Cultural appropriation

[Londonerlove]

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?

The are much bigger issues out tjere
Ah yes, black people aren't slaves anymore. Guess we should shut up about discrimination then, 'small' issues of cultural appropriation we should just let go shall we?

@tacolover - you’re doing a stellar job at elequently informing this ignorant bunch, but I think it’s lost on the lot of them.
We’re in deep All Lives Matter territory here.

Small point given the subject but come on!

Aside from that I think braids on white people look absolutely dreadful. Hair isn't the right texture

European hair isn't one texture. There are plenty of white people who have hair that can be braided successfully.
Conversely there are many mixed race people (so POC) whose hair won't hold braids for more than a day without getting fuzzy and flicky.

@ohmydays if you actually read some intersectional
feminist literature written by women of colour you may begin to understand that this is NOT about slagging off women or doing the Daily Mail’s job. I assume you call yourself a feminist 🙄

Oh dear this thread is awful. If you’re white, no matter what your upbringing was like, you’ve been born with inherent privilege that many other people on the planet don’t have. It’s not up to you to decide what counts as cultural appropriation or what is offensive. That would be like men deciding and dictating which behaviours women should find sexist or not, and I can’t see that going down well with most women.

I'll speed this up to it's natural conclusion shall I? ALL white people are racist.

Kim K's daughter has a black father; so when that child is a bit older will she be permitted to put her hair into dreadlocks or will that be 'cultural appropriation'? if she's not, y'know, fully black?

I'm mixed race. Born and bred in London though. Am I allowed to dress in my dad's cultural clothing style? seeing as I'm only half ?

How far back shall we go? decades? centuries? millennia?

Is it really a Good Thing to ban all cultural mixing and fusions? I'm struggling to see how on earth that ideology helps promote integration and socio-cultural harmony. But maybe that's the white bit of me being thick.

I don't like the Kardashians as I regard them as vacuous and trashy. But slagging her off for putting her hair in dreads is evidence that people are desperate to be offended by anything.

Haven't got time to RTFT but OP YADNBU and Leahjack you are talking a lot of sense, very eloquently.

Strong

No I call myself a woman. I support everyone’s human rights to dress and live their lives how ever they choose.

Of course racism and sexism exists but can’t for the life of me get worked up about so called cultural missapropriation. I think it is honestly another stick to beat women with and to divide abd separate us.

"A lot of this hate seems to be projected at women.

Seems to me it’s just another way of criticising and trying to control what women wear etc and many other women are swallowing this mysogyny and calling it cultural miss appropriation.

You are doing the daily mails work for them."

Well the daily mail is awful to POC so I doubt talking about cultural appropriation works in favour for them.

In what way is asking women who take cultural dresses from oppressed minorities to research the culture they are partaking in a way of controlling women? A lot of cultural appropriation is in the form of clothing. There are a lot less men culturally appropriating dresses and items from oppressed minorities. They're definitely there, but there's a lot less men who do this which is why they're not shown as much. Women's fashion is a lot more discussed, especially white women which is where cultural appropriation starts to show. This post reeks of the idea that many women have put to me, suggesting that "I can't possibly be racist/privileged, I'm a woman! I'm oppressed, stop telling me what to do! Calling me out on racism is silencing women!1!1"

@rhythm of course you can wear clothes from your father’s culture, because it’s your heritage!
I’m half Arab, I therefore can wear the keffiyeh or have a tatt in Arabic (🙄) coz it’s my heritage. I choose not to because I look like more English than most English people and it’d look stupid !!!!

@tacolover actually the issue may be that it is neither but labelled as one.
If the person adopting a culture is unaware of its history then it should be neither appropriation or appreciation. Some are choosing to label it as appropriation which I personally think is breeding racism.

Are you honestly offended that Kim K has worn her hair like that?

