Cultural Sensitivity/Appropriation and Anger

Manu wrote:
Jamie, I still don't understand why cultural appropriation is harmful, as in the case of Elvis or Eminem. Could you expand?

Certainly, in the case of Elvis, he is considered the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" even though his music was a poor imitation of black artists who had already begun fusing blues and jazz influences to make that rock sound, yet he considered one of the pioneers of rock and roll. He didn't do anything new or even do what he did particularly well, but he was marketable because he was white and nobody cared that it was originally Big Mama Thorton's song which only 500k copies (as opposed to Presley's 10mil copies).

Eminem I'm a little more on the fence about. By and large, he's probably one of the few white people who earned their way into the music industry (as a rapper) as opposed to be handed it simply because he's white and has money (Eminem famously didn't have any money which made his story more inspiring when they released the film about him, 8 Mile). But in the larger context, Eminem is still a white person using a black cultural art form and made big bucks off of it.

JamesSand wrote: Gaming is my culture. I was knee deep in table top games, card games, computers, early consoles, etc etc.

Respectfully, that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about culture or appropriation. Culture is a complex combination of ritual, language, spiritual beliefs, etc which make up a shared identity of a people group. Gaming can't even be called American since Nintendo has been around the 19th Century making board games.

TheDude wrote: I wasn't born into a culture.

Are you white? I only ask because this is very typical thing for white people to say. White people (particularly American whites) often go through large portions of their lives being unaware of their own culture, in large part due to the fact that they can go almost anywhere in America and find their culture there. What isn't their culture is often grafted into it through appropriation.

TheDude wrote: Each of us appropriates the culture around us. You appropriate your parents culture, imperfectly, and you eventually create your own culture as a result.

The word your looking for is "values" which is not the same as culture, though to be fair it was my fault for not defining culture from the start, but you are using the word appropriation incorrectly.

TheDude wrote: It was common practice in major countries such as China and Japan to majorly appropriate European and American culture.

Funny you should mention Japan. Japan has been oscillate between periods of trying to be more like America and at other times doing their darnedest to resist it because it poses a threat to the distinctly Japanese way of life. Japan has always been threatened by cultural elimination. Look up the history of tentacle porn (there is a video that's completely SFW that has a brief version): essentially the Japanese ended up sacrificing important erotic art for the sake of Christian missionaries. While it is related to culture, cultural wars are not the same as cultural appropriation.[/quote]

TheDude wrote: Cultural appropriation really shouldn't be majorly attributed to a single race or ethnic group.

Why not? Because it hurts or makes you feel like you're being singled out? We're talking about people who went to war and occupied nearly half the globe for spices even though the majority of their cuisine doesn't utilize spices. We're talking about a people who celebrate a Catholic saint who, almost single-handedly, wiped out the indigenous religious practice of the people.

I could go on, but I'm pretty exhausted of repeating myself with every conversation about culture and race only to be met with same uninformed, unresearched opinions time and again.

In the late '80s, Disney was widely criticized for making animated movies exclusively featuring white characters. All of the "Disney Princesses" were white. All of the heroes were white. Even most of the villains were white, and those who weren't were offensive stereotypes of minorities. There was no diversity whatsoever.

Then in the '90s they started making animated movies like Aladdin and The Lion King. Then came Pocahontas, Mulan, The Princess & The Frog, Brave, Lilo & Stitch, and now Moana. Sure, they still made Toy Story and Frozen and other "white" movies, but I'd call this progress toward diversity.

Rather than celebrating this, a whole bunch of people have instead decided that Disney is appropriating other cultures in order to make money, and they are PISSED about it. Every attempt at inclusion results in an accusation of stereotyping or being insensitive.

I'm sorry to those who get offended so easily, but we can't have it both ways. We either encourage those with money and power to be inclusive and allow that cultures will be appropriated by others, or we allow those in power to remain exclusive and minority cultures will continue to be under represented or quite possibly non-existent in media and popular culture. In short, you can't demand that the Rich White Guys Club include more minority culture on the media that they own and then chastise them publicly for doing it improperly.

When people want to be righteous and angry, they will find a reason to be. There's no escaping it. But I would challenge any one of these people complaining to find any other company as financially successful and wildly popular as Disney that puts even half as much effort into promoting diversity and cultural awareness. See, now I'm getting righteous and angry :laugh:

No-one has to read and post on a topic if it upsets them. But not everyone might agree with a point of view being communicated and exploring different points of view can be a big part of what discussion boards should be able to offer.

For me, and as far as I can tell, it happens quite literally everywhere throughout society and in all directions, and it is not limited to culture. It seems to be just part of human (and probably animal) nature to beg, borrow and steal from any available source for any reason. As humans we can seemingly refine our behaviour quite a lot if we have the intention backed by focused effort, and as humans in a society we can refine it systematically to raise the bar even another level higher. Which sort of is part of the reason why intention to offend stands out as a distinct type.

