Halloween and "cultural appropriation".

[muichimotsu]

What "white-privilege" are you referring to this time? Or are you just throwing that term around as a way of dog-whistling to the BLM crowd?

I'm referring to stuff I've already said several times, that society favors white people in a way that is considered normal and borders on glorifying whiteness as the norm in contrast to the marginalized groups. And that's especially the case in the idea that black people just aren't working hard enough or other negative stereotypes about them that are not entirely their fault with a society that has systemic bias against treating them in the same way they would white people.

When you have people in the South that are white and blamed for being lazy, but are also given a wider berth in what is appropriate, while black people in the same kind of context where they are low income and have to utilize welfare institutions are suggested to just have some cultural norm for them as black people that encourages the bad behavior we see rather than it being a consequence of a white majority culture marginalizing them. Or do you not understand what marginalization means?

And I don't need to invoke BLM to object to systemic racism, I can bring up the atrocious history of my region of the Southeast U.S., my state and several others having a backlash against integration because they preferred the status quo where segregation was the norm. The very idea of white supremacy and white privilege is almost baked into the South's history, particularly in regards to the Confederacy period.

 

[muichimotsu]

It's not just the stereotypes that I'm talking about, but rather what they refer to as cultural appropriation.

So what is your objection to the idea that cultural appropriation specifically is bad versus cultural exchange, which has the understanding that white people can only gain an academic understanding, not a lived cultural understanding of those practices?

I don't think black people would be opposed to me as a white person learning more about their culture, which is quite fascinating in the little amount I've gained through what is ostensibly children's television (Arthur and Postcards from Buster). Kwanzaa is just one aspect, along with Gullah culture in the South, not to mention some particular African cultures and practices regarding a specific kind of dance, stilt dancing, and the importance of the masks involved, from what I recall

The difference would be in me trying to do that under the assumption that it's okay because "I understand" or, "It's just a joke" or other rationalizations.

 

[muichimotsu]

1. The conventions of a pagan festival are of no import to Christianity proper.
2. Just from a logical perspective: why get offended at "cultural appropriation," when the festival Samhain [Halloween], itself, is a cultural appropriation?
3. October 31st will always be Reformation Day to me.

Halloween and Samhain are not the same thing in the same vein that ancient Christmas was probably unrecognizable compared to modern Christmas that started around the 16th century in Germany with Christmas trees and related practices

 

[renniks]

It's a moot point as Halloween is cancelled this year due to COVID. I know I won't be going to any parties or giving out any candy.

It's not cancelled everywhere... Our church is giving out candy...

 

[renniks]

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.

So if I wear feathers I'm stealing native culture? Wouldn't a native wearing a ball cap be stealing my culture? I have been to pow wows and know natives. I'm not sure that most are as easily offended as the whites getting offended for them.

 

[muichimotsu]

It's not cancelled everywhere... Our church is giving out candy...

And you don't really cancel a general holiday that can be modified in the traditions for what would normally be a concern for viral spread. I heard of someone that's trying to rig up something so that kids can come by and not have to be in direct contact for the above concerns: basically something like PVC pipes where you drop the candy down and it naturally would go down. If we're really being creative, what about those vacuum tube things at banks (I think I might be wrong on the term for the tubes)

 

[muichimotsu]

So if I wear feathers I'm stealing native culture? Wouldn't a native wearing a ball cap be stealing my culture? I have been to pow wows and know natives. I'm not sure that most are as easily offended as the whites getting offended for them.

Don't be obtuse, wearing feathers in itself is a cultural tradition that's not purely native in nature, I'm pretty sure and the specific cultural practices being appropriated by white people is the objection, not making up some other one.

No, because you'd have to demonstrate that baseball is somehow essential to American culture, if that's what you meant, but moreso that it's a marginalized culture in the first place, or, if we're really being fair, if America culture is race specific and thus the idea of baseball being primarily white is outright racist and stupid to boot. A native american can play baseball and wear a baseball cap, because a baseball cap is not of cultural significance to one racial group, unlike African/Native American ceremonial garb and such utilized in a way that trivializes and marginalizes it.

