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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Cultural appropriation

999 replies

Londonerlove · 23/06/2018 17:32

AIBU to be totally annoyed by cultural appropriation.
I read this today and though wtf!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/newsbeat-44572555

I’m not a fan of kim but if she wants her hair in braids she can have her hair in braids?

Shouldn’t this be praised rather than attacked?
Is eating pasta cultural appropriation?

OP posts:
Gilead · 24/06/2018 18:49

Fascinating Leah. Do you have evidence of this? Because actually it's a bloody nonsense. It is believed in other places that oppressors were not all white, but do take a look at the demise of native peoples in Canada, the 30 million indigenous peoples wiped out in South America (Bartoleme de la Casas wasn't impressed even as he lived through it). North America. South Africa. The French Colonies. Australia.
Funny, all of those with European links. But this useful idiot by refusing to stand up for racist crap is making everyone turn to the right. I rather think that is the fault of those who deny the existence of the problem and blame the victims...

NotASingleFuckToGive · 24/06/2018 19:00

Cultural appropriation is just the latest exercise in "how to be professionally offended on other peoples' behalf".

How long before Hollywood rescind the Oscar which Dustin Hoffman won for Rainman; for his blatant appropriation of the tics and mannerisms of an Autistic person? Genuine question.

Gilead · 24/06/2018 20:37

The human race I expect like everyone else
Ah, the old we're all a part of the same race, the human race argument. In which case why are some of us othered. Why doesn't this argument seem to apply to your feminist trope?

LeahJack · 24/06/2018 20:47

Okay Gilead.

The Japanese: Korea and China. The Ottoman Empire, the Muslim slave trade, Ancient Egypt, the Aztecs, Arab violence and racism towards sub-Saharan Africans (Libya being a good example), the Mughal Empire, black slavers, almost all the Imperial Chinese dynasties, current exploitation of people from the sub-continent by the Gulf states, the Mongol Empire, the Huns, the Sikh Empire’s oppression of Muslims, widespread persecution of Buddhists throughout Asia, current persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Asia and parts of Africa, Hutu genocide of the Tutsis.

That’s just what I can think of from the top of my head and only includes oppression of other ethnicities or tribes or religions. Of course there have also been a huge number of examples of oppression of people done by people of their own race too, Libya under Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Mugabe, the Khmer Rouge and so on.

Do you honestly believe history is just white people oppressing everybody else? If you do, you’re deluded.

user1457017537 · 24/06/2018 20:50

and naive.

LeahJack · 24/06/2018 20:53

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

LeahJack · 24/06/2018 21:01

The whole theory behind this is exactly the theory which has backed almost every single racist ideology through history.

It’s especially close to the theories which have always justified anti-semitism; that on the basis of the acts of a small group of people, everybody else who shares their ethnicity is guilty for the rest of eternity and no matter how good or kind or fair they are or how hard they try to right wrongs they can never remove that taint. For the Jews it was frequently killing Jesus, or the money making activities of a few money lenders or blacksmiths. But a poor peasant Jew living on the Steppes or a child living in Hamburg or a teenage girl in Amsterdam or pregnant Jewish women in medieval London were to blame. Or a belief that black people are inherently immoral and unintelligent.

Yet people who would rail against that will quite happily condemn the entire white race for things and insist that they have negative qualities purely because of their skin colour.

It is good, proper, unreconstructed, old fashioned racism.

Mummyoflittledragon · 24/06/2018 21:03

Tinkly
Basement graffiti parties with djs. Wtf. Another world. Your ds sounds ace btw. Probably blew these girls away. I really hate that “class” is so important to young people. So glad it wasn’t important when / where I went to university. I really didn’t notice these things at all then. The idiot was considered to be the one, who failed his second year twice as he never turned up and then I heard through the grapevine the cocky git said his parents would pay for private university.

MariaMadita · 24/06/2018 21:04

or the money making activities of a few money lenders or blacksmiths

I would like to add that there were often severe restrictions placed on Jewish people regarding the jobs they were allowed to do.

Many 'honest jobs' (from a Christian perspective) weren't open to Jewish people or people wouldn't buy from them.

Banking / money lending however was not one of these 'honest'/Christian jobs...

NotASingleFuckToGive · 24/06/2018 21:05

LeahJack If MN had a like button you'd get mine. Excellent posts.

MariaMadita · 24/06/2018 21:22

For the Jews it was frequently killing Jesus, or the money making activities of a few money lenders or blacksmiths. But a poor peasant Jew living on the Steppes or a child living in Hamburg or a teenage girl in Amsterdam or pregnant Jewish women in medieval London were to blame. Or a belief that black people are inherently immoral and unintelligent.

I mean... I'm actually still surprised you wrote this. On a thread about racism...

  1. I think you might want to look into employment restriction laws. And how many local authorities (like the Catholic church) were just too happy to have someone there to perform these necessary - but sinful...- jobs (money lending, taxes etc). And they were also happy to have someone to blame when things went wrong....
  1. everybody else who shares their ethnicity is guilty for the rest of eternity and no matter how good or kind or fair they are or how hard they try to right wrongs they can never remove that taint.

