Please talk to me about cultural appropriation

[Fraaahnces]

I have been battling alopecia for years and now I am on meds it’s growing back, but very fragile. (Very pleased to report that I look slightly less like Friar Tuck’s 50 y/o twin sister these days!) It’s also driving me batshit crazy because every time I tie it up with a scrunchie or a hairband it tears, or if I use a comb, it slips straight out. Same with headbands. My lovely Chinese neighbour - who has been a spare mother to me and a nanna to my kids (they don’t have one of their own) popped into her place and brought out some beautifully carved sandalwood hair sticks and showed me how to do some nifty little hair buns with them. Voila! It stays!!! (Also doesn’t tangle and it smells delicious!)
Yep… Some twat accused me of cultural appropriation the moment I walked about four houses down the street with these stopping (all three of my) hairs from blowing into my eyes and mouth. And again in the supermarket. And again on the way home.
Am I trying to pass myself off as something I’m not? No. Am I pretending to be more enlightened or spiritually evolved because I now own fancy hair accessories? No.
Were any of them Asian? Yeah… Nah. Were any of the Asian people I wandered past offended? (Would be very surprised if they even noticed, tbh… Probably far too busy actually living to notice what aging women are doing with their crappy hair.)
Also, while we’re on the subject, what is a culturally appropriate solution for someone who is a short, blue-eyed blonde 9th and 10th generation Australian of Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Dhudhuroa, Wiradjuri, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Jamaican, Estonian, Latvian and Russian Jewish extraction to do, exactly?

I'm really struggling to picture three different strangers all actually going out of their way not only to stop and talk to you but to accuse you, someone they don't know, of cultural appropriation. I'm not accusing you of lying btw! It is just absolutely incredible to me! Did they just stop you in the street or what? How did they word it? I would be staggered if this happened to me.

I once travelled all the way into Central London in the rush hour before a woman told me I had a pink foam roller on the back of my head. I REALLY wished someone had intervened sooner!

But anyway, cultural appropriation. We live in a very mixed society, and we influence each other. Nobody can convince me its a bad thing. To my mind cultural appropriation is only a useful concept when it's describing some kind of exploitation. Like, I don't know, if a fashion brand started marketing yarmulke (the skullcaps Jewish men wear) as a new fashion trend, and profiting from the mass dilution of the religious meaning.

Wear your hair sticks with pride!

What if you said, "A Chinese lady did my hair for me today"? Surely that would make it OK in their eyes?

Very good idea here!!!

Cultural appropriation. Another nonsense invented by white virtue signallers to use against white English people, of course

Legend?

Rude as fuck.

Yea, nah. So on a bog standard trip to the supermarket, on a bog standard day, in a bog standard town, not one, not two, but three complete strangers stopped you and accused you of 'cultural appropriation' (in exact words)? Yea, totally believable.

To me I thought it was taking another cultures style and trying to rebrand it.. such as Kim k when she did "bodega braids" or whatever it was called, when black women have been wearing braids before bodega?

This.

Where in Australia do you live? I know that the country has drunk the koolaid on a lot of issues but I am surprised that 3 people would comment on your hair if all things.

Are you in Melbourne? That sounds like the kind of lefty woke nonsense that a blue haired Melbournite would come out with! In Sydney the Asian people would probably be thrilled that you were trying out their hair things.

@Ozgirl75 Yes.. Melbourne in one. I’m as stunned as everyone else that people noticed my hair too. It’s shitty thin, blonde hair on a non-descript, aged face, on a hot, aged body, schlepping (resentfully) to the supermarket with an equally resentful dog. She’s the one who quite rightly gets the attention - probably everyone else was hot and crabby and wanting to take it out on someone else that day. I’ve let it go. I love my neighbour. She’s just gone home after an early dinner of spag bol and gelato.

I knew it would be Melbourne! In trying to not offend people they manage to piss off more people than if they just lived their life.
Melbourne truly is the Brighton of Australia 😁

Appropriation is about taking/using something belonging to another person without their consent. There's a detriment to the other party involved.

That's clearly not the case with wearing something given to you by a Chinese neighbour!

It's devaluing the valid use by black people, particularly African Americans, to throw it around in this ludicrous manner. The idiotic virtue signallers have appropriated the term 'cultural appropriation'!

I’m Chinese and it wouldn’t even register, let me guess they were white. Enjoy your close friendship with your neighbour. Seems like it’s lovely having each other in your lives. Does she insist on feeding you as well? That’s the mark of an Auntie, spent a great deal of time feeding my son’s friends. Even now as an adult. Seems like you just cooked for her as well. I have some lovely neighbours, I’m in the UK and spoil the neighbours children, via their parents before people kick off.

Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Dhudhuroa, Wiradjuri, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Jamaican, Estonian, Latvian and Russian Jewish extraction

What? No Italian?
But you served spag bol and gelato!
That’s Cultural Appropriation!

Or can we get away with calling it cultural appreciation when talking about (eating) food?

@CharSiu - if you only knew the half of it. She used to be my boss when I was a teenager in the 80’s. My mum was anorexic and didn’t cook at all. I worked in the local takeaway and this idiot used to make horrible comments about cats and how I didn’t look Chinese. When I didn’t simper and play along, I was basically adopted. Every night we’d all cook and eat REAL food together. 80’s suburban Chinese food was sticky, sweet and very processed. The aunties all taught me how to cook. (Not just Chinese, but everything. To this day, I still make spag bol in a wok and use a chopper for everything.)

@DifficultBloodyWoman I really wish I didn’t appreciate gelato quite as much as I do. It’s so bloody hot, it’s all I want!!!

Bloomers? I don't think they have been seen in the wild for about a century!

I make spag bol in a wok, my Dad owned a sit down and takeaway. Glad you get to eat real Chinese food. I mean English Chinese take away food has its place but it is so unhealthy. I took loads of food in to a shop I used go in to a lot at Chinese New Year and took them all food in. They loved it. Sadly the shop shut during covid. I am most definitely a feeder. My DS bought a work colleague home to collect something just quickly. He said he had to apologise after as I tried to get them to eat with sorry she is Asian it’s just the way she is :).

@CharSiu my lovely Neighbour says I have an Asian heart because I’m a feeder too. My home is pretty much full of plagues of teenagers descending like locusts because of this, but at least we know where they all are…