Cultural appropriation

[Newbiemumsy66]

So this is a term which seems to be used a lot more these day (to my knowledge). I am a white woman and before I start, I am genuinely interested in the definition and especially hearing from those who feel their culture is appropriated.

My understanding is that it is deemed offensive when people (especially white people as we are/were generally an oppressive bunch) steal, wear, eat, cook elements from different cultures. I understand that it is often the case that these things are done disrespectfully, which of course is totally wrong. However, why isn’t it ok for a white woman to wear corn rows because she really likes the style for example? Surely doing something like that shows respect for another culture and shows that it’s a good thing to embrace our differences. Also why is it then not offensive for black people to straighten their hair such as their European counterparts natural hair? Surely everything is appropriated from everywhere in one way or another - it’s a positive step forward for inclusivity and to embrace one another’s differences in a good way. Surely by keeping these traditions within specific races only breeds further segregation?

Apologies if my post is tone deaf or not worded particularly sensitively, but it is just something that I feel I need educating on if my opinion comes from a place of privilege and is ill informed. I mean no offence, so please don’t reply with hate, if I’m wrong tell me why.

There was a girl in America who saw a dress she particularly liked and decided to wear it to her prom. It was a traditional Chinese garment. When she did, the usual social justice warriors sparked an outcry about cultural appropriation. All of those ranting on Twitter were white. When some actual Chinese people were asked for their views, they actually said that they were flattered that this girl found their traditional clothing to be beautiful.

Was it not more because she posted with her friends making 'slanty eyes' whilst wearing the dress?

DeeCeeCherry - just one question, if that’s why white people keep their black friends around according to you, does that mean you keep your white friends around ( presuming you have any with your piss-poor attitude) so you can continue to play victim to your oppressive white friends who look down on you?

Waffleswaffles QualCheckBot are you Scandinavian? If not, I don't think you should be telling a Scandinavian how to promounce the Scandinavian name of a Scandinavian god!

Old Norse was my first degree.

Old Norse was spoken all over the area that Vikings moved into, including England. e.g. Grimsby means the village originally named after the Viking settler Grimma.

Pronunciations varied.

They do let non-Scandinavians do things like live in Scandinavia, study Scandinavian languages, etc..

The ignorance displayed on this thread, of all threads, is quite breathtaking.

Do you have any idea at all how offensive and condescending you are being?

You are a really twisted person to take all of that from what I’ve said. I won’t apologise for wanting to educate myself on a subject I have limited or no firsthand experience of and very few people to discuss with who do have a first hand perspective IRL ( currently taking applications for more “black friends” whom I can drag in conversations with internet trolls if you are interested by the way, as you seem obsessed by it). Don’t call me a racist when it’s you who CLEARLY hates white people and already has negative preconceived ideas about me based on my skin colour. That is one of the definitions of being a racist, so I suggest you take a look at yourself. I still don’t really have an opinion either way on the whole CA thing, as I won’t ever really be a victim of it so I guess my opinion if I had one, would mean FA anyway. But I understand a bit more that it’s not just about hair, food etc so mission accomplished.

@QualCheckBot totally get. I basically get told I am not quite dark enough to Indian, dont look Irish so the twang I still have in my accent cant be real, look nothing like my dads side. That shit bothers me more than someone who isnt Irish celebrating st Patrick's day or wearing a sari. And those comments have come from family.

I totally appreciate that I have some privilege because I appear white. But it's not always a bed of Rose's not looking like the cultures you are brought up in.

Oh and also you are right on the pronunciation of the word Thor (dads side). What an interesting degree. That's amazing.

As an aside, I dont mind the Marvel incarnation of Thor either. It's based on the version where he is the protector of midgard. Its not mean to be accurate and part of the story has always been his pull of family and his pull of that role. Makes sense he falls in love here, like in the comics.

I remember the woman in the Chinese dress. Of course if it was a man in a Chinese dress there would have been no issue.

I agree.

