Apple Cider

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Posts posted by Apple Cider

  6. Posted

    Dreadlocks, the term we contemporarily think of, is primarily from African and Islander cultures, and specifically was focused as a part of Rastafarianism. Yes, there are other cultures in the world that have practised matting or coiling hair, but locks, the locks we think of, are singularly a part of cultures that have hair textures that make dreadlocks a thing they can naturally wear as a part of their hair. White people who want to matt their hair or leave it so unkempt that it forms matted parts and is particularly at risk for dirt and mold, go right ahead. But you're not locking your hair and it stands as sort of callously adopting something that's really, on many levels, not for us. 

     

    Something doesn't have to contribute material harm to a group to be appropriation - but it can be embarrassing, rude, callous, disrespectful, devalue that as part of a sacred or special tradition, normalize it away from the group in question while the group in question still has to deal with being made fun of or outwardly hurt BECAUSE it's still seen as part of their group. Black men have had to cut off their dreads to work at certain jobs. So if you're a white person who can have matted hair and not get fired from your job, but a black person can, can you not see how that's a double standard? It's not that white people "lower" the standard (even though it's SUPER GROSS), it's that white people can put these things on as a costume and suffer no ill effects from it, while simultaneously as a group (I'm speaking systemically here) oppress black people who have dreads. Granted, yes, it does have something to do with the fact that a lot of white people have treated the "black body" as other and therefore think that their hair is matted when it's not, but it's not 100% causal in that way, I don't think. (Not sure.)

     

    To move away from specifically dreadlocks, since people want to hyperfocus on that, this is a huge complex topic and there's no one right answer but really specific examples keep getting derailed here. As for your friend, itsamoose, yes, he was probably raised speaking parts of AAVE. But guess what, is he white and not seen as intellectually inferior because of that? Does he get stopped by cops? He still can borrow from that culture and be shielded by white privilege. It might not be appropriation per se, and I think you can see the difference here, but it's still tied very heavily into what him being white allows him to do without significant negative effects. 

     

    I keep circling back around to this, but a lot of these arguments seem to keep cycling back to "Well, I want to figure out a way when this is okay, or why does this person get to do XYZ and why can't I? Or why is THAT not cultural appropriation?" and my answer is, "It might be okay, it might not be, it depends, and sometimes people have different situations from you." But overall, you guys need to look at this macro-level. You need to dig into why this is bothering you to be considered somehow culturally appropriating and why it's frustrating that it seems inconsistent. Think less about the whole "oh my god, what if I do something WRONG" and think more about "Why might people bring this up with me or a friend? How can I remedy this about myself? Where can I learn more about this? Why is this important to know about?" 

     

    If you fuck up, you can always at least apologize and try harder in the future. But we need to collectively understand the forces at work here which are tied very much into racism, oppression, colonialization.

     

    Edit: I'm free for DMs but I need to eat my dinner. After that, someone else can speak about this topic, I think.

  7. Posted

    I can't give you hard and fast examples of when it's "okay" and honestly, the intent, positive or negative, is not very meaningful if you hurt people of that group, in doing so. A lot of people culturally appropriate in a way that they feel is positive, harmless, but still has a detrimental effect overall in how people perceive that culture and how they feel they have a right to access it. I can't tell you about a specific, hypothetical situation. Those usually are not super useful for the purposes of this because you still want a really hard line where I tell you it's okay or not and I'm saying that it could literally be okay to some people in that group and not others. What we're doing, what I'm doing as a fellow white person, is using my privilege and education, from what I've done, to tell you, another white person, about this stuff so maybe a person being oppressed in that way doesn't have to. Other white people checking you on your bad behavior or cultural appropriation is not because we feel we're somehow "above" you for doing so but rather because it often saves someone in that group from having to take time out of their day and possibly get attacked or worse. Now, there's definitely a deeper discussion to be had about how we as white people approach pulling people aside about this, certainly, but I think we've tackled the fundamentals here. 

     

    I also think it would behoove people here to start looking up bigger resources - a lot of what I've learned is literally just from being in diverse groups of feminists and listening to what they have to say about people appropriating them. I also follow a few tumblrs like "this is not japan" and such, but those are not specifically designed for educating white people but rather Japanese people venting about cultural appropriating. 

  8. Posted

    I see the argument here, but I can't help but feel like the course correction is doomed to fail. Essentially you're asking people to adopt elements of their personality for unselfish reasons, but for the most part the reason anyone adopts something as a part of their personality is selfish.  Somewhat related to that--

     

     

    I'm not sure what is meant by the person "taking" something from the culture, though I assume what is meant here is to say they are adopting the aesthethics of the culture but not the substance of it.  In this case I see two issues, First and foremost how do you know that is what is going on?  How do you know the white person wearing corn rows isn't also adopting the substance of black society, whether that be expressed through activism, donation, education, etc?  Isn't this just the observer infusing the observed's actions with intent based on their ignorance of the situation?  Second, why does adopting a traditionally black, latino, japanese, etc aesthetic constitute something negative?  Why can't I just adopt something because I like it, and why is it assumed that I assume I will be "using it better" than the creators of said aesthetic?  Ultimately I feel as though the reasoning behind these sentiments requires far too much assumption on the part of the observer, and even implies a pretty malicious intent.

