There are whites with very wavy, coarse red hair that could be successfully dreadlocked. Bumped into a lovely French gal on a flight; she had such hair and kept it pulled back and tightly braided. Another example: Michael Hedges (extraordinary guitarist, now deceased)
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Fascinating how for some people itâs always about âthe menâ even when the specific example given was about women. In fact the biggest borrower of world culture in my field, theater, is a woman: Julie Taymor. She used design, mask and puppetry techniques from around the world in Lion King.
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Reminds me of the accusations of cultural appropriation, viz., the Broadway musical, Hamilton. Yet, a bit of industrious googling reveals a painting of a very young Alexander Hamilton and documents hinting at (possibly) Creole blood contributed from his motherâs side; Alexander grew up on one of the Caribbean islands.
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Iâm not sure how one can make this leap in logic that because someone randomly excludes them from an activity or practice for any reason gives anyone the right to commit acts of physical violence (or violence in general). How is it okay to commit racial violence because someone told you (whoâs a minority) that you canât do a certain thing or wear a certain piece of clothing? You can still do those things just not with them and without the need to lynch them. Seriously, this is why so many reactionaries get laughed at. Theyâre the kind of person who probably would torch the local ice cream social because it served neopolitan instead of german chocolate.
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It isnât OK. But that wonât stop those who donât think clearly (or at all), and end up lashing out.
Am I the only one who finds this kind of âone dropâ justification racist? I donât find it reasonable to grant privileges based on it any more than enslaving people based on it. I just read that one of Jeffersonâs enslaved daughters was like 1/32nd African.
Holy fucksocks; this isnât a thread thatâs going to turn into a clusterfuck of willful misunderstanding, oh noâŚ
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With very few exceptions people really arenât being prevented from doing the things they love âbecause cultural appropriation.â Nobody arrested Elvis or Eminem for stealing African-American music. Nobody sued restauranteur Paul Fleming to prevent him from opening an Asian-themed chain called âP.F. Changâsâ or Glen Bell for opening âTaco Bell.â White hippies continue to operate sweat lodges with impunity. Even the Cleveland Indians didnât face any legal action over their racist logo, the only pressure they faced was from ordinary people saying âthat caricature is grossly insensitive and racist.â
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The âone dropâ concept is sickening⌠but I only brought up the situation as a case where the people who cried âcultural appropriationâ would have had to stare their own concept in the face and rethink their views.
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They boasted that they had stolen the recipe (as in were told they would not be given the recipe, and literally skulked around looking in windows) from a place famous for their tortillas in a tourist spot in Mexico, and their tortillas were the competitive advantage they had with their food truck.
Itâs pretty easy to dismiss a subject when you change the details to suit your narrative.
EDIT
And before it comes up, we have made it pretty clear that the women who came up with the recipe in Mexico are not free to set up shop in the much richer areas across the border that can charge 10-20x the price.
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âWhen youâre white in this country, youâre taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything. ⌠Youâre conditioned this way. [âŚ] Itâs the fact that the laws and the culture tell you this. You have a right to go where you want to go, do what you want to do, be however [you want to be] â and people just havet to accommodate themselves to you.â
~Ta-Nehisi Coates
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After I was told that it was racist cultural appropriation for a white family to adopt non-white children I stopped listening.
Iâve got better things to do than try to prevent other people from touching the culture of my ancestors. Yâall wanna be Vikings and Celts, I donât care if you are Chinese or Amharic, may the works of my dead enrich your lives.
(Pictured: Howard Chu, an excellent performer of traditional Irish music.)
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You might find this interesting.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/more-perfect-presents-adoptive-couple-v-baby-girl
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That clip wonât play for me at work; bummer. Will have to listen once I get home.
I remember having a conversation with my own mom about people raising children from different ethnic backgrounds, prompted by a âvery special episodeâ of Different Strokes, of all things.
As I recall, my mom stated that kids being raised in a healthy loving environment is the most important thing; not matching skin tones.
At the same time, my mom also understood that cultural awareness and representation matter greatly when dealing with anyone who has been historically marginalized and denigrated, and so she went out of her way to make sure us kids had extensive exposure to âour roots.â
Iâve never heard anyone seriously claim that adopting children of a different color counts as âappropriationâ; so not only is that anecdotal, itâs also some bigoted bullshit.
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Well, then, wonât someone think of the white women! It is actually a whole different kettle of fish, with white women often appropriating some elements of black womenâs culture and then shedding it when it becomes uncomfortable for them.
But again, this is about who has and continues to have power in our society. Itâs still predominately white men, and thatâs part of the problem that a discussion about cultural appropriate attempts to address.
Do you really think thatâs why the alt-right has come out on the street to support trump and his more racist policies? Because someone complained about them being in a blues band? Thatâs seriously ignoring the real problem here. Donât forget that it was white men who already appropriated and financially benefited from the popularization of country blues since the 60s anyway⌠Eric Clapton made millions playing the blues and then spent years spewing some pretty racist garbage, with little to no blowback. Heâs still considered a genius bluesman. The white music industry exploited the hell out of the genre for years, while some of these old school bluesmen died in poverty. Thatâs the problem people have - not that white dudes play the blues, itâs that they primarily benefit from it economically.
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Such special little broflakesâŚ
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Of course itâs racist. Itâs been the primary founding definition of race in American, a definition meant to keep black Americans âin their place.â Of course, itâs not reasonable or correct, but it has had a very real world negative effect on many of our fellow Americans.
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Absolutely.
In the Black community, thereâs still friction and strife caused by the intra-caste system that was entrenched within American slavery; the House NĂŻgger vs Field NĂŻgger fallacy, in which darker skinned slaves were treated even worse than faired skinned ones - leading to feelings of deep-seeded self-hatred and resentment in general, up to this very day.
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I canât play it either; but am also at work. Iâll try it at home.
Without knowing the details of that specific case, but with the understanding that the children of Australian Aborigines, American Indians, and the Cymric Welsh were all historically targeted by English-speaking Europeans*, I think itâs safe to say that cultural imperialism can be one part of adoption done wrong. And anything can be done wrong.
* not meaning to say these are the only peoples involved, just that they are the ones I know about.
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Iâve never heard it called appropriation, but in that field (my wife is a social worker) it became frowned on to place kids out of âtheir raceâ.
Then why is using it to parcel out âminority privilegesâ OK? I adore Senator Warren, but just the notion that a tiny bit of Native American ancestry might have gained her anything seems problematic.
