Cultural Appropriation
Just a couple of decades ago, we had no term, and no concept, for what we now call "cultural appropriation". Like "genderqueer", it's a new notion we can now use to frame our understandings of social inclusion and social justice.
As with the subject of gender variance and diversity, cultural appropriation is not something that should be oversimplified. We should use tools such as this concept of cultural appropriation to add a more nuanced understanding of social patterns, to illuminate what are actually fairly complicated situations and draw our awareness to some patterns that we should be keeping in mind.
In contrast, there's very little benefit gained from trying to use it as a rule, as a policy in and of itself that replaces having to think. Stating "all cultural appropriation is bad" won't take us very far, and even asserting that "dominant groups should not engage in cultural appropriation of more marginalized ones", while more useful, doesn't banish the need to look at situations from multiple angles.
Here are a few example situations I'd like to use as discussion-starters:
EXHIBIT A: Since the 1990s, New York City has had fast-food Mexican restaurants sprinked throughout several of its boroughs with the name "Fresco Tortilla" or "Fresh Tortilla".
They aren't owned by Mexican-American people, nor are they staffed by people of Mexican ancestry. They are universally run by people of Chinese ancestry instead.
When I first came to the city myself, it didn't have many Mexican restaurants (not even many Taco Bells), nor did it have a very large population of people of Mexican descent. Fast-food Chinese places were ubiquitous by comparison. There was less competition to contend with in opening and operating a place that served inexpensive Mexican food, and it is my understanding that an immigrant of Chinese descent learned the cuisine and then moved into this niche, and when it became successful brought other family members in to open establishments at other locations.
Mexican people in the United States are marginalized and viewed disparagingly, have a history of being economically oppressed here. Chinese people, like other Asians, have often had a rough time here as well, but have been an established community in New York for a long time.
In recent decades, many more ethnically Mexican people have moved into the New York City metropolitan region. Opening and running Mexican food restaurants is a likely avenue to financial stability, as it is a popular cuisine.
Is the presence of a chain of Mexican restaurants run and operated by Asian personnel a cultural appropriation issue? Was it less so when there were far fewer families of Mexican origin potentially competing for this niche? Or was that actually making it more of a concern?
There hasn't been a public phenomenon of Hispanic or specifically Mexican people complaining about the situation. Does that mean it isn't problematic? So we aren't being charged with the responsibility of noticing it, we're just being called on to react with the correct reactions when someone makes the charge of cultural appropriation? Does that make it a valid defense to respond "Well, nobody complained about it before now" when someone accuses you of cultural appropriation?
Would it be more of a problem if the people doing it were not themselves a historically marginalized ethnic minority?
EXHIBIT B: One of Paul Simon's most successful albums was Graceland. The music is a combination of heavily influenced and directly lifted from indigenous African musical culture, was recorded in South Africa, and features African musicians who are named and credited. Many people view the album as a mostly successful effort to introduce this music to a wider audience.
Still, Paul Simon is a white person and he was making money and furthering his career through the use of folk music traditions of a different culture, definitely an oppressed and marginalized one.
Does it make it okay that he had the permission and direct participation of African musicians, and credited them on the album?
Unlike the case with Fresco Tortilla, there have been some African musicians who have complained about Graceland and Paul Simon. What percent of the original culture have to approve before it can be considered that they have given permission? Or do we assume that because of their lower social status and clout that they aren't able to give consent, in the same way that minor children can't consent to sex?
The counterargument has been made that if mainstream music and its musicians makes no effort to be stylistically inclusive, music on the margins will never find a wider audience. That the alternative to Graceland would be the major record labels signing contracts with indigenous people to record music that is unlike what the mainstream musical audience is accustomed to -- something that Paul Simon was less in a position to make happen, and which, as the record companies would have pointed out, would not have been anywhere as likely to result in those recordings being purchased and played.
That's a specific example of a more universal response to the charge of cultural appropriation, by the way: if we don't let ourselves be influenced and inspired by traditions and creativities that originate anywhere but within the cultural confines of the mainstream, if we don't learn from and emulate anything except the dominant culture, that clears us of being cultural appropriators but aren't we then turning our backs on the rest of the world, shutting our ears and eyes to what they might have to teach us?
