# “White girl, take OFF your hoops!” **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 14, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200 "2017-03-14T23:43:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/81 "2017-03-16T13:09:53Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Imagine a Jewish bagelry that’s been in business for 70 years, truckin along making their bagels and lox. McDonald’s opens up a location next door, sells their bagels; and because the area is changing demographically, enough people choose McDonald’s over the longstanding bagelry, considering it a less challenging choice. The bagelry goes out of business. > > Now, of course, free market, let the consumer decide, the invisible hand, yadda yadda yadda. Can you see how the family who owns the bagel shop might be pissed? How is that different than if they owned a quaint tool shop and Home Depot moves in next door? Sure, they can be upset but cultural appropriation isn’t the issue here. Heck, what if the McDonald’s franchise owner is Elijah Goldstein? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/82 "2017-03-16T13:12:52Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Nothing right with them. Have the taste and texture of mushrooms or sweet tofu. You’d rather that your mangoes have the texture of plywood? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/83 "2017-03-16T13:15:15Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > It’s kind of hilarious that McDonald’s offers a wide variety of bagels: one with bacon, and one with sausage, and one with steak and cheese, and – wait, do literally _all_ of them involve pork products or some kind of meat-and-dairy combination? Jewish fusion cuisine? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/84 "2017-03-16T14:03:30Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > Do you realize that, at this point, non white American families have been celebrating Thanksgiving with turkey, etc. for so long that it is a part of their culture, too? There is a big difference between having the same sort of celebrations that you and your parents and grandparents grew up with and deciding to claim a practice that you recently saw on television or took a seminar on. > > I think most complaints about cultural appropriation are ridiculous, but even if I didn’t, it’s several generations too late for white people to call July 4th for their own. Where do you draw the line then? I think intent is the real dividing line here, and the default ought to be assume that it’s NOT cultural assimilation, unless we have someone deliberately trying to make a buck off of bastardizing someone else’s culture. Merely enjoying someone else’s cuisine isn’t cultural appropriation; if anything it’s cultural appreciation. Same with “xxxx-inspired” dishes; it’s a sign of admiration that you’d choose to use those sorts of ingredients and flavors in your cooking. And as far as being part of the majority culture vs. having my “own” culture, the difference is one of what’s left over, vs what’s clearly “mine”. I mean, someone from a defined culture has a set of things that are clearly theirs. They have a set of cultural and (usually) religious practices, as well as a history and all that stuff. What I have is pretty much nothing distinct; it’s everyone’s, including everyone with their own specific culture. So while a first generation Mexican american can cherish their people’s history and traditions, they can also celebrate the general American one as well, with equal validity as someone whose family has been here for generations. That was my point- there’s not anything I can point at and say “That’s the X of my people, and my people’s alone”. Instead, it’s everything that’s shared in common outside of all the other distinct cultures. It’s like a culture by default. Now in one sense, it’s pretty egalitarian, in that we ALL share this particular culture, but it doesn’t lend a specific cultural identity either. I personally feel that it’s probably a pretty American thing, and also suspect it’s also why so many people who are 1/64th of some ethnicity so enthusiastically claim those cultures- Irish, German, Italian, etc… because they want something they can call their own, instead of just the default shared culture. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/85 "2017-03-16T14:06:31Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Jewish fusion cuisine? [An actual thing.](http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/food/1.692988) ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/86 "2017-03-16T14:28:10Z")
The good news is that everyone will have a quiet, sedate weekend to think about this. Unless you’re Irish Catholic. But everyone else will spend an uneventful weekend at home. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/87 "2017-03-16T14:35:36Z")
> [@bump](#): > > For example, if I was a for-profit non-Native American self-help guru and decided to have my clients sit in sweat lodges or fast or do various Native American-inspired things to have spiritual experiences, that would be the sort of cultural appropriation that I think we all agree is pretty odious, as it’s taking a spiritual ceremony of another culture, bastardizing it in order to make a buck. The offensiveness (in so much as this is offensive at all) comes from the bastardizing of a spiritual ceremony to make a buck, not the race of the person doing it. If I took out the “non-” part of your post do you think it becomes something other than odious? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/88 "2017-03-16T14:41:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > [An actual thing.](http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/food/1.692988) :eek: What is this, the Rule 34 of food porn? [sub]If you can imagine it, someone somewhere is cooking it…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/89 "2017-03-16T14:58:16Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > :eek: What is this, the Rule 34 of food porn? > > [sub]If you can imagine it, someone somewhere is cooking it…[/sub] And here I was thinking that Jewish fusion cuisine was always 20 years in the future. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/90 "2017-03-16T15:16:14Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > And here I was thinking that Jewish fusion cuisine was always 20 years in the future. We get stuff wholesale. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/91 "2017-03-16T16:11:04Z")
