Taboo Topics (Heavily moderated)

[Wry Bread]

"Stealing from other cultures" is in itself an extremely racist sentiment. When you do blackface, the offense isn't in that you "stole" something, it's the implication that you're mocking someone else through overexaggerated caricature. It would be like a man stuffing pillows down all his clothes, smearing facepaint all over himself, piling toy jewelry on and then squacking in a stereotypical "female harpy" voice to "represent" women for the purpose of making a point about them in a story, as blackface was originally used for. That is offensive. The implication is that there's no point getting a real person of that particular group to portray themselves, because it'd be the same and they're inferior anyway.

A man dressing as a woman for halloween to comical effect is not offensive, on the other hand. It's neither a dig at trans* nor at women, in the same way someone dressing as a cartoonish dog or a giant banana is not a dig at mammals or fruit. The joke is that it's incongruous with the reality of what they personally are, not what anyone else is. Incongruity (often bastardized as "lol randomness" despite being different in nuance and result) is a well-known and ancient form of humor, and one of the least offensive out there, as well. If I chose to dress as an extravagant caricature of a stereotypical british gent with a luxurious stache and top hat, how many people would be reasonably offended that I'm "appropriating" maleness or "british" culture? When the joke is that I am not, in fact, what I am portraying myself as, rather than that "gee this group I'm representing is sure silly"? It's not any different from the running gag that I'm secretly a talking bread animal, except that bread animals aren't a group that exist to complain.

Since when is it okay to pigeonhole people according to perceived ethnicity and culture anyway? The end line of "appropriation" is that all races and nationalities should be forced to strictly comply to ONLY things that can be directly attributed to just them, and never sample, appreciate or imitate things from others. And if that's the case, pretty much only the chinese and arabic peoples are going to have jack shit left, since we "appropriated" numbers, medicine, many forms of writing and art, etc. from them. For that matter, maybe everyone who isn't 100% pure african native should just stop existing, since we appropriated the act of being this species from them.

All humans are humans. We're all the same species. There's more genetic difference between a set of caucasian brothers and sisters than between a black man and a european of mixed heritage, or between an asian and native american, for that matter. What "appropriation" comes down to is "I don't want you to have what I have," and the last time I checked, that's a really, really shitty way to treat someone else. "I got here FIRST and IT'S MINE so you CAN'T" is toddler logic, especially since people accused of "appropriation" aren't claiming to have MADE jazz, twerking, or whatever the hell else. They're just enjoying that particular thing. Big fucking deal.

When people complain about religious symbols being used wrongly, that's slightly different. But still not an excuse.

To be honest I find tacky trailer trash rhinestone crosses a little offensive, at least from the standpoint of sensibility and taste. But you know what? It's not my right to complain about that, and least of all attack people over it, not because I'm not "one of them," but because what someone else is and isn't is none of my business. It's all well and good to want to defend the integrity of a religious symbol, but that doesn't apply to "I DON'T THINK THIS PERSON HAS A RIGHT TO WEAR IT!"

How the hell do YOU know that person isn't native american? Because they look white and middle class? That in itself is racist. I'm white as hell and was blonde haired and blue eyed as a baby. I'm also legally native american because of my great grandparents. During the "the kids are aracial" debate in homestuck, people complained that the kids "couldn't realistically" be black or any non-white due to affluence, lifestyle or geographic area. What the hell, tumblr? A black family can't be wealthy enough to live in their own house, or have a businessman father? An asian family can't enjoy the watered down American version of "real" japanese entertainment? Since when?

And back on the subject of the headdress/religious symbols point-- since when is it either impossible or offensive that someone convert to, or just BELONG to, a religion that isn't "racially theirs"? I'm not Jewish from Israel. Does that make me and my mixed pool of ancestry too "dirty" to touch "someone else's" religion? Even though my father was born and raised into it, and I converted as a child when my parents were married? Or maybe it doesn't matter, since suddenly Jews are taboo again because they're white and have to do with cheddar. Or maybe it doesn't matter because I didn't convert as an adult, because gross yucky old people don't get how right youth culture is! No matter how you try to spin it, it's so loaded with bigoted fallacies I could never find the time to point out every single one.

A lot of the posts in the screencaps thread lately have been related to someone overzealous jumping down someone else's throat about perceived appropriation, only to find out their "fuck off and die cissexual/white boy/straight kid/whatever" rhetoric was addressing someone who either wasn't talking about what they thought, or actually did belong to the group they were trying to "defend," which is several steps more offensive than someone who dares to "infringe" on another race's "right" to something they inspired. I'm never offended by people wishing me a Merry Christmas, or by sentiments that someone would pray for me or my family under culturally appropriate conditions (someone is very ill, something bad happened, etc.), or anything like that. You know what I'm offended by? People trying to "defend" me using wrong-headed ideas about what I "am" based on race, family situation, or religion. Kids who assume I hate my dad because I was legally adopted by him, people who assume because I'm not a part of the religious majority, I need to respond with resentment and hate toward people merely because they're not like me, etc. THAT'S what's really offensive.

tl;dr In the same way that worrying about oneself or others appearing childish is, in itself, childish, worrying about how racist, not racist, or whatever someone else is in the manner of "appropriation!" is invariably selfish, racist, offensive and wrong-headed, and no amount of "BUT THAT'S THEIR FEEEEELINGS" changes it. At some point, your feelings don't matter enough to be the only justification you have for attacking or shaming others and not being a dick for doing so. They just don't. That's what it means to be an adult. You are not the center of the universe, and neither are your interests or customs. They aren't sacred just because they're "yours," and other people are allowed to experience new things and enjoy other practices. The end.

