Today in Cultural Appropriation

Do we get to make S'mores and go canoeing at the Dick Whitman Re-Education Camp for Wayward White Folks?
I bet it's more like one of those camps where you do nothing but sing songs and make macaroni art all day long.

 

The world certainly wasn’t short on yet another “but what if we reject power dynamics” takes.

 

No "Re-Education" about it. The problem isn't your opinion. The problem is that your opinion is unresponsive to the discussion. I want you to make an honest effort to at least understand the cultural appropriation argument, so that you can come by your rejection honestly, if that remains where you end up. Others have managed.

 

Keep going. I think your tone *almost* has him.

 

You are in a very dark place these days. Have you thought about joining a local men's club or even a church? Just for the fellowship aspect? I know it seems corny, but I think it might help.

And I don't even suggest you abandon your views about cultural appropriation and related topics. You and I are, in fact, probably 99 percent aligned on the core of what is being talked about here - yes, I advocate dialogue. You don't. But that's disagreement on the margins.

More generally, you used to be the kind of guy where it would make me, literally, sad when you would disappear from here for months at a time. I hope he's OK, I'd think. Or, I hope he comes back eventually.

I want that guy back.

(I try to give you the benefit of the doubt at times and assume that you are just kind of drive-by posting throughout the day. I do that a lot, too. I think if you took some time to flesh our your thoughts on some of these discussion points, on this thread and elsewhere - I mean really flesh them out, like Alma does and like I know you are capable of doing - a lot of posters would much better understand where you're coming from.)

 

I have tried to understand it. I understand it to be moronic, stupid, and counterproductive to any sort of societal progress, as well as counterintuitive to millions of years of human nature and evolution.

Also, love how you say the problem isn't my opinion. It's that I have an opinion different from yours.

 

No, it's that your opinion is unresponsive to the point being made by the other side. Nobody is saying you can't laugh at "Friday." Or listen to Prince. Or shoot some hoop. Rick thinks that the dress is a "ridiculous" example of cultural appropriation, and that the spreading of the story is designed to make the entire concept look silly. He may be right about that - but I think that says more about the people who think it's a poor example than it says about the example itself. I think it's a fairly good example, actually.

White people have pillaged the rest of the world many times over. And then they wear the culture of the conquered as some kind of decorative accessory? It's kind of gross, really. I understand why the response might be, Get your own culture, assholes.

We're Ed Gein, making lampshades out of our victims' skin.

 

This is accurate. The perpetuation of the conversation is the upshot.

When other white people ask what's the point? I say, the conversation is the point. You need to listen.

For how long? For an indeterminate amount of time. In perpetuity, even. For as long as it takes.

Why? So that you'll understand.

What then? It'll be evident.

Which is where the tension lies. Americans are built for competitive, busy lives. It's hard-wired into us. Think about it: We sit in church, marinate in the sermon, and 4 seconds after we hit that door, it's "on to my to-do list" or "the Eagles are on" or "why is the fucking person calling me in church?" A church can talk about life and death in 45 minutes, and the minute we hit fresh air it's "fuck it, who wants Cane's for lunch?" (Because you can't go to Chik-fil-A on Sundays.)

That's what we do for church.

The conversation on race is long, painful and eventually exhausting. Mentally and emotionally exhausting. When you've sat in the conversation for a couple days straight - and I have - you actually feel the weight of it, and aren't particularly moved to return to it. Imagine living in that tension all the time, or a lot more of the time than white people do.

And then doing that for the sake of doing it - without any particular reward - is hard for Americans (who are hard-wired to do things for material reward or gain) to do. It's part of why Christianity has been so compromised and bastardized in America.

Surely there are folks who want to move past the race conversation because it makes them uncomfortable or triggered or any of that. But there are people who want to move past it, because, well, they're just busy with their own shit, the problem seems to big to resolve, and it certainly looks unsolvable to them just by listening.

 

And yet they seem so concerned getting involved with this conversation they are presumably capable of ignoring in favor of all that other shit they need to do.

 

Is it though? I can have it all day long but I'm a persecuted Jew so maybe it's just easier to relate.

 

Does anybody, anywhere, on any subject, participate in "conversations" where they have no speaking role?

 

I wish OOP did.