     

    We're trying to explain this to you, not arbitrate, but mostly try to convey to you what quite a few people in different communities have talked about with regards to cultural appropriation. On the other hand, intent in the situation is not as fundamental as the outward appearance, because even the outward actions can have sincere detrimental effects to the people who's cultural you're taking. What I keep seeing here is you want someone to tell you when it's "okay" and we're saying that there's really not many times when it's "okay" versus learning how to respectfully engage, versus appropriate. Even if you "just like something", it still is a negative action. You don't have to personally be doing it for negative or malicious reasons, but that doesn't mean that just liking something makes it okay.

     

    It feels like you're trying to express that you have a problem with other white people pointing out that what you're doing is probably not a great idea, which sometimes happens because not everyone wants to spend their entire day, possibly navigating a shitty situation to tell a white person to stop borrowing their culture. However, for the purposes of this discussion, we are still again, trying ot explain what this whole business is. 

     

    Which is a completely different thing from the whole conversation we were actually having before. 

  9. Posted

    In regards to black hair styles in specific, there's also the part where white people literally don't have the hair texture to support dreads. The term "dreadlocks" is straight from Rastafarian culture and has a lot of significance, so calling your hair locks/dreadlocks is already ignorant of what culture you're borrowing from. Then there's the addition of the fact that white hair is not meant to be locked. It's matted. You are matting your hair, often at the detriment of your hair's health. It's dirty, or sufficiently matted to the point that you have to shave your head when you are done having them and many white people have legitimately disgusting hair when it is "dreaded" which is frustrating, because black people's hair is seen as "nappy" and "dirty" despite their hair naturally being able to lock itself. Most people don't even know this because black hair textures are generally not centralized as part of hair and beauty practises, which is often why black women have to only go to other black hair salons because white women literally don't know and aren't taught how to take care of it. Black people's hair naturally locks up and can be un-locked, so to speak, because of what their hair specifically does. 

     

    White people attempting to do this, along with cornrows, "afros", are often called novel, in vogue, cute, quirky, whereas black people who wear their hair as it naturally grows out of their heads, are shunned, called unprofessional, dirty or otherwise "unkempt." The whole industry of straightening and relaxing black hair is so to better mimic white centric beauty standards. Appropriating these hairstyles without considering the context, the political meaning, and generally, the suffering that black people go through is appropriation. 

     

    Respecting a culture is not emulating, it's engaging with it with knowledge and acceptance and often that means knowing when NOT to engage. Being invited to take part in someone's culture is not appropriating. Being given something from someone's culture is not appropriating, if it's a gift. Learning about someone's culture from a distance is not appropriating, but removing it from important contexts and not being cognizant of the fact that white people have eradicated or otherwise destroyed people's cultures since colonialization began, is. Emulating someone is not really respectful if you don't have to care about what things mean or that white people have generally disrespected a culture before. A lot of times, emulating is often a collection of stereotypes about a culture versus actually knowing about the culture itself or to mock - see blackface, see "Asian" costumes, etc. Think of it as a cultural bull in a china shop with very little care. A lot of the backlash to this is because white people as a group specifically cannot handle being told that something is not for them and maybe isn't their place to dabble in. seeing things that are special, sacred and have been hard-fought-for in some cases, taken by the same people who have mocked or institutionally hurt you is really difficult to see. (From what I've learned.) 

     

    At the end of the day, you can be as respectful as you want and sometimes your presence or actions is just not going to be acceptable, and that's just a discomfort we have to sit with sometimes as white people. 

  10. Posted

    I've not heard about that argument before, it makes sense, white people profiting off something from a different culture that they can't profit off because of systematic oppression is pretty terrible. I don't know whether Bob Ross has that intention in his head at the time, but he still profitted from it.

     

    The problem I have with arguments against typically black hairstyles on white people doesn't refute that point, but brings up an important problem. When you say white people can't be like black people, you're pretty much saying no culture mixing allowed, white people can't celebrate or enjoy anything from black culture, which is incredibly harmful. Say you're 1/32 black, are you allowed to have an afro? What about 1/16th? How black do you need to be to be allowed to have this particular hair style? Am I allowed to go to an African event? Look but don't touch? If I were adopted by African parents, am I allowed to wear the same traditional clothes they have to events?

     

    The reason I brought it up in the first place, is because I know a white dude who defended dread locks on other white people, not any himself, and he was doxxed, harrassed, and chased out that community. To me, those leftist harassers are the people we should be questioning whether we want to associate ourselves with.

     

    That's not what I'm arguing, all I'm saying is that harrassment should be discouraged and there should be some way to enable healthy criticism without resorting to aggression. I'm not saying left extremists justify right extremists or anything, I'm just saying that extremists shouldn't be tolerated. I'm not saying that the fact there are some left radicals with unhealthy ideas somehow affects the opposing arguments validity, I'm saying there should be a way where we can address problematic people who agree with us. Most of my fights on the internet are with people I agree with, but think they're doing something the wrong way, or are being detrimental to the message they're trying to promote.

