don't know that I was making a specific argument, so much as sharing the emotional sentiment of somebody who is deeply involved in these issues. And that emotional sentiment is entirely valid. It boils down to the fact that it's anger inducing to see cultural touchstones used as kitsch, or sold for profit, or bandied about lightly as decoration when that culture was actively suppressed and the vast wealth out there was built on stolen resources. I guess I was trying to get across the emotional, individual and entirely authentic response of an individual, rather than argue for or against at a high level, if that makes sense, because I think we often have these conversations without really considering the individuals in these communities, diverse and scattered as they are across the political spectrum. Sure, these conversations often deviate into odd places - arguing over who can make food or white-knighting some dominant culture, but there are specific communities that are impacted by this stuff, and whether the individual emotional responses hold up to your cold and calculated logical argument or not, they're something that should be considered and weighted.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 18:24
|
|
|
The biggest problems with the idea are definitely the attempt to draw it along racial or "cultural" lines because it is very difficult to make those distinct in ways which match up to reality, and also the attempt to claim ownership of "a culture" by anyone or even any group, for actually similar reasons to above: You can't credibly claim ownership of something that was created well before you were born. However, this leads to a good form of the idea, which is that we already have a word for people who claim ownership of things they cannot credibly claim responsibility for the creation of, and that's "Capitalists". And they do attempt to do that! This is the strongest part of the idea because you can make a lot of good points about the commodification of culture which are universally applicable while still illustrating the racist effects it can have. Think of music, which is a good example because it is definitely culture, it is definitely created by ordinary people and informed by the places and people and things they live with, and it is also definitely massively appropriated by capitalists to extract wealth from people. Music can be a powerful communicator and a lot of musicians really try to put messages in their music, it can have real resonance with people and social movements. But all of this is hosed up because of the influence of capital in music, because so much of the musical landscape is taken up by produced music, music which we are advertised and which we listen to because we are told, by rich people, that we should want to listen to them. And it might be very listenable, but it ultimately means that what is listened to and what is promoted, and what is supported by high quality production work, and what is heard most out of this great sea of people making music to communicate their experiences, what is heard is what the people making the decision at the record company thing will sell. And this isn't to say that the music you hear can't have a message or that the message can't be interesting, but it does mean that it is curated by and heard only because someone with a lot of money, somewhere, decided that you should hear it. And this has obvious racist connotations when you consider that the rich record company owners are probably white, and in a musical genre like hip hop the people making it are probably black, so you have the commodification of the work of black music artists, of their identities in many ways because musicians are themselves commodified by their labels, by a bunch of rich white men. That agency is removed from the people producing the content and put in the hands of the owners of the means of production. And you might say that well, people can still make music if they want, and that's technically true I suppose, but it won't be heard, because people have a limited amount of time to consume music, and when we're flooded in mass produced and promoted stuff, it drowns out any individual voice and even smaller collective voices, the culture loses its efficacy as a form of communication between people. You see this in a lot of smaller subcultures too, everyone is familiar with the idea that when something goes "mainstream" it becomes poo poo, it loses its soul. That is perhaps the most widely relatable form of cultural appropriation by capital because chances are everyone has experienced it. The other issue with capitalist domination of the cultural space is that you're handing over creative control of your cultural context to someone who wants to sell you poo poo. Good example here is gamer culture, which is really loving lovely because it's steeped in commodification and to a degree always has been. People who build a cultural identity around it end up dependent on constant consumption of things in order to stay part of it, and as the capitalist doesn't really care about anything other than money it simply preys on those people to get more money out of them without really giving them much. It's an abusive relationship, especially contrasted to a cultural environment which isn't characterized by one person trying to get as much money out of the rest of the people in it, as possible. It is a form of culture which is harmful to the participant, which disadvantages them because it makes their sense of self and identity dependent on constantly giving money to an exploiter. So yeah, the idea's got legs, but it's far better framed in that context I think, not that the culture belongs to someone else, but that claiming de-facto control of it with monetary backing is harmful to the participants.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 18:34
|
|
|
Dolphin posted:Little known fact, the reason you can't be racist against white people is because it's cultural appropriation
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 20:25
|
|
|
I think the biggest thing is like, our culture has like police and lawyers and doctors and college graduate or something where if you pretend to be that beyond the very lightest way you break social taboo and potentially the law really hard. Other cultures have that too and it's easy to go "yeah but ours are real and theirs are fake" but they wouldn't agree with that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 20:51