You going to pow wows is not the same as cultural appropriation and sociologists have a demonstrable distinction, because that's cultural exchange, you are not talking down in any way to the natives, you are engaging in their culture as an outsider a priori/prima facie. That understanding makes such things okay because there isn't the dynamic where a white person can get away with appropriating a minority culture for some trivial context like Halloween or such.

Not sure you get to speak for Native Americans aw a white person in any sense of their lived experience of marginalization, even if you are aware of historical aspects, which is a step in the right direction to recognizing white privilege and how it encourages cultural appropriation as permissible at all, since it marginalizes those minority cultures, even tokenizing or exotifying them

 

[Strathos]

It's not cancelled everywhere... Our church is giving out candy...

I hope you live somewhere where the case rate isn't too bad, then. Also I hope you and the trick-or-treaters all wear masks.

 

[renniks]

You going to pow wows is not the same as cultural appropriation and sociologists have a demonstrable distinction, because that's cultural exchange, you are not talking down in any way to the natives, you are engaging in their culture as an outsider a priori/prima facie. That understanding makes such things okay because there isn't the dynamic where a white person can get away with appropriating a minority culture for some trivial context like Halloween or such.

Lol I've literally had people who claimed native blood arguing with me that I have to be native because I do some native skills. Natives can be as racist and stereotype as much as anyone else.

 

[Strathos]

Don't be obtuse, wearing feathers in itself is a cultural tradition that's not purely native in nature, I'm pretty sure and the specific cultural practices being appropriated by white people is the objection, not making up some other one.

No, because you'd have to demonstrate that baseball is somehow essential to American culture, if that's what you meant, but moreso that it's a marginalized culture in the first place, or, if we're really being fair, if America culture is race specific and thus the idea of baseball being primarily white is outright racist and stupid to boot. A native american can play baseball and wear a baseball cap, because a baseball cap is not of cultural significance to one racial group, unlike African/Native American ceremonial garb and such utilized in a way that trivializes and marginalizes it.

You going to pow wows is not the same as cultural appropriation and sociologists have a demonstrable distinction, because that's cultural exchange, you are not talking down in any way to the natives, you are engaging in their culture as an outsider a priori/prima facie. That understanding makes such things okay because there isn't the dynamic where a white person can get away with appropriating a minority culture for some trivial context like Halloween or such.

Not sure you get to speak for Native Americans aw a white person in any sense of their lived experience of marginalization, even if you are aware of historical aspects, which is a step in the right direction to recognizing white privilege and how it encourages cultural appropriation as permissible at all, since it marginalizes those minority cultures, even tokenizing or exotifying them

My ancestry is mostly Irish, but even if someone dressed up for Halloween like a Leprechaun straight off a box of Lucky Charms and said stuff like 'Top of the morning to ya!' in a forced Irish accent, I really wouldn't care.

 

[renniks]

I hope you live somewhere where the case rate isn't too bad, then. Also I hope you and the trick-or-treaters all wear masks.

I'm probably not going. Not because I wouldn't but just because I'm not that involved in the church these days.

 

[renniks]

My ancestry is mostly Irish, but even if someone dressed up for Halloween like a Leprechaun straight off a box of Lucky Charms and said stuff like 'Top of the morning to ya!' in a forced Irish accent, I really wouldn't care.

And being mostly german, I don't care if someone dresses as a Nazi and adopts a bad german accent for Halloween.

 

[muichimotsu]

My ancestry is mostly Irish, but even if someone dressed up for Halloween like a Leprechaun straight off a box of Lucky Charms and said stuff like 'Top of the morning to ya!' in a forced Irish accent, I really wouldn't care.

First off, even that is a negative stereotype, your not being bothered is likely because you're settled in the idea that stereotypes cannot be negative in terms of human social interaction, but pretty sure there's strong arguments made already that even if the stereotypes are recognized as such, that still reflects a social bias as they persist.