     

     

    Can you just not be a dick and not assume I'm some blithering baby monkey because I don't agree with you? I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm trying to improve myself.

     

    Sorry for being a dick, but you literally held up something that you now want me to explain as an example of radical social justice people that need to be labeled because we're too out there. You just happened to point out something that you thought wouldn't be a held belief by people you were talking to but it turns out it was. I don't know, it gets super frustrating around here because despite taking a lot of time to explain things, people still condescend to me or straight up ignore my points in places like the feminism thread, no less. 

     

    I can dig up some stuff on cultural appropriation when I get home though. 

  12. Posted

    Funny story about Bob Ross, he hated the perm he had (which was apparently done because it saved him money on haircuts? Which I don't buy!) but it was pretty key to marketing his products and selling himself as an image, which is what made him the bulk of his money. Because of his popular art classes and supplies, he was able to do his show on PBS for free. 

     

    That still doesn't mean that what he did with his hair was free of problematic elements or doesn't need criticism. Profiting off a certain kind of image is one of those things that gets talked about in feminist circles. However, I'm also not sure he referred to it as a 'fro, either, an afro is a pretty specific type of hairstyle that's fairly rooted in black hair and black culture, you can have curly hair as a white person (which I do) and still not have it look like an Afro. Calling it an Afro is still callously disregarding what it means to black people? A lot of what actually happens with regards to Afros is when white people don "afro wigs" and live out caricatures of black people.

     

    Either way, not sure what your point is. 

     

    Edit: Van beat me! But point remains.

  14. Posted

    but it was also legitamitely used usefully to talk about people who think white people having afros is cultural appropriation and racist. 

     

    So you mean, the idea that there's some contingent of social justice loonies who are laughably wrong? Because I think this, mostly because I've done quite a bit of reading from black feminists who talk about how adopting black hair styles is pretty callous given the racial politics surrounding black hair and what kind of hairstyles black people are not allowed to wear publicly lest they be considered unprofessional. Same goes for white people adopting "dreads" as well. I'm the radical social justice warrior you want to complain about, right in your midst!

     

    The problem is when you segment off a portion of people who "too into" shit to make yourself look more "with it" you push the middle on any sort of social justice conversation. I would love to drop TERFs and really annoying fellow white feminists out of the "feminist club" but that's a little too "no true scotsman" for me. People really want to get rid of people that make them feel embarrassed but it also inspires them to feel more "right/correct" about their own views versus trying to reform the movement in general. 

  15. Posted

    We need the revolution NOW, I don't care that I don't have plans for how to take care of people who can't immediately overthrow the government because it's unsafe for them to do so.

  16. Posted

    Obviously you don't have to do anything, but "reclaim" is probably a misnomer not just here but with respect to almost all the terms. "Faggot," for instance, wasn't "reclaimed," it was just claimed. SJW is in a similar position. So if you worry is just "the term has always had a disparaging connotation" then I wouldn't freak out too much, because lots of "reclaimed" terms only had a history of having been used offensively.

     

    I am aware of how terms get claimed/reclaimed but it's shitty, it's used by shitty people for a shitty reason and it's directly from the internet's undying loathing for people who care about shit. Trust me, I'm aware of the frisson between slurs and reclamation. '

     

    Edit: I mean, my post was clearly about my own personal feelings about the term, right? Am I missing something here? I don't need to adopt SJW, it sounds terrible and I'm already a feminist. 

  17. Posted

    I'm never "reclaiming" SJW when it has always been used as a shitty shorthand way of talking about people who care about social justice, feminist does just fine. I don't feel like calling myself something ridiculous that people use to disparage others in that way.

  18. Posted

    Yeah, I've definitely called dudes brocialists and manarchists because their own particular strain of leftist/socialist thought is still circumscribed by not recognizing that the patriarchy is still a thing.

  21. Posted

    It's not that it has racist connotations, it's that, given everything contextually, it comes off callous to those things. It's ignorant. In our attempts to really talk about our ire with predominantly white men, we've made a joke that disregards that a lot of non-white men actually are killed on a regular basis. This is a problem a lot with white-lead feminism, much like how there's a ton of backlash against being seen as delicate, which is different from the experiences of say, black women, who are hypervisibly stereotyped as rough and angry. It's not fixating on a monolithic experience as women that dominates feminist discourse and yes, even jokes.

  23. Posted

    You know what? I used to do the "kill all men" joke a bit back in my more angry feminist days and I had several people of color tell me how it made them feel uncomfortable specifically because of the history of white supremacy and violence even among white women (as passive audiences or outright antagonists) and I decided that it wasn't that compelling of a joke and stopped. I don't know why we can't stop using jokes if they hurt people or have larger issues that rely on our understanding of nuance in discourse.

  24. Posted

    One of my friends privately reached out to a guy who was hired there (and it was a locked account so I can't give you names or references, sorry) but apparently R*osh made this guy write FOUR articles before even thinking of being paid, etc. Great business practices.