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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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I hope it's clear how when you post talking about those leftists who are obviously unreasonable and cite a belief which many here believe is entirely reasonable, then get angry and defensive when that's explained to you, it's hard to see this discussion as being in entirely good faith.

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To get back to cultural appropriation, I saw a video a little while ago that was a pretty good primer on it.

That video lays out some good examples of cultural appropriation, or at the very least the callousness behind some of it, but the concept as a whole I still find odd. She laments white stars being inspired by black culture and adopting it into their acts/Persona, and describes this as being a bad thing because racism and institutional violence still exist. She seems to suggest that the privileged members of society should respect the culture they are emulating, but isn't that what they are doing? Isn't the choice to emulate something a sign of your respect for it, or at least the worthiness you see in it? I don't think the idea of cultural appropriation is any different than what we see elsewhere. People figure out the things they like, adopt those things into their personality and publicize that (basically every Facebook page you've ever seen).

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Thanks, it's very educational. I've not seen that Katy Perry video before, but that seems like a particularily terrible example. I agree in the context of appropriating elements from black culture, and using people as props, in order to profit by taking the popular aspects of black culture and repackaging it for white audiences, that's wrong. What I don't think is wrong, is someone, not in the public eye, who decides they like the look of something that a black person has, for example dreadlocks, and decides to try it out on themselves.

I think it gets dangerous when people say that white people should not participate in black culture, you should look at them like animals in a zoo, but don't engage with them. I'm not saying you, or anybody here thinks that, but I've definitely met many people who do, which I think comes from second hand hearing about cultural appropriation, and assuming any sort of race mixing is some how racist. How black do you have to be to have dreads? What if you're white and adopted by black parents, are you then allowed to share a hair style with another race?

Appropriation is adopting the aesthetic without the experience. I've never met a white person with dreads who did it respectfully. It's always been part of some return to nature, new agey kind of person who just doesn't consider that they're taking a black aesthetic and relating it to the black people as savages stereotype by assuming a black aesthetic and putting it adjacent to the idea of "natural living."

Those people might be out there, and like she says in the video, it's not necessarily bad that black culture is pop culture, but when you take parts of a culture you like and ignore the very real, existing, and ongoing plight of the people of that culture, that's a very bad thing.

I guess I just don't understand how some bad actors invalidate the entire idea. I'm sorry that happened to your friend. Nobody deserves to be harassed to that extent. But their experience doesn't mean that cultural appropriation doesn't happen, or that it isn't a bad thing.

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That video lays out some good examples of cultural appropriation, or at the very least the callousness behind some of it, but the concept as a whole I still find odd. She laments white stars being inspired by black culture and adopting it into their acts/Persona, and describes this as being a bad thing because racism and institutional violence still exist. She seems to suggest that the privileged members of society should respect the culture they are emulating, but isn't that what they are doing? Isn't the choice to emulate something a sign of your respect for it, or at least the worthiness you see in it? I don't think the idea of cultural appropriation is any different than what we see elsewhere. People figure out the things they like, adopt those things into their personality and publicize that (basically every Facebook page you've ever seen).

 

Choosing to adopt a very specific aspect of a distinct and different culture, suffused with its own history and meaning, while deliberately stripping it of those things because they're not as convenient to adopt, is not respectful in any way. It's an expression of privilege. It's saying that the most important (or the most relevant, at least) thing about dreadlocks is how good they look on you or how different they are to others, rather than what they mean and have always meant to the people whose culture they're already a significant part of. It's something that's happened for centuries, but like the theft of land and livelihood from peoples of color, it's about taking something that's not yours without giving anything back, neither culturally nor politically, simply because you feel like you'll use that thing as well if not better than its originators and that should be enough for them.

