Ehh. ouldarge the point, but got so many other things going on this literally is a blip right now. Take your upvote and have a good one. I mean normally I’d be all for tilting windmills with you but right now. Eh.
And while I"m all for remixing cultural elements, I’m grateful at the progress that appears to have been made in wider pop culture realizing native americans aren’t all this one thing, and even the plains tribes were rather different than eachother, because ‘hau white man’ is… well… I"m trying to figure out if I should be more or less insulted by that or the stereotypical big lipped black guy caricature bare chested and bare feet eating a watermellon.
That we have people pointing and going ‘appropriation much’ might get on my nerves as to me it seems like it’s done too readily at points and times when we might need something between ‘YOU ARE A MONSTER’ and ‘nothing to see move along’ to go ‘yeeaa tht’s kinda… can you back off on looking like you’re doing this for lulz?’ I’m glad we’ve aparently moved away from my parents and grandparents era of ‘oh, they won’t mind, they should in fact be glad to be given even this mckery of a representation.’
Well, yes. This is why I mentioned it as an example. You think it’s racist. I think it’s racist. I’ve read about Native Americans who don’t think it’s racist. This made me think about the idea of “needing permission” and who can grant it. But I understand that the mascot of the Washington team isn’t a cultural practice or artifact whose use might offend someone, but instead a racist characterization, so it’s not a perfect analogy. Or maybe even a good enough analogy.
You might be looking for something more like the situation regarding the wearing of a kimono by people of non-Japanese ancestry. From what I’ve read people in Japan are all for it whereas Japanese-American communities are much more “No, don’t do that.”
What do you think of the idea of forming some sort of union with Scotland and Northern Ireland and letting Wales and the rest of England do their own thing?
I’m not trying to downplay the influence from Jamaican music and culture on the popularity of dreads among Europeans today, but certainly from the beginning I would have thought the Hindu mystics were a bigger influence. Specifically because of the Hippie trail in the 60s, which presumably had a big impact up to the current day of the popularity of dreads amongst new age travellers/crusties, Jamaican music has become quite popular in that community in recent decades so it’s probably reinforced the popularity (and no doubt Bob Marley and others had some impact from the late 60s), but I don’t think it was the initial cause.
As for Insular Celts being a source for dreads you’re correct, not only is this not well attested historically, it doesn’t even seem to be common in popular mythologising about that period, with spiky lime-treated hair, and longer hair tied in various manners being the most common.
My shooting buddy Vince has cool dreads. He looks like an anime character in his Aikido gi. I think that is his goal, actually. I know he has to go once a month to get them worked on.
The Predator has to be like 20% cooler with dread like “hair”.
Nit-picking about “going to a salon” aside, most of the folks I know now who have locks get help maintaining them, especially those who have significant length to contend with.
Back when I lived in the Caribbean, I knew more locals who did their own twisting exclusively.
He’s a programmer so he can afford to leave it to the professionals. I think he does some barter with homemade wine. Or maybe this how he tips. ETA I imagine it would be hard to do yourself with the parts you can’t really see.
In the event that I should ever decide to lock my own hair, I’ll likely need help maintaining it; my tresses are already lengthy, and I will probably be well into my twilight years before I make the commitment. (I don’t cut my hair.)
My understanding of the kimono issue is not that Japanese Americans are out there protesting, it is primarily Chinese Americans and Philippine Americans. The Japanese, at least at the Boston protests, were counter protesters, supporting “Kimono Wednesdays”.
The gatekeepers in this case (Ames Siyuan and Christina Wang) were, as I understand it, American born people of Chinese heritage. To me, this illustrates the ultimate absurdity of the appropriation issue.
Why? Because gatekeepers are always in (according to you) the wrong group? (Cuz yeah, they’re not)
Anyway, people in the US of Asian descent often get lumped together as “Asian Americans.” And so, issues that affect some can affect and be felt by others.
Looks like a similarish trend. But the Noble Savage is more about characterizing another group, often a minority group. As primitive, mentally simple, violent, and technologically backward in a good way. It factors in to that sort of nationalistic mythmaking. But its primarily an artistic trope, and genre of racist stereotype.
I’m not going to argue that that may have been influential in introducing white folks to dreadlocks. But the primary reason why they’re a common, acceptable, and even stylish hairstyle is down to how common they are in black communities. And through active efforts of civil rights and pro-black activists to promote typically Black hair styles. Hairstyles that look good on black people. And work with black people’s hair. As socially acceptable, stylish and desirable. Its the whole black is beautiful thing. You had a mainstream beauty standard that excluded blacks, in many ways by its very nature or explicitly because they were black. In (successfully) fighting to expand the mainstream beauty standard, and shift ettiquette. They elevated and popularized, deliberately and explicitly hair styles like dreadlocks and the afro.
