It’s called White Savior Complex.
This. The social Justice warriors that are peddling the cultural appropriation line are not representative of the culture or the people of that culture, their opinions, or feelings on the matter.
What we, as a society, need to do, is let cultures be offended when they feel offended, and not assume that they will be offended by something that we think they should be offended by.
Short version is: don’t be offended on behalf of someone else.
You don’t know them. You don’t know their culture. You don’t know what they see as offensive.
Stop assuming you do.
Exactly, just like when you have bullies in high school. Don’t assume that just because someone is wandering around mocking and relentlessly making fun of another student that the other student isn’t ok with it. We need to leave space for the victims to come forward if and when they feel uncomfortable, and not use our positions of authority to try to provide social support to people who we view as victims. After all, it worked for Anita hill and everyone who came after and we gave those dumb removed zero support.
See I can make a stupid, asinine argument too
Using “cultural appropriation” to drag down regular people is kind of pointless, like freaking out at someone for putting the wrong recyclable type of plastic trash in the garbage.
Cultural appropriation matters at the corporate level, where media shapes what regular people do. Do you want to talk about cultural appropriation? Talk about Disney, talk about Hollywood, talk about Jeep Cherokee, and Decathlon Quechua. To keep with the recycling analogy: your problem shouldn’t be ordinary people messing up their trash sorting, it should be vendors mass producing plastic trash for everything.
Complaining about sharing cultures IS racism. These idiots complaining about cultural appropriation have gone too far up their own ass.
Melding, sharing food clothing and customs makes everyone better! These bullshit micro divisions need to stop.
Sharing culture isn’t cultural appropriation.
As with most things, it’s a continuum. Some assimilation is good, a hairstyle, a clothing style, food, even customs. Sometimes certain people can go too far, and it gets more problematic. Think the jeweler in Snatch that isn’t Jewish but pretends to be. The episode of The Neighborhood with Nicole Sullivan. Rachael Dolezal.
The reason feelings of cultural appropriation exist is because the children of immigrants feel like society treats them as foreigners because they’re not white, despite growing up all their lives in the US/UK etc. This leads to feeling like some dipshit is enjoying the food and fashion of your home culture while rejecting it’s people. Think about a Maga moron voting to kick out all the Mexicans while wearing a sombrero and eating tacos; it’s a hypocrisy of culture vs race.
That’s just racism and you’re not going to fix it by isolating the immigrants more by chastising people that enjoy their culture.
It makes zero sense if the goal is to fight racism. If anything you’d want there to be MORE immersion and exchange of cultures so the immigrants are seen as part of the new fabric instead of separate from it.
I’m telling you how people feel, I’m not writing a manual towards a post race society. When people feel ostracised because they look Mexican, they get salty about the same society who routinely rejected them and made them feel like outsiders gleefully housing down Mexican food and cosplaying at being Mexican.
“We got to keep them seperate but treat them equal!”
Hmm wonder where I heard that before.
In the end, progressives and racists shared the same end goal: Segregation
Great, let’s retread the right-wing’s favorite progressive strawmen for teh lulz. Any other culture war bullshit I should feel unjustly attacked over?
Culture is meant to be shared, as long as you’re respectful and you’re not caricaturing or mocking the culture you’re trying to portray, most people from said culture would be flattered.
Yeah context and intend make all the difference. Cultural appropriation is when you try to clad yourself in something that is a facsimile of another culture, usually for marketing or influence purposes, but you neither understand nor have any intend to understand the culture itself or the meaning behind the parts you use for your (usually financial) gain.
IDK, even then, I don’t think you need to understand the culture about it so much. E.g. there was some incident about a white girl wearing a qipao to prom and she got called out for it. In the end, it’s just a piece of clothing that looks nice. It isn’t some deeply symbolic thing for people.
I don’t expect her to try to understand Chinese culture before wearing a qipao (which originated in Mongolia before Chinese appropriated it BTW), and I don’t expect Chinese to understand Western culture before wearing a suit and tie.
