cultural appropriation

[nceccoli]

Just had a discussion. aibu to say that cultural appropriation works both ways? A number of black bloggers and models have slated Kim Kardashian and Kylie jenner for wearing "boxer braids". But I have yet to see anyone commenting on Beyonce culturally appropriate Indian culture , hairstyle, dress and adornment for her song Hymn for the Weekend?

non I have heard people saying non Muslims partaking in Ramadan isn't ok. There was a thread about in Aibu a while a go.

I do the odd day of fasting as my best friend is a Muslim and he invites me to. We also do charity work those days. But many said it was patronising on here.

That's the issue. What some people think wouldn't cause offence, sometimes does.

It does, especially to women. I've experienced it myself.

Ubiki, snarky posts like that just makes you sound like those undergrads who think media and cultural studies is a 'soft option'. They don't last a term.

But isn't just about everything cultural apropriattion?

We practice Eastern exercises, eat Indian food, listen to music influenced by music of black origin sung by white people for example.

That said, I can see why people marching about in Native American head dresses is innapropriate - so where's the line?

I had braids at school. I didn't want to represent black people, I wanted to marry Swampy and wasn't allowed dreadlocks

ilove I am sorry to hear that some people are still so bigoted. That's really not ok. It downright pisses me off.

ilove totally agree with Katenka - it's not OK and makes me really angry too. I wish it would change but will it? Attitudes change over time so is that likely to happen here or is it more deeply entrenched than that?

In secondary school, an odd-ish classmate of mine started wearing a magen David (Jewish star). I am jewish, she was not. I felt irked and I didn't really have the vocab to understand why.

Now I realise that I felt she had no right to claim the history that star represents. She had no connection, no link to the violent oppression Jewish people have historically been subjected to.
So, whilst I would welcome anyone to come and visit a synagogue, learn about Jewish tradition and history, eat kosher deli food - wearing the magen David is a step to far, because there were lots of people who didn't have a choice and were oppressed based on their wearing it in very recent history.

Um, nooo, French plaits have been used by plenty of cultures for plenty of time. Call 'em another name if you wish, but we've been wearing these to school since, like, the war. The term has been used for years in 'how to wear your hair at the gym articles' and related to, well, boxing, so I'm not seeing how this is a specific term for a cornrow-inspired style either. It just meant the French plait or Dutch reverse plait began closer to the front of the hair, I think.

Thanks . I don't think there are rules about what's CA and what isn't - it's all contextual, as ForTheLongest and noname suggest. As to what will happen - I think that, after several years of progress, we're in a period of strong racist and misogynist backlash at the moment, which is tied up in complex ways with the global financial crisis and instability/fragmentation of the roles that have traditionally defined White men (earning power, familial authority, heterosexual prowess, etc). I don't see much improving until the economy does.

I don't understand 'cultural appropriation' it's true.

I have a Michelangelo sketch of Mary with Jesus on my wall. I'm not a Christian. Is that cultural appropriation?

Surely culture is a living thing which develops because people feel able to take other cultures and make something new?
Surely having rules about who has 'allowed' certain firms of expression is actually culturally conservative and creatively stifling?

I think people who don't participate in ethnic stuff, but who slag other people off for doing so, using sophisticated language comes from exactly the same emotional racist space that calling someone a "nigger liver' for dancing to blues music does. If ablack blogger slags if whites for doing black things, its the same place too and internalised racist uncomfortableness of seeing a racial behaviour 'exposed" by seeing it in the dominant race.

Having a white friend with dreads was part of the slide towards seeing black men as people and not gangster twats, so I don't see sharing bits and pieces as anything but appreciation and blurring of weirdo difference lines.

People don't have a right to go through life never being offended. Sure, it's good manners to try not to offend people, particuarly on sensitive issues like race and religion where people may genuinely feel vulnerable. But there is no law that forbids occasionally causing offence.

This fuss about "cultural appropriation" seems to be a very "young" thing - I'd honestly not heard the term until my (then) 13 year old came out with it. Much if not most culture is "appropriated" - starting with our dress (jeans - appropriated from American pioneers and French manual workers, as the word origins of the word denim should tell you) and our music (shouldn't even need to spell this out). I'm not sure where you draw the line.

Plaits are not part of slave culture they are part of African culture.

www.brighthubeducation.com/social-studies-help/121031-cultural-significance-of-hair-braiding-in-african-tribes/. It's more than just a fashion statement.
My problem with some aspects of cultural appropriation for me as a descendant of slaves is this. My ancestors were taken from their homes, robbed of their language, robbed of their culture, robbed of their religion, brutalized, tortured, raped and treated as less than human for centuries. For me the things that you see in black culture (which is predominately from the descendants of slaves) is a reminder and a connection to the people we once were or way of celebrating who we are as people. We were not always slaves, we were not always the poor and down trodden, we had our own traditions, or own culture and it seems to me that any little thing we as black people have and try to hold on to so we can have that connection is open to ridicule or appropriation or worse ridicule then appropriation.
Not sure if I explained my self well in that paragraph but I hope that some of you will understand the point I'm trying to make.

Well, like I said, I dislike rules, because real life and real cultures are messy and complicated and context matters. But this isn't a bad primer: everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/
and easy to read. It's too prescriptive, and doesn't sufficiently account for hybridity, but not bad as a 101. Anyway, I'm off for now, but will check this thread later for sure.

Plaits have been part of lots of cultures for thousands of of years.

That's what confuses me. European women and men have plaited their hair for thousands of years.

I can't see how any one culture can claim it's theirs and others can't use it.

I can see how wearing native American apparel is hugely insulting. Those things have a spiritual significance, and it is trivialising it to use it as fashion.

People use Buddhas as fashion, and crosses. And I do find that distasteful.

I really don't see the problem with braids. As someone points out, the ancient Egyptians wore them. It may have been a social stigma at some point but so were tattoos. And they are everywhere now.

I am happy to be corrected if wrong.

And I'm Scottish and I don't give a shit that tartan is now a fashion thing.

The trend for wearing rosary beads a few years back was weird, and yes hipsters were wearing them in nightclubs.
I think it's eay to see the appropriation of a religious symbol and how that could be offensive.
Regarding the hairstyle - that debate will run and run, we still have the "good hair" debate raging, not much has changed there in the past few years.

Well I've found my perfect excuse.

I stupidly gave up alcohol for Lent, but seeing as only one of my parents, out of my whole family, was born in the UK and we aren't Christian, I can now declare that I need to open a bottle of wine, lest I be accused of CA.

I do, however understand the issue that Black writers have with the hypocrisy, of idealising White Women with cosmetically added 'Black features', whilst despising Black Women.

I think the Star of David has been used longer by Pagans than it has by Jews, and to this day it is very much a Pagan symbol as well as a Jewish one.

can now declare that I need to open a bottle of wine, lest I be accused of CA.

Do it

Those damn CA Vikings

Thank you Tootsie for those links

I hate the way straight women have appropriated anal sex and being camp.

I thought it was nice the Kardashian women have braids as it looks like her daughter has afro hair so nice for her to see natural styles she can do herself.