EXHIBIT C: Back in the 1950s, Harry Belafonte released an album of music from various world cultures, titled An Evening with Belafonte. Among other tracks, it included a recording of "Danny Boy".
"Danny Boy" is considered Irish and is associated with Irish cultural pride. And the Irish people, subjected to centuries of English domination and the conflicts referred to as "the troubles", can be considered marginalized and oppressed.
But not only is Harry Belafonte also a member of a readily-identified marginalized group (as with the Chinese people operating Fresco Tortilla in the first example), he is also in this case not appropriating a song that arose as part of Irish indigenous culture. The song was written by an English composer, and set to the tune "Londonderry Air", which itself was not so much a long-established Irish tune but rather a somewhat garbled annotation of one, written down by a songcatcher in the 1800s, a tune the original of which is apparently more closely represented in "The Last Rose of Summer".
How authentically a product of a given culture does a cultural work need to be in order for its use by someone of a different culture to be liable for cultural appropriation?
If a white fashion model styles her hair not in an historically established ethnic fashion, but instead in a style promoted in modern times within fashion magazines that happen to target specific ethnic communities, is she doing cultural appropriation? Does it matter if the fashion magazines pushing the style have white owners?
All of these examples are somewhat deliberately retro, referring to things that happened (or first happened) long before our society began discussing cultural appropriation. That minimizes the tendency of people to respond with whatever views on the specific incidents are already on record as public statements (although less so in the case of the Paul Simon example). It's also a way for me to try to split the discussion of cultural appropriation itself from condemnation of people for doing it. Even there, we don't have a consensus on whether or not it's a valid defense to say "That was a different time and you can't judge people in the past for violating the standards of today". It is, after all, a variation on "Well, nobody complained about it before!" ...
Overall, I can't conjure up any rules that start with "Never" or "Always". Not that anyone appointed me to be the issuer of rules. But for myself, for my own behaviors and my own social responsibilities as far as cultural appropriation goes, I can't write for myself any guidelines that start with "Never" or "Always".
I take the concern seriously. Not because I do not wish to offend. I'm actually okay with offending people sometimes. I have several skirts in my wardrobe and I wear them when I feel like it, with very little restriction as far as where I am or what I'm doing. I manage to offend a few people who don't think male people should wear skirts.
But I understand and agree with the sentiment that it isn't fair to snag someone else's self-expression, one that is tied to their identity and solidarity, if their identity is a marginalized one. And it isn't fair to swipe someone else's meaning-imbued symbols and expressions of their concepts and faith and convictions and use them as adornments and trinkets. The question of if and when a situation falls into that description is a complex one, and there will be disagreements about them, but I am willing to do my best to listen and take other folks' perceptions into consideration.
For my own part, I've been told on occasion by cisgender women that I should not be wearing a skirt because it's theirs; I do it anyway; I go to Ethiopian, Chinese, Czech, Indian, Greek, Persian, etc restaurants and eat their cuisine, and I learn how to cook a decent subset of what I like, and (at least back in the pre-COVID era) we like to have dinner guests so I often serve these cultural appropriations to others, but in the privacy of my home. I'd feel less entitled to open a chain of restaurants (if I had the skill and the means to do so) and serve other folks' cuisines, and even less so if the ethnicity were rare and relatively unknown and I somehow had the clout to establish my restaurant chain as the single definitive source of that type of food.
I have a garment in my possession, a beautiful dashiki I bought from a street vendor in Manhattan; it is gold and green and red and black and I bought it because I liked the way it looks. I didn't think about cultural appropriation as I was buying it, but by the time I got home with it, I had begun realizing it could most certainly be perceived as that. I haven't worn it. I'm thinking maybe I will wear it in the privacy of my home when I have reason to think I won't be out and about, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of being in public with it on. Not because I don't want to offend so much as because I can see how it might be offensive, if that makes any sense. It's a shame because for me it conjures up memories of countercultural guys from the early 1970s. But the fact that that's my cultural association for this item of apparel, and not tribal African wear, more or less highlights why cultural appropriation can be a problem, doesn't it?