So the other issue of appropriation is a lot harder to assess because its so intertwined, at so many levels - and when confronted with efforts like multiculturalism it might even be beneficial if not entirely unavoidable, as kids learn about other cultures by 'doing' and 'being'. Is learning and speaking a foreign language cultural appropriation? Why not? Finding a positive for learning and using it is not negation enough as I'd wager there are some positives of most cultural appropriation, as it makes new things more accepted in broader culture by increasing exposure and thus making outsiders or minorities feel less isolated from that larger host culture. So given those realities, perhaps its healthier as a society that we see it as a positive thing instead of a negative thing...... unless of course the intention is to offend (harm) or steal (take authority).

While I agree with nearly every point you have made, Jamie, this one stuck out to me as possibly difficult to defend.

Jamie Stick wrote: But in the larger context, Eminem is still a white person using a black cultural art form and made big bucks off of it.

Marshall Mathers is white. He was also poor. He also grew up in the low income suburbs of Detroit that are demographically not white. He may have appropriated a black cultural art form from the environment he was surrounded by, but "Eminem" and "Slim Shady" are not Elvis. He's not a white guy trying to make money off of a black product. That would be Vanilla Ice you're thinking of. Eminem had the same goals that every black rapper in his neighborhood had. To get out of his neighborhood.

Furthermore, white people are more offended by his persona than black, and although he did get rich, Dr. Dre got richer. If anybody was trying to use whiteness to exploit a black cultural art form, it was him.

rap was a part of eminems culture - hell its been a part of MY culture most of my life and though others might wish they were in charge of where the lines are drawn, the fact is that a persons culture is everything thats around them

elvis made money because the people who had money spent it on elvis: we call that capitalism and free market economics, and thats american as apple pie or police brutality

Jamie Stick wrote:

TheDude wrote: I wasn't born into a culture.

Are you white? I only ask because this is very typical thing for white people to say. White people (particularly American whites) often go through large portions of their lives being unaware of their own culture, in large part due to the fact that they can go almost anywhere in America and find their culture there. What isn't their culture is often grafted into it through appropriation.

I don't care about race or national origin. It's not a factor. You can see my face in my profile picture, if you can see that you know that I'm white.
That generalization is pretty racist. If I were to say "that's a typical thing for black people to say" under ANY circumstances, that would be considered racist. I don't condone racism.
Particularly American whites, you say. As if generalizing an entire race wasn't bad enough, now you're bringing nationality into it. Now through some association fallacy I must conform to the stereotypes presented about people who are my skin color and who live in my country? I'll not accept that.
I know what my culture is. It's the result of many different factors. I've been to different countries and I've seen what other cultures are like. Don't presume that I'm a blind stereotype.

TheDude wrote: Each of us appropriates the culture around us. You appropriate your parents culture, imperfectly, and you eventually create your own culture as a result.

The word your looking for is "values" which is not the same as culture, though to be fair it was my fault for not defining culture from the start, but you are using the word appropriation incorrectly.

You aren't mystically born with some culture imprinted in your soul based on where you were born or anything like that. Culture is not something ingrained in our brains. If we do share a common culture, that's only because our similar experiences have lead us to similar conclusions. We have consumed similar art and media, and we've learned the same national history and all of that. But these are really only things that we happen to experience in our daily lives. My childhood consisted of watching Japanese cartoons with English subtitles, playing certain games, watching television and films and all sorts of stuff. I read a lot as a child, though many of my peers didn't. All of those things contribute to my culture. Do I not have the authority to claim my experiences as my own? If I don't have that authority and I'm nothing more than a stereotype, what does it even mean for me to be an autonomous individual? If I do have that authority, then surely my culture is defined by those experiences. Those Japanese cartoons are part of my culture. They're also part of "Japanese culture", whatever that means. I've appropriated that part of their culture. And I don't really care about it. That's cultural appropriation, there's nothing wrong with it, and cultural appropriation isn't inherently bad.
Earlier you posted something on cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. I deny that any such difference exists. It seems to me only to be a method of classifying what you think is acceptable and what you think is unacceptable, and has no foundation outside of personal taste. Who cares if a white guy has a hairstyle from some other culture? Maybe he likes how it looks. That's appreciation. right?

TheDude wrote: It was common practice in major countries such as China and Japan to majorly appropriate European and American culture.

Funny you should mention Japan. Japan has been oscillate between periods of trying to be more like America and at other times doing their darnedest to resist it because it poses a threat to the distinctly Japanese way of life. Japan has always been threatened by cultural elimination. Look up the history of tentacle porn (there is a video that's completely SFW that has a brief version): essentially the Japanese ended up sacrificing important erotic art for the sake of Christian missionaries. While it is related to culture, cultural wars are not the same as cultural appropriation.

