I think we need a new specific word, which has the definition of
“trying to fight racism with racism, and or accusing innocent people of racism, out of a confused sense of duty to oppose racism.”
Or something like that.
If the demands don’t stop there, that restaurant has an unhappy customer. Maybe he’ll protest or write a Yelp review or something.
What did you expect I’d say would happen?
The way you can tell it is a straw man is that you can’t find any examples of protest movements about Americans eating Americanized Chinese food. You can find examples of protest movements about Native American headdress being appropriated for fashion shows, or of Maori tattoos being copied by non-Maori.
The reaction to the latter two is in no evidence for any reaction to Americans eating “Chinese food”. That’s why, earlier, I used misappropriating the Purple Heart as an equivalent situation; peoples’ reactions to that are similar.
If you really want to get into technicalities, it’s “Spider-Man,” not “Spiderman.” Because trademark. But I digress.
No.
There have been three African popes. Africa currently has about 176 million Roman Catholics. There are 21 African cardinals. There are 3 million African-American Catholics in the US. And since the Pope technically doesn’t have to come from within the college of cardinals, the next Pope could be of any race on the planet which has RCs.
A Pope could be of any race. Objecting to a pope portrayal on the basis of race would be stupid. I’m not saying there aren’t Catholic racists; I’m saying there’s no theological basis to object to a pope’s race.
I’m sure there are some RCs who might take offense at a female in a pope costume. Not all, but some.
I’m familiar with this kind of blackface. I was just thinking that the meaning had extended beyond that to encompass people simply using dark makeup, based on tropes of American comedies (white guys somehow accidentally shows up with dark makeup in front of very pissed black people)
Still, even though it’s a caricature, it’s still not inherently offensive or racist if there’s no cultural baggage attached to it.
And why exactly? Sure, the black pirate is a caricature. But do you think that Gauls had the kind of nose Asterix sports, either? That all Lusitanians had long moustaches, and so on?
(And anecdotically, the whole pirate crew is a caricature of and reference to another comic from the same era and same publisher, “Les aventures de Barbe Rouge”, set in the 17th or 18th century. If anything, there would probably be more matter for offense in the depiction of the original realistically drawn black character)
Very few people do that. Historic reenactors, people participating in RenFairs, people like that. Other people make costumes that aren’t realistic or rent costumes that are using the common, easy tropes. How many pirate costumes are based on what actual pirates were really wearing, to keep this example?
Not when I used it, no.
Yes, it is inherently offensive.
:rolleyes: Sure, it’s just an innocent caricature, harmless fun.
And all Gauls aren’t represented by Asterix’s nose, and hairstyles are not the same thing as the gollywog caricature that is the pirate. Or every other time they have a black person…
Err, no. There’s nothing offensive about the guy on the right. Nothing like the guy on the left.
Reenacting is a huge hobby.
Anyway, the argument here isn’t that only a few do a shitty job of dressup. Most people do do a shitty job, as you say. That’s no excuse for it, though. The existence of non-caricature dressup shows that it can be done right. So it’s fair to call out those who don’t, for their laziness. Or ignorance. Or whatever.
I was only curious if you felt the restaurant had a choice in how accommodating they should be. Your ‘call it “Americanized Chinese food” (or “Chinese-American fusion cuisine” if you’re fancy), and get on with your life’ looked like it carried expectation that some accommodation was to be casually expected.
I’m okay with the restaurant deciding its accommodation level will be zero.
We have varying definitions of “straw man” then - mine would characterize an example as something that was ridiculous or blatantly implausible. Merely being hypothetical is not enough.
People’s reactions are whatever those people decide. I can easily picture one member of a particular ethnic group describing an act of emulation as not only appropriation, but cultural genocide or whatever additional apocalyptic verbiage they wish, while another member of the same group shrugs and says it’s no big deal. Is that another strawman image in your view?
A strawman is a deliberately flawed argument used to substitute arguing against the actual situation.
