Nope. I said “fuck you” to some American Plains Indians whose culture valued feather bonnets and who happen to give a shit about it and are mightily offended that someone dares not show utter respect for their special beliefs.
It doesn’t bother me anymore than if some catholic was mightily offended that I dared putting on a cardinal costume.
And neither can the catholic enforce his desire to not be offended by my cardinal costume, restrict my right to wear it or outlaw it. Which is quite fortunate. He can protest it all he wants, along with the plain Indian, though.
On one hand, I agree that little kids should be able to dress up as Mulan no matter their ancestry. In fact, I think people of any ages should be able to dress up as Mulan.
But on the other, I can see the point of “if you’re going to use my culture, could you please try to use it right?” One of my biggest pet peeves in written media is that for every time a non-Spanish-speaking writer sticks a line in actual Spanish, there are 900 where the words are Spanish but the sentence is not, and 99 in which at least one of the words isn’t even Spanish. And I’m not talking about some obscure language, for which it would be enormously difficult to find someone that actually speaks it… I’m fine with anybody from anywhere wearing white and red, but at the same time there happens to be some things one can do to a beret which are Just Wrong.
Sometimes the phrasing from some individual or group manages to be enormously stupid, but that doesn’t mean the issue itself is not valid.
Racist in the USA because of the peculiar cultural and racial history of the USA. Otherwise not racist.
Maybe you should reconsider exactly why you believe that wearing blackface is obviously and inherently racist. You can’t take it as a given outside your own culture, let alone use this cultural idiosincrasy to support your more general point about cultural appropriation.
Unless you believe your culture is so superior to others that your specific cultural hang-ups have an universal value, of course
…when Sam Newman appeared in blackface on the Australian Footy Show to protest the no-show of Aboriginal league player Nicky Winmar that was pretty fucking racist. And yes: Newman hid behind the “its not racist because we aren’t in the USA” card as well. And it has played out more than once.
I don’t live in the United States. I live in New Zealand, and blackface is pretty fucking racist here as well.
Perhaps I could introduce you to the concept of “privilege.” Here is the wiki primer:
If the request is getting fucking rude maybe its because they have been polite for decades and no-one has fucking listened.
I haven’t and do not want a change in laws.
[Croc Dundee]"That’s not a rant. THAT’S a rant.
[/QUOTE]
Right is right.
I’m not being “light on specifics.” I’ve specifically said you aren’t obligated to do a god-damn thing. You are free to do whatever the fuck you want. I do not want to change the laws. I do not want to take away your freedoms.
I simply want you to understand. Understand that while something may not be of any importance to you, it may be substantially important to someone else. Indigenous cultures world wide have had their lands, their livelihoods taken from them at the force of a gun. They have had to endure decades and in some cases centuries of being treated like second class citizens on their own land. Of having legal systems enforced on them.
I count myself fortunate to be living here in NZ. We aren’t perfect here. Racism and inequality exist. But Maori have been pro-active in keeping their culture alive and the Pakeha respectful in actively working to honour the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi. It is a very precarious balance: but both sides work their hardest to maintain a balance, an imperfect partnership.
I just watched this on youtube. Bought tears to my eye. I didn’t expect it to. For those that don’t want to click: its a white South African performing a haka. And he does it correctly, and respectfully, and with passion.
And that really is all we are asking for. It really isn’t very much.
:: shrugs ::
To clarify: you said this was bullshit…
“You deciding for them is you saying that your culture is superior and gets to control the other culture.”
But that is literally what you are describing here. You’ve said that the Plains Indians could seek recourse via the courts using trademarks or copyrights. But “the courts” are not their culture. They can’t seek recourse via their own culture.
You never asked that fucking question. The first question you asked was:
“Is it offensive for me, with no Chinese ancestry, to enjoy Chinese food? Should I have to care if the food I get in my local Chinese buffet restaurant is markedly different from the fare one would actually find in China itself, i.e. the food is a Western-tainted approximation of Chinese cuisine? Am I being offensive if I use a fork instead of chopsticks? Have I committed a social sin if I eat Chinese food for the meal and have a western-style desert (say, lemon meringue pie a la mode)? If a Chinese person declares my actions to be offensive to his culture and must stop, am I obliged to care?”
I answered that question.
“You aren’t obligated to do a god-damn thing. That is my point. You are free to do whatever the fuck you want.”
