Comments | shaula82: Appropriating culture

shaula82

Appropriating culture

Apr 27, 2006 17:52

Jenn's rant on cultural appropriation, original context- reappropriate.com, with comments

Jenn's rant posted in Debunking White, with discussionThis is something I've been thinking about a lot lately - cultural appropriation. I am guilty of if to some extent, and so is practically everyone I know (again, to some extent). Some of this sounds really ( Read more... )

cs, racism

Comments 98

deepfishy April 27 2006, 10:49:40 UTC

Oh, dear. I'm backsliding into cultural studies specificity...many apologies for the rambling argument and number of clauses (and brackets) in the following paragraphs ( ... )

shaula82 April 27 2006, 11:42:47 UTC

Hey, those are exactly the kind of points I wanted to hear about! (And can you tell I'm meant to be writing my thesis? Mmm, procrastination, why art thou so tasty?) it's really great to hear some cultural studies-influenced opinions! By the way, do you miss it? Or is it still a bit too soon ( ... )

shaula82 April 27 2006, 11:52:28 UTC

But I can't not get paranoid, from time to time, because I realise that a lot of my ideas, and the very fact that I can explore other cultures, stems from white privilege. I can go wherever I want, mostly unquestioned, unsuspected, perhaps even unnoticed, because of my privileged invisibility, whereas so many people simply are not afforded this privilege. Of course, the fact that I'm female (and sometimes the fact that I was born in another country) dispels some of my invisibility - but not all of it, not by a long shot.

shaula82 April 27 2006, 12:03:19 UTC

Also, icon!love. On so many different levels!

I promise to stop with the comments for now.

deepfishy April 27 2006, 10:50:33 UTC

Ye gods, that was long!

shaula82 April 27 2006, 11:53:15 UTC

Talk about long!

shaula82 April 27 2006, 12:01:05 UTC

I wish I could appy the same energy to the posthuman, in an essay format. Blergh.

gavla April 28 2006, 07:54:25 UTC

This person is a cunt!

All culture is stupid anyway, there's no reason to do any of it and no justification of it anyway. Whatever you do, that's your culture. Lots of anime is choice. Sushi is choice. Karaoke is fun. Buddha's teachings make sense, Kung-Fu is great for ya, and Green tea is the shizznit. I do those things, I like those things, they are my culture.

shaula82 April 28 2006, 12:23:46 UTC

First of all, it makes me really, really upset and angry when you use "cunt" as an insult. Really. I don't have a problem with the word "cunt", just with the way you and a lot of other people use it. I don't care if you don't objects to insulting people by calling them "dicks", or "dickheads", because it simply does not carry the same connotations. Okay?

Secondly, you totally missed Jenn's point. I understand that this may be your first encounter with the notion of cultural appropriation, but that doesn't mean you have a right to just dismiss it, regardless of whether or not you feel threatened by it.

Thirdly, Jenn saw your comment, and I'm glad she was able to turn it into something empowering, but that doesn't excuse you. I'm really disappointed, Gav. Disappointed and hurt, because you weren't able to look beyond your own preconceptions when something challenged them, and because I didn't think you threw words around like that.

gavla May 2 2006, 05:59:01 UTC

The word 'cunt' is a very very strong part of my own disenfranchised counterculture.
It's the only word we shockrockers can use to offend anyone any more.
That's why, when I'm angry beyond reasonable argument I sometimes want to reach for the rudest word on the shelf.
That's what the word means to me, and I was under the impression that in our fucking fuck a fucking sentence culture it was well removed from any sexist connontations.

shaula82 May 2 2006, 06:48:25 UTC

It's definitely not removed from sexist connotations. "Fuck" does not discriminate against anyone. "Dick" is not the equivalent, because boys have been taught to be proud of their dicks, as opposed to girls, who've been taught to be ashamed or ignorant of their cunts, of their sexuality, or their menses, etc ( ... )

Thread 85

fire_fly May 1 2006, 09:20:08 UTC

BTW, I do feel the same way as Jenn on more than one occasion. I even wrote about it once before, and I pretty much stand by what I said back then, although it did take some time to muster my calm for a long enough time to write it.

I think it's problematic to think of a culture as a passive set of symbolic objects that you can "gain entry" into. I don't think that past victimisation is a good enough justification for the call to respect cultural differences, because different histories, aesthetics and meanings exist even between very oppressed cultures... and it's an imperialistic myth that all darkies are the same ( ... )

in the vein of the actual argument trondor May 2 2006, 10:06:10 UTC

www.migrantproject.com.au/home.htm