Knock yaself out with the bleating & furious keyboard bashing Newbie. Say hi to your black friends for me 🙂👍🏾

Unfortunately there is never going going to be rational discussion on any topic relating to race when we have people like deeceecherry amongst us. It’s a shame topics like this can’t be discussed in a constructive way without some frothing at the mouth hater jumping in to use the thread as a platform to spout her own bigoted views. Shameful.

@Livelovebehappy

Yes. Ive just reported the race baiting and personal attack posts they did to the OP. I did report one of the OPs posts too because she did try and fight fire with fire there so best that be deleted as well.

And we were all getting along so well!

OP you asked about face paint in the context of Halloween or a costume party.

In general, face paint to change your ethnicity is racist blackface. Blackface also includes face paint to look any ethnicity other than your own..it is not just about looking black...could even be white face paint tbh if you are naturally dark.

Face paint that is say war paint or makeup is fine so long as you aren’t trying to alter your ethnicity. You cab paint yourself to look like a fictional alien though (green, orange, blue) or a cartoon smurf (blue) but the color has to not be a skin tone color...like dont paint yourself black to be Daffy Duck or white to be Donald Duck...just choose the duck closest to your natural skin tone.

That’s a pretty cut and dry rule tbh. Justin Trudeau definitely did blackface when he painted himself dark and dressed as a Raja. 🙄

It’s a shame topics like this can’t be discussed in a constructive way without some frothing at the mouth hater jumping in to use the thread as a platform to spout her own bigoted views.

Yes how dare a black woman express opinions on cultural appropriation. It should be left to be discussed between white guardianistas and DM commentators obviouslyl

Sheesh.

@C8H1
I think you’ll find that lots of different ethnicities are represented here on this thread including black women. And we’ve all been able to discuss it civilly.
DeeDee’s comments were not opinions on cultural appropriation but solely race baiting personal attacks on the OP. They did not express one single opinion of their own about CA at all.

I can read thank you and I've been following this thread since the beginning. Its gone pretty much like every thread started with a new name on this subject and attracted the usual collection of dog whistlers.

There are different issues over this.

1. What is within the law.
2. What do certainly people or indeed all people fine offensive.

The two do not always coincide.

@Xenia
Interesting point and I do agree that law and ethics do not always coincide. But I am racking my brain and cannot think of any CA that is actually illegal? I thought/think all of CA falls under the legal but ethically wrong umbrella.
I mean, it is illegal to impersonate an officer- military, police, FBI agent, etc but that’s not CA and impersonation requires more than dressing up as one as you have to actually act like you are one and attempt to exercise authority over someone...like pull over their car and hassle them or flash a fake badge to gain entry to their home or question them.

It would depend on what was done. I certainly fall in the camp of wanting free speech. je suie Charlie etc, right to offend, rights for comedians and others .

I don't think in many country villages which are 100% white who perform traditonal Morris dances with the dark Moor appearing ( to remember days when we were fighting that old battle, with the invasion of Spain etc, never mind the UK crusades and even the children's crusade) breach the law. However we do have very flexible, in some cases too flexible, laws so that if something can cause a breach of the peace then there would be an offence. Eg I can be in my garden with just about nothing on but if all those Morris men got together to do a march through Tower Hamlets high street I think that could potentially be inflammatory and illegal; whereas if a group of non white people decided to got to every English village where Morris men with the Moor appearing and claimed they were offended and a breach of the peace was likely then it would not be.

If people can just be kind to others they tend not to breach the law nor to upset other people, within reason. If it offends someone I work full time and am not chained to a sink or that I show my legs in public on my local streets then that is just something they are going to have to go away and cry in corners over rather than stop my right to do so.