Arguing that complaining about American Chinese food misappropriating Chinese culture is equivalent to misappropriating something like Maori tattoos or Native American headdress is flawed because no one holds American Chinese food in reverence nor is its use restricted as a form of cultural honor to the recipient. Like… a Purple Heart is.
Your imagining that one person thinks something is appropriation but someone else thinks that it isn’t… isn’t actually an argument. So, no, I don’t think it’s a strawman.
How do you know no one does? That’s a rather arrogant assumption to make. A casual google of “food purist” gets over half a million hits in English alone, so I daresay it’s fair to assume someone out there takes this subject very seriously, and if that person were to declare that they found something offensive, should this declaration be taken less seriously, as seriously, or more seriously than someone saying something similar about bonnets or tattoos?
Is food not to be considered a significant cultural aspect?
You are implying that we should expect every member of an ethnicity to view the artifacts of their ethnicity in the same way - none of them care about others adapting their traditional foods, all of them care about others adapting their war bonnets/tattoos/etc.
Anyway, this is going nowhere, so this’ll be my last entry to this thread. Everyone has (or should have) the right to freedom of expression. Nobody has the right to require their choice of expression to be taken seriously. I’m not inclined to let my emotions guide me on this, to the point where I’m obliged (or should feel obliged) to take someone seriously because their ethnic group has suffered historical atrocities, whether or not some of those atrocities were inflicted by members of my own ethnic group. If I see a cultural artifact that interests me, I’ll study and/or adapt it. If there are any artifacts in my own particular ethnohistory that someone wants to study or adapt, be my guest, even if I think you’re missing the point of it or screwing it up in some way.
I can’t cite it, but the Kumeyaay band of Digueno Indians, in the Barona Indian Reservation, near San Diego, has refused to allow the publication of a lexicon of the words of their language. They don’t want to see these words appearing as product names – and I can see their point.
They know they can’t prohibit this use, so they’re simply keeping the words secret, to the best of their ability.
Please don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t imply anything; I told you that you weren’t making an argument. Because you weren’t.
Hear, hear, huzzah, yes, this, plus one, and applause. Best response so far.
By and large, yes, I agree. But there are exceptions. Some very few people really do take it too far, and try to use their personal offense as a lever to prohibit expression that really is valid.
We’ve had two parodical examples of this in this thread. But at least some of us think the feathered head-dress is a serious example: it may actually hurt…but it shouldn’t. It isn’t intended to hurt, and, in fact, can be intended to honor the plains Indians, not to denigrate them.
Your advice is very good when dealing with individuals. If Mr. John C. Scott hates being called “Scotty,” then anyone with any couth will refrain from calling him that. But TV’s Star Trek is not out of bounds by calling Montgomery Scott “Scotty,” even if John C. is personally offended when he sees it on TV. That’s a case where society just has to say, “Too bad for you, John.”
(I remember when Rowan and Martin, on Laugh-In, read a very polite letter from a man, asking them to stop using “Bruce” as a general nickname for gay men. The author of the letter said, simply, “My son is named Bruce.” Laugh-In stopped making “Bruce” jokes from that point forward. That was a mark of real class.)
So you’re saying that you’re totally fine with some random bum trivializing and demeaning a high military honor given for great personal sacrifice, but you’re offended if that same bum gets a discount on a burrito. Whatever it is you’re trying to argue, it’s not working.
The consensus here seems to be that there may be some circumstances where cultural appropriation of style or symbolism can be offensive, but there is nothing in any of the OP’s links to support the argument that this is such an instance, which was my original point, and I agree. It’s an innocent fantasy film for kids and the costume is a typical spin-off product so kids can pretend to be the characters in the film. It’s hard to condemn the costume without also condemning the film itself as some kind of cultural transgression, and I think most people would consider that really silly. Microanalyzing how much of the costume is supposed to be clothing and how much represents “skin” is equally silly; most Halloween masks are largely “face” and don’t cause offense.