> [@treis](#): > > The offensiveness (in so much as this is offensive at all) comes from the bastardizing of a spiritual ceremony to make a buck One man’s bastardisation is another man’s adaptation, how do you make that judgement? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/92 "2017-03-16T16:14:14Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Imagine a Jewish bagelry that’s been in business for 70 years, truckin along making their bagels and lox. McDonald’s opens up a location next door, sells their bagels; and because the area is changing demographically, enough people choose McDonald’s over the longstanding bagelry, considering it a less challenging choice. The bagelry goes out of business. > > Now, of course, free market, let the consumer decide, the invisible hand, yadda yadda yadda. Can you see how the family who owns the bagel shop might be pissed? Ultimately, their previous customers have now decided to shop elsewhere yes? The fault is then either with the loyalty of the previous customers or the little shop not offering a product that enough people want. Cultural Appropriation has nothing to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/93 "2017-03-16T16:19:50Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Where do you draw the line then? Certainly before we reach the point of calling it odious for people to embrace their own cultural traditions; practices that their older relatives were, at the least, strongly encouraged to adopt. Can you explain why you long for a cultural tradition that is just for white people? I’m not sure if it really is a uniquely American thing for members of a dominant culture to wish to be part of an exclusive subculture, but that wouldn’t surprise me. I also wonder if people of all groups who’d like to take ownership of things just because their group developed it are willing to claim the negative parts of their culture’s past too. Or is it more of a “Well, this is mine, because it’s positive, but I wasn’t even born when that happened so what does it have to do with me?” > [@](#): > > I think intent is the real dividing line here, and the default ought to be assume that it’s NOT cultural assimilation, unless we have someone deliberately trying to make a buck off of bastardizing someone else’s culture. > > Merely enjoying someone else’s cuisine isn’t cultural appropriation; if anything it’s cultural appreciation. Same with “xxxx-inspired” dishes; it’s a sign of admiration that you’d choose to use those sorts of ingredients and flavors in your cooking. > > And as far as being part of the majority culture vs. having my “own” culture, the difference is one of what’s left over, vs what’s clearly “mine”. I mean, someone from a defined culture has a set of things that are clearly theirs. They have a set of cultural and (usually) religious practices, as well as a history and all that stuff. What I have is pretty much nothing distinct; it’s everyone’s, including everyone with their own specific culture. So while a first generation Mexican american can cherish their people’s history and traditions, they can also celebrate the general American one as well, with equal validity as someone whose family has been here for generations. That was my point- there’s not anything I can point at and say “That’s the X of my people, and my people’s alone”. Instead, it’s everything that’s shared in common outside of all the other distinct cultures. It’s like a culture by default. Now in one sense, it’s pretty egalitarian, in that we ALL share this particular culture, but it doesn’t lend a specific cultural identity either. > > I personally feel that it’s probably a pretty American thing, and also suspect it’s also why so many people who are 1/64th of some ethnicity so enthusiastically claim those cultures- Irish, German, Italian, etc… because they want something they can call their own, instead of just the default shared culture. I would draw the line at people trivializing other cultures’ cherished practices or treating them like costumes to try out and take off when they’re inconvenient. Eat and make all the different kinds of food and enjoy all the different sorts of music that you want. Study other languages. Wear your hair however you please. Don’t adopt a fake accent, because you think it sounds cool or mass produce someone’s religious relics to sell them as cheap trinkets. I don’t think intent is necessarily the dividing line, though. It’s possible to be thoughtlessly offensive if you do something like showing “appreciation” by forcing everyone in a group into a stereotypical box and treating them like caricatures. Something that’s fairly common for Americans to do is lumping the tradition of several Native American tribes together, then celebrating the resulting mishmash. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/94 "2017-03-16T17:21:49Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > I also wonder if people of all groups who’d like to take ownership of things just because their group developed it are willing to claim the negative parts of their culture’s past too. Or is it more of a “Well, this is mine, because it’s positive, but I wasn’t even born when that happened so what does it have to do with me?” I don’t know what “ownership” would even look like nor who is asking to be able to do that. My point is always that no-one “owns” a cultural artefact, practice, design, style, philosophy. No-one can ever properly claim “this is mine” about any of those things. Everyone should learn lessons from the bad things in every culture’s past and take what they like from the positive. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/95 "2017-03-16T18:48:17Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I don’t know what “ownership” would even look like nor who is asking to be able to do that. Well, the people I’m talking about are the guy I quoted, who laments that new Americans are eating traditional Thanksgiving dinners, depriving white American mutts from having a tradition all their own, the subjects of this thread who have appointed themselves the gatekeepers of hoop earrings and eyeliner, the people who accost non black dreadlock wearers, etc. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/96 "2017-03-16T19:55:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Imagine a Jewish bagelry that’s been in business for 70 years, truckin along making their bagels and lox. McDonald’s opens up a location next door, sells their bagels; and because the area is changing demographically, enough people choose McDonald’s over the longstanding bagelry, considering it a less challenging choice. The bagelry goes out of business. > > Now, of course, free market, let the consumer decide, the invisible hand, yadda yadda yadda. Can you see how the family who owns the bagel shop might be pissed? Well that’s too bad. People don’t get to monopolize a service or good due to ancestry. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/97 "2017-03-16T20:09:17Z")
Did you know that the “high five” was originally used as a gesture of greeting by 17th century French noblemen? Well, not really, but tell that to people and mess with their heads. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/98 "2017-03-16T23:03:20Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Imagine a Jewish bagelry that’s been in business for 70 years, truckin along making their bagels and lox. McDonald’s opens up a location next door, sells their bagels; and because the area is changing demographically, enough people choose McDonald’s over the longstanding bagelry, considering it a less challenging choice. The bagelry goes out of business. > > Now, of course, free market, let the consumer decide, the invisible hand, yadda yadda yadda. Can you see how the family who owns the bagel shop might be pissed? Yes. Exactly as much as the family who has sold apple pies whose quality they were very proud of for 70 years will be pissed with McDonald selling industrial grade apple pie next door and putting them out of business. There’s absolutely no difference. Plenty of people make high quality, or hand-made, or traditional, etc… products and face the concurrence of mass produced, lower quality, etc… imitations if their product has any success. Case in point since I have one just in front of me : Laguiole knives. You think that knive-makers from central France are happy to have the market flooded with mostly Chinese made low quality versions of their product since it has gained some fame? Not really, no. This certainly cheapens the value of their work and their investment in their job (besides possibly making them unemployed). I’m not sure why their plight should deserve less consideration simply because they don’t belong to a minority. ---
**Author:** ![friendlessboob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@friendlessboob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friendlessboob)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/99 "2017-03-17T20:16:31Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > This is an example of why I think the meme that “PC has gone too far” is mostly a conservative boogeyman. A handful of teenagers over a thousand miles away from me said a dumb thing. I’m not about to freak out over that. The only reason you heard about this in the first place is because some hack journalist thought it would make good clickbait. Yeah, this is not representative of enough people for it to matter. There is also a homeless guy in Portland who thinks he is God, are we getting pissed about how wrong he is? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200/100 "2017-03-17T21:37:09Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’m not even especially concerned about someone who says, “I’m gonna set you up in a little enclosure to sweat, along with a bunch of sage, because I think that’s an awesome idea.” I’m concerned about the person who says, “For $500, I’ll give you an authentic Native American ceremony,” thereby contributing to the commodification of spiritual traditions that they aren’t invested in, and changing public perception of those spiritualities as purchasable. > 😃 Wendy Rose, in the essay I mentioned before, mentions exactly this point, and says something like, “If you think you don’t really have a culture, and you notice similar complaints coming specifically from your cultural group, **making that complaint is part of your culture**.” > > I’m teaching my students about culture, and we’re gonna end the unit with a “culture potluck,” where every family (who can) brings a dish that represents their culture. One white boy raised his hand and said, “But what if you just have, like, a **normal** culture?” Got a question for you. I am a white guy born and raised in New Mexico, heritage is Swedish and English mainly with some Native American and other stuff tossed in to ensure my stunning good looks. What should I bring to your potluck? Mexican, which is what my family ate and enjoyed most or the lovely Swedish Pickled herring, which I have never tried in my life? Maybe some Gravlax even though I couldn’t tell you what the hell it is? > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > His question is going to be a central question for our unit, with the hope that by the end of it, everybody understands there’s no such thing. > > As for everyone else doing the things in your culture, that’s not always a pleasant experience. I was watching a documentary with my students about the making of Moana. The directors visited the South Pacific Islands, and they said the single most important thing anyone said to them was spoken by an elder, who said something like, “Too often we find ourselves drowning in your culture. Just once, please drown in ours.” You mean the same group of folks who accused Disney of [cultural theft](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/critics-accuse-disney-culture-theft-ahead-moana-release-n685866)? Slee [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-girl-take-off-your-hoops/782200.md?page=6)