RE: Weekend Rant: There is No Such Thing as Cultural Appropriation
I understand where you're coming from @corinneiskorean, but I have to disagree with the premises of your argument. First, the idea that someone shouldn't do, say, or express themselves in some way because of another person's feelings/interpretation is assuming that we should operate society on a 'weakest link' type mentality. Who decides what is "messed up?" In the way that offensive humor is some of the best comedy, having the freedom to express even potentially painful interpretations of culture makes us a more resilient society that doesn't shy away from debate.
Second, your example illustrates how an attempt to be 'culturally sensitive' is in itself a racial/prejudiced practice. You're assuming that because 'big lips' are somehow linked with the identity of black people that someone non-black should not dare have that physical trait, either naturally or artificially. Is being bald offensive to Tibetan monks or thick eyebrows offensive to Turkish men? Attempting to bridge physiology with cultural identity is a very very dangerous practice that has no principled goal.
In my opinion, what we should be doing in that instance is focus less on what 2 intellectually impaired spoiled brats inject under their skin and put more emphasis on celebrating actual culture, not the superficial markings of what makes someone supposedly different from you or me.
Thanks for your opinion. I see where you're coming from, and I do agree on how being too culturally sensitive can actually lead to more prejudice. But in terms of "how do we decide what's messed up" I think you're overlooking historical context within the US, and the idea that certain cultural aspects are not acceptable unless a white woman or man is doing it.
If we go with the Kylie Jenner lip trend (which, tbf, I would rather just ignore, but it is pertinent to this discussion), before she made it "trendy" there are often times when a black model or actress would post a selfie with a certain shade of lipstick, and the comments would be filled with racist remarks. If you look at blackface or old cartoons, the lips were always accentuated and seen as a negative feature. It wasn't until recently when a white girl decided it was trendy that people decided it was okay, and they then attributed that trend to the white girl, rather than the actual culture it came from.
Now, if black women had managed to be the forefront of that beauty trend, it'd be a different story. That's someone sharing their culture and society accepting it. Unfortunately, though, that isn't the case.
I'm not saying "don't have big lips". But there is something to be said about a person who pre-trend spoke negatively about big lips, and then post-trend won't shut up about their lip kit. I think that's where people are getting irked.
To sum up: there are certain traits and cultural things that many minority groups here in the US were historically and constantly prejudiced against for having, whether that's through microaggressions, or being prevented from buying a house, or not getting the job you're clearly qualified for, etc. When those traits are appropriated by white people and toted as "trendy" despite it being the reality for many minority groups that they can't change, when their culture is worn as a costume (i'm not just speaking literally), or worse, when a white person is given a free pass and seen as a cool person, but a poc is seen in a derogatory light for doing/wearing the same thing, that's where people get angry.
Thanks for the response, I think this discussion is pretty fruitful compared the extreme mudslinging that usually occurs on the internet.
First off, I think the immediacy to make this a racial issue is one weakness to this debate. Let's take the exact example we're talking about with Kylie. Kylie is, at least in my mind, in no way representative of "white women/people." She's a statistical fluke of humankind in which an endless string of strange influences produced the unique her. If 1 million 'white' suburban house-moms took selfies with botoxed lips before Kylie, I'm sure there would have been some reverse racism thrown about.
I understand the feel-bads, I really do. For someone to be teased or ridiculed for what another is admired for - this a painful reality of all cultures in a world that has universal social hierarchies. But there is much much much more at play than just skin color. Let's go back to Kylie - her being white is likely the least impactful (at least quantitatively and directly) to her being lusted after and 'followed'. Much more than skin tone are the aspects of being fabulously wealthy, universally attractive, endowed with a family legacy, and a general, enviable social appeal.
So no, I don't think big lips make this a racial issue at all. Instead, I believe a racial issue is being made out of this narrative of appropriation.