The second question you asked was “Cool, but that doesn’t answer my question. If a Chinese person claims that I’m disrespecting his culture with regards to food, does it carry the same weight as a Plains Indian claiming I’m disrespecting his culture with regards to feathered war bonnets? If not, why not?”
I answered that question as well.
“There isn’t anything there at all about “weighing up” differences between this person’s complaint and any complaints mad by the Plains Indian’s. But if you were reading my responses carefully you would know the answer. I haven’t applied any “weighting” at all to the feelings and the thoughts of the Plains Indians. I’ve merely pointed out that those feelings and those thoughts exist.”
Stop changing the question and then claiming “I’m not answering the question.”
And again: this is my point. He can’t do very much at all. He can’t do anything realistically except make his voice heard. The very least you can do, and all that I ask that you do, is listen.
So, plain Indians are exactly in the same situation I am if I’m offended by, say, a caricatural use of a landmark of French culture? Or if an American white Christian is offended by an unflattering depiction of his faith? How are offended plain Indians more wronged than offended WASPs, given that neither has any redress? How comes the latter can’t get some sort of resolution since he’s using “his” tools/laws/rules, according to you.
That would be because it’s not “his” tools/laws/rules. It’s the tools/laws/rules of those of us (Amerindians or WASPs) who don’t want offenderati to be able to enforce their peculiar views upon the rest of us. At the expense of Amerindians and WASPs who would like not to be offended by a unrespectful use of whatever they happen to think deserves respect.
Someone made a point earlier that’s being ignored.
Imagine a Cinderella costume. It has a tight girdle to slim girls to Cinderella’s hourglass shape, so that fat girls can pretend to be Cinderella. The dress sleeves have attached full-length arm sleeves colored a pale cream, so that black girls can pretend to be Cinderella.
Does this strike you as a good idea?
Would you approve of a Tiana costume that came with face makeup, so that non-black kids could also pretend to be Tiana?
The issue here involve’s Disney’s assumption that playing a Maori character requires you to change your skin complexion and body shape. In general, those are costume traits you do when you’re playing an animal, not when you’re playing a human.
Cross-race costuming is fantastic. It shouldn’t require changing your body.
…we have never been in disagreement. If you think we have been you haven’t been reading my posts properly.
Ummm, yes? Isn’t that exactly what I said? What part of “You aren’t obligated to do a god-damn thing. That is my point. You are free to do whatever the fuck you want” did you fail to understand?
What the fuck is a WASP?
There isn’t anything peculiar about saying “this is important to my culture, I would appreciate it if you could respect that.”
Blackfaces aren’t inherently racist, that was my point. For something to be racist, it has to either :
-Be intended as racist (say, monkey cries during soccer games)
-Be closely associated with something else that is racist. Blackfaces are closely tied in US culture with minstrel shows, that were both culturally proeminent and racist.
If a culture doesn’t have an history of using blackfaces to demean or mock black people there are no reasons to decide that wearing a blackface is racist. In this case, wearing a blackface is simply dressing up (look, I’m African) like wearing leiderhosen (look, I’m German) or a toga (look, I’m Roman). All dress up are caricatures based on a few traits that are recognized by most as depicting a specific group, whether or not these traits are actually representative of this group (try to dress up as a Frenchman without wearing a beret that pretty much nobody in France wear)
Otherwise, show me why exactly putting on your face a dark make-up is inherently wrong and racist, regardless of cultural influences.
Well, in the scenario I posted, I was polite and the Plains Indians were a bunch of rude jerks, so I guess it’s a scenario-tie.
Try looking up “freedom” while you’re at it.
Maybe they should get over it. I believe you’ve already described this option dismissively, but it remains the only real solution - if they (or anyone) feels insulted and the supposedly insulting party doesn’t care… get over it. That’s true whether one is a Plains Indian, a Tahitian, or a white Protestant American.
Cool. Nevertheless, I remain vigilant against those who do, and will mock them and their supporters as necessary.
It turns out that what you’re arguing for in the hypothetical was in fact tried in practice in Canada and it did not turn out well.
Let’s say I do understand but that I also don’t particularly care. My response to redressing centuries of oppression is to try to make amends of a practical nature, not to respect unreasonable demands. I will in no way try to interfere in how Plains Indians use feathered war bonnets. They don’t get to interfere with how I will, either. That is the fairest solution likely to exist. They are free to adapt anything from any culture they want, and I’m free to do the same.
Thanks for the refresher on Colonialism 101, but in this case, nothing about the indigenous culture is being taken away (of course, this was not always the case - in living memory are quite horrible abuses of natives punished for speaking native languages and following native customs).
Cool. So?
So it’s okay if you decide it’s okay. And it’s not okay if you decide it’s not okay.
Okay, good luck with that.
No, it isn’t. For one, I’m not deciding “for them” - my decision to adapt some other culture’s symbols or rituals (or food, for that matter - an issue you still haven’t addressed) doesn’t affect them in any way. Even if I thought I was adapting an element from a culture that I thought was superior to my own, I’m only making that decision for myself. Further, does this line of though only apply if supposedly I’m a member of a culture whose ancestors conquered and ancestors of another culture, i.e. I’m supposedly “deciding for” Plains Indians because I happen to live in North America. If I adapt some element of Maori culture that appeals to me, and I still “deciding for” the Maori? I’ve never been to Australia or New Zealand, have no relatives there, have no ancestry there.
Well, now I’m curious what kind of recourse you think the Plains Indians would use, if they could use whatever their culture dictated. Would they go on the warpath, or something? Try to collect scalps?
Well, in that case, your argument is concluded - regardless of how a Plains Indian (or anyone else) feels, they have no right to prevent others from doing “whatever the fuck [they] want.”
Sure, they can still be upset about it, and of course are free to make whatever requests they like, but in the hypothetical, I’m not stealing a feathered war bonnet from them, I’ve acquired one on my own and will photograph a model who is wearing it, for some reason.
Well, so far your “answer” to the question is variations on “it doesn’t matter”, and I guess that’s the best I’m going to get.
I’ll listen or I won’t, as I choose. You’re mistaking indifference for misunderstanding.
It’s worth noting that the complaint is not about the Moana costume. People are not complaining about dressing up as a Polynesian character. They are complaining about a costume that primarily consists of simulated skin.
But don’t let the actual topic get in the way of all these great straw men you are beating down!
It’s a costume of a character who is lightly-dressed and covered in tattoos. Of course it’s going to involve fake skin, and why not make the skin match the character as drawn in the cartoon?
If there was a paler-skin variant and a darker-skin variant so the child could wear something that roughly matched him (or her, for that matter) rather than the character, would that be acceptable?
Anyway, I just watched the trailer again and I see it comes out at “Thanksgiving”. I am deeply offended that they did not specify American Thanksgiving! If that movie is not available in Canada by the second Monday in October, it will be a brutal slap in the face to all Canadians and I will demand an apology from the privileged culturally-insensitive fuckers at Disney.
Fine, but then, do you think that we should (for moral, not legal, reasons) refrain from being potentially disrepectful towards any aspect of any culture? I guess you understand how encompassing and how incredibly limitative it would be. And how much it would curtail the ability to express ourselves freely.
And on top of it, people who are opposed to “cultural appropriation” in this thread also argues that groups also “own” their culture and that you can’t borrow it without their blessing. So, it’s not only about being respectful it’s also about, for instance, not producing art that is inspired by Polynesian tatoos, Irish engravings, African sculpture, Andine music, Turkish ceramics, etc, etc, etc, etc… Basically, you can say good bye to artistic creation too. And new clothing trends, cuisine, leisure activities, and…You’re advocating essentially for intellectual and cultural segregation. It’s fortunate that such a thing never existed.
And finally, who makes you arbiter of what is important to your culture? If a plain Indian doesn’t give a shit about feather bonnets and another finds feather bonnets mightily important, why should I walk on eggs in order not to offend the latter? This way lies madness, where the more easily offended, close-minded, and retrograde a person will be, the more we will pander to him.
Having the costume come with temporary tattoos would ensure that any skin shown was a 100% match with that of the costume-wearer. I don’t think I’ve ever met a kid who didn’t like temporary tats.
Ariel is another lightly-dressed character. Do you note the distinct lack of skin-sleeves in order to enable nonwhite kids to look like her?
Again: fake flesh color is not normally a part of costumes for children wanting to look like other humans. Changing skin color is reserved for looking like monsters or animals (or clowns, but I guess I already said monsters).
This isn’t the worst thing in the world, of course, but it’s an interesting screwup on the part of some doubtless well-meaning costume-designer, who didn’t think through the issue very carefully.