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Dude I'm just saying you should maybe try to look a bit more closely at the assumptions and attitudes you're bringing into a conversation and how that relates to the attitude of the feedback you get. And apparently saying that makes me 'worse than a gamergater', which I dunno doesn't that kind of prove my point that you're taking everything in the worst way possible here? It's not that I'm ignoring what you're writing, it's that I don't think it 100% connects with the problems of discourse we're having here and it's becoming more of an ad-hoc reasoning to excuse what's going on rather than an examination of how this communication can be improved. I mean if this conversation isn't going the way you want it to, let's figure out why that is, okay?

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That video lays out some good examples of cultural appropriation, or at the very least the callousness behind some of it, but the concept as a whole I still find odd. She laments white stars being inspired by black culture and adopting it into their acts/Persona, and describes this as being a bad thing because racism and institutional violence still exist. She seems to suggest that the privileged members of society should respect the culture they are emulating, but isn't that what they are doing? Isn't the choice to emulate something a sign of your respect for it, or at least the worthiness you see in it? I don't think the idea of cultural appropriation is any different than what we see elsewhere. People figure out the things they like, adopt those things into their personality and publicize that (basically every Facebook page you've ever seen).

The adoption in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the adoption of a black aesthetic while ignoring black culture is a bad thing. You're taking something from a group of people without recognizing or respecting their history, and while ignoring their ongoing struggle.

It's the kind of racism that I see in anime fans a lot -- the adoption of a "Japanese" aesthetic combined with thinking of Japanese people as a monolithic thing. There is little consideration for the lived experience of any individual Japanese person and the presumption that all Japanese people have lived a life that you are familiar with because you've consumed a part of their culture.

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Same.

 

I don't think the Waluigi's mean what you think they mean. But then again, maybe they do! But seeing how things have progressed on this page, it may have been a premature Waluigiing.

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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. 

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Choosing to adopt a very specific aspect of a distinct and different culture, suffused with its own history and meaning, while deliberately stripping it of those things because they're not as convenient to adopt, is not respectful in any way. It's an expression of privilege. It's saying that the most important (or the most relevant, at least) thing about dreadlocks is how good they look on you or how different they are to others, rather than what they mean and have always meant to the people whose culture they're already a significant part of. It's something that's happened for centuries, but like the theft of land and livelihood from peoples of color, it's about taking something that's not yours without giving anything back, neither culturally nor politically, simply because you feel like you'll use that thing as well if not better than its originators and that should be enough for them.

 

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--

 

The adoption in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the adoption of a black aesthetic while ignoring black culture is a bad thing. You're taking something from a group of people without recognizing or respecting their history, and while ignoring their ongoing struggle.

It's the kind of racism that I see in anime fans a lot -- the adoption of a "Japanese" aesthetic combined with thinking of Japanese people as a monolithic thing. There is little consideration for the lived experience of any individual Japanese person and the presumption that all Japanese people have lived a life that you are familiar with because you've consumed a part of their culture.

 

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.

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I don't think the Waluigi's mean what you think they mean. But then again, maybe they do! But seeing how things have progressed on this page, it may have been a premature Waluigiing.

 

I don't know what the Waluigis mean!

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I don't know what the Waluigis mean!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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Um that was like my first post in this discussion. Do you have me confused with someone else?

Oh well the eagle is getting ominous. I'm sorry. I thought it might be a public good to try to set some boundaries of discourse but maybe it's a discussion to be had another time in a different way.

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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. 

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Why can't I just adopt something because I like it?

 

This is a great example of privilege at work. "If I want something, why shouldn't I have it?" Like most other examples of privilege, it benefits its holder immensely and there is no rational reason why they should set it aside. That said, I firmly believe that people are more than just a tabulation of their self-interest and that most of them, when presented with clear explanations of how their actions harm others, will choose not to continue exploiting them, even if the harm was inadvertent. I personally work hard to understand and defuse my privilege, even though I'm not a particularly good person. Saying it's a lost cause because it's asking people not to be selfish and to think of others is a dark fucking view of human nature, man. All people have to do (well, not all, but a good start) is give understanding, allyship, and advocacy when they choose to adopt the aesthetics of other cultures.

 

Apple Cider, you are so much better than me at explaining these things and I am so jealous.

 

Amen to that.

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