And yes I do deny I am from a privileged white background. But that is probably my background. I was the only white girl in my friendship group and spent a lot of time with families from different cultures. As a child the only culture I hadn’t experienced was the English one. I’m from a family of immigrants and the area I lived in was predominantly families who had immigrated.
We all have different experiences. Do you honestly think I haven’t been subjected to racism or told to fuck off to my country. We may possibly be from different generations, possibly why we have had different experiences, it may be demographics. I put it down to ignorance and I don’t allow it to fester. If I continue to hold anger towards white English people who have called me names etc then I’m just encouraging the problem.
I was taught to respect and embrace all. I will continue to do so.

*when I say ignorant, that wasn’t aimed at you but at people who choose to be racist and make racist remarks.

We are all part of one race. The human race. If we all adopt that view and let go of the past then it would be a much better world.
Like I said before I refuse to blame one culture for the oppression of mine and I also refuse to be blamed if my ancestors were the oppressors.

@londonerlove anyone wearing something that “is a little bit foreign” should think twice in my view. I don’t do St Patrick’s Day for example. I’m Anglo Arab. The Anglo part of me feels really uncomfortable “celebrating” something that has fuck all to do with me and when my ancestors were responsible for oppressing the Irish. That isn’t causing rifts in society. That’s called being thoughtful and respectful. More people should do it!

Strongmummy-that's how I feel too. My didgeredoo example is the same sort of thing, I think. It's why we don't dress children up as cowboys and Indians any more.

@bertrandrussell exactly, I saw your post and was nodding vigorously 🤣

And yes I do deny I am from a privileged white background.
Then I just don't know what to say to you. Can you not comprehend that you have opportunities because of the colour of your skin and the problems in your life will not be caused by your skin colour? I'm honestly getting quite fed up of white people trying to dictate what we can and can't be offended by. If your culture hasn't been appropriated then who on earth gave you the right to tell POC that they shouldn't be offended?

If I continue to hold anger towards white English people who have called me names etc then I’m just encouraging the problem.
I.. I have no words for this. Are POC being angry at white people calling them racist names encouraging the problem? Are you serious? We're not even allowed to be angry at racist people now? This is a whole new level of victim blaming. We should just let racism go shall we? Rise above the hate, just get on with our lives? Sing happy songs with people that hate us? Because being angry is encouraging the problem? What the fuck is wrong with you

I suppose I also think that if somebody who belongs to a traditionally oppressed group wants me not to do something then generally it's no skin off my nose not to do it, even if I secretly think it's a bit daft of them. My ds is called Patrick, and my fil asked us Not to shorten it to Paddy, as it brought back unhappy memories of being an Irish immigrant in the 1950s. It would have been a dick move to carry on doing it, even though I thought it was cute.

@ohmy - are you white perchance?

@tacolover ‘I'm honestly getting quite fed up of white people trying to dictate what we can and can't be offended by’

This!!! Are you not dictating what people can and cannot wear etc? You have ignored some of my comments and have picked out what you deem unacceptable. I’m white, how dare you tell me to be offended by people accepting the cultures of others. Slightly contradictory?

P.s. I hope you know your history on tacos, or you may be accused of cultural appropriation.

@london are you being deliberately obtuse?! The key point taco is making is that WHITE people have no right to dictate what people of colour should or shouldn’t find offensive, coz you know, we’ve been a bit shitty to them over the years. Ffs!!

"If your culture hasn't been appropriated then who on earth gave you the right to tell POC that they shouldn't be offended?"
Absolutely. As a white person I think I should be over careful, rather than undercareful. As I said, it does me no harm. There are plenty of other clothes and hairstyles. It's like the gollywog threads, where people behave as if there is nothing for children to play with except gollywogs or a stick.

Focusing on cultural appropriation just reinforces an 'Us' and 'Them' mindset.
How is that a positive thing?

Like I said before I refuse to blame one culture for the oppression of mine and I also refuse to be blamed if my ancestors were the oppressors.

exactly - we re ALL one race, we are ALL descended from both oppressor and oppressed