To not fully understand "cultural appropriation"

[hettyGreek]

It seems like its a US phrase that is slowly getting adopted in the UK.

For the most part I just don't get it. If something is racist just call it racist.

I don't have any issue with someone white having dreadlocks for instance. These have been worn by many people of different cultures across the earth. Or am I missing something? If anything its funny if one culture try to take ownership of something that has a very mixed origin.

Next time I see tourists eating fish and chips I tell them to stop the cultural appropriation.

The difference with the fish and chips is that the sell of fish and chips is dominated by white people. It's British food. The people mostly profiting from it is white people. The people making it is not being looked down upon. It's part of British culture. It dominates. The recipe is not being changed to suit the white market or the dominant market.

If this was in India and the fish and chips was being curried and it was leading to the extinction of fish and chips in the uk then that would also be considered CA.

I think we should mock all religions.

Cultural appropriation is a very live issue on literature where writers are criticised for writing in the voice of someone from a different culture (more usually a white writer appropriating the voice of a minority person).

Genuine question. When is the line crossed from copying something cool and fun, into CA? Like I imagine the powder paint thing will be copied because it's pretty and fun with no sinister motivations.

History helps. Most of them is down to history of how the people are treated or still being treated about the things being copied. How white European treated their ancestors while their children enjoy it with no shame upon them. With some of them it's the only identity or few of something that identifies them as that. A few of the accusation is out of fear. The fact that they won't have anything else they call their own. If you loose your ancestry and the few things you found a necessity yet you were demonised for. Stopped you from using it because they wanted it gone or cease to exists and now other people other than you want to profit or only them can profit from it because they are the only people who can have the big market share. Or access to funds that can help with their venture to sell head dresses or yoga classes.
That's the problem with cultural appropriation.

By the way, I do think that the problem is much bigger in America than in Europe because of history with black and Native American

The article linked to about the college food is awful.

I don't know if it's a spoof or not (it reads like a sarcastic daily mash type article), but if it's real then it's wildly offensive!

It's very 'let's mock the minorities! How DARE they suggest that we've fucked up the traditional dishes and tried to pass off the vague appropriations as authentic. Fucking moaning minority types...."

I really hope it's not a serious piece.

Hmm... I'm not entirely sure of my opinion on CA. Part of me thinks it encourages racism and divisions rather than discourages it. And apart from anything else, the people claiming something is CA are massively assumptive about the person they are complaining about. How do they know from looking what the persons background and life experience is, and whether the thing they are 'appropriating' is positive or negative?

Frizzly the students at oberlin are some of the most privileged in the US. Them complaining about food cooked by minimum wage workers and saying it offended them is the offensive bit for me.

But if you like, a non-New York Post article on the story

here

1.
Diep Nguyen, a College first-year from Vietnam, jumped with excitement at the sight of Vietnamese food on Stevenson Dining Hall’s menu at Orientation this year. Craving Vietnamese comfort food, Nguyen rushed to the food station with high hopes. What she got, however, was a total disappointment. The traditional Banh Mi Vietnamese sandwich that Stevenson Dining Hall promised turned out to be a cheap imitation of the East Asian dish.
Instead of a crispy baguette with grilled pork, pate, pickled vegetables and fresh herbs, the sandwich used ciabatta bread, pulled pork and coleslaw. “It was ridiculous,” Nguyen said. “How could they just throw out something completely different and label it as another country’s traditional food?”

2.
Perhaps the pinnacle of what many students believe to be a culturally appropriative sustenance system is Dascomb Dining Hall’s sushi bar. The sushi is anything but authentic for Tomoyo Joshi, a College junior from Japan, who said that the undercooked rice and lack of fresh fish is disrespectful. She added that in Japan, sushi is regarded so highly that people sometimes take years of apprenticeship before learning how to appropriately serve it.
“When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture,” Joshi said. “So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”

3.
Another student, Yasmine Ramachandra, offered a distinct complaint, saying she was compelled to join the protest “after arriving at Stevenson Dining Hall with other South Asian students on Diwali, a Hindu holiday, and finding the traditional Indian tandoori made with beef, which many Hindi people do not eat for religious reasons.”
*
*
Have cut and pasted the 3 quotes directly attributed to students from the linked article.

I agree with the students tbh.

The wages of the workers are nothing to do with food which is undercooked, or which is marketed as something it clearly isn't.

Why is it ok to mock students from Vietnam, Japan & a South Asian Hindu for pointing out that the food is a) not as advertised, and b) undercooked?

I don't see how what they have said is offensive at all tbh.

