There was a second article on this issue published on The Mary Sue recently. The author said that the opinion of Chinese in China don’t count because China (and India, and Nigeria, mentioned for some reason) were monolithic cultures where people didn’t have to worry about not being represented. Even the posters there (for the most part) called that bullshit.
Even if “you think it is cool”, ISTM that there needs to be a certain amount of intelligence and sensitivity in understanding what the cultural function of that object is. For instance, a non-Jew who wears a Jewish tallit or prayer shawl as a secular accessory to go out clubbing in, because they think it’s pretty, may not be intending in any way to mock Jewish culture, but it’s still somewhat inappropriate.
Same thing for putting any other object with some kind of ceremonial significance to any secular use that could come across as disrespectful. A non-Christian who admires a beautiful table crucifix, say, and decides to put it in the bathroom to hold the spare roll of toilet paper may not actually intend any sacrilege or disrespect, but it’s still somewhat inappropriate.
But an item of clothing or decoration with no particular symbolic value or cultural restrictions on its use, like the prom dress in question, doesn’t fall into that category.
AFAIK, the wearing of burqas by Muslim women is an act of religious identification, sort of like the Jewish prayer shawl in my previous example. You might wear one as a non-Muslim woman if you were visiting a country where it was customary, but wearing it as a secular fashion item like a modern duster coat would be somewhat inappropriate.
Wearing items of secular clothing common in Muslim cultures, such as “Persian slipper” embroidered shoes or Yemenite-embroidery scarves, is AFAIK considered perfectly fine for foreigners and non-Muslims in general.
I love it – “India is a monolithic culture”. Ha! Someone was sleeping through history class!
For fuck’s sake. There is a perfectly legitimate argument there. The people in those countries don’t regularly experience racism, while those in our country do. Hence they are going to be more sensitive to perceived racism. It is disingenuous that asking one group means they speak for the other group.
It’s like asking people in Africa if something that has black people eating watermelon, fried chicken, and using that blackface accent is racist. They may completely lack the context to know it is racist. I remember a racist video about wanting to date a Japanese woman that Japanese people had no problem with, but Japanese Americans could see all the racist stereotypes. Everyone tended to agree it was racist in the US, even though Japanese people didn’t get it, because they lacked the social context.
Does that mean the dress really is a problem? Not necessarily. But it’s a perfectly valid point that the cultures are different and you can’t call upon one and have it speak for the other. Asking mainland Chinese people misses the entire point. They need to actually ask Chinese Americans to see if this is a widespread belief.
My own belief is simply that the story would not have blown up so badly if there was nothing to it. I’ve seen plenty of people say dumb things that no one agreed with. They get a small argument there, but then they are ignored. At most, they may wind up as a single story in one of those places that specifically looks for “SJWs are taking over” news. But then it dies.
That this is continuing means there’s still real controversy over the subject. That it keeps happening suggests that we’ve still not worked it out. And, since we haven’t, that means mockery doesn’t help. Mockery leads to people feeling bullied, which leads to them only becoming louder.
For a lot of people, this is probably about much, much more than a stupid dress that probably isn’t a real problem.
The half-Chinese American who started all this is an idiot racist.
Ah. Whitesplaining.
Yeah, this is a point. It’s related to why I, a white American woman, routinely wear sari or salwar kameez when I’m visiting India (and Indian people in general are fine with it because it’s just normal clothing), but not back home in the US.
Personally, I’d still love to wear those clothes in the US, as lots of South Asian-Americans do. But on me, and in this culture, it could come across as “dressing up as an Indian woman”.
Something that within its region/culture of origin is just normal clothing for anybody can take on the appearance of “costume” if worn elsewhere by somebody who isn’t part of that culture.
Ideally, all beautiful and/or useful secular forms of clothing will eventually be incorporated into a set of worldwide clothing options for everybody, as has already happened to, e.g., the T-shirt (initially a form of man’s undergarment developed in early 20th-century America) and the dressing gown/bathrobe (originally derived from the West Asian banyan or open silk robe adopted by 18th-c. Europeans for house wear). But not every garment style has reached that point yet.
Fried chicken, watermelon and blackface are not things in Africa (and blackface is ALWAYS racist). To most people, it’s just random food. A cheong-sam IS, however, from China. And it is a part of Chinese culture, rather than the other way around. Not the same thing, and you fucking know that.
The article has does NOT have a point, because the idea that everyone is happy and racism-free in Asia is absolute bullshit.
I wear yoga pants. I don’t do yoga. Bad. Me.
White people also aren’t allowed to do yoga.
Huh? Those are ultra-attractive clothes and, though I’m not nearly as clueless as some think, I still cannot understand why those wouldn’t be appropriate for you to wear to any semi- to formal event. The office? Maybe not. Gardening? Probably not. Church? Why not? Okay, not a salwar kameez because that might make you look too hot in a “Hello, nurse!” way, but saris are fine.
Especially ironic since most forms of modern asana practice, which is what most Western commercial yoga classes are about, are in fact descended from a 19th/20th-century synthesis of traditional Indian spiritual techniques and Western “physical culture” promotion of calisthenics and gymnastics.
Looking too hot is not something I generally have to worry about, but I still feel that using sari or salwar kameez as formalwear in the US would somehow suggest “costume” for a random American woman.
But if I ever get invited to some event at the local Indian cultural center and the organizers say it’s okay for me to wear sari, you better believe I will! You are so right about those being about the prettiest forms of clothing known to humankind.
Really? I think some will be jealous while others will ask where you got them. And the haters will hate. Not much you can do about those assholes anyway.
(thinking)
But where do you live? That might matter. I’m in suburban Chicago where it would be cool, while Beckdawrek lives in BFE, where it might not be cool.
Yep, that’s where I live;)
China is a monolithic culture? That’s literally saying “All them Orientals look the same to me!” in slightly higher-flown words. That is racism. That is a racist sentiment. That is what racism looks like. It is impossible to say it any more clearly. You could say exactly the same thing about India, replacing “Oriental” with… “Paki” or something, I’m not up on my slurs… and it would be equally racist. There’s no way to defend the idea. They’re so astoundingly ignorant they can’t not say racist shit.
Seriously? Tell that to the Tibetans, or the Uighurs, or any of the other several dozen ethnic minorities in China. Or maybe you can westsplain it to the relatives of people killed by the Japanese in the Nanking massacre or the women forced to become “comfort women”.
What’s funny is that on his twitter page, he sitting wearing a baseball cap, and t-shirt. T-shirt dates back to sometime between the 1898 Spanish–American War and 1913, when the U.S. Navy began issuing them as undergarments the first baseball hats were made of straw. They were first worn by the New York Knickerbockers on about 1849. But, hey, you can’t be a SJW if you’re not ticked off over something. I remember that whole kimono cultural thing a few years back, and what was funny is the Japanese WANTED people to wear them, and yet the SJW make a huge issue out of it. The Japanese want people to wear them and save the Kimono industry.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/outrage-boston-museum-of-fine-arts-disgraceful-kimono-event-314534 found a link to Kimono cultural outrage thing
Is Jeremy Lam’s fifteen minutes up yet?