Actually, I have a serious issue with this. I don’t care if the person did real research. I don’t care if they do know and understand the significance of the item/tattoo/whatever. IT IS STILL CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AND IT IS STILL RACIST. If the significance of it does not include you then it is wrong for you to use it. No matter how much genuine knowledge you might have about it, it is still NOT YOURS TO TAKE.
I agree with the comic, not with this person’s critique though. It’s 2011, and culture is fucking fluid and globalized enough these days that you can partake in something from another culture without being racist and disrespectful. you just have to have enough self awareness, understanding, and caution. what if you go and live in china for like, five years? what if you’re a white person from connecticut and fall in love with country music and move to the south? of course, there’s no racial component there, but that’s still arguably “cultural appropriation” by this comic’s standards.
so simplified! such first year sociology bullshit. the world is a lot more complex than this shit.
i disagree, andy. it’s 2011, and the racist aftermath of cultural genocide, imperialism, and other forms of exploitation is still alive and well for many peoples of color. how did cultures become “globalized enough these days” for folks (particularly white people) to pick and choose which aspects of POC and their cultures they want to claim, often while upholding and benefitting from the negative shit that’s still levied against those same people, traditions, and values? in this context, i agree with the original post that “if the significance of it does not include you then it is wrong for you to use it” — and though i think it’s tricky to pin down what it would look like for that significance to include someone who isn’t of/from that culture, i think it’s a question worth taking seriously.
what if you go and live in china for like, five years? under what circumstances would someone just “go” and live in china? white folks with money in the US have the privilege and access to roll into another country, and once they’re there, the power dynamics around being a white person living in a country that has been economically or culturally exploited by white folks is really fucking messy/complicated. if a white person just up went to go “live in china for like, five years”, i wouldn’t say that it was any less problematic for that person to start claiming or adopting different parts of chinese culture… especially if their relationship to those traditions/images is one that exoticizes or essentializes its people. many people of color will vouch for the fact that this is very, very often the case, even when the appropriator insists that they are respectful/cautious/understanding. whose assessment is more trustworthy? my guess is that the people who ought to define what kind of self-awareness, understanding, and caution is needed in order to respectfully “participate” in a culture that you don’t belong to are not the people who are trying to “partake”.
both the comic and the critique on it are both skimming the surface of a complex topic, that’s true. but i don’t think they’re meant to do more than that, and that’s okay — the work of educating people (particularly white folks) about their privilege isn’t easy and i wouldn’t expect any one comic (or blog post or piece of art or whatever) on the subject to hit all the nuances. that work is for privileged folks to grapple with once they’ve been made aware of potentially problematic behavior. the experience of cultural appropriation is not “first year sociology bullshit”, it’s a fucking Thing.
