Halloween and "cultural appropriation".

durangodawood

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Okay, but maybe the problem is that not every hurt feeling should be made into an outrage, let alone be a cause for taking punitive action against the other person.
Dont let someones dubious over-outrage nuke the entire concept theyre upset about. Its no good letting other people set the agenda like that. Better to work these things out for yourself rather than just reacting to the whinyest of the whiny.

I say that because it seemed for a while there that the entire ideas of cultural appropriation or vile stereotyping were invalid for you.

And I'd really like to see some humor and kindness from the offended, even as they make their point. No need to make villians out of basically good intentioned if somewhat ignorant people.
 
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pescador

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Not necessarily, but you never know what soapbox someone is going to get on in today's world.

Yeah, people should definitely keep quiet about having the same rights as others because of skin color, nation of origin, etc. Why can't people just accept the discrimination against them?

So, Albion, have you ever been discriminated against? If so, you might have an entirely different attitude.
 
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Okay, but maybe the problem is that not every hurt feeling should be made into an outrage, let alone be a cause for taking punitive action against the other person.

When you're on the other side of "every hurt feeling" -- a bizarre exaggeration -- how do you respond?

a) I've never been discriminated against, so "love your neighbor as yourself" has no meaning to me.
b) I have been discriminated against, but like a good [choose ethnicity here] I will just keep quiet and suffer like they want me to.
 
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Albion

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Dont let someones dubious over-outrage nuke the entire concept theyre upset about. Its no good letting other people set the agenda like that.
Unfortunately, that is what's happened. And it's not as though there's a counterbalancing force keeping "cultural appropriation" to some reasonable level (as you would like to see). That's because the rest of us who aren't out to destroy someone's reputation because he wore a hair style that we consider "ours" to approve of or not...don't play that game.

It's an extreme example, but if someone were to say that if you don't like Antifa burning cities, why don't you just burn some others of your own choosing?? No, it's not something we think ought to be going on, period.
 
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Dont let someones dubious over-outrage nuke the entire concept theyre upset about. Its no good letting other people set the agenda like that. Better to work these things out for yourself rather than just reacting to the whinyest of the whiny.

I say that because it seemed for a while there that the entire ideas of cultural appropriation or vile stereotyping were invalid for you.

And I'd really like to see some humor and kindness from the offended, even as they make their point. No need to make villians out of basically good intentioned if somewhat ignorant people.

Yes, being offended is really entertaining, isn't it? Of course, the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles didn't think that either giving or receiving offense was funny, but you, unlike them, would "really like to see some humor and kindness from the offended".
 
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Albion

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Yeah, people should definitely keep quiet about having the same rights as others because of skin color, nation of origin, etc. Why can't people just accept the discrimination against them?
How quickly we moved from "cultural appropriation" to racial discrimination!

But maybe you have a valid point there after all. "Cultural appropriation" -- in practice -- IS a weapon in the fight for black privilege. Isn't that so? It's not about any individual actually appropriating something that belongs to some other person.
 
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Albion

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Full disclosure: I'm a suburban left-coast origin liberal elite. But for years I played in a country band. If thats not cultural appropriation.....
Do you think it is? We who are not the culture police don't care, one way or the other.

That's what I was talking about several posts ago.

And yes, I do know you were telling a joke.
 
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durangodawood

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Yes, being offended is really entertaining, isn't it? Of course, the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles didn't think that either giving or receiving offense was funny, but you, unlike them, would "really like to see some humor and kindness from the offended".
Yes I would. I'm fine with making the point strongly in the abstract, or against people who are proven jerks. But I dont like beating up on people who are suffering from nothing more than ignorance.
 
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durangodawood

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Do you think it is? We who are not the culture police don't care, one way or the other.

That's what I was talking about several posts ago.

And yes, I do know you were telling a joke.
Total joke. There's nothing more commercial than country music. Its non-appropriable, even though I tried my best.
 
