Today in Cultural Appropriation

Why is theUnited States of America the repository of all world guilt? The Spanish, English and Portuguese brought chattel slavery to this hemisphere. It was the Hispanic culture that destroyed pre-Columbian civilization in Central and South America.
The Egyptians employed forced labor 4500 years ago to build the pyramids
The rise and fall of the Akkadians and Hittites.
The rise of the Persian Empire and their domination over half the world.
Alexander and his war on humanity.
Roman Occupations of half the World
Japanese Territorial expansions
The Moorish colonization of NorthernAfrica and extending into Southern Europe
The Catholic Crusades
Centuries of European intermural wars.

American slavery lasted less than 100 years, 1776-1865. Forced labor existed in many part of the world after the 13th Amendment.
We stopped being a melting pot and started to be a parliamentarian social construct. Lots of narrow groups but a lack of unity.
The Irish and then the Italians were able to blend their religion and identity into America without changing the American culture to fit their needs. Jews did the same thing. Chinese and Japanese started doing it, Koreans are doing it now. Why were they all successful to large degrees? They adopted to the existing social pact without trying to re-write it. Yes, it eventually evolves to be more inclusive but not seismiclly, but not glacially either.

The current culture has not allowed Hispanics to integrate,but they would have after a generation or 2, except the existing culture was being pushed to alter itself to accommodate Spanish as the sencond tongue of the realm, and that caused pushback.

The African American experience is completely separate because its founded on racism. Pure and simple racism. The belief of black inferiority. And they were forcefully denied the ability to blend and integrate. That is America’s guilt and it too would have faded, more slowly than for any other group, except for the intransigence of under educated, desperate failures of the whites who have been in this country for 150 years without accumulating wealth, trump voters.

 

Wasting calories worrying about the cultural appropriation from a high schooler about a prom dress she bought at a thrift store is a wormhole I will not go down.

Have at it, libs.

 

Monster.

 

It doesn’t. Why does having its share of the guilt acknowledged feel like that to you?

 

This thread hasn’t been about that incident in awhile. It’s just lots of playacting as if people can’t possibly understand how cultural appropriation could ever be a problem?

 

It would be weird if I wrote a novel in the voice of an American chattel slave because I thought it would make a good novel, right? At least I think it would be weird.

So it would also be kind of weird for me to wear, say, traditional African garb, because I think it looks cool.

 

Sheesh, get your vocabulary right. It wouldn't be "weird." It would be oppressive, possibly violent.

 

Baby steps with this crowd.

 

I had never even heard of the term ‘cultural appropriation’ until a few years ago. Unless you’re willfully being racist or disrespectful, I don’t think it should have a negative connotation. But I’m white and male, so I’m not allowed to have an opinion about this.

 

Don’t let Professor Clumps rile you.

 

You're allowed to have whatever opinion you want.

 

Ya mean like William Styron with Nat Turner?