why mythologies are not all equal and cultural appropriation needs to be taught more

[ivy_chan]

So, Patricia Briggs, an author whose work I enjoy, wrote a statement on using Native American culture in her work. Now, while I agree that Mercy's brand of Native American supernatural needed to be fleshed out and explained, there is a reason why I am really not looking forward to reading that book. Not only because of the cover, which decided to

Comments

[ivy_chan]

I'm going to ban you, but I'm sure you were aware of that when you decided to report this to a post on your lj and incite your buddies to come over and reply to me. I don't know exactly what offends you about this post, but I'll assume you're a Briggs fan and probably aren't aware of the workings of race, social privilege, racial privilege, or racism in general.

Here, basic point: If you are a member of a people that has systematically oppressed, genocided, raped, tortured, and continues to erase a culture, it becomes problematic of you to take aspects of that culture and twist it.

Why? Because the culture you belong to, the privileged dominant culture, has taken every step to ensure that they are erased and turned into offensive stereotypes that mean nothing.

European culture is not comparable to native culture not because it is richer, but because it is dominant, it is what everyone learns as important and central, it is prevalent and inescapable. Native culture is reduced to headdresses and dances, no one knows about it. This doesn't stem from a history of naive ignorance, this stems from a history of purposeful, malicious cruelty.

Get it? These people, living on reservations in what should have been their country, their rights constantly ignored, crimes against them made negligible, living in a white, christian culture and trying to cling to their culture after generations of people trying to beat it out of them...you will never understand how these people feel. Your culture is safe, normal, approved of.

Oh, you can TRY to understand. You can attempt to empathize. However, your privilege blinds you, your own experience blinds you, and you will never have lived the lives these people have. What gives you the right to say you can explain it so easily?

Go look up cultural appropriation, if you give half a damn. Go look up racism 101, intersectionality, and privilege. However, you are not worth talking to. You are hardly worth explaining things to, until you attempt to examine the privilege you have.

You are banned. Your friends, if they come here, are banned. Any other attempts at harassment will be reported to the mods as abuse of the TOS, which clearly state that harassment is not allowed.