What are your thoughts on cultural appropriation?
I think it’s often exaggerated to hell as I’ve seen it on tumblr. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, though.
A white person wearing a kimono won’t singlehandedly kill the Japanese population, and is in fact often seen (with good reason) to be respectful. A lot of Japanese people like foreigners wearing their clothing - they’ll give them as gifts, help them put them on and be delighted that someone is embracing this little part of their culture.
You know what’s cultural appropriation? Taking something of historical or religious significance and making fun of it or outright desecrating it (looking at YOU, j-law in hawaii), simplifying something to an outright offensive portrayal of what it actually is instead of looking into the significance of it (see: geisha, who have slowly become to be associated with ‘comfort women’ or courtesans because of how ‘exotic’ they were perceived to be), racism (wearing a sombrero hat is all in good fun, but when it accompanies blackface / racist remarks, stereotypes + accents, not so much ), and lumping cultures with a common signifier (native american reservations, asian countries, african countries) and heavily misattributing things to them based on assumptions and rumors, which are often racist, especially things that might be practiced or be more common than your average American state, but absolutely do not represent them in any way and sometimes aren’t even a cultural thing at all. (China and eating dog; Indians being scam callers and/or inherently misogynistic, etc)
There is no reason for culture not to be shared and embraced in a respectful way – even ignorant, if the person is willing to listen and learn – and there is nothing inherently wrong, in my opinion, if culture just happens to be a tourist attraction, sometimes. Take pictures to your delight, so long as you’re not banned from doing so. Do yoga and find inner peace or whatever. Participate in tradition and be amazed, amused, poke a little fun because culture is bound to be different from what you’re used to and it’s not always considered good, it’s not always awe-inspiring, sometimes it’ll be a little silly and you’re not obligated to fully immerse yourself into appreciating it - sometimes you just experience it and move on with your life.
We are what we are because of the way culture has evolved, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to take some random user’s icy take on gatekeeping at face value.
As an anthropologist: fucking thank you!
I also want to make a quick note on the term “cultural appropriation” itself: It is not by definition a bad thing.
Cultural appropriation is, simply, doing something that is common to another culture but not your own. Human beings have been appropriating each others’ cultures since one Neanderthal looked over at what another Neanderthal was doing and said, “Nifty.”
A Swede learning to cook stir-fry is cultural appropriation. A Korean eating pizza is cultural appropriation. An American wearing a kimono to a festival in Japan is cultural appropriation. But that’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with sharing ways of doing things, there’s nothing wrong with participating, especially when the sharing of knowledge/methodology improves people’s lives!
What isn’t fine is, as OP said, being disrespectful. Treating sacred objects as decoration is not okay. Misusing terminology is not okay. Forcing a group into a debt to you specifically to the point where they have to make and sell you cultural objects for a pittance, and then turning around and selling those objects to tourists and making bank is not okay.
What also isn’t fine is seeing a picture of someone whom you assume to be white wearing a sari and bitching her out because you don’t know that she’s half American and half Indian and that’s her fucking sari. What isn’t fine is seeing an American at a festival in Japan and bitching him out because you don’t know that his Japanese friends dressed him up for the festival because Western clothes would be totally out of place. What isn’t fine is speaking over minorities as you try to “defend” them from what you deem to be bad behaviour when your judgement is based in your own ethnocentrism.
Human beings are curious creatures. We’re always going to want to see what the other guy’s doing. There’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is taking advantage of the other guy or spitting on the things that are important to him. And that’s equally true when someone is saying “Stop abusing our culture” and when someone is saying “Please participate in our culture.”