Lastly, I just want to make clear that Kylie's big lips on Instagram are not a 'microaggression' (another, more harmful way to call negative personal interpretation). Her lips have nothing to do with historical oppression whether it be district redlining for home ownership or educational blockades. This all goes back to the Facts vs. Feelings debate I bring up quite often. Just because we 'feel oppressed' does not indicate in any way that actual oppression exists.
Curious on you thoughts @corinneiskorean.
I agree. It's good to have a civil discussion on this.
I think the two of us are really coming from different places though, and I'm not certain what else to say to add to this discussion without starting to repeat myself. Additionally, as someone who is not part of the Black community, I can't really speak with the same expertise on how/why it is a race issue.
However, I think you mentioned something I'd like to highlight: "For someone to be teased or ridiculed for what another is admired for - this a painful reality of all cultures in a world that has universal social hierarchies. But there is much much much more at play than just skin color."
I will agree that for Kylie it is probably more her luxe lifestyle rather than the fact that she is white being at the forefront of her fans' minds for why they want to imitate her. However, I would be curious, if she was black. If the Kardashians were black. Would they have the same level of influence? Or would there be some racist pushback? That's a what if question, but still one to consider.
However, to go back to what I quoted. While in Kylie's situation, yes there is much more at play than skin color, in the broad critique of cultural appropriation, specifically within the United States, this is not so. It all boils back to the slavery days, which was specifically racist and fueled by skin color differences. It's the idea that black hair is seen as "messy and unkempt" or "ghetto" for centuries, but now suddenly its trendy for everyone, especially white people, to have box braids and afros and dreads, even though black people have been rocking that do -- and subsequently degraded -- for doing so. And how does this hair become trendy? Because a white person of influence takes that hair style, appropriates it from the black community, and rebrands it as socially acceptable, but only because a white person is doing it. It's almost theft. It's not necessarily A and B are doing the same thing but B is getting better treatment. It's A was doing x which B made fun of them for. Then a year later B decided they wanted x, took x without crediting A, and now everyone loves B and associates B with x and are ignoring the history of B making fun of A for x.
To quote a more personal experience, it's having school kids make fun of your rice and kim lunch and say that seaweed and tofu is gross and disgusting to the point where you ask your mom to pack you a sandwich so you stop getting teased, to now every la liberal raving about Annie Chung Seaweed snacks and tofu everywhere. The latter, for me personally, is more mixed bc on one hand: cool it's socially acceptable for me to just eat kim plain in public, but on the other: okay janet, but like, you acted like i was a freak in 3rd grade for eating this and now you're raving about it everyday on twitter....
With regard to my own experience, I'm more on your side. I do think it's cultural appropriation, or at the very least commodification, but it's more of a grey area bc I only dealt with microaggression (call it harmful, but it's definition works and I'm using it). I might be salty about it on a personal level, but I'm not going to call people eating it racist. (plus if Annie Chungs is indeed Asian-owned, then that's just Asians rebranding their food to be more appealing to the masses, which again is a different situation. Plus I can't be too salty bc Annie Chungs microwave rice was how I survived college in central New York State lol)
Basically with cultural appropriation, especially for a white person (or even an Asian person or white-passing poc if you want to get into model minority/white passing privilege): you can appropriate as much as you want, with the best and worst intentions. But at the end of the day, you can take off that cultural costume and go back to being white. You are still at the top of the system. But for the minority group whose culture you appropriated, they are still a poc. They are still being oppressed in the US for being a POC and openly practicing their culture/language (see: all these videos of angry old white ppl yelling at Koreans for speaking hangul in a Starbucks. Would they have yelled that if it was two white people practicing hangul? or even two white people speaking in french? who knows). Especially in this day and age of anti-immigrant sentiment in the US from the right. And that's the kicker.
Lastly, if you wouldn't mind, could you clarify your statement: "Just because we 'feel oppressed' does not indicate in any way that actual oppression exists." Are you saying this relating to cultural appropriation being oppression? or that poc are being oppressed at all?