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:I think the biggest thing is like, our culture has like police and lawyers and doctors and college graduate or something where if you pretend to be that beyond the very lightest way you break social taboo and potentially the law really hard. Really bad example. Pretty sure you can play dress up as a police person, lawyer, doctor, judge, president, military guy, or whatever and nobody in those professions or otherwise gives a gently caress unless you also attempt to masquerade as what you dressed up like. You can go to a party dressed up exactly like a city cop and nobody is going to complain or care until you start pretending to arrest somebody. The only profession I can think of even slightly fitting would be the military with stolen valor stuff, but even there it usually boils down to someone actively pretending to be a veteran not just wearing a surplus hat, some random ribbons, or whatever. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:25
|
|
|
Also that is kind of an American phenomenon to the degree they get fussy about it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:27
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Also that is kind of an American phenomenon to the degree they get fussy about it. And even there veterans are just as likely to think the guy confronting somebody about it is the rear end in a top hat as be upset at the idiot walking around in a dress uniform with the rank of 4 star general at the mall.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:30
|
|
|
Also cheapening the glamour of the military is objectively good.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:31
|
|
|
Warbadger posted:Really bad example. Pretty sure you can play dress up as a police person, lawyer, doctor, judge, president, military guy, or whatever and nobody in those professions or otherwise gives a gently caress unless you also attempt to masquerade as what you dressed up like. You can go to a party dressed up exactly like a city cop and nobody is going to complain or care until you start pretending to arrest somebody. Yeah, but like, you are listing the idea our culture has a socially sanctioned proper time and place to pretend to be a thing consequence free. We have cultural rules for who can dress as a policeman and when and that includes fun times you can too. Other cultures can have that too. If you go to a fun costume party and say "I'm a doctor, look at me!" you have followed cultural rules for times it's okay to claim to be a doctor, with a well understood by everyone "it's just a goof". Start telling people you are actually a doctor or using the rights and privileges of a doctor and that's not going to go so well. If you are part of a culture of course you know the boundaries of what is or isn't okay. If you are outside the culture you are gonna gently caress it up real bad.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:34
|
|
|
The reason you're not allowed to pretend to be a police officer is because they have powers conferred upon them by the government, not because it's socially taboo or because you're impugning their honour or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:41
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:The reason you're not allowed to pretend to be a police officer is because they have powers conferred upon them by the government, not because it's socially taboo or because you're impugning their honour or whatever. Other cultures consider the institutions their governments set up real too. Ours aren't like double most correct real.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:45
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Other cultures consider the institutions their governments set up real too. Ours aren't like double most correct real. yyyessss... which is why most places have laws against impersonating the police? And they are real laws yes, you go to prison if you break them and everything. E: if you're trying to suggest that defunct governments still have force because they once had laws then no that's not really comparable because again, the things you listed are largely a matter of an existing government doing actual enforcement to stop people from pretending to be those things, it's not a good comparison at all. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:47
|
|
|
Counterpoint: dressing up like an English Bobby and saying allo allo allo is cool everywhere I think
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:55
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:yyyessss... which is why most places have laws against impersonating the police? I mean, you can't really go "well our stuff, we have LAWS! we wrote them in books and everything so they are REAL!" then say like some "stinky old indian chief said something and that is just their silly old rules." It's the same deal, if you grew up in the native culture you'd have the same "no duh" reaction to not putting on a headdress you didn't earn that you have now about impersonating a cop or a doctor or pretending to be a lawyer or faking a PHD or any other titles our culture gives people. Ours are just as made up as theirs are. We see the value in ours the exact same way they see the value in theirs. But it's easy to take things in our own culture as "yeah, ours are REAL and EARNED, not like theirs that I don't care about, so they matter less to me, thus they matter less objectively"
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 21:57
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:I mean, you can't really go "well our stuff, we have LAWS! we wrote them in books and everything so they are REAL!" then say like some "stinky old indian chief said something and that is just their silly old rules." It's the same deal, if you grew up in the native culture you'd have the same "no duh" reaction to not putting on a headdress you didn't earn that you have now about impersonating a cop or a doctor or pretending to be a lawyer or faking a PHD or any other titles our culture gives people. Ours are just as made up as theirs are. We see the value in ours the exact same way they see the value in theirs. But it's easy to take things in our own culture as "yeah, ours are REAL and EARNED, not like theirs that I don't care about, so they matter less to me, thus they matter less objectively" The laws against impersonating a police officer are real in that you will go to prison if you do it. You don't go to prison for dressing like a native American. This does not suggest the moral validity of one over the other. Again it is a really poor comparison, you're trying to compare an extant law to a cultural preference. Like there are two reasons I don't pretend to be a copper, 1: I don't want anyone to think I'm either a copper or a fan of coppers. 2: I don't want to get arrested. There is no cultural taboo preventing me from doing it out of respect. Reasons I don't pretend to have a PHD: 1: I don't and couldn't convince anyone I did. 2: The only instance I would want to do that is in a job interview and lying about qualifications you don't have is generally counterproductive in that instance. If I thought I could lie about it and get something out it I obviously would? Why would I give a poo poo about what my prospective employer thinks? They're there to give me money not be my friend. These are all things that have material consequences for people that do them whether they care about them or not, which makes them very poor comparisons to things that run on an internal sense of obligation. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:05
