Today in Cultural Appropriation

I think any time hipsters show up in the city it's gentrification. Whole different reason to get offended.

 

I know that this thread is an old-guy circlejerk about how ridiculous it all is, but I'll give you the real answer anyway:

A big part of cultural appropriation is relative power. It's not that it's always wrong to take part of any part of any culture that isn't yours. It's that we're living in the aftermath of several centuries of white people subjugating most of the rest of the world and actively attacking those cultures, so the wounds are a little raw. I have a friend who is an active Native tribal member. Her mom is old enough to remember when it was literally against the law for her to practice their religious customs, and her mom is not *that* old, so I understand why she gets a little pissy when white people joke about having spirit animals.

Until we acknowledge that we're living in the world built by genocidal imperialism and colonization, we're going to continue to be bewildered why other people keep getting so mad at white people.

 

I think this has been addressed: The concern isn't that people appropriate cultures, in a vacuum. The problem arises when a traditionally privileged demographic appropriates the culture of a traditionally oppressed culture. For example, if you are a black man in America, you might feel like you can't walk into a gas station without getting the stink eye from white people, but, meanwhile, those same people want to use your culture when convenient.

Think of it a little bit like black face.

 

Imperialism. LOL. You and Abby should hang.

 

I'm fine living in my skin if my white kid had to do a Que Pasa dance at school.

Lighten the fuck up, just a little, you Francises.

 

"LOL"

Why is that word funny to you?

 

Tennis and Golf were long considered in this country to be White protestant pursuits, essentially part of the culture of former European Protestants. This activity was more than just an athletic and recreational outlet, but part of a larger social and cultural construct that encompassed an entire day’s activity at specialized cultural and communal centers known as Country Clubs. Many of these clubs had strict membership requirements beyond the ability to pay. Jewish Americans mirrored this experience by opening their own Country Clubs, but with better food. Although it was cultural appropriation, it was tolerated because the Jews did not seek to change the existing culture by forcing the larger culture to adapt. Catholics were able to join their Protestant cousins in some places, but this was highly regulated and done quietly.

Venus, Serena and Tiger are cultural appropriation offenders. SHAME

 

Is eating at an authentic ethnic restaurant of a country who lost a war to us considered cultural appropriation?

 

Just saw a Mini Cooper with a Second Amendment bumper sticker. It fits.

 

British food is terrible.

 

It's a word, a talking point, that doesn't mean anything worth its salt.

 

It means that for several centuries, up to at the very least our parents' lifetimes if not ours, our European predecessors literally went around the world murdering large numbers of people, stealing their resources and occupying their land. Creating empires through violence for their own enrichment. This is the sort of behavior that we rightly associate with the Nazis as being the ultimate evil, but we want to pretend like it didn't happen or doesn't matter to the present day.

Americans in particular are *very* keen to want to gloss over that part of history, as if it were an embarrassing uncle at Thanksgiving dinner and not the foundation upon which the entire family fortune was built and is still profiting from to this day.