The "Japanese way of life" has completely changed over time. It bears almost no resemblance to what it was a century ago. When Japan was imperialistic, killing 100,000 Chinese people per month during the second World War, they had a completely different culture. Japan's current culture is heavily influenced by the West. As some cultural practices enter into a country, others sometimes leave. It's probably a shame that the tentacle porn got censored. But it is still a fact that Japan in general has appropriated their culture from the West.
And China. After all, the Koreans made their own writing system. Even after creating their own writing system, the Japanese still use a slightly modified Chinese system which is probably the most obvious form of cultural appropriation that I've seen. I think you're trying to justify all of their cultural appropriation to make it seem as if the white people of the world are the only people participating in cultural appropriation, to justify your previous statement. I reject that cultural appropriation is a bad thing at all, but since you don't, why are you trying to represent a particular race as somehow worse, lesser, or unequal to all other races?
I'll also say that the words and actions of an individual are theirs alone. They aren't representative of their race. I've known black men who have joined gangs and committed many crimes. Am I supposed to say that they were representative of their race? I've known white men who have done the same thing. Race doesn't determine a person's actions, their personality, their likes or dislikes, or anything else. The only thing that race determines is the color of a person's skin -- and there is no reason to judge someone based on their skin color.

TheDude wrote: Cultural appropriation really shouldn't be majorly attributed to a single race or ethnic group.

Why not? Because it hurts or makes you feel like you're being singled out? We're talking about people who went to war and occupied nearly half the globe for spices even though the majority of their cuisine doesn't utilize spices. We're talking about a people who celebrate a Catholic saint who, almost single-handedly, wiped out the indigenous religious practice of the people.

I could go on, but I'm pretty exhausted of repeating myself with every conversation about culture and race only to be met with same uninformed, unresearched opinions time and again.

No. Because generalizing something that you consider bad as a major attribute of a certain race or ethnic group is racist. That's really as simple as it gets.
I don't care in the least what you want to say about white people. Single me out or single my race out or do whatever you want. Just accept that it's racist. And no justification changes the fact that it's racist. Even if white people had committed 99% of the murders in history, generalizing them would still be racist.
Also, if you want to hate British people for their imperialism, that's on you. And if you want to hate Catholics for their practices, that's on you. But neither being from the U.K. nor being an imperialist, nor being Catholic, is a necessary trait of being white. And those Catholics today have no connection whatsoever to people living hundreds or even 50 years ago. They're not the same people, and they don't really share the same culture as their previous generations. The same goes for the British. If you've got good reason to hate British people, that doesn't give you good reason to hate white people. I don't think there's a good reason to hate anyone. These are clearly racist statements and I don't think there's any reason to bring them up in the first place.

Now, I'm pretty sure the topic was cultural appropriation. Cultural imperialism, purposely going into another place to eradicate their culture, is NOT cultural appropriation.
But if cultural imperialism can be used to get rid of certain cultural practices, like mutilating children's genitals, then I don't really care about the indigenous culture. If that's what their culture produces, maybe a bit of cultural imperialism is a good thing. Do you think that things like female genital mutilation should be preserved just because they're part of someone's culture?

Jamie Stick wrote:

Manu wrote:
Jamie, I still don't understand why cultural appropriation is harmful, as in the case of Elvis or Eminem. Could you expand?

Certainly, in the case of Elvis, he is considered the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" even though his music was a poor imitation of black artists who had already begun fusing blues and jazz influences to make that rock sound, yet he considered one of the pioneers of rock and roll. He didn't do anything new or even do what he did particularly well, but he was marketable because he was white and nobody cared that it was originally Big Mama Thorton's song which only 500k copies (as opposed to Presley's 10mil copies).

Eminem I'm a little more on the fence about. By and large, he's probably one of the few white people who earned their way into the music industry (as a rapper) as opposed to be handed it simply because he's white and has money (Eminem famously didn't have any money which made his story more inspiring when they released the film about him, 8 Mile). But in the larger context, Eminem is still a white person using a black cultural art form and made big bucks off of it.

I still don't see the "harmful" part. YES, it is unfair that black people playing the same music were not successful due to racism. But is that Elvis' fault?

I'm latino, and, unless someone were intentionally mocking me, I can't think of a single thing I'd be bothered with some other country or "race" borrowing from me. I never got upset that latino's were misrepresented when I watched Speedy Gonzalez.

Cultural sensitivity is probably the more important part of the title of this thread. I think it is possible to appropriate culture in a positive way while also being sensitive to stereotypes and negative misrepresentations. Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, we fail miserably at it.

