Okay, so I’m going to make yet another long post, and I’m sorry for any of my followers it may disturb (bear with me) and really, this is going to be the only post on this subject I will make, so better say everything I want to say.
There are a few things that bother me about cultural appropriation as a concept championed by Tumblr and I’m going to explain why.
But first I want to say that I do sympatise with you if you don’t feel safe engaging in your own brand of American culture (the one who was brought and created by Black people there) in the USA. This is fucked up and this should not happen and indeed this sort of mockery needs to be called out. No one should feel othered in their own home, so I want you to know that I am NOT invalidating your experience in any way.
That being said, there are a few things that I dislike with the way tumblr is pushing that concept:
- For starter, there is how extreme it is. You have a non-negligeable portion of Tumblr who will insist that ANYTHING is cultural appropriation. From language, to ways of dressing and even going as far as saying that certain body shapes are inherently “black” or “white” and that if a white girl has the misfortune to be born with a hourglass shape, she is culturally appropriating. Now, there is something to be said about how those forms were looked at as oddities when black women were having them, but attacking those girls for the body they were born with and couldn’t help but have seem like going too far for me. Especially for a bunch of people who pretend to promote body positivity but yet have no qualms about body shaming those they don’t like if it means they can push another one of their point at the moment. Not to mention that, what of the black girl who is born with no forms, or with a small nose or with straight hairs? Are they not black enough? You can’t appropriate a body shape because body shapes do not belong to anyone, neither do hairs or face features, it is absurd to pretend that they do, and it can lead nowhere but to more prejudice, more hatred and more racism.
As for the language part… well… I wouldn’t be here talking to you if this was to be applied, I would be speaking en Français et je n'aurais probablement aucun moyen de te répondre parce que ni toi ni moi ne saurions parler une autre langue… see? And we would end up in a world where people are completly closed to anyone who aren’t their own and looking at each other with mistrust. I don’t think people here realise how close this kind of thinking is from far right nationalism; what they are pushing sounds like nothing else but protectionist bullshits straight out of Marine Le Pen’s mouth to me (Marine Le Pen is France’s very own far right politician).
- Second, I just don’t see how the brand of “cultural appropriation” as pushed by this website can lead anywhere but with the death of the cultures they are pretending to protect if it was to be applied like they say it should.
People here are acting like cultures are those untouchable, unchanging things that are to be put in museums and touched by no one but the people who created them. But while artpieces can be part of a culture, a culture itself is not an artpiece or an historical artifact. Culture is alive, it is breathing, it is living, it is engaged in by everyone, every day and it is always changing, moving, new things get added while others are abandoned.
You simply can’t put a culture inside of a shrine and decide this or that part is not to be touched, because culture is to be shared, it is MEANT to and in all times it always has been. We all appropriated greek culture when we decided that “man… that democracy thing is a cool concept, I’ll use that”, do you really think it would have been better if the western world hadn’t for the sake of avoiding “cultural appropriation”? Of course it would not.
In an increasingly globalised world, it is simply naive, misguided if not outright dangerous to push for culture to be enshrined instead of shared, and really this is the heart of where I disagree with that concept: people can’t seem to understand that there is a difference between cultural sharing and cultural appropriation. I mean, I have seen people here calling out a 10 years old for “culturally appropriating” because she came back from whatever African country she visited with braided hairs, or calling out people for eating food that aren’t their own, how is that right? Which leads me to my next point..
- People’s vision of cultural appropriation is horribly American-centered. Americans decide which culture deserve protection from appropriation and which does not according to which american groups are opressed in the USA and they see no problems with imposing those standards to everyone everywhere no matter how little it makes sense in other parts of the world. They have an issue with people eating mexican food, but not with people wearing berets (not that they should mind you!) because mexicans are opressed in the USA while French/Europeans aren’t.
