Honestly, I have no problem, in fact it may even be a laudable activity, to speak out about a tendency for white people in Portland to exploit immigrants and immigrant culture. I have a problem with knee-jerk outrage that identifies specific people as targets for the modern-day equivalent of public stoning and with a culture that is at least partly motivated by a need to signal tribal membership more than to effect any actual social change. If these people were attending city council meetings to raise these issues rather than trying to villanize two ladies and their taco truck, I would probably feel very differently.
I agree, it shows the worst elements of “liberal” society. So much angst and guilt and privilege tied up in one affluent package.
If that’s the worst, then things are pretty good.
Exactly.
Oh, you caught me before I edited. I focused in on the octopus part, not the Native American part. :smack:
I dunno. I think an argument can be made that it stifles critical thinking and freedom of expression, which is not a good thing.
Well, apparently he’s a Pablo…
It always bugs me to hear people tell me what other groups think. I worked with many Navajo students and adults, and not one said they were offended by the Washington Redskins. As a matter of fact, most of my former students LOVE the Redskins, because that was a mascot they could relate to. It seems that the ones making all the noise about how un-PC the mascot is have little if any Native American heritage.
I have no doubt that there are some Native Americans offended by the Washington Redskins. (This is actually an issue where I tend to side with the PC crowd, but I think I can still make my point here.) The question is, who makes the people who are offended the arbiters of what’s morally correct?
I mean this in the most serious possible way. How do we decide what is and is not cultural appropriation and whether it’s okay to do? I see something inherently problematic in leaving it to the (white) majority, but I also see something inherently problematic in leaving it to the most offended Native American (or Mexican, or Portlandian of color.) This goes beyond race. I’ve encountered it in feminist circles, where some women say ‘‘this behavior of many men is offensive or bothersome to me,’’ and other women say, ‘‘No, it’s not a big deal.’’ And I’ve argued with women who believe that they have a right to hate men as a blanket judgment because they were hurt by some of them, and I, a woman also hurt by some men, think they are full of shit. Whose experience do we honor? Who do we take seriously in this world full of painful experiences and varied opinions?
And once we’ve decided the answer, can we stick with it even when it’s an offense against us that’s being discounted?
Tell your friend as an American Indian, I’m giving you a pass.
Also that it was racist of her to perpetuate a cultural stereotype.
I was being snarky and joking in my last post, but yes…THIS.
I don’t need or want white people to be offended for me. It reeks of “White Savior” and “there there little man, we know best for you”
Also all that ‘spirit animal’ bullshit and ‘one with the earth’ and ‘the wise mystic Indian’ is constantly perpetuated in media and books and comics and movies and TV and its eyerolling at best. And offensive when seen on Star Trek with theses white writers pretending how progressive they are and then going around saying “We’re doing an Indian episode!”
(looks around…sees everyone backing slowly away…gets off soapbox.)
Sorry.
Don’t be. It’s refreshing to hear what an American Indian thinks about these stereotypes instead of what my liberal white friends have decided American Indians think.
I know some areas of the US have sizeable populations of American Indians but I am so far removed from exposure to those areas (I live in the metro Detroit area) I couldn’t begin to guess what the actual issues are. In grad school, we did have one American Indian student who grew up on a reservation, and it seemed to me she was much more concerned about the high rates of poverty, diabetes, and alcoholism in her community than cultural appropriation.
But I don’t feel comfortable deciding that cultural appropriation doesn’t, or shouldn’t matter to some populations or individuals. It’s just so subjective I’m not sure how it can be operationally defined.
I guess the best example I have where cultural appropriation seems to do demonstrable harm is that I am a fan of rock music, and I have been socialized pretty much my entire life to think that rock and roll is a white person thing. But I recently visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and it became crystal clear that rock music has its roots in black culture and white people culturally appropriated the hell out of it. Elvis was so controversial precisely because he was doing ‘‘black music.’’ This does not mean Elvis is the devil, but it points to the fact that we white-wash the hell out of so many things that we consider reflections of our own culture without even stopping to think about where it came from. Black people created rock music. Full stop.
I think it matters that we know and recognize this. I think most serious rock musicians do know and recognize this, but I’m not sure many rock music fans give it much thought or credibility, and I think they should. I think they should at least in part because it adds to our depth of understanding about a culture different from our own, and by adding depth those people become less stereotypes and more living, breathing human beings interacting and thinking and creating in their own communities. I think if any argument could be made against cultural appropriation it would be that one.
But again, I don’t know how we define it. I don’t know who decides.
I know I’m railing against the idea of cultural appropriation in the great debates thread, but on the Redskins issue, I can see how basing a mascot on something beyond someone’s control (such as skin color) can be a problem. But cultural issues? Keep the exact same look for the mascot, change the name to the Featherhats, and I’m good with it. 
This is what we get when good old witch hunting and the modern convenience of online shopping merge, virtual lynch mobs.
Carrying torches and pitchforks around is such a hassle, now you can ruin a person’s life just lying in your sofa seeping a frappuccino.
Do native Hawaiians resent everybody else’s use of “aloha”?
Did you not hear of the woman who harangued an uber driver for 30 minutes for having a little Hawaiin hula-girl bobblehead?
I donno, but stay away from those hula dolls!
There was a time when people made an effort to avoid appropriating other cultures. It was called “segregation”, or “apartheid”.
Tolerance is a two-way street. If Tiger Woods is allowed to play golf, then Justin Timberlake is allowed to rap. If the Hamptons must be integrated, then so must Harlem.
I’ll throw in my two cents regarding the whole Redskins issue as well. I think in a sense the football team in Washington had actually desigmatized the word. My guess is most Americans, when they hear the word redskins, associate it with football and not as a slur against Native Americans. As far as I can recall, until Daniel Snyder bought the team changing the team name wasn’t something that was even on the radar of most people.