Vicariously Offended

[email protected]

Most americans maybe, I've never seen this idea anywhere else.

And funnily enough people don't have the same logic with, for example, sexism.

Flying Squid

When I was 12 or 13, we took a trip to Mexico and took public transportation and stayed in small non-touristy places where the people staying in the hotels were more likely to be Mexicans than Americans (not to save money, my parents just thought it would be more fun). I remember sitting in a hotel lobby with a TV on and some Mexican kids sitting around watching Speedy Gonzales cartoons dubbed into Spanish with their parents casually chatting and I was like, "WTF? Isn't Speedy Gonzales racist? They don't care? They like it?"

Like VindictiveJudge says, he's the hero who outwits his opponents and always wins. I'd add that the opponents are always American.

Flying Squid

Correct. And if they don't come from the Sandalé region in France, they're not thongs. They're just sparkling toe slippers.

Flying Squid

Also, plenty of Latin American culture was basically forced on the indigenous by the Spanish. There's a reason why poor people in countries like Bolivia dress more like 16th century Spanish peasants than their indigenous ancestors. Those bowler hats people wear in Bolivia aren't part of Incan culture.

If you dress like what people consider to be traditional Bolivian dress these days and you're American, I guess you're appropriating Spanish culture from centuries ago? I don't think anyone would give a shit.

[email protected]

IDK, even then, I don't think you need to understand the culture about it so much. E.g. there was some incident about a white girl wearing a qipao to prom and she got called out for it. In the end, it's just a piece of clothing that looks nice. It isn't some deeply symbolic thing for people.

I don't expect her to try to understand Chinese culture before wearing a qipao (which originated in Mongolia before Chinese appropriated it BTW), and I don't expect Chinese to understand Western culture before wearing a suit and tie.

But obviously there are some cases, as you said where context does matter.

Flying Squid

“Cultural Appropiation” is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever fucking heard.

Really? Because I'd say it's the perfect term to describe shit like this.

Because that is not respecting an indigenous culture. That is taking something extremely important to them and perversely twisting it into some corporate sports team bullshit.

What else is that asshole doing if not appropriating someone's culture?

Flying Squid

I'm more concerned that they're dressing their kid up to look like what is essentially a member of an escort service (albeit a traditional one) than that they're appropriating Japanese culture.

[email protected]

The other comment explains most of it, but when it comes to acting specifically there’s also some level of “why didn’t you just get an actual black person”

Flying Squid

It was definitely black and gold or their name isn't Yanny.

Flying Squid

He didn't credit the white artists he covered either. But the fact that he gets the credit for inventing rock and roll when you had black people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe doing the crazy shit with guitar that Chuck Berry would later emulate in the 1930s. By the 1940s, she was playing what I think you could arguably say was as much rock and roll as what Elvis was doing.

Flying Squid

To add to that explanation, dressing as a French person in a mocking way is not the same because the French were not enslaved people in the Americas. In fact, they were taking part in the enslaving. It is basically continuing to show that you are the superior party in the power dynamic in an extremely hurtful way.

Flying Squid

No one is saying you can't. You can be as racist as you want to be.

Just don't expect anyone to put up with it.

[email protected]

On one hand certain things have certain meaning in the culture and maybe some people will look sidewise but on the other hand people that practice that culture probably don't expect some random dude to know everything it their culture. But "cultural appropriation" has mostly been used to virtual signal

[email protected]

Just to add: in the context of acting, I would consider it highly problematic if black roles were acted by white people with blackface, since it sends a strong message against black actors.

[email protected]

He was also the exact opposite of the other stereotype of the "lazy Mexican" - which, for anyone who's ever worked construction with actual Mexicans, is comically inaccurate.

[email protected]

I think that’s still tricky. For instance, most parts of the world have few Japanese migrants, yet Japanese restaurants are almost everywhere. Usually these are owned by other Asian migrants. This is clearly profiteering, but I don’t see it as particularly problematic.

ElectricMachman

Interestingly, they also made a heroic "lazy" Mexican in the form of Slowpoke Rodriguez. (He pack a gun.)

[email protected]

Here in the Netherlands it was brown immigrants from the former Dutch Indies who introduced rock n roll to the Dutch audience. Like the Blue Diamonds And at the time people, even politicians, would call them heathens and such. But now that historic fact is mostly forgotten. And people think it was British bands like the Beatles who brought rock to the Netherlands, even though these immigrant bands paved the way for rock acceptance and for the Beatles.

[email protected]

Complaining about sharing cultures IS racism. These idiots complaining about cultural appropriation have gone too far up their own ass.

Melding, sharing food clothing and customs makes everyone better! These bullshit micro divisions need to stop.

[email protected]

Fair enough!