I agree. Not quite sure how to define “class”, but you know it when you see it. The ingredients seem to include being in a position of strength where you have no obligation whatsoever to accede to a request, but recognizing its moral legitimacy and doing so anyway.
I am also not Neapolitan! D’oh!
Why should I care who wears what as decoration? Want to wear a Che shirt? Wear a Confederate belt buckle? Wear a flag doo rag? Wear a silver star on a shirt? I don’t care. I’m not the fashion police.
Now if people choose to reward or honor someone and you are being deceptive then that’s an issue of honesty isn’t it? If I want to go to a Halloween party in a Sumo fat person suit I’m not deceiving anyone. If I dress and present myself as 1/16th native American to steal a scholarship that I wouldn’t otherwise be entitled too I’m engaging in fraud. There’s a big difference.
No, I don’t doubt this part. I want a cite that they’re simultaneously complaining.
Well, again, I can’t cite, but it’s not at all uncommon for the elders to bewoe the fact that the young aren’t studying the old language. They don’t want the language to become extinct, and rather press upon the kids to take lessons in it.
(The kids would rather be playing Pokemon…)
Given that those Popes were Northern African, I find that giving them as an example of black Popes is akin to thinking that Cleopatra was black (I still haven’t run into anybody insisting that Hannibal was black, but perhaps he simply isn’t as popular as Cleopatra). All those light-colored people in Northern Africa aren’t a result of the Colonization Age.
Now, can a Pope be any color? Absolutely. But so far they’ve all been on the lighter sides of brown.
Am I ok with someone dressing up as the Pope? Yeah. Am I ok with someone thinking that if you’re from Africa you’re black? No, but I’m also not ok with someone thinking that the Earth is flat, that buenos días is grammatically incorrect or that Consuela is a Hispanic name (it’s an Anglo hypercorrection of the Hispanic name Consuelo; thankfully it’s down except in media, where it remains widely popular for secondary Hispanic female characters).
I haven’t found any evidence of them complaining about it. Instead, I see them doing something about it, including opening their college to non-tribe members. There’s no evidence there of a disavowal of dictionaries. Quite the opposite.
Your initial statement was an accusation of hypocrisy, and I’m not seeing any proof of that anywhere. Especially since lexicons for their language are apparently readily available online (even if …very… dated stylistically.)
If I may, it sounds more like the kind of urban legend that gets passed around about outgroups, and I think it’s not a good thing that you just repeated this negative story without any evidence.
Nice. Can you tell me why it is offensive, exactly? Same with the “Numid” characters of Asterix being all depicted with big lips. You gave many links to pictures, apparently assuming that it would be self-evident. It isn’t. If you don’t assume a cultural baggage, how exactly is this caricature racist or implying anything negative about Black people? Is it equally racist when all Greek characters are depicted with a straight nose (“Greek profile”)?
By the way, I had to search for the word “gollywog”, and that you used this word, clearly show that you’re assuming pre-existing cultural baggage.
I wasn’t thinking of the drawing but of the role and personality of the character. I didn’t read “Barbe rouge” in a long time, maybe decades, but I seem to remember that he had a “faithful servant” personality similar to, say, the black woman character from “gone with the wind”.
Of course it can be done. But most people have exactly zero interest in researching informations and spending time to create an historically/culturally accurate costumes. They will just quickly assemble something or rent it. They aren’t dressing up to display their extensive culture and historical knowledge, they dress up to have some light fun and with the intent of being immediately recognized as the character they’re depicting, which requires stereotyping.
And it’s definitely not laziness, because being accurate isn’t at all the point. It would be laziness if they were showing up for an historical reenactment or a Vienna ball party in the same costume, because in these cases, accuracy and consistency are required. But for a college costumed party? It would be nonsentical to spend months preparing a costume. Not doing something you have no intent to do and no interest in doing isn’t laziness. Dressing up as a samourai is just done for fun, it’s not expected to require a degree in Japanese history. Accuracy in this case could even be counter-productive, since the authentic non stereotypical costume might not be recognized.