Its down to that effort that anyone can walk out with dreads without having old ladies faint and people refuse to hire them. The black community, deliberately and with fore thought. Took a hairstyle that was present and practical in the black community. And made it known and polite to society at large (meaning White society). For the long run not as a fad.
If it was the 60’s fetish for all things India that had done that don’t you think the default discussion would be about white people appropriating Hindu culture? Rather than Black culture?
To me, the kimono controversy illustrates the absurd levels that the appropriation argument can reach. When the protesters got to the point where they were actually lecturing Japanese people about proper observance of Japanese traditions, they should have realized that they were misguided.
I find that many of the appropriation arguments are misguided because of the gatekeepers misunderstanding of history. One of the recent food related controversies was about Jamie Olliver presenting a version of joloff rice, and got some serious hate about it, from people who believed sincerely that Joloff Rice is a pure Nigerian tradition. But even in Nigeria, the dish is made primarily from ingredients originating in Asia and the Americas. It is a multicultural collaboration. Almost everything is.
I am sitting here wearing Samue, which is a sort of Japanese casual wear. I am sure that the sight of me would turn the Boston Kimono protesters to apoplexy. But I don’t owe them any explanation or justification. Samue, like the Kimono, are not earned through trial or awarded after initiation. They are purchased at a department store.
Not necessarily, that would require that arguments against appropriation were valid, and based on sound reasoning, rather than ideologically driven victimisation fetishism (another excellent example of which was that dumb kimono-gate as just mentioned by @Max_Blancke), and there are far less Desi folk graduating from American universities with degrees in the humanities to kick up a stink about it (though there were people complaining about the appropriation of yoga, so maybe they’re not immune to it either, but I’m not entirely sure who’s doing the complaining there, it might be just white folks). Another reason it might be less likely is that Hindu dreads are far less common than Rasta or Afro-American dreads, they’re pretty much limited to a certain subset of religious devotees, rather than a hairstyle common in all walks of life, so it’s just a far less obvious fact from a mainstream point of view.
Again though, I do agree that the cultural impact from Jamaican and Afro-American locks are far more important today, but I think it would be silly to dismiss the impact the Hippie trail would have had (especially with regards to cultures that grew out of the hippie movement, like the new age travellers).
Oh man the Boston Kimono Kerfuffle! I’m know to be on the right but when this happened my (Japanese) wife made me feel like a dirty hippie for all the venom he had for these non Japanese self appointed gatekeepers of Japanese culture.
Yeah, they probably should, ultimately it should be up to them if they want to be dicks about it or not. But then that isn’t really an example of the kind of cultural appropriation we were talking about, so I’m not sure why you bring it up. Using an offensive racial epithet, although apparently it’s not considered offensive to all Native Americans, and a bunch of offensive stereotyped imagery isn’t the same as partaking in the cultural expression of another culture. A more apt analogy would have been indigenous people selling art and clothing to other people, or outsiders creating art or music in the style of (or simply borrowing from) another culture, and I have zero problem with that kind of thing, I also don’t have a problem with people of European extraction playing Lacrosse.
Well it apparently it is up to them, since no group or law has forced them to change it. Seems no less a problem to me, though, than say, the Nantucket Nirs or the Pekin Chs, and I’d be fine with boycotts, protests and such forcing both to change (as many, many other racist team names and imagery HAVE been changed).
Anyway, good to hear that you don’t consider efforts to change the odious Washington team name “ideologically driven victimisation fetishism.” So many on the right do.
I brought it up because when it comes to shrugging off or condemning appropriation, I wonder where you draw the line between “ideologically driven victimisation fetishism” and actually harmful behavior.
I have no problem with boycotts and the likes either. Best way to get them to change is to hit them in their pockets.
Anyway, good to hear that you don’t consider efforts to change the odious Washington team name “ideologically driven victimisation fetishism.” So many on the right do.
Well that’s probably because I’m not ‘on the right’.
I brought it up because when it comes to shrugging off or condemning appropriation, I wonder where you draw the line between “ideologically driven victimisation fetishism” and actually harmful behavior.
Do you still wonder? Do you consider the examples I gave of more accurate analogies you could have made to be ‘harmful behavior’?