I went to an area where women are mostly covered up

Hi DoctorAllcome I 100% get the black face thing and that it transfers into all races and not just black people. I think you are referring to the point I made about people I knew saying that was the thing that offended them the most and not so much CA such as dress or hair etc. The Justin Trudeau incident is really disappointing as I always though of him as one of the more exemplary world leaders when it came to understanding issues of race and discrimination, just goes to show there is a long way to go! However on the other hand he seems to have genuinely learnt from this and so do we punish someone who did something in the past (albeit not that long ago!), I don’t know how I feel about it. I know if he showed no remorse and made excuses then it would be unacceptable.

On a side note I apologise for lowering the tone of what was a pretty well mannered and informative thread. Lack of sleep and short fuse made me bite!

I thought Justin Trudeau was pretty good until I read what the government and in particular Justin Trudeau had done regarding the Canadian native or first nation people.

Lots online. Canada is not enlightened when it comes to treatment of their first nation population.

Yeah Canada defaults to “we’re better up here than the US, hey” which is not saying very much as the US is a very low bar to beat in terms of antiracism and antidiscrimination.

I have read about the homicides of First Nation women and also about the things Canada let diamond mining companies do to First Nation lands and tribes. It’s sad how despite many things getting better, so much hasn’t changed at all.

...just choose the duck closest to your natural skin tone.

Advice for life, from mumsnet

That's fine QualCheckBot but if you were talking about black or Asian people or cultures it would not be acceptable/
PC for you to correct them about their own culture and history. But Scandinavian culture (for example) is fair game. And it's not comsidered OK for Europeans to have African masks or Buddahs in their homes, but it's OK to have Scandinavian things like electric advent candles (often called candle bridges in the shops) and use them in the wrong way, or wear clothing with Sami patterns. Why is that?

Waffleswaffles I am jor Scandinavian. But as said before my dads family can be traced back to the vikings landing here and they keep lots of the old traditions.

I actually dont think its wrong to correct someone of any of culture who says 'well actually it's pronounced......' when they are incorrect and using as a pont scoring exercise? Which is what that remark 'actually Thor is pronounced Tor'.

Some of My fathers family consider themselves asatru. They woildnt be offended by this. Especially with someone who studied the subject. They would find this fascinating.

Well, Thor IS pronounced Tor in Scandinavian countries.....

waffleswaffles That's fine QualCheckBot but if you were talking about black or Asian people or cultures it would not be acceptable/
PC for you to correct them about their own culture and history. But Scandinavian culture (for example) is fair game. And it's not comsidered OK for Europeans to have African masks or Buddahs in their homes, but it's OK to have Scandinavian things like electric advent candles (often called candle bridges in the shops) and use them in the wrong way, or wear clothing with Sami patterns. Why is that?

Jesus Christ, can you please stop being so offensive? You informed me that, as a graduate of Scandinavian Studies with Old Norse, I couldn't correct a Scandinavian person about how to pronounce Old Norse. Has it really never occurred to you, despite being on this thread, that someone from a different racial group might be brought up in a different culture? Astonishing level of ignorance.

A few corrections.

Sami culture is not Scandinavian culture.

Scandinavians do not speak Old Norse. Thor is a name of a god from the time that Old Norse was spoken. Therefore it was spoken in places such as England and in fact Norman France and parts of Russia amongst others, not just Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It is still, to all intents and purposes, spoken in Iceland, with modifications and adaptations.

Scandinavian people do not speak Old Norse. Swedish, Danish and both Bokmal and Nynorsk Norwegian are as different from Old Norse as are Old English and modern English. And one of those changes is the pronunciation of the letter "t". In Old Norse, it almost certainly was pronounced "Th" as it is in modern Icelandic. That is where the pronunciation in English "Thursday" comes from. A "th" sound can be soft or hard, stressed or unstressed but in Old Norse it was always there. It influences the pronunciation of the "r" at the end of the name which is another reason we know it was there because Old Norse was a tonal language.

Please do not tell me that I cannot comment on the pronunciation of a name in a language which I have studied because I am the wrong nationality. You are being really offensive.

Before I get accused of something else, can I also point out that Old Norse and Viking studies are really popular subjects amongst North Asian students and one of the most renowned experts in the field is Chinese.