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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to ask you to explain cultural appropriation and why it is bad to me

262 replies

ConfusedWife1234 · 04/05/2018 18:45

So I am a white woman of mixed European ancestry and I think most of the things I typically wear are European or US American in origin, apart from polo Shirts and khakis (which I learned are Indian in origin, but I did not even know this until recently).

So I am not sure what cultural appropriation is. Is it cultural appropriation:

-If a rich person dresses down
-If a poor person dresses like a billionaire
-If a civilian wears clothes of military origin
-If a white European dresses like a white American
-If a white European dresses like a Afroamerican
-If a young person attends a re-enactment group and dresses up for a historical event that happened before he or she was born

Or is is just cultural appropriation if a person from another culture chooses to dress in a dress worn for special occasion... like this girl who wore a Chinese wedding dress for her prom.

Also why is cultural appropriation bad. Not asking to be snarky here. Really interested to learn.

Is it that the dress is seen as sacred, like maybe a Christian would be offended if someone wore a cross as part of his dress... or is it the idea that a certain style of dress must be earned.

OP posts:
MillicentF · 06/05/2018 16:48

“Every country in the world has oppressed it own people, its neighbours and others. Stop wallowing in it as though it is some Badge of Dishonour”

Gosh. Wallowing is a strange word to use. I certainly think out colonial history, which is practically in living memory, is worth thinking about..........

TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain · 06/05/2018 17:05

It tends to be teenage girls and young women who bear the brunt of aggressive "calling out" for cultural appropriation, I've noticed.

Prom girl probably saw a Chinese woman on TV wearing a qipao and thought "that's gorgeous - it would make a great prom dress!" If she had insisted on being called a parody Chinese name and talked like Si and Am from the Lady and the Tramp all night, then she would have been mocking Chinese culture (as well as being a straightforward idiot) and should have been told. But she wasn't.

Likewise some of the young actresses and models who have come under fire for popularising plaited and braided hairstyles. I can remember being a young teen and seeing black pop singers on TV with amazing braided hair, and wishing my hair was the kind that looks good in those styles. It wasn't wanting to be black or even "urban" and cool, it was just liking someone's hairstyle.

I can understand the frustration when a beauty writer credits a current media personality with "inventing" hair braids. It doesn't take much journalistic skill to acknowledge that black women have been rocking that particular look for generations.

MistressDeeCee · 06/05/2018 17:12

OP you're here because you want to talk about people you appropriate, but not TO them.

& Whatever the case there are numerous detailed articles online about cultural appropriation

The fact you've asked your question on MN shows you want justification, not a real explanation that may be slightly uncomfortable and, God forbid, require you to think more about the meaning of what you do

But if you're here for stupid comments such as oh well black people listen to pop music so..native Americans do this or that so.. then you're in the right place

MrsHathaway has set it out very neatly. It wouldn't take much thinking to have a lightbulb moment re what cultural appropriation means.

& how it stinks when this world is not an equal playing field - and the people you appropriate are villified for wearing the same hair or clothing style long deemed unsuitable for them, but suddenly suitable for you because you are white.

Also culture vultures who suddenly come up with a cultural clothing range or arts collection and blatantly make a shitload of money out of it. Yet the people of the culture would never be afforded an opportunity to display their own culture and have money and accolades thrown at them.

Vultures are sly, aren't they? Forever circling.

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 17:24

“Crosses are frequently worn out of context by non-Christian people as fashion accessories and you can even find them on the walls of pubs or in pop concerts with women writhing around them.

Christians went all over the world killing and invading and forcing people to convert or die. They really don't get to whine now about inappropriate usage of their symbols of domination and oppression of others.

LaurieMarlow · 06/05/2018 17:24

I agree with the main point of this article, which is that there isn't anything problematic about cultural appropriation that isnt fundamentally about racism.

artreview.com/features/ar_december_2017_feature_cultural_appropriation_kenan_malik/

ConfusedWife1234 · 06/05/2018 17:25

Mistress You blame me if of wanting to approbiate. That is a really odd accusation because actually I never approbiated on purpose. I typically listen to European classical music and am a classical dresser.

True I own polo shirts and chinos but I bought them long before I even knew that they were Indian in origin... and why do you think there are no Indians on this board. Is this board whites only. Really odd accusation.

OP posts:
ConfusedWife1234 · 06/05/2018 17:29

Re German classical music. I never ever claimed Germans had superior genes which made them better at playing Ride of the Valkyries or whatever. I just said they had the cultural ackground to play this in a typical German way which gives the piece of music a German soul.
Because there is a certain cultural idea what a Valkyrie (for example) is like and East Asians (for example) might not have heard of tat, might have other ideas, might not care about Valkyries.

OP posts:
Dapplegrey · 06/05/2018 18:36

Millicent of course I'm aware. I'm interested to hear your view on it.

Alpineflowers · 06/05/2018 19:13

pollypebble -MillicentF, the English treatment of the Irish, banned their language,

When was this?

culture

Irish and British 'culture' was more or less the same prior to industrialisation

and religion.

Religion wasn't' banned' as such.
Irish and British Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Wesleyans etc were penalised for being non conformist. The state church was Anglican/CofE (in Ireland CofI) and it was expected that people should conform to it by attending Anglican mass. A repeated failure to attend could result in a small fine. It also meant that a 'non conformist' might be barred from some public offices, but penal laws did not just apply to the Irish and to Catholics, they applied to other denominations and to millions of British Catholics/non conformists too. It wasn't about being Irish or British or culture, penal laws applied to all

Death of one million through food laws and colonisation that resulted in the famine.