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Albion

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Your point about all of this is valid. It's just that the people who think they are "cultural appropriation" watchdogs aren't in it to be fair.

Consequently, there can be no middle ground or gray area if such a principle is allowed to be considered respectable.
 
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durangodawood

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Your point about all of this is valid. It's just that the people who think they are "cultural appropriation" watchdogs aren't in it to be fair.

Consequently, there can be no middle ground or gray area if such a principle is allowed to be considered respectable.
I think if you acknowledge that there is an extent to which their grievances are valid, then they are the ones who look silly in their extremism. But adopting a diametrical extremism you just end up making them seem more reasonable by contrast.
 
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Albion

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I think if you acknowledge that there is an extent to which their grievances are valid, then they are the ones who look silly in their extremism. But adopting a diametrical extremism you just end up making them seem more reasonable by contrast.
That sounds sensible, and it would be so if we were talking about a number of other conflicts, etc. But not this one. And that's because "cultural appropriation" is phony from the very start. In fact, I don't think you actually are thinking of cultural appropriation when you make your point about some reasonableness.

You are talking more about the general topic of exchanging criticisms or something along those lines. But "cultural appropriation" is a contrivance with a fancy name, that's all. And it serves one side only.
 
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durangodawood

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....You are talking more about the general topic of exchanging criticisms or something along those lines. But "cultural appropriation" is a contrivance with a fancy name, that's all. And it serves one side only.
I dunno, my disconnected marketed "Indian sweatlodge experience" ticks the boxes for me. But I'm generally pro free flow of culture back and forth. Its what people do. So I resist pointing the cultural appropriation! finger at every darn thing.
 
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muichimotsu

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Have you ever seen a black person dress up as a cowboy? The cowboys of the Old West were typically white, and the cowboy is stereotypically white. Should a black person dressing up as a cowboy be deemed as being offensive to white people?
No, because white people weren't marginalized, you don't even understand the criticism because you're apparently so privileged, you can't see past your own nose as you look down on others
 
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muichimotsu

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I dunno, my disconnected marketed "Indian sweatlodge experience" ticks the boxes for me. But I'm generally pro free flow of culture back and forth. Its what people do. So I resist pointing the cultural appropriation! finger at every darn thing.
Pretty sure the term is specific in its definition, it isn't just cultural exchange, it's colonial influence and the idea that white people can just utilize whatever minority marginalized culture because they "get it" or some pretense that rationalizes away that they're a majority cultural group that's normalized and treated with a bias
 
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muichimotsu

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For one thing, the term is so fluid that it's not easy to know exactly what "cultural appropriation" actually is.

For another, the term is never applied evenly but just against whichever group the speaker wants to vilify.

And lastly, what difference does it make if someone or other does do something that might be considered "cultural appropriation?"

If somebody else pioneered a cultural style, it wasn't patented (!) and might better, if everyone were thinking straight, be considered a compliment rather than an offense when others picked it up.
The problem is that you're looking at this from your own perspective as, I'm pretty sure, a white person, which has a cultural bias that favors them (even if it doesn't mean you'll be economically successful, that's one bias among many and is distinct because of other related intersectional problems with the shrinking middle class and excessive power the rich possess in politics

The difference is that you're treating what, in the case of those culturally significant practices that aren't more liminal in nature, those that are essential to the culture and key to their identity, as something that is a commodity and just able to be used without any consideration that you're further marginalizing the group by saying their feelings and objections don't matter
 
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muichimotsu

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We're talking about the validity of people being "offended" due to someone dressing up in a halloween costume that reflects culture.
So you don't see any issue with doing a costume that is encouraging negative stereotypes about, for instance, black people, by utilizing imagery that marginalized and demeaned them by minstrel shows in the 18th and 19th centuries?

Or wearing a Native American headdress that is to be used in solemn ceremonies, not by some wannabee that thinks they understand it and thus gets to use it because of culture favoring them and giving them more lenient treatment because of being in a majority racial group, whites.
 
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