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:The laws against impersonating a police officer are real in that you will go to prison if you do it. You don't go to prison for dressing like a native American. This does not suggest the moral validity of one over the other. I mean, that is kinda how cultural appropriation works. It's stuff members of our culture can crap on because no one can/will enforce the appropriate consequences on it. I can dress up with honors of the native americans that used to live here and they definitely can't stop me. They can just ask me not to. I don't even have to follow it. If they do the opposite and claim to have titles in my culture they don't have I can call a phone number and get them arrested.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:20
|
|
|
someone is going to quote my above post and respond some version of "yeah but our titles are real things! not like their's"
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:22
|
|
|
Yes the state is a tool utilized by the dominant political and economic class to marginalize everyone else. This I do not dispute. But that seems at odds with your apparent previous attempt to try and compare that power with a minority group expressing a preference for something, they absolutely aren't comparable, if they were it wouldn't be a problem.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:25
|
|
|
Like that seems like the whole summary of cultural appropriation. Some stuff has meaning in another culture, but they aren't the dominant culture so they can't socially or legally enforce the rules no matter how important they are to them. So the dominant culture can hold it over them. Both on like ultra important things and on silly trivial things. We also have social rules and titles and earned honors we think of as super important, but so does everyone else. We don't think it's funny at all when someone breaks ours, but we often treat it as a laugh or a thing people are over reacting to break other people's.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:33
|
|
|
stone cold posted:well no, the reason it’s not cool is that because when black women wear cornrows (or any number of traditional black hairstyles) they get fired for “looking ghetto” while kylie jenner does it and makes millions doing it as a lovely white girl and that it’s stealing a rich cultural heritage from a marginalized group because one thinks it looks cool. it’s simultaneously stealing and dehumanizing. Seems like the problem is black people getting fired for their physical features, not cultural appropriation? Of the two possible remedies to this scenario, one being that dumb white people keep wearing cornrows but black people stop being stigmatized for their hair, or dumb white people never wear cornrows again and black people are still stigmatized for their hair, option 1 seems unambiguously superior?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:34
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:Seems like the problem is black people getting fired for their physical features, not cultural appropriation? Of the two possible remedies to this scenario, one being that dumb white people keep wearing cornrows but black people stop being stigmatized for their hair, or dumb white people never wear cornrows again and black people are still stigmatized for their hair, option 1 seems unambiguously superior? The thing is, when a white person gets that sort of haircut they are often trying to go "I'm a little dangerous, I'm a thug" to some degree, in a way that reinforces the idea that when someone who has that as their normal hair is just wearing it that they must also be expressing that even if all that person was expressing is 'this is a normal way my hair looks" When white people pick up a style they often are expressing a thing they think it says, and that thing is often more about what the white people think about the people they took it from than what the people they took it from thought it was. And since the white people outnumber the other people the message of that thing gets more and more the white people's idea about what it means than whatever the original thing is.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:41
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:Seems like the problem is black people getting fired for their physical features, not cultural appropriation? Of the two possible remedies to this scenario, one being that dumb white people keep wearing cornrows but black people stop being stigmatized for their hair, or dumb white people never wear cornrows again and black people are still stigmatized for their hair, option 1 seems unambiguously superior? are those the only remedies to the situation? really? like what about option three: white people stop stealing black hair and black people are not stigmatized for their hair what’s this false dichotomy bullshit? like, why can’t the solution be stop white people thieving
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 22:41
|
|
|
That presupposes it's theft. Like you can make the suggestion that a famous person doing it is commodifying and thus a sort of theft but not random people doing it, I think. Unless black people cannot also pick hair because it looks cool? You can also make the suggestion that due to the job thing it would be inappropriate and a good expression of solidarity to refrain from it. But if you resolved that issue then I don't think you can make a claim of ownership over a hairstyle. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:02
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:That presupposes it's theft. Have you noticed that black people aren't just nonstop angry about everything forever and actually take things on a case by case basis? Sorghum was an african plant and you'd have to dig really really deep into tumblr to find some lovely article no one cared about to find some article calling that cultural appropriation because no one cared, it wasn't symbolic or important and adopting it wasn't used to hurt anyone particularly. But lots of people are upset about certain hair things. Like this denies you a solid single rule you can just apply to every single situation. But it's the people in the culture that get to know if something being taken is upsetting or not. By how it's taken, how it's used, and the narrative around it. It's an interpersonal thing between hundreds of thousands of different individuals and not a formula you can apply.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:15