But obviously there are some cases, as you said where context does matter.
On one hand certain things have certain meaning in the culture and maybe some people will look sidewise but on the other hand people that practice that culture probably don’t expect some random dude to know everything it their culture. But “cultural appropriation” has mostly been used to virtue signal
I’ve never heard about “cultural appropriation” outside of jokes making fun of it. And it’s one of the right’s favourite strawmen. Maybe it’s time to let it go?
The counterexample to Mexicans and their Sombreros is Plains Indians and their War bonnet (those feather crowns they used to sell as “Indian kids costumes”), whenever cultural appropriation is mentioned this comes up, so I’d be rather surprised if you hadn’t heard of it before.
Any spicy takes on that one, or have you really just never heard of it?
Idk if I’m just old now and it’s not the parties I go to but I’m sure glad that “sexy native american” isn’t really a Halloween costume anymore.
Lol, reminds me of one of the Mario games a while back - no idea what the context was, but Mario took on different personas, which I’m assuming gave him abilities specific to whatever ‘form’ he took kinda like Kirby.
Anywho, one of them was a Mexican theme, which made Mario don a sombrero and poncho. Lots of touchy white people on the internet were PISSED cuz how could Nintendo be so insensitive to the Mexican culture?!
…meanwhile, Mexican gamers were fucking ecstatic cuz HOLY SHIT MARIO’S WEARING A SOMBRERO! LET’S GOOOOOO!!!
Good times.
That was either Super Mario Odyssey or Paper Mario: Sticker Star (Mario can wear a sombrero in both). In Odyssey it’s just a themed cosmetic that can be bought with coins. In Sticker Star, it’s an attack.
Yeah and one of the reasons why we will never get again paper Mario references in other Mario games
God-damnit
Case in point: Mexicans loved Speedy Gonzalez.
Probably because he always outwits his opponents and always wins. He’s not any more crazy than the other Looney Tunes, he’s as smart as Bugs, and unlike Bugs, he’s never cruel and remains firmly heroic.
That’s the crux. He’s a Mexican stereotype, but at the time, it was rare to have a good guy who looked like that.
He was also the exact opposite of the other stereotype of the “lazy Mexican” - which, for anyone who’s ever worked construction with actual Mexicans, is comically inaccurate.
Rodríguez cousin knew how to pack heat
I wonder how much of the ‘lazy Mexican’ stereotype comes from a combination of an afternoon siesta (…to avoid the hottest part of the day, which could be deadly prior to air conditioning), and the chronic anemia that could be caused by hookworm infestations that used to be common in areas with poor sanitation (incl. the American south; some of the same stereotypes existed regarding rural southerners for many decades)?
Interestingly, they also made a heroic “lazy” Mexican in the form of Slowpoke Rodriguez. (He pack a gun.)
Literally no Latin American is going to be bothered Or annoyed in any way whatsoever if you don typical dresses of their culture.
We love our culture and love it even more when we influence gringos to dress as our ancestors did.
The joy is palpable. It makes you part of the family. And that’s plenty
Besides, no one here knows what the deal is with getting offended on behalf of someone else. If anyone has a problem, they speak up their minds.
Slurs? Motherfückêr, that’s half our language.
This is one thing ive never understood about “cultural appropriation.” If someone is partaking in your nations/cultures traditions, apperal, food, etc. Why is that a bad thing? Wouldnt people want their traditions known and shared and experienced by many?
Idk im just a white guy who loves dia de los muertos
As a Quebecois, I like that Canadians like poutine. I don’t like that they pretend they have invented it. I also like that they like maple syrup and the traditions surrounding it (cabane à sucre). I don’t like that they appropriate it as a thing of their own (we produce 90% of global maple syrup).
There’s a big difference between participation and appropriation, and the “anti-woke” hive mind goes out of it’s way to conflate the two.