The famine was 'caused' by the potato blight Phytophthora Infestans

Use of all the country's resources, exporting food to Uk when the Irish were eating grass and dying,

The 1840's were a time of unrestricted free trade and laissez-faire policy. The same policy that saw widespread food shortages in England in the 1830's and 40's, children working long hours in coal mines and factories (average age of death in some of England's cities was 14). Pre famine, the rural Irish were healthier than many of those who living in England's slums (see army records)
The government could have done more to alleviate the famine and acted sooner, there had been warnings, but it was not a deliberate act

forced economic emigration

Most people from the famine hit areas migrated to England and Scotland. This is known as internal migration and it wasn't 'forced'

See Irish example, white culture. Did not cause genocides in other countries. All your ideas are so flawed.

Not sure what you mean here, but the Irish played just as a much a part in building the British empire/colonialism. There were plenty of Irish slave owners in the West Indies for example and many Irish were in the British army in India

BrendasUmbrella- It gets a bit murky there - English people have tried to stamp on other traditionally white cultures too -

How have 'English people' stamped on other white cultures? If you mean government? The government was made up of representatives from Britain and Ireland, it has been that way for hundreds of years.
Do you mean government pre 1177 AD and pre 1707 AD?
Or do you mean other 'white' people in the rest of the world?

BrendasUmbrella...stopping the Welsh learning their language at one point, the massive issues around Northern Ireland, and I believe we even attempted to ban the kilt at some point?...

'The English' did not 'ban' any language, Welsh, Scots or Irish. Some school teachers might have discouraged any other language than English, but this would have been at a local level and it was not government policy.

The kilt thing was for a short period when Charles Edward Stuart attempted to regain the British throne for the House of Stuart and it only applied to some regiments, it was punishable by a fine for the first offence (1746 Dress Act). A comparatively worse penalty was if an Englishman painted his face black or wore anything resembling a black disguise, he could expect to get a death sentence or a lifetime penal transportation (The Black Act 1723 , meant to discourage night time poaching)

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/05/2018 19:43

IronMan
Christians didn’t have exclusivity over invading, conquering, enslaving. What they did spanned over half a millennia not to mention the oppression of their own people. But still Christians today cannot be held accountable for the behaviour of the crusaders or the conquistadors.

ConfusedWife1234 · 06/05/2018 19:53

Not all Christians are white and descend from people holding slaves by the way. I think most don‘t.

And a lot of people who weren‘t Christians had Slaves, I heard that he word Slav comes from the word Slave, because the surrounding tribes took Slavic people as Slaves. Romans had sklaves, including English sklaves. The Muslims robbed Hungarian and Austrian boys to turn them into soldiers. Muslims conquered parts of Spain (Al Andalus) and made some of the inhabitants slaves.

OP posts:
IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 19:57

Christians didn’t have exclusivity over invading, conquering, enslaving

No, but thats not the point.

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 19:59

Not sure what you mean here, but the Irish played just as a much a part in building the British empire/colonialism. There were plenty of Irish slave owners in the West Indies for example and many Irish were in the British army in India

Complete bollocks. There were not plenty of Irish slave owners, they were Anglo-Irish ie British, not actual Irish. Don't pretend a colonised and oppressed people were part of the ruling elite just because they were said to be the same country Hmm

ConfusedWife1234 · 06/05/2018 20:01

But I am not sure whatyour point is. So there is a Black Christian who is saddened because the cross is miss used in music performance (for example), then we say: But that is okay because some white Chritians had slaves. How does this make sense?

OP posts:
IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 20:04

That isn't what was said, at all.

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 20:05

Its that you can't whine about your religious imagery being used by other cultures when your religion spent hundreds of years forcing other cultures to use your religious imagery, on pain of death.
Its not complicated Hmm

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/05/2018 20:08

Just had a quick google on the question of who is correct about the Irish owning slaves and being part of the slave trade. According to this they were.

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 20:10

yeah, you didn't read that so don't post it as any proof.

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/05/2018 20:11

No, but that’s not the point.
And why is my comment not the point? We should respect eachother regardless of the distant past. Not doing so is how wars are started.

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/05/2018 20:12

Um I beg to differ.

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 20:14

you can beg to differ all you like but you are ignoring the history. You can't appropriate from something that was forced on half the world.

Alpineflowers · 06/05/2018 20:14

Complete bollocks. There were not plenty of Irish slave owners, they were Anglo-Irish ie British, not actual Irish.

No they weren't, they were Irish and they owned slaves, in the West Indies and in the USA. There are lists of Irish slave owners online

Don't pretend a colonised and oppressed people were part of the ruling elite just because they were said to be the same country

Who wasn't colonised and oppressed by an 'elite'?
You think the English peasantry had it any easier than the Irish peasantry?

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 20:15

You think the English peasantry had it any easier than the Irish peasantry

Well yes, you didn't have a "famine" that halved the population of your country, so yes, you fucking did.

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/05/2018 20:16

No I beg to differ about reading the article. 🙄

IronMansIronButt · 06/05/2018 20:19

You can do that too, but you didnt read all of that in the 2 mins between posts. Nice try though.

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