I’ll give a concrete example; a few years back, Avril Lavigne did a video where she included Japanese cultural items, a video which she aimed at her Japanese audience. Americans were outraged by this, called her a racist for culturally appropriating and decided to be offended on the behalf of the Japanese everywhere, meanwhile the Japanese either loved it or didn’t see the big deal. Because guess what? Japanese culture is alive and well in Japan, it is not in any danger of disapearing, Japanese culture isn’t endangered or insulted by Avril Lavigne showing some appreciation for it and pandering to her Japanese audience, it is lively enough not to be. Just because a group is opressed in the USA doesn’t mean it is everywhere and Americans REALLY need to learn to make that difference, stop pushing their constructs on places where it doesn’t make any sense and stop trying to be everyone’s voice.
And especially NOT when those they are trying to defend actually appreciate when others show interest in their cultures (I rebloged a great post about that here regarding South Korea ), try out their food, read about their history, their customs, read their literature or watch their movies…etc… Americans need to learn to stop wanting to decide what’s offensive and what is not for anyone but themselves. They need to learn to stop wanting to speak for everyone, because they can’t, not everyone has their history and issues and they only end up silencing those they want to defend by speaking over them instead. I sympathise with your struggles and I never mean to imply that they aren’t real, but they can’t be applied to everyone, it’s as simple as that.
Cultural appropriation for me makes sense when it is someone who isn’t a native american wearing a feathered hairdress - which hold deep meaning to them - and doing it in a way that is mocking and disrespectful. However it doesn’t make sense when it’s people claiming dreadlocks belong to african people and no one else despite those hairs having appeared in every part of the world just because in the USA they tend to be worn by blacks and mocked when worn by them.
TL:DR: there is a difference between cultural appropriation and cultural sharing (which has always happened and will continue to happen) and you CAN’T impose US standards everywhere. This is my issue with it.
Hi anon.
Okay, when Europeans say that racism works differently in Europe, they aren’t saying that racism against black people, middle eastern people or romani people don’t exist and we are not ignoring those similarities - literally no sane European will ever try to argue that, and I certainly will be the last to do so, I have never done that in any of my posts about this issue, I am never going to start and I follow no Europeans who do.
Where Europeans get frustrated is when you have US bloggers insisting that their definition of racism (which is mostly about colourism and comes from their history) can be applied everywhere the same. When Americans insist that you cannot be racist against white people because racism is power plus prejudice (or whatever have you) and white people are always in power and therefore cannot be discriminated against.. well this is where you lose Europeans. Because “whiteness” in Europe simply does not operate the same way; to put it in simple words, insisting that white people always held power and were never oppressed erases a huge part of European history, erases the sufferings of many people/countries and of course we aren’t okay with that - nobody would.
I have mentioned the Polish being denied the right to exist many times as well as the Greek’s genocide at the hands of the Turks. I could also mention the Albanian massacres, the oppression of the Irish by the British, the prejudices against Slavic people or the many invasion of Finland by Russia, and those are only examples. Racism in Europe simply isn’t only about colour, it’s also about ethnicity (and classism, really), many people who would be seen as simply “white” in the US, would not in Europe and would face and have faced many discriminations for being the “wrong kind of white” so to speak.
No one in Europe will deny that black people.. etc… will face racism here, but we are uncomfortable with the way Americans will keep pushing on us the idea that white people have always held power and that therefore you cannot be prejudiced against them, simply because Europe’s history do not go in that sense and we witness racism between many European ethnicities all the time. We have a problem with Americans trying to push their constructs and definition of what racism is on us - a definition that comes from their particular history of slavery and segregation - and insist that if we disagree then it must be because we’re racist ourselves.
In Europe you can be racist against white people (including non white people against white people btw - looking at Turkey again), and this is where we are frustrated with Americans trying to force their definition of racism as solely being about white people discriminating against non-white, and with the way they are ignoring that power is fluid and will be held by different people depending of where and when you are. Europe’s different history and social background will mean that those issues will have different dynamics attached to them and won’t operate or be dealt with the same and we wish this was acknowledged instead of dismissed just to try to make us fit in their neat little American centred “social justice” bow.