Disney's Aladdin is a great example. They were trying to make a movie based on a famous Middle Eastern folk tale. The original story takes place in a city in China. Disney retained much of the plot, but set it in a fictional Arabian city, hoping to create a hero that would shed positive light on that area of the world. While it mostly succeeded in accomplishing that goal, the movie started with a musical number that highlighted a number of stereotypes about Arabia including chopping off appendages as punishment and being "barbaric". Disney was forced to edit the lyrics of the song after backlash from the public.

The appropriation of Middle Eastern culture was not the problem. Disney failed in this instance because they were not sensitive to a particular stereotype about that culture.

TheDude wrote: I don't care about race or national origin. It's not a factor. You can see my face in my profile picture, if you can see that you know that I'm white.

Many Ashkenazi Jews are light skinned but are not white (for the simple fact that even though on first glance they appear white they are not immune to racism). I didn't want to assume that you're white simply because you have light skin.

TheDude wrote: As if generalizing an entire race wasn't bad enough, now you're bringing nationality into it. Now through some association fallacy I must conform to the stereotypes presented about people who are my skin color and who live in my country? I'll not accept that.

You don't have to conform, there's no genetic predisposition to it, but you did anyway.

TheDude wrote: You aren't mystically born with some culture imprinted in your soul based on where you were born or anything like that.

That was never my claim and I'd really appreciate it if you'd refrain from putting words into my mouth for the sake of shooting it down, otherwise known as the Strawman Fallacy .

TheDude wrote: Culture is not something ingrained in our brains. If we do share a common culture, that's only because our similar experiences have lead us to similar conclusions. We have consumed similar art and media, and we've learned the same national history and all of that.

Full stop, you just contradicted yourself.

TheDude wrote: But these are really only things that we happen to experience in our daily lives. My childhood consisted of watching Japanese cartoons with English subtitles, playing certain games, watching television and films and all sorts of stuff. I read a lot as a child, though many of my peers didn't. All of those things contribute to my culture.

No. That's cultural importation whereby one cultures consumes the exports of another. Try again, friend.

TheDude wrote: Earlier you posted something on cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. I deny that any such difference exists. It seems to me only to be a method of classifying what you think is acceptable and what you think is unacceptable, and has no foundation outside of personal taste. Who cares if a white guy has a hairstyle from some other culture? Maybe he likes how it looks. That's appreciation. right?

Or you could, y'know, read a book detailing why people feel hurt by the destruction of their culture through appropriation. I'm guessing you're not going to though, since it's much easier to post on a forum for applause. It's all out there for you to learn about, you just have to take a second to step outside your own opinions and learn something.

TheDude wrote: It's probably a shame that the tentacle porn got censored.

I'm just gonna stop here because now I know you didn't bother to do any research, you're just shooting from the hip, spouting off your own diatribe of uninformed opinions (however popular they may be is irrelevant). Tentacle porn didn't get censored, in fact it was created simply because of censorship.

Next time you want to argue, please do some research. Your ignorance is profoundly repugnant. Please don't come back until you've done some.

Well Jamie, I'm not sure where you're getting your information. I apologize deeply for not researching tentacle porn to the extent of your liking. Needless to say, you've ignored the bulk of my argument. Why you think my lack of knowledge regarding tentacle porn makes my opinion about your racist comments invalid is beyond me, but perhaps you will enlighten me.

You make presumptions about me, the content of my character, based solely on the color of my skin. When I look at someone I make no assumptions about them based on their appearance, but apparently you have good reason to do so! Very curious. Tell me in what ways I have conformed to "white" culture if you know me so well.

If you must know, yes, I come from a Jewish background. That doesn't add or subtract any validity from anything I've said. Your question regarding my race is completely irrelevant.

And you say I contradicted myself -- where? What are you talking about? I stated in more words that culture is not in-born, and is the result of experience. I've not made any contradiction.

I'm not looking for any applause. And my opinion is valid. I haven't written a novel here, I've only expressed my opinion. I thought that it was generally accepted in discussion that most of what people say is their opinion. I have no obligation to analyze everything from every perspective every time I make a post. The posts would get way too long, it would be impractical. You can't honestly expect that.

How about you list some of your sources, since you're so well-read? If your genuine concern here is to defend your position rather than to attack my character, you should be able to provide some information. Something peer-reviewed, and none of that biased research -- but something good in the field of cognitive science or philosophy. I am apparently so ignorant, so please educate me. Tell me why double standards are acceptable and why it's perfectly okay to make sweeping negative generalizations and stereotypes about one race. Justify your position; I have seen no true counterargument from you, since you've not even touched most of what I wrote. If you aren't prepared to adequately address the points made in discussion, you aren't ready to engage in it at all.

As repugnant as my ignorance may be, I find it preferable to arrogance.