EDIT: This isn't AT anyone on the forum by the way, and certainly not Tales. It's just a big huge post dump addressing a lot of the most common "points" people try to make about appropriation.

[Lambeth]

"Stealing from other cultures" is in itself an extremely racist sentiment.

Well cross cultural exchange probably sounds better and it's what my history professor used.

[YCobb]

It both sounds better and is the correct term.

The idea of "cultural appropriation" is a flawed concept invented by the less reasonable side of social justice advocates. In addition to what Wry was saying about how it doesn't really cause issues, it's also how the world works. Societal advancement is virtually entirely dependent on cultures sharing ideas and has been for thousands of years. "Cultural appropriation" is just another way for tumblr social justice to demonize the people it wants to demonize.

[Turbro]

"Cultural appropriation" and the people who get mad at it can be summed up as thus:

"Oh hey this is cool I want to try it"
"YOU ARE THE WORST RACIST"

[Wry Bread]

Totally. Like I said, I understand that people want to protect the integrity of important religious symbols; my biggest issue with, say, the headdress thing, is how so many people who fling those complaints automatically assume that any time they see it on someone who isn't a caricature of a full-blooded native american, it's "racist" or they're not allowed. That to me says they're more concerned about flinging hate than about actually protecting something, I guess, based soley on appearances. Like I said, I don't look native american, but would customarily qualify to join my tribe legally if I chose to because of my great grandparents. Yet even if I did I would almost certainly be alienated, because of how I look.

[Barabba]

Ever think that more people would take religion seriously if there were still animal sacrifices?

[YCobb]

I think the only difference would be a much stronger ethical case for atheism.

[Barabba]

Yeah, it seems like it would cause a greater divide between atheism and religion.
If a person witnessed an animal sacrifice, they would either go,
"Wow, those people are crazy."
or
"Hmm, those people must have a serious religion if they're sacrificing their goat for it."

[Cori]

I believe that it's not appropriate to wear important cultural symbols when you're not a member of the culture--like people wearing bindis when they aren't Hindu--but too many people take it to the extreme.

I've seen people claiming that dredlocks are cultural appropriation and no white person should ever be allowed to have them because of the Rastafarian movement, even though dreds were also common hairstyles for...say, Germanic and 'Gaelic' people. Who were white. And they didn't know anything about Rastafarianism.

Dredlocks are cultural influence, not appropriation.

[Lambeth]

The Native headdress thing makes me deeply uncomfortable. North America was incredibly diverse both culturally and linguistically before european contact. The headdress thing kind of reduces native americans down to this one particular tribe that was politically notable during the cowboy years. Which hollywood then made a bunch of movies about.

It does strike me as kind of racist but it's clearly not that aggressive sort of racism. I dunno, I feel like I'd have to ask a native american/first nations fellow to be certain, I don't wanna go all white-man-splaining why things are bad.

Also Barabba you oughta change your sig or something.

[Dire]

I can see the head dress thing being offensive for the reasons that Lambeth pointed out. Because it takes a diverse range of cultures and then caricatures them.

I think it's a matter of not respecting the source. Someone who is not Japanese can wear a kimono (properly) and that's awesome.
But the moment they start treating it like some kind of bathrobe or worse, refer to a bathrobe as a kimono, that shits me up the wall.

[Kamak]

To be fair, according to leading historians, a good number of Native American tribes were destroyed before mass contact with European explorers. Within 20 years of Cabeza de Vaca's recounting his journey through the Gulf Coast, most explorers couldn't find even half of the tribes he described, and it's believed that during the time he was journeying, tribes were in the middle of rapid decline and quickly vanishing off the face of the countryside. Estimations range between 30 and 90% of the tribes being utterly decimated within a 50-100 year period between first contact and the first major documented exploration.

If the highest mortality percentage is the reality, only 10% of that hugely diverse culture was kept intact just long enough for it to explorers to know it existed. To put that in perspective, it would be as if England, Scotland, and Ireland were the only representatives of European culture that were able to be documented.

And that's not counting the amount of tribes that continued to die without much contact, the explorers maybe didn't care to recount what they saw, and many tribes likely weren't willing to give up much of their culture to outsiders, so there's observational bias from outsiders.

I'd reckon what we know about Native Americans is probably a drop in the bucket compared to what did exist to begin with, so even being "culturally sensitive" and considering more than just the stereotypical tribe also fails to see the full scope of the Native American culture.

[Syobon]

Good rant Wry.

[Terraem]

Cultural appropriation can actually be a thing that is offensive to people, except it's nowhere near as wide spread and a crime against cultures as some people like to make it out to be. As Wry stated, there're people who simply jump down throats because they're looking for an opportunity to do so and they do it without really knowing who they're attacking.

[Zanoushe]

I think otherkin who have phantom limbs are fascinating (if they're telling the truth, of course). Studying someone who feels like they actually have nonhuman appendages would be wicked interesting—for instance, the effect of feeling they have wings would have in everyday life.

I'm not trying to look down on amputees or anything. I just kind of find phantom limbs in general intriguing.