|
|
|
And I would disagree, in most cases, that wearing hairstyles is "white people thieving". Possibly ill advised for a number of reasons but not that one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:18
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:And I would disagree, in most cases, that wearing hairstyles is "white people thieving". I mean, no one is going to stop you, If you upset someone you can laugh in their face or whatever and you won't get arrested, there is lots of ways you can hurt people if you want to do that. You aren't going to like say "I used logic and reason as my katana to mathematically prove you can't be upset by this" and have them actually stop being upset, if lots of people are upset by a thing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:22
|
|
|
I can disagree with the validity of someone being upset though, if I couldn't then I would find it kind of hard to be on the left because a lot of people get upset at great length about many of its ideas. If you're making suggestions for how people should act based on whether you like or don't like a thing it's generally desirable to have good arguments to support your position, and there are some, but not all arguments made because someone is unhappy about something are valid and should be acted on. So, solidarity, anticapitalist sentiment; good reasons to not wear your hair in cornrows. Bad reasons: the idea that races can own ideas. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:24
|
|
|
stone cold posted:are those the only remedies to the situation? really? I feel like option 2 is much more likely to actually happen than an actual end to effective discrimination, and has already happened to a great extent with mainstream media and entertainment largely self-censoring this sort of stuff. At that point I feel like a certain important segment of liberals are going to declare mission accomplished and go home I guess my point is not so much that doing both things would be bad, but that the thing actually being done, IE mainstream liberalism largely accepting the purely aesthetic aspects of cultural appropriation as a doctrine and ignoring more concrete, material discrimination, is bad, and possibly actually worse than doing nothing because it gives liberals the sense that they've done enough (although I wouldn't commit to that last point too hard) icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:25
|
|
|
JBP posted:Counterpoint: dressing up like an English Bobby and saying allo allo allo is cool everywhere I think Yeah, I really don't know where he's going with that one because you absolutely can wear army surplus boots/hats/whatever, or an article of a police uniform, or a stethoscope around your neck anywhere you'd like without offending or angering anybody. At worst you will look silly or poorly dressed. You actually need to take the further step of pretending to be the police officer/lawyer/military/doctor person in actions or words before that becomes an issue either socially or legally. It is an incredibly bad comparison.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:39
|
|
|
what I'm hearing is the best way to resolve this debate is to just delete all social media and no one will ever give a poo poo what I do.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:39
|
|
|
Warbadger posted:Yeah, I really don't know where he's going with that one because you absolutely can wear army surplus boots/hats/whatever, or an article of a police uniform, or a stethoscope around your neck anywhere you'd like without offending or angering anybody. At worst you will look silly or poorly dressed. You actually need to take the further step of pretending to be the police officer/lawyer/military/doctor person in actions or words before that becomes an issue either socially or legally. Yeah, sounds like as a member of this culture you have a good grasp on what is and isn't over the line and know how to not cross those lines.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 23:48
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Yeah, sounds like as a member of this culture you have a good grasp on what is and isn't over the line and know how to not cross those lines. Not liking to be intentionally misled is actually pretty universal.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2018 00:01
|
|
|
Also again the prohibition against impersonating a police officer comes from the government primarily, and it applies whether you're aware of it or not.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
Warbadger posted:Not liking to be intentionally misled is actually pretty universal. Yeah, good thing me and you in the same culture have a shared grasp on which artifacts from a lawyer are and aren't part of real signifiers and both know if I wore a lawyer suit and said "this is a real lawyer suit" that it'd be fine but if I took a law degree with my name on it and said "this is a real law degree" that that wouldn't be okay.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2018 00:07
|
|
|
If your appropriation of someone's culture is done out of genuine admiration or appreciation of something other people make or do, I think you'll find few people that will get offended. No one in Ireland is getting pissed off about Americans drinking Guinness. If you throw on a red wig and paint your face with red blush and dress in all green while talking with a stupid Irish accent you're going to piss people off. Irish people probably will just think you're stupid because it isn't meant with malice, but if you do that poo poo based on a stereotype of some native American people it's a dick move. Cultural appropriation is a dumb thing to call it because that word actually means something completely different from embracing the aesthetic of harmful stereotypes. I've never actually experienced a situation where like a (pick specific culture) person got angry about an American putting on beads when some women wanted to dress up a white woman. I've come across white people getting mad about that but it's not their culture so whatever. I feel like people being offended on other people's behalf is a common theme here. Dolphin fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Aug 4, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2018 00:31
|
|
|
Dolphin posted:I feel like people being offended on other people's behalf is a common theme here.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2018 01:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 5, 2024 19:09 |
|
|
American pluralism is a bad lens through which to examine any kind of problem.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2018 01:50
|
|
