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abirdisnotThis is just fucking classic. A response to a Sociological Images post containing some really jawdropping examples of cultural appropriation:
Sort of like how none of my ancestors actually owned slaves in the antebellum South, so it's fine if I dress in blackface.
Ah yes, ye olde showing your profound respect for and understanding of other cultures by going on vacation to where they live, buying "exotic" shit, and decorating with it.
See title of journal entry.
If you read this and don't understand what's wrong with it, then... I don't even know where to start.
See also this blog, Native Appropriations!
* * * * *
As a digression, I always feel uncomfortable when people (myself included obviously) try to point out how something is unjust by comparing it to bigotry against a different group. Usually, the comparison seems to be with racism against black people in America.
Why does this bother me? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's because it's fucked up that you'd have to analogize clear bigotry in order for people to recognize it's bigotry?
Maybe because the way in which different groups are oppressed is unique, and therefore it simplifies oppression and the way in which different kinds of oppression interact? Maybe it stops people from really thinking about how the thing being compared is problematic, and why, and the whole context of it?
Maybe it's because a sort of white-vs-black idea of racism seems to be the rhetorical default when people in America talk about other isms, which I feel
a) brushes past the reality of black oppression. It implies, "Everyone [i.e. "white people," probably] recognizes that African-Americans have been racially oppressed, and of course we know that was wrong, which is why I can use it as an example! Maybe someday people will be equally enlightened about other civil rights issues. Post racial society we have a black president blah de blah," when racism against African Americans is still so much a present reality.
b) brushes past the fact that there are other minorities as well who experience oppression, and that race in America is more complex than black/white.
Thoughts on this?
I know that my ancestors were still in Europe when the British colonists were killing innocent Native Americans, so I don’t think I’m “mocking them” or celebrating their deaths in any ways when I wear “Native American inspired” clothing pieces.
Sort of like how none of my ancestors actually owned slaves in the antebellum South, so it's fine if I dress in blackface.
I have family living in New Mexico on Dad’s side. I frequently receive handmade purses and jewelry. When I visit I buy numerous things: dresses, silver jewelry and linens for my mother. While I get the whole reason for this article, I can’t get why you frown upon people who wear clothes from different cultures? The thing my family likes most about traveling and seeing new places is buying things to show for it. My house is cluttered with art, glass pieces, clothing, and furniture from different countries and cultures.
Ah yes, ye olde showing your profound respect for and understanding of other cultures by going on vacation to where they live, buying "exotic" shit, and decorating with it.
Banning culture from our wardrobe would leave us all in this lapse of unoriginality they we are constantly trying to stay away from... But if you like it…wear it, just know where its from and what its history is.
See title of journal entry.
If you read this and don't understand what's wrong with it, then... I don't even know where to start.
See also this blog, Native Appropriations!
* * * * *
As a digression, I always feel uncomfortable when people (myself included obviously) try to point out how something is unjust by comparing it to bigotry against a different group. Usually, the comparison seems to be with racism against black people in America.
Why does this bother me? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's because it's fucked up that you'd have to analogize clear bigotry in order for people to recognize it's bigotry?
Maybe because the way in which different groups are oppressed is unique, and therefore it simplifies oppression and the way in which different kinds of oppression interact? Maybe it stops people from really thinking about how the thing being compared is problematic, and why, and the whole context of it?
Maybe it's because a sort of white-vs-black idea of racism seems to be the rhetorical default when people in America talk about other isms, which I feel
a) brushes past the reality of black oppression. It implies, "Everyone [i.e. "white people," probably] recognizes that African-Americans have been racially oppressed, and of course we know that was wrong, which is why I can use it as an example! Maybe someday people will be equally enlightened about other civil rights issues. Post racial society we have a black president blah de blah," when racism against African Americans is still so much a present reality.
b) brushes past the fact that there are other minorities as well who experience oppression, and that race in America is more complex than black/white.
Thoughts on this?