And there's also the consideration that the minorities, including Irish people, in a WASP majority bias culture like America, are almost desensitized to it or are just accepting their marginalization and trivialization by such stereotypes.

You not being bothered doesn't mean it isn't a negative affect on Irish people in general, the same as the Fighting Irish (or other stereotypes used in a way that isn't meant to be satirical, but encouraging the stereotype as "funny" otherwise)

 

[Strathos]

I'm probably not going. Not because I wouldn't but just because I'm not that involved in the church these days.

Well I just pray that everyone stays safe.

 

[muichimotsu]

Lol I've literally had people who claimed native blood arguing with me that I have to be native because I do some native skills. Natives can be as racist and stereotype as much as anyone else.

I never claimed they couldn't be, but you're confusing prejudice with systemic biases in a culture, the former is individual basis, the latter is something people that are white don't realize because the system already favors them over minorities in the first place.

Also 1) they claimed native blood and 2) what is a native skill and what is a native cultural practice are not the same thing. You'd have to be more specific in what was objected to

 

[Ana the Ist]

So, is there anywhere we should draw the line at disrespectful cultural stereotyping?

Or is absolutely everything just fine?

During Halloween?

 

[muichimotsu]

And being mostly german, I don't care if someone dresses as a Nazi and adopts a bad german accent for Halloween.

Except that's a far worse example that shoots yourself in the foot. Using a Nazi as some innocent notion instead of being done satirically (like in The Producers) shows that the idea is not being regarded properly as reflecting a historical atrocity. Also, even Germans don't do that and I think they'd have more of a case to be made that it isn't German culture that should be utilized in a trivial fashion, even if it is German culture and history

 

[Strathos]

First off, even that is a negative stereotype, your not being bothered is likely because you're settled in the idea that stereotypes cannot be negative in terms of human social interaction, but pretty sure there's strong arguments made already that even if the stereotypes are recognized as such, that still reflects a social bias as they persist.

And there's also the consideration that the minorities, including Irish people, in a WASP majority bias culture like America, are almost desensitized to it or are just accepting their marginalization and trivialization by such stereotypes.

You not being bothered doesn't mean it isn't a negative affect on Irish people in general, the same as the Fighting Irish (or other stereotypes used in a way that isn't meant to be satirical, but encouraging the stereotype as "funny" otherwise)

Are you arguing that even if no one is bothered by a stereotype, it's still just as bad as if it offended everyone? If anyone ever finds it offensive, it should always stay just as offensive?

What if, 100 or 200 years from now, blackface isn't considered offensive anymore, since its offensive nature originated so long ago and is no longer relevant? Wouldn't that be progress?

 

[muichimotsu]

During Halloween?

The OP's objection being to cultural appropriation as a concept more than Halloween specifically makes me think it is a broader concern and application of the idea, Halloween is just an especially notable example

 

[muichimotsu]

Are you arguing that even if no one is bothered by a stereotype, it's still just as bad as if it offended everyone?

What if, 100 or 200 years from now, blackface isn't considered offensive anymore, since its offensive nature originated so long ago and is no longer relevant? Wouldn't that be progress?

No one being offended by a stereotype does not mean it isn't a stereotype or negative. People can be socially conditioned to regard it as innocent in the same vein as people thinking the Confederate battle flag is just Southern pride when it's demonstrably not. Ignorance is not an excuse and it shouldn't be with regards to problems of colonialism and cultural appropriation

That's not how the offensive nature works, because historically and even in the present, it's used in a way that is insulting and exaggerating features of the black race for a trivial and marginalizing idea that they're fair game because they're not white.

And offense, again, is not based merely on the recognition as such, but how it affects people in their lived experience as a minority, like how you have internalized racism from black people that want to conform to a white culture that otherwise makes them "exotic" or "foreign" in the same vein as with Asians struggling with Orientalist stereotyping and othering.

Progress in the idea that people don't need to engage in a practice that demeans and others a minority would be preferable, because the practice not being seen as such does not take away from those facts we can observe socially with minorities as I pointed out already.