I'm not even going to try to untangle what you seem to imply about Jewish 'money lenders'. Or money lenders in general. I do hope you're not trying to suggest that Jewish people in the money lending business were to blame for the claims of blood label, being blamed for the black death etc...

Ohmydayslove · 24/06/2018 21:32

It’s not an argument! We are all part of that human race. Hmm

leahJack great posts

Gilead · 24/06/2018 22:04

Actually Gilead, you are by far and away the biggest racist on this thread coming out with things like that.

I didn't say that all oppressors were or are white. I did say that a significant number are. You seemed (I may be wrong) to be dismissing those.

I am not racist, I suggest you read some of my experiences on other threads. Other than that, I still feel your thinking is a tad warped and victim blaming.

Gilead · 24/06/2018 22:05

It’s not an argument! We are all part of that human race.
Oh good grief!

WiseDad · 25/06/2018 08:23

Well said! Shame others below can’t see the point you’re making as they get hung up on any complex wording.

Ohmydayslove · 25/06/2018 08:28
Grin

Gosh what to wear today! It’s a minefield! Who can I least offend. I have a chicken outfit but I will be walking past a farm later so that’s out.

Well On with the welsh national costume then to offend by Swansea born mother.

AsAProfessionalFekko · 25/06/2018 09:05

My dress today has embroidery on it. Looking again it looks a bit Russian.

BertrandRussell · 25/06/2018 09:19

It's strange. I can understand people getting the point and disagreeing. What I can't understand is people not getting the point at all. Which presumably the ones making the oh so funny jokes don't?

BertrandRussell · 25/06/2018 09:20

Because I don't find it al all hard to understand why people think differently to me on this subject. I just don't agree with them. Isn't that how things usually work?

Theycouldhavechoseneve · 25/06/2018 09:54

I don’t think appropriation is the correct word. If we say that any woman is entitled to braid her hair but that WOC shouldn’t be oppressed because they braid their hair whereas a white woman is held out as style icon then what we’re talking about is racism. White woman not braiding their hair won’t change anything.

The use of the swastica by the nazi party is cultural appropriation

Ohmydayslove · 25/06/2018 10:14

Because there is no point it’s fucking ridiculous ridiculous.

No one owns a culture. It’s s life style choice you are born into and are feee to change if you do choose or adopt as you do choose. Like religion.

So you can’t mis appropriate anyone else’s culture it’s free for anyone to adopt if they do desire.

It’s not a given fact like gender or colour.

That’s probably why people think it’s all nonsense and quite amusing because it is.

LeahJack · 25/06/2018 10:17

Maria, that’s a bit of a pathetic attempt to turn that back round on me and I don’t believe you misunderstood what I said, I think you’re wilfully misinterpreting it. I was obviously talking about the way other people justify antisemitism. So how you got from that to “Jews are to blame for antisemitism” I don’t know. It’s historically documented that having jobs which made them unpopular was used as justification for antisemitism, saying that happened doesn’t mean condoning it.

I didn't say that all oppressors were or are white. I did say that a significant number are. You seemed (I may be wrong) to be dismissing those. I am not racist

You made a mealy mouthed hint that is was “possible” that in other places “some” of the oppressors were not white. Implying that there was never oppression where white people were involved. And you’ve made it very clear you think the majority of the oppression in history was done by white people.

It’s simply not true. For a relatively short period in the past it was true. But it that is only one example out of thousands and thousands of examples of oppression in history. It’s a selective and biased interpretation of history.

And yes you are a racist. You believe in “collective guilt” for races or ethnic groups. That is the root of the nastiest types of racism out there. It’s a racist ideology whether it is applied to Jews, Muslims, black people, the Japanese and, yes, even white people.

Collective guilt is just about the most racist thing it’s possible to believe in. It strips individuals of their own agency and the right to be judged on their own character and actions and reduces them to the colour of their skin.

It’s exactly what Martin Luther King spoke about when he said he wanted people to be judged on the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin.

BertrandRussell · 25/06/2018 10:18

"Because there is no point it’s fucking ridiculous ridiculous."
No point trying to understand someone else's point of view. I rest my case.

Gilead · 25/06/2018 10:27

And yes you are a racist. You believe in “collective guilt” for races or ethnic groups. That is the root of the nastiest types of racism out there. It’s a racist ideology whether it is applied to Jews, Muslims, black people, the Japanese and, yes, even white people.
No I'm not, but if it makes you feel better about your skewed and incredibly warped thinking go ahead and believe what you choose. As far as I'm concerned you're a bit of an odd bod on the internet and your accusations of racism are amusing, if a little tiresome and boorish.
Your have also confused differing forms of oppression, but hey ho, knock yourself out with your logical fallacies. I'm still remarkably unimpressed.

Gilead · 25/06/2018 10:28

No one owns a culture.
Which demonstrates clearly exactly how little you comprehend the arguments involved.