I think fine, complain about terrible cooking,
Definitely lose your shit over, beef in a Hindu dish (or dish served to celebrate a Hindu occasion)

But it's not CA. it is crap food made by people who are ignorant.
Complain, get them educated in how to cook traditional dishes, if they are going to offer them.

CA I think can be a serious issue. I think in America especially so.

But unfortunately people banding about 'CA' for everything, are actually not doing the true CA cause any good at all.

They're not pointing out the food is crap. They're saying the crap food is oppressing them and appropriating their culture.

I can imagine some women, probably African American, on the minimum wage, trying to cook something nice but failing to make the grade. And a hugely wealthy and privileged bunch of students claiming her efforts are literally stealing their culture and causing them genuine upset and offence.

It's ridiculous.

Why is it ok to mock students from Vietnam, Japan & a South Asian Hindu for pointing out that the food is a) not as advertised, and b) undercooked?

That isn't CA, maybe they're just bad cooks, perhaps their burgers are substandard too. What they are complaining about is badly cooked food, it's more than a leap to class it as CA.

Those students sound entitled and frightful. I can just imagine the comments in the kitchens!

I took the mick out of this with my friend the other day, we are set to dress up in Native American style at various events, as on American based fb groups this is what they bang on about.

It's silly imo, i can't see how any of it can be racist if there is no intent of racism behind it.
It's just clothes or accessories.

But unfortunately people banding about 'CA' for everything, are actually not doing the true CA cause any good at all.

I think this is my opinion as well.

There are certain CA issues that are very important. Some are people jumping on a band wagon.

I wouldn't treat someone in India turning fish and chips into something more appealing for locals as CA, though.

Traditional Chinese food wouldn't sell in England in the large amounts it currently does. So it's been changed. I have never been in a Chinese not owned by Chinese people. Is that CA? They are selling food as 'Chinese' which in fact isn't actually Chinese. Our local Chinese takeaway owners call it 'chin- inglish ' .

They make a very good living at from it and would argue passionately about their right to do so and how it's not CA.

Some is very serious. Like the woman who was pretending to be black, for years and getting someone to pretend to be her father. Especially given her job.

“How could they just throw out something completely different and label it as another country’s traditional food?”

“When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture,” Joshi said. “So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”

South Asian students on Diwali, a Hindu holiday, and finding the traditional Indian tandoori made with beef, which many Hindi people do not eat for religious reasons.”

Cultural Appropriation aside, I think the comments above are neither "entitled" nor "frightful" (as stated by a PP).
I think they are a perfectly understandable reaction.

accusing someone of "cultural appropriation" is bullying, plain and simple.

Oh, fgs. It's done all the time. Are we all guilty of CA by producing an inauthentic home-cooked curry? I very much doubt whether an "authentic" Indian family would use a cook-in sauce. And what is an "authentic" Indian family anyway? The ones I know hardly all gather round for a traditional dining experience every day using recipes handed down since time immemorial.

Just because you don't/haven't bothered to understand something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

DN4geek explained CA very well, so I'm not sure why people are being so wilfully obtuse, but then MN is always like that about racial issues.

we are set to dress up in Native American style at various events, as on American based fb groups this is what they bang on about.

Why? Particularly after a quick google would tell you that traditional Native American dress is not "just clothes and accessories".

Just to add we are purposefully representing a part of their culture while dressed in native American style clothing.

The beef in the curry was ridiculous. But not CA in my opinion. It's someone not thinking or not knowing enough. They tried to do something, they failed. But not CA in my opinion.

Why is it ok to mock students from Vietnam, Japan & a South Asian Hindu for pointing out that the food is a) not as advertised, and b) undercooked

Americans make a shit cup of tea as well. So what?

its nonsense. Culture is what you have experienced in your lifetime, nothing to do with race. I have lived in 7 countries, and enjoyed and adopted aspects of the culture in each of them, for example I love black bread, which I first ate in Germany, I cook my porridge to the recipe I was taught in Kenya.

I have been accused of "cultural appropriation" for this.

How dare anyone tell me they "own" a way of cooking porridge because they are black and I am white.

I've actually lived in the country where this recipe came from, and the person accusing me had not. My children have grown up with this recipe

This is our culture and life experience as much as anyone's, regardless of the colour of my skin.

I think anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that a lot of foreign dishes served in the US, will be anything but authentic.

Missed your post ipity we are actually representing a part of their culture through performing so it is apropriate to dress as such.

From reading the thread I can understand if there is CA of religious or sacred things but can't quite pinpoint where that isn't apropriate, where is the line really.

Yes American tea is shit. They don't know how to make it. How dare they appropriate tea from the English.