It’s a thin line between celebrating indigenous cultures and heritage and exploiting it. The Washington Redskins being something I feel everyone can clearly see was over that line, but wearing a sombrero is clearly nowhere near it.
I mean I’m Bavarian and if people wear Lederhosen and set up their own Oktoberfest it’s kinda lame. Not that I think it’s bad, it’s just that I’m not a fan of that stuff here either. You can totally have all of that. I keep the many many small breweries making fantastic beer.
Yeah, but lederhosen are just kind of neat. Who doesn’t like their men in short leather shorts, right? (Seriously though, the construction for very traditional lederhosen is kind of neat. I’ve tried it, and it’s a challenge without being able to skive all your seams.)
Enjoying other cultures isn’t appropriation. I think the line where it becomes appropriation is profiteering. If you are commodifying and profiting off someone else’s culture that’s pretty shitty. Obviously that’s not a perfectly clear cut line (who ‘owns’ culture?), but it’s a good place to start.
So is every company making and marketing tortilla chips and salsa appropriating culture if they are from New York City? Is every pizzeria that isn’t in Italy profiteering off of Italian culture? Is a French Bistro in Kansas City wrong? Is it wrong to wear a Scottish Kilt made in Viet Nam?
I think each of the described situations has a different specific answer because the topic is nuanced. As stated above, it can sometimes to be messy to say who owns some piece of culture. But beyond that, the most useful tool is an examination of socioeconomic power dynamics.
If there is a cultural group that is poor, and an outsider from a rich/wealthy group commodifies and sells their culture, while giving nothing to those people, you’d probably agree that that’s a shitty thing to do. Their culture obviously had some kind of material wealth value that they received none of.
However, if you take a situation where both parties are well off it seems a lot less shitty. Especially if the cultural group in question is already commodifying and profiting off the same piece of culture.
If you can’t unravel the knot of cultural ownership, then does anyone really own it? It would appear to me that “everyone” owns it at that point and can partake in it freely and adapt it to their wants an needs. And no matter the culture, there is always socioeconomic disparities within that group. No matter how small or downtrodden they may appear to you. Someone is always going to be a little bit better off than you and someone else is always going to have a little more power than you.
So is Tostitos racist for not mailing checks to every Mexican person everywhere? Because they sure as hell are making bank selling those chips and Salsa to you. OMG! are YOU part of the problem?
I think that’s still tricky. For instance, most parts of the world have few Japanese migrants, yet Japanese restaurants are almost everywhere. Usually these are owned by other Asian migrants. This is clearly profiteering, but I don’t see it as particularly problematic.
also when it becomes an issue is influenced by how accurate it is, how overused it feels, and (obviously) if it was made with the intent to insult
It’s a tough line to draw, because even if they aren’t the main profitees, the culture where the thing originated often still profited. e.g. AFAIK rock’n’roll getting popular with white americans was pretty good for black americans, even though many of the best selling artists (e.g. Elvis Presley) were white.
IMO it’s appropriation if it’s done disrespectfully or in an exploitative or profiteering way. Otherwise, it would just be cultural segregation. Imagine liberalism turned full apartheid.
So if I want to open a Pinata factory, I can only sell them to Mexicans? Or can I sell them to anyone, but only to non-Mexicans at a profit? Or must every Pinata be made at home by a loving Mexican Grandmother for her Grandchildren only?
It’s awesome, racists and progs have the same end goal
Segregation.
It’s called White Savior Complex.
“Only I, a white person can save you from-- pick a thing. Because I believe you are incapable of fending for yourself, I shall be offended for you!”
Idk im just a white guy who loves dia de los muertos
How dare you
Clothing and food are surface, but important, cultural signs. It can be easy to observe and emulate these for one’s own gain either socially or econically. All the while the culture from which these signs are derive are ignored.
Dressing up like a war chief for Halloween is partaking in the costume, but not the culture.
But who cares, right?
It’s important to root these in a history of colonial exploitation, marginalization, and erasure. A group of people whose way of life has been noted as barbaric, backwards, or savage were often the same reasons colonial powers saw it fit to steal from them, enslave, and murder them. Donning a cultures dress or making their food tastes “better” has done nothing to restore connection with that culture. It is just a more polite form of their erasure. They have been robbed of their soveignty.Another phenomena, as noted in the comic, is the chill acceptance of this by the appropriated culture. Here, they face no real erasure. Heck, you don’t really see this in newly immigrated peoples who want to make a better life for themselves. Being seen is success. But you speak to their first generation children and having their culture flattened to the surface signs can be infuriating if you are the type who views assimilation as a type of loss.
I personally think there is space for a member of the dominant culture to appreciate the culture if they’ve been invited. But it is important to be careful here as well. Because you may have earned that right with one group from within the culture, but that is not transferable and that exception must be earned again.
Heck, it gets even more complicated when people looking to just keep their schools open and working sge adults employed couldn’t care less when asked, but will ask if there’s anything that can be done to stabilize their community.
So I’ve written a lot and feel like I missed so much and glossed over much of what is important. What have you read about the subject that really attempted to wrestle with the concept?
I am Latin American. We couldn’t even give an atomic sliver of a speck of fuck about gringos using part of our culture or the intention behind it.
If anything it’s enjoyable, one more for the family.
And if we get offended? Don’t worry. We don’t need anyone from a “dominant culture” to look down on us, thinking about saving us because we are oh so weak, or speak for us.
We can speak and do speak for ourselves.
Good thing I’m not part of the “dominant culture”. Would hate to speak for you. Just speaking for myself.
Obviously intent comes into it, where wearing a reductive costume without any awareness (your Halloween costume example) is callous and ignorant of that person. I think some ignorance can be excused if this person couldn’t reasonably be expected to understand all the implications of a costume, even if it’s someone who should be expected to (thinking Trudeau Jr or Prince Harry when younger).
Regardless of the hypothesised (or real) impact to the community of someone wearing clothing arguably offensive to minorities with ancestry in the culture being mocked, those aspects aren’t what this cartoon is about. It’s about idiots who don’t understand nuance and repeat shit they see on social media unthinkingly until you get this absurd situation where someone wearing a hat and wearing it well is screamed at in public for no discernible reason.
Lots of people seeing it will do the same kind of wrong-generalisation in the opposite direction though, and take the valid point the cartoon makes to write off all concerns with cultural appropriation, including the valid ones you just made in your first paragraph.
The world is nuanced, and that’s nearly never conveyed well in our current public communications systems…
I have no problem with that at all. Please dress up for the 16th of September, the Mexican Independence Day, or as a catrín on Día de los Muertos. My Korean friend looked so good as an Adelita and I was so proud of her.
I guess I’d only have a problem with a Halloween costume that exaggerates a negative and unrealistic stereotype but I don’t think people make those anymore, or at least I haven’t seen one.
Some people just love to find reasons to get offended.
Hell, a way to carry a baby was called cultural appropriation by some black people where I live when first Nations have been carrying their baby the same way on our territory since way before any black people set foot in northern America but we don’t hear them complain.
“Cultural Appropiation” is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever fucking heard.
All cultures grow by learning about and adopting customs of other cultures, or in other words by appropiating things from other cultures.
And if they did that didn’t we wouldn’t have things like anime (Japan took the art of animation from America, not only did The US invent cartoons, but anime evolve from styles used on early Disney cartoons), rock music (Rock musicians are predominantly white, but rock itself evolved from distinctly black forms of music), or really most food in general (Pizza’s from Italy, French Fries are from Belgium, Hot dogs are from Germany… Need I go on?)
At best, demonizing cultural appropiation is just encouraging segregation.
Now if you’re wearing the colors or clothing of another culture specifically with intent to insult or in a less-than-glamorous way… That’s a different story. (I’m talking about those of you who think putting on an ET Mask and a Sombreo and claiming you’re an illegal alien is hillarious)
This is the kind of Neo Liberal nonsense that makes me wish I had a party to root for that wasn’t the Democrats
It’s damn true. I ran a crew of workers that were Spanish speaking. After two years all I gotta say is, is there a word that isn’t used as a dick?
Everything means dick in Spanish if you try hard enough
It applies to everything btw.
To date, “the thing from the thingy” is the most sought spare part in all of Latin America.
You don’t know what it is, no one knows, but it means nothing and everything at the same time.
Our hardware store dependents are fluent in trillion of languages at this point
Besides, no one here knows what the deal is with getting offended on behalf of someone else. If anyone has a problem, they speak up their minds.
I can explain. In theory the person who SHOULD be offended is a member of a minority and speaking their mind would open them to backlash from the majority so they say nothing. Its mental gymnastics that let’s a member of the majority “be a hero” for a minority even if that person doesn’t exist. But who cares about that as long as the white lady can think she is a good guy.
Its stupid and is not really about the appropriated culture.
So, virtue signaling?
Ah, as expected
Snowflakes: “It is offensive for a westerner to wear a Japanese kimono. You are not Japanese!”
Native Japanese: “We insist you wear this kimono so you feel like part of the group.”
Based on a true story.
Cultural appropriation is when you take something sacred or special and don’t treat it with respect. Sombreros and parkas are just clothes.
I wouldn’t say it offends me, but it is a bit annoying when someone wears a weirdly modernized/made-sexy version of the traditional clothes of my region, when they’re from somewhere else and don’t give a shit about the history. Like, it’s not problematic or anything, like it would be with religious items or clothing of marginalized groups, but I’d still prefer they don’t.
I think the more important factor is taking ownership over something that originated elsewhere.
Even though it isn’t sacred, I would argue that the association between Great Britain and tea comes from appropriation. It wasn’t necessarily appropriation for the Portuguese to bring tea back to Europe, but it certainly was when the British used Chinese seeds and cultivation techniques in India to push China out of the trade.
Thanks for explaining. I never understood the American outrage about cultural appropriation but it’s just about respecting sacred symbols from other cultures? Sounds about right, please feel free to dress as a Frenchman with beret and baguette as long as you respect our no-tipping policy.
Next item to discover on my list: why are Americans so upset about “black face”. And that’s what I witnessed in Sevilla (Spain) recently which did not seem racist to me at all: https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2023/01/05/polemica-espana-blackface-reyes-magos-trax/
The other comment explains most of it, but when it comes to acting specifically there’s also some level of “why didn’t you just get an actual black person”
Fair enough!
Next item to discover on my list: why are Americans so upset about “black face”.
That’s because of minstrel shows. They were American comedy acts where actors would paint their faces black and act out racist stereotypes. The premise was “look at me! I’m a black person!” and then they’d do something stupid and everyone would laugh. Note that black people were slaves at the time. When slavery was (mostly) abolished after the civil war, the shows and makeup became symbols of racism.
It’s kind of like how a swastika in a Buddhist temple is fine but a swastika tattoo on a white American isn’t. The swastika doesn’t have to be racist symbol, but there are few places you could display one without it being interpreted as a racist symbol.
Great explanation, thank you very much!
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It’s also when someone takes from other cultures and then claim it as their own without acknowledging the origin. Like how Elvis covered songs from black artists and didn’t credited the original artists and now white people think they solely invented rock n roll.
Yeah this comic is just for snowflakes trying to feel better.
They aren’t thongs unless they come from the Thong region of Australia, otherwise they are just sparkling flip-flops
Don’t be silly, thongs have nothing to do with Australia, they were invented in the 19th Century by Frenchman Philippe Follope.
At my wedding reception, my wife’s cousins plopped a giant black and gold sombrero on my head to welcome me to the family. I’m expected to bring said sombrero to family get togethers and smash beers con mi familia
Are you sure it was black and gold and not white and blue?
I see muchos Modelos in your future!