To put it more concisely, as I realized I rambled a lot: while I agree that I don't think cultural appropriation is inherently racist, unfortunately there is a growing number of examples that ignore the historical context behind the thing they are appropriating, which leads to the most outcry and is either downright offensive or at its best, in poor taste. We talked about Black culture, but another good example is Native American culture, specifically the head-dresses. In their culture it is something you have to earn and is used for ceremonies. Tack the original use of the headdress to the centuries of genocide committed against Native Americans by white colonizers, and I think you get a well-justified outrage when white girls and guys at coachella or Halloween parties decide to dress up as Native Americans just because it looks "cool"
Cooking food or speaking the language or, in some cases, wearing the traditional garment on the other hand is more of a cultural appreciation (though Im sure some will argue it is still appropriation) and is certainly not malicious and not to be lumped in with the ones that are truly insensitive, ignorant, and harmful.
This conversation thread is getting to the point where Steemit will make my paragraphs an inch wide so I'll try to some up my argument and likely explore some of these tangential conversations in further posts. =)
I think each of your paragraphs in your first-latest reply hit on a distinct aspect of race relations in the US that are not always linked but often purposefully conflated to construct an umbrella narrative that POC (which is honestly a ridiculous term to me) are systematically oppressed. In this post, I try to explore whether "cultural appropriation" is an actual systematic power dynamic in the US. I believe that is not the case and little evidence beyond the anecdotal substantiates the concept.
Again, I'm right there with you on the feel-bads. I've had almost identical experiences of people freaking out at my mother's hand-rolls that she packed for my school lunches. Now it seems every hipster mom is sticking stacks of seaweed in their kids' lunchboxes. It's the same for black hair. It's the same for everything that is ever new and fresh and curiously taken from another.
But those stem from the eternal and seemingly impossible ambition to create a multicultural society. In diversity, there will always be a supposed majority and an infinite amount of minorities. Majorities dictate the trends and majorities likely take inspiration from the minority. And nothing exists in hard rules. Are we claiming that every POC (of which Asians are conveniently left out of) is at the mercy of non-POCs? Culture should not be sliced up and distributed in a way in which I'm supposed to eat a certain thing and you're supposed to wear a certain thing and he/she over there is supposed to act/dance/talk/do a certain thing and anyone who breaches those artificial boundaries are to be punished. That is anti-culture. That is racial profiling.
This might be a controversial bit that warrants a longer post rather than a comment - a Native American headdress has nothing to do with genocide. I'm not ignorant of the painful past of America's indigenous populations. But the correlation of a cultural artifact with a racial sentiment that virtually disappeared generations ago (even more so than Nazism or ideologies of ethnic purity) is nothing more than a social narrative. Should Japanese people never visit Korea to take selfies in hanbok dresses? Should Germans never attend synagogue? Should Spanish citizens never import Pisco from South America? I know I list a lot of these hypotheticals, but my aim is to illustrate that these constructed 'cultural' tropes are seemingly endless and lead to nothing but a blockade on free expression. If something is offensive or even 'microaggressive', let's have a conversation, not claim that there is a supposed system which promotes appropriation/oppression.
This has definitely been an enlightening discussion for me, however I think we will both just have our separate opinions and agree to disagree. I agree with your assertion that, ideally, culture should not be a "you should/I should" deal, but I am also of the mind that we shouldn't ignore historical context and practice tact, mindfulness, and empathy with what (and how) we decide to appropriate, ESPECIALLY with the grim history of colonization, which still affects the modern world. I also disagree that those racial sentiments disappeared. They are still here, just diluted and not as "obviously/blatantly" racist (altho Trump's presidency is certainly encouraging more outward displays). We live in a day and age where it's difficult to have "hard evidence" of racism bc it is so subvertive. But systemic racism does exist, and it does perpetuate all lives -- including Asian lives. Thanks for keeping the discussion civil.