To not understand how this is cultural appropriation?

[NewUsername18382828]

Namechanged for this.
DH and I decided to give DD (who is now 6) a name which is originally from another country. Neither of us have relatives or any connection there, we just liked the name. There is an English variant of the name but we didn't like the sound of it as much so went with the one we liked most. Didn't think it would be a problem, a name is a name.

Well anyway, a mum of a girl in DD's class at school was born in that country. She heard me call DD at the gates and started talking to me about her name. She was asking what our ties were to the country, and so on. When I said there weren't any and we just liked the name, she muttered something about cultural appropriation and left with her child. Fast forward another couple of weeks and I've just been informed by another parent that she's been badmouthing us, saying we shouldn't use a foreign name when we have no ties to the country, it's cultural appropriation.

AIBU to have no clue how this is cultural appropriation? I always thought a name was just a name.

Did your Indian/Kenyan friend's dad have 500 years of historical wealth and social structure backing him as the dominant skin colour? Or was he just a bit bigoted?

What does that have to do with anything? Did the friend's dad regard the other person as inferior directly because of their race, yes or no? That's the test if he was racist or not. Nothing else.

So dutchie the position you accept is the deprivation or denial of individual agency?

Seems very retrograde to me

The definition of racism which you choose to use, is not one defined in dictionaries, nor used across society for decades.

For heaven's sake, do some reading beyond internet dictionaries. And recognise that in being apparently deeply uncomfortable with a definition of racism which stresses white privilege, you are part of the problem.

I ask you for a clear example of what systems are skewed in the white person's favour, and again, you won't explain what.

It's frankly incredible to me that you are even asking this question, but I can't decide if it's crass stupidity or a blindness to white privilege talking. But on the offchance that you have just parachuted in from another galaxy, or where asleep for the Stephen Lawrence murder trial and the MacPherson report, to give only one example:

For example, you’re six times more likely to get stopped by the police if you’re black. Unemployment rates are twice as high for ethnic minorities than for white people. Black and minority ethnic (BAME) people are more likely to suffer from mental health problems and experience discrimination in accessing mental health crisis care. People from BAME groups are more likely to experience homelessness, and the number of hate crimes in the UK doubled this year.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/06/white-people-solution-problem-munroe-bergdorf-racist

There is much evidence to show that your life chances are impeded if you are black in Britain. Between 2010-11, the Department for Education found that a black schoolboy in England was three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school, compared to the whole school population. Black school leavers were less likely to be accepted into a high-ranking Russell Group university than their white counterparts. In 2009, a study by the Department for Work and Pensions found that applications for jobs to a number of prospective employers were not treated equally: applicants with white-sounding names were called to interview far more often than those with African- or Asian-sounding names.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race

Your blatant racism, blindness to white privilege, and under-informedness is showing, @Devereux1.

I'm out. I suggest you get Father Christmas to deliver you a copy of Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race.

@PotteryWheel while you’re there you might want to look up sea-lioning.

It’s not really surprising, because they’ve never known what it means to embrace a person of colour as a true equal, with thoughts and feelings that are as valid as their own.

Worse still is the white person who might be willing to entertain the possibility of said racism, but who thinks we enter this conversation as equals. We don’t

🤔

PotteryWheel

Now you have accused me of racism. You're unbelievable. Absolutely shocking behaviour.

This was almost like a SJW script:

1. Tell everyone else they're wrong or misinformed.
2. Tell everyone else they need to educate themselves.
3. Evade answering any questions about anything you've said.
4. Evade supporting your point of view with evidence or even at all.
5. Get angry and make up some hidden motivation in the other poster.
6. Crumble and fail to actually address some very valid points.
7. Scream "you're racist!" and run away.

That is some magnificent sea-lioning there.

From which one?

I am white I have a mixed heritage of Central European and North African/Middle East.

My sister is more olive skinned.

I have uncles who are black.
When I was young we all lived under the same roof

When we were called a f**king immigrants and told to go back to our own country was that someone being racist or was that someone being discriminating

Olivers

I find that mixed race people are really missed out of these discussions, and caught in the middle.
My mother is Indian origin, my father white English. I am olive skinned, my brother is much more white.
Do I get to define racism and she doesn't?
What about my children? DH is white so they are indistinguishable from white.
Yet when my mother picked them up from school for the first time, they were told "your grandmother is a p*ki" by kids in their class.

Sorry, he doesn't (brother).

Oh Devereux1 all of the answers to your questions above are in the original studies included in that link. But you don't want to click it, you want to sealion. Fair enough, I'll leave you to it.

This is one of the quotes from the author of the book/article mentioned by potterywheel
"Their intent is often not to listen or learn, but to exert their power, to prove me wrong, to emotionally drain me, and to rebalance the status quo."

Seems apt.

Oh Dutch1e

Not able to support anything you claimed still?
Still don't believe that white people can suffer racism as much as any other race?
Still don't want to accept that racism is regarding others as inferior due to their race, whatever race that may be because that would mean having to revist your starting point and all your protests?

"Their intent is often not to listen or learn, but to exert their power, to prove me wrong, to emotionally drain me, and to rebalance the status quo."

Oh Dutch1e, I had to chuckle when I read that. Pick up that mirror and take a long, hard - and it's going to be painfully honest for you I fear - look. Take care.

Dutch1e

What do you call it if a white person with British heritage tells another white British born person with a different racial heritage to go back to their country.

If that isn’t racism then what is?

which is why this isn't my definition. It's the definition that has been written about and spoken about since civil rights activism began.
That's not accurate. The P+P definition was coined in the 70s, after the end of the civil rights movement in the US.

@Dutch1e

Thank you for your posts - food for thought I hadn’t previously thought about!.

I wasn’t sur about your definition of racism as I hadn’t heard it before. However, no lesser source than the non political Oxford Dictionary sort of backs it up:

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized

...and another Oxford definition

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

Which is what I've been saying all along. Notice how neither of these definitions says anything about power, "white privilege" and all the other made up claptrap.

Ella Common People wasn't about cultural appropriation - it was about class and money. As the song title suggests.

based on the belief that one's own race is superior Well there aren’t many races that say ‘well we’re ok I suppose, but wow those XYZs, we’re a pile of poo in comparison to those guys!’

Anyone Spanish here? I find it interesting that Jesus has been a name for sons in Spain, as Mohammed has been in the Islamic world. Is that because of the Ummayyad/Moorish influence?

So - it would have been common enough for Jewish kids at one time then? Interesting thought...

Crosstalk the name 'Eesa' which is Arabic for Jesus is a common name amongst Muslims too.
It's interesting what you say as I've often wondered about Spanish names that are names in Arabic too such as Miriam and Zara. I'm sure there's probably loads more.

Sounds like that woman is a mad cow. You gave a name to your child, not a pet.