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback. eBook version and hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for GenderQueer now and for Guy in Women's Studies once they come out.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
As with the subject of gender variance and diversity, cultural appropriation is not something that should be oversimplified. We should use tools such as this concept of cultural appropriation to add a more nuanced understanding of social patterns, to illuminate what are actually fairly complicated situations and draw our awareness to some patterns that we should be keeping in mind.
In contrast, there's very little benefit gained from trying to use it as a rule, as a policy in and of itself that replaces having to think. Stating "all cultural appropriation is bad" won't take us very far, and even asserting that "dominant groups should not engage in cultural appropriation of more marginalized ones", while more useful, doesn't banish the need to look at situations from multiple angles.
Here are a few example situations I'd like to use as discussion-starters:
EXHIBIT A: Since the 1990s, New York City has had fast-food Mexican restaurants sprinked throughout several of its boroughs with the name "Fresco Tortilla" or "Fresh Tortilla".
They aren't owned by Mexican-American people, nor are they staffed by people of Mexican ancestry. They are universally run by people of Chinese ancestry instead.
When I first came to the city myself, it didn't have many Mexican restaurants (not even many Taco Bells), nor did it have a very large population of people of Mexican descent. Fast-food Chinese places were ubiquitous by comparison. There was less competition to contend with in opening and operating a place that served inexpensive Mexican food, and it is my understanding that an immigrant of Chinese descent learned the cuisine and then moved into this niche, and when it became successful brought other family members in to open establishments at other locations.
Mexican people in the United States are marginalized and viewed disparagingly, have a history of being economically oppressed here. Chinese people, like other Asians, have often had a rough time here as well, but have been an established community in New York for a long time.
In recent decades, many more ethnically Mexican people have moved into the New York City metropolitan region. Opening and running Mexican food restaurants is a likely avenue to financial stability, as it is a popular cuisine.
Is the presence of a chain of Mexican restaurants run and operated by Asian personnel a cultural appropriation issue? Was it less so when there were far fewer families of Mexican origin potentially competing for this niche? Or was that actually making it more of a concern?
There hasn't been a public phenomenon of Hispanic or specifically Mexican people complaining about the situation. Does that mean it isn't problematic? So we aren't being charged with the responsibility of noticing it, we're just being called on to react with the correct reactions when someone makes the charge of cultural appropriation? Does that make it a valid defense to respond "Well, nobody complained about it before now" when someone accuses you of cultural appropriation?
Would it be more of a problem if the people doing it were not themselves a historically marginalized ethnic minority?
EXHIBIT B: One of Paul Simon's most successful albums was Graceland. The music is a combination of heavily influenced and directly lifted from indigenous African musical culture, was recorded in South Africa, and features African musicians who are named and credited. Many people view the album as a mostly successful effort to introduce this music to a wider audience.
Still, Paul Simon is a white person and he was making money and furthering his career through the use of folk music traditions of a different culture, definitely an oppressed and marginalized one.
Does it make it okay that he had the permission and direct participation of African musicians, and credited them on the album?
Unlike the case with Fresco Tortilla, there have been some African musicians who have complained about Graceland and Paul Simon. What percent of the original culture have to approve before it can be considered that they have given permission? Or do we assume that because of their lower social status and clout that they aren't able to give consent, in the same way that minor children can't consent to sex?
The counterargument has been made that if mainstream music and its musicians makes no effort to be stylistically inclusive, music on the margins will never find a wider audience. That the alternative to Graceland would be the major record labels signing contracts with indigenous people to record music that is unlike what the mainstream musical audience is accustomed to -- something that Paul Simon was less in a position to make happen, and which, as the record companies would have pointed out, would not have been anywhere as likely to result in those recordings being purchased and played.
That's a specific example of a more universal response to the charge of cultural appropriation, by the way: if we don't let ourselves be influenced and inspired by traditions and creativities that originate anywhere but within the cultural confines of the mainstream, if we don't learn from and emulate anything except the dominant culture, that clears us of being cultural appropriators but aren't we then turning our backs on the rest of the world, shutting our ears and eyes to what they might have to teach us?
