To think wearing clothes from a different culture is NOT cultural appropriation

[MrsMystery]

When I'm at home, I'm regularly in a salwar kameez, they are pretty, comfortable and lightweight. I'm not Asian btw.

SIL has pointed out to me that what I am doing is cultural appropriation

AIBU to think she's nuts?

Potatoes aren't native to the UK either. before they arrived people ate parsnips instead.

also is it ok to put pepper on our food? or is that cultural wotsit too?

I hate parsnips. And carrots aren't meant to be orange. They are really purple.

Oh boak to parsnips. I guess that makes me a cultural imperialist. Whatevs.

The OP can have so much fun at the expense of her SIL I think.

Can we do language/words too? Hee hee hee.

Bungalow - I believe that's an Indian word. Also jodhpurs.

cardamom

I'll just eat some angry pastry.

Oh dear. I had the most beautiful white silk cheongsam/qípáo dress made for me when i was working in Hong Kong (with pink and purple edging and tiny clear crystals sewn into the pattern). I wore it in the evening of my first wedding. Everyone said how gorgeous it was. (and it is, but i'm now too fat to get into it ) It never occurred to me it could be offensive. I always celebrate Chinese New Year too. And Diwali. I'm such a bastard!

I have bought clothes in Turkey, India, Egypt and Morocco - they are extremely comfortable in the hot weather, because they are more used to it than us i suppose, why shouldn't we take sartorial advice from those which know better than us?

I just passed a foreign tourist wearing a tartan scarf. I think she needs to be told how offensive she is being to me, my country and my culture, although techically, it being from another clan, it shouldn't bother me. Should it? I am confused now.

Oh Christ nicename don't even start me on tartan. Although actually, see you Jimmy hats are offensive - maybe OP's SIL could pop up to tell the tourists off?

Of course wearing clothes from other cultures is not cultural appropriation. Wearing religious garments I think seems different. For example, would it be right for people in a largely Hindu country to wear a nuns habit because they liked the look of it? The issue of cultural appropriation most comes up when white people are wearing religious or ceremonial clothes or artefacts as a fashion statement.

No arguments on that one. Although I have also seen 'viking' helmets with red/blond pigtails attached. Just plain wrong! And all those anglocised names in Scotland? I speak about two words of gaelic, but it still offends me.

When i see all those people fashionably dressed as chimney sweeps, street urchins and pickpockets, i feel furious for the offence they are causing me and my cockney bredrin. Likewise when i see foreign people wearing a top hat, cravat and monocle, i don't just think 'what a twat', oh no, i think stop oppressing me by appropriating my cultures class system

I think there is a valid point there with regard to colonial tourism. However, there is also a point when this liberal hand ringing just becomes a parody of itself. The only people i know who give a shite about this are white MC liberals overcome with self inflicted guilt. It's all so reminiscent of the peoples front of judea. Surely there are more pressing issues affecting certain cultures rather than some white people titting about in their clothes.

I have had so many meetings with white do gooding liberals, about attracting/appealing to ethic minorities and poor people. Surely just employing some of them might be a fucking start!

I suppose it comes down to 'are you taking the piss' and/or 'have you taken a religious garb/sign and turned it into a mere fashion statement'. Not sure where the vatican stands with Madonna and the rosary bead thing.

Just passed an arab woman wearing a long, flowing indian skirt. Should I...?

And last time I was in NZ, I saw no bare, tattoed bottoms (much to my dismay). When did those poor men get made to cover their pert bottoms?

OP, Tumblr is mostly used by people from the US. If you want to give your SIL a serious answer, I would say that you are going to decide what is and is not offensive based on what people with a variety of cultural traditions in the UK have to say about it, not follow the rules dictated by the world's most dominant culture - the US.

TBF nice I do find wearing rosary beads as jewellery a bit off - not quite offensive, but not quite the done thing either. Always reminds me about the urban myth of the Glaswegian girl going into a jewellers and asking for 'a necklace with the wee man oan it'

I have had so many meetings with white do gooding liberals, about attracting/appealing to ethic minorities and poor people. Surely just employing some of them might be a fucking start!

Oh, amen to this!

And Madonna wearing rosary beads may be annoying but, since she is an Italian-American Catholic (however lapsed) it's not really cultural appropriation, is it?

Op's SIL sounds very tiresome. She's suffering from 'Internet appropriation' isn't she? A bit 'I skimmed a not-very-thoughtful Internet article about this and now I am an expert'.

Nursey how odd, I have never ever heard cis used that way. It's a term used to differentiate between trans* people and people who are happy with the gender they were assigned at birth.

So I am a ciswoman, as I am biologically female and identify as female too. It's got nothing to do with being white!

I think whoever used it to get at you was confused about what it means.

Yes, I was a bit at Nursey's definition of cis woman too - as far as I'm aware it's all about gender identity, nothing to do with race, and google seems to agree: Cis woman definition. I think someone has been giving you a bit of a confused explanation.

Ah, she's clearly just picked it up as one of her causes. If you want to wind her up, just choose something even more pretentious and tell her to worry about it. Job done.

Anyway, couldn't you sigh and suggest it's a bit culturally imperialistic for her, a white woman, to tell you, a white woman, what non-white women might think?

When in India I wore sari, I'm VERY white. No one batted an eyelid at my clothes, it was just what people wore. My blue eyes and black hair however, that was whispered about.

ooh did you have the 'evil eye' melon, like in Greece and Turkey?
i remember an old greek granny used to make the sign of the evil eye to an Irish girl with bright pale blue eyes who was working in her kitchen....