EXHIBIT C: Back in the 1950s, Harry Belafonte released an album of music from various world cultures, titled An Evening with Belafonte. Among other tracks, it included a recording of "Danny Boy".
"Danny Boy" is considered Irish and is associated with Irish cultural pride. And the Irish people, subjected to centuries of English domination and the conflicts referred to as "the troubles", can be considered marginalized and oppressed.
But not only is Harry Belafonte also a member of a readily-identified marginalized group (as with the Chinese people operating Fresco Tortilla in the first example), he is also in this case not appropriating a song that arose as part of Irish indigenous culture. The song was written by an English composer, and set to the tune "Londonderry Air", which itself was not so much a long-established Irish tune but rather a somewhat garbled annotation of one, written down by a songcatcher in the 1800s, a tune the original of which is apparently more closely represented in "The Last Rose of Summer".
How authentically a product of a given culture does a cultural work need to be in order for its use by someone of a different culture to be liable for cultural appropriation?
If a white fashion model styles her hair not in an historically established ethnic fashion, but instead in a style promoted in modern times within fashion magazines that happen to target specific ethnic communities, is she doing cultural appropriation? Does it matter if the fashion magazines pushing the style have white owners?
All of these examples are somewhat deliberately retro, referring to things that happened (or first happened) long before our society began discussing cultural appropriation. That minimizes the tendency of people to respond with whatever views on the specific incidents are already on record as public statements (although less so in the case of the Paul Simon example). It's also a way for me to try to split the discussion of cultural appropriation itself from condemnation of people for doing it. Even there, we don't have a consensus on whether or not it's a valid defense to say "That was a different time and you can't judge people in the past for violating the standards of today". It is, after all, a variation on "Well, nobody complained about it before!" ...
Overall, I can't conjure up any rules that start with "Never" or "Always". Not that anyone appointed me to be the issuer of rules. But for myself, for my own behaviors and my own social responsibilities as far as cultural appropriation goes, I can't write for myself any guidelines that start with "Never" or "Always".
I take the concern seriously. Not because I do not wish to offend. I'm actually okay with offending people sometimes. I have several skirts in my wardrobe and I wear them when I feel like it, with very little restriction as far as where I am or what I'm doing. I manage to offend a few people who don't think male people should wear skirts.
But I understand and agree with the sentiment that it isn't fair to snag someone else's self-expression, one that is tied to their identity and solidarity, if their identity is a marginalized one. And it isn't fair to swipe someone else's meaning-imbued symbols and expressions of their concepts and faith and convictions and use them as adornments and trinkets. The question of if and when a situation falls into that description is a complex one, and there will be disagreements about them, but I am willing to do my best to listen and take other folks' perceptions into consideration.
For my own part, I've been told on occasion by cisgender women that I should not be wearing a skirt because it's theirs; I do it anyway; I go to Ethiopian, Chinese, Czech, Indian, Greek, Persian, etc restaurants and eat their cuisine, and I learn how to cook a decent subset of what I like, and (at least back in the pre-COVID era) we like to have dinner guests so I often serve these cultural appropriations to others, but in the privacy of my home. I'd feel less entitled to open a chain of restaurants (if I had the skill and the means to do so) and serve other folks' cuisines, and even less so if the ethnicity were rare and relatively unknown and I somehow had the clout to establish my restaurant chain as the single definitive source of that type of food.
I have a garment in my possession, a beautiful dashiki I bought from a street vendor in Manhattan; it is gold and green and red and black and I bought it because I liked the way it looks. I didn't think about cultural appropriation as I was buying it, but by the time I got home with it, I had begun realizing it could most certainly be perceived as that. I haven't worn it. I'm thinking maybe I will wear it in the privacy of my home when I have reason to think I won't be out and about, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of being in public with it on. Not because I don't want to offend so much as because I can see how it might be offensive, if that makes any sense. It's a shame because for me it conjures up memories of countercultural guys from the early 1970s. But the fact that that's my cultural association for this item of apparel, and not tribal African wear, more or less highlights why cultural appropriation can be a problem, doesn't it?
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback. eBook version and hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for GenderQueer now and for Guy in Women's Studies once they come out.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts