Halloween and "cultural appropriation".

[renniks]

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

Systemic biase is nonsense. Anyone of any race can be biased.

 

[Sabertooth]

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

But the transition from one to the other, in both cases, were acts of "cultural appropriation."

(What is the statute of limitations on cultural appropriation, anyway...? )

 

[Strathos]

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.

But if the root cause of what makes something offensive fades away into history, then doesn't that mean it should no longer be offensive?

Imagine (just for the sake of argument) that in the year 2000 BC, Egyptians were stereotyped as having poor dental hygeine. But nowadays that stereotype no longer exists. Is it still offensive then, even though the cultural context for it is lost?

 

[renniks]

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

I have no idea what you just said.

If I have german Dutch as ancestors, I don't care if people of other cultures dress as my ancestors either

 

[muichimotsu]

I have no idea what you just said.

If I have german Dutch as ancestors, I don't care if people of other cultures dress as my ancestors either

Except they're white colonialists in no small part and the treatment of them by white people can still be demeaning even if they are also white, internalized racism is a thing, look into it.

Dressing as your ancestors suggests that the style of dress is just something to be used casually and, for some stuff, that's not cultural appropriation, it's cultural exchange, like Japanese who took on Western clothing customs post Meiji as they had cultural exchange with the West. But dressing up as, say, a Shinto shrine maiden pushes that boundary because it's not the same as clothes that don't have any significance in terms of culture, they're interchangeable by their nature.

 

[muichimotsu]

But if the root cause of what makes something offensive fades away into history, then doesn't that mean it should no longer be offensive?

Imagine (just for the sake of argument) that in the year 2000 BC, Egyptians were stereotyped as having poor dental hygeine. But nowadays that stereotype no longer exists. Is it still offensive then, even though the cultural context for it is lost?

Are you really just going to keep making apologies for bad behaviors by whataboutism? Your hypothetical scenario ignores that such things aren't happening now and you're also oversimplifying the problems regarding the marginalization of minority groups in the first place.

Encouraging negative stereotypes should not be met with approval, but condemnation and correction that those are stereotypes and should be avoided as much as possible in terms of our interactions with anyone. That's like you're saying it's fine to generalize and assume black people like particular foods I won't name because the stereotype is on the level of black face in treating black people like a joke and minimizing them to American cultural stereotypes (because black people struggled to find cultural identity when they were oppressed by white slave owners, that's a basic fact you can find in no small part with Gullah culture, which was more eclectic/syncretic in nature)

 

[muichimotsu]

But the transition from one to the other, in both cases, were acts of "cultural appropriation."

(What is the statute of limitations on cultural appropriation, anyway...? )

Were they? The term has a specific meaning versus assimilation, acculturation and equal cultural exchange, any of which may very well have been what happened with more research into the historical context.

That's like saying the Roman empire engaged in cultural appropriation by moving the date for Christmas to Saturnalia and thus exploited ancient Christian's fixation on that event (second only to Easter) to draw them in. If not cultural appropriation, nonetheless a negative aspect in regards to state religion.

 

[muichimotsu]

Systemic biase is nonsense. Anyone of any race can be biased.

Individual biases are not the same as societal biases that are built into the culture. Again, it's like you are either so willfully ignorant because you're in the privileged group treated with far less skepticism and suspicion (white people) or you've been thoroughly indoctrinated into that idea in the first place as a minority that somehow it's not a big deal and that white people suffer too, and that makes the mistreatment per capita of black people that is disproportionate to their population demographic okay because "black people aren't working hard enough" or such.

White privilege is not claiming that white people will always be more economically successful, that's not even close to the meaning of privilege in the sociological context that is brought up in this discussion. It's that you are treated in a way that is not remotely fair and not based in personal prejudices as much as society encouraging particular ideas that we take as true because it's the status quo.

Have you even looked into this in any objective fashion or are you just going with talking points from people who dismiss it out of hand like you do? Because the latter shows a thorough lack of critical thinking or humility.

 

[renniks]

Except they're white colonialists in no small part and the treatment of them by white people can still be demeaning even if they are also white, internalized racism is a thing, look into it.

Dressing as your ancestors suggests that the style of dress is just something to be used casually and, for some stuff, that's not cultural appropriation, it's cultural exchange, like Japanese who took on Western clothing customs post Meiji as they had cultural exchange with the West. But dressing up as, say, a Shinto shrine maiden pushes that boundary because it's not the same as clothes that don't have any significance in terms of culture, they're interchangeable by their nature.

You are way overthinking it.
Internalized racism is just another meaningless catchphrase, usually used to mean " white people bad."

 

[renniks]

It's that you are treated in a way that is not remotely fair and not based in personal prejudices as much as society encouraging particular ideas that we take as true because it's the status quo.

Meaningless gooblygook. Who is " we"? Speak for yourself and I will speak for myself.

 

[Strathos]

Are you really just going to keep making apologies for bad behaviors by whataboutism? Your hypothetical scenario ignores that such things aren't happening now and you're also oversimplifying the problems regarding the marginalization of minority groups in the first place.

Encouraging negative stereotypes should not be met with approval, but condemnation and correction that those are stereotypes and should be avoided as much as possible in terms of our interactions with anyone. That's like you're saying it's fine to generalize and assume black people like particular foods I won't name because the stereotype is on the level of black face in treating black people like a joke and minimizing them to American cultural stereotypes (because black people struggled to find cultural identity when they were oppressed by white slave owners, that's a basic fact you can find in no small part with Gullah culture, which was more eclectic/syncretic in nature)

I'm saying that negative stereotypes should have an expiration date. Insisting that if something is bad now, it has to be just as bad forever seems like a way to focus only on the negative.

 

[muichimotsu]

You are way overthinking it.
Internalized racism is just another meaningless catchphrase, usually used to mean " white people bad."

No it isn't, the term has a meaning that you refuse to even consider is valid because of your own bias. Do you really think you know everything so well that nothing that you're unfamiliar with could possibly shake your worldview? That's not only arrogant, it's pitiable in how little you care about anything that would even create some kind of conflict

White people can have internalized racism as much as black people do, the problem is societal norms and ideas that form stereotypes which negatively affect black and white people alike in terms of interactions, but black people especially in their lived experiences in a culture that marginalizes them. But I suppose you don't really care about that, you seem to only pay lipservice to the idea of fair treatment and focus purely on the fact that there can be bad outcomes for white people as if that undermines systemic racism (hint, it doesn't)

 

[Triumvirate]

I'm saying that negative stereotypes should have an expiration date. Insisting that if something is bad now, it has to be just as bad forever seems like a way to focus only on the negative.

The trigger for progress is society moving towards greater acceptance of those demographics here and now. Costumes based on stereotypes of a demographic are still going to hurt if that demographic is still being discriminated against - it's a joke by the relatively powerful against those who are relatively powerless.

If it's a cultural signifier being used, appropriated, whatever you want to call it, for a costume - that's going to smart for a lot of people of the culture to an extent, particularly if they're being discriminated against still - 'you won't give us equal rights, but you will just casually borrow our culture?'

It's not simply a case of 'oh but this was so long ago now' - often these things hurt because they are connected to discrimination or consequences of discrimination that are still active in some way and having a negative effect on that demographic.

Just because some people may think things are in the past doesn't mean they are.

 

[muichimotsu]

Meaningless gooblygook. Who is " we"? Speak for yourself and I will speak for myself.

We is society: don't be obtuse about this, look into the idea with some humility and maybe consider that you might be wrong. Otherwise you're showing how little you care about truth rather than just personally feeling right, a sure sign that critical thought tends to escape you except when you're inconvenienced and want to rationalize your own status and make defenses of the indefensible.

 

[Strathos]

The trigger for progress is society moving towards greater acceptance of those demographics here and now. Stereotypes are still going to hurt if that demographic is still being discriminated against - it's a joke by the relatively powerful against those who are relatively powerless.

If it's a cultural signifier, that's going to smart for people of the culture to an extent, particularly if they're being discriminated against still - 'you won't give us rights, but you will just casually borrow our culture?'

It's not simply a case of 'oh but this was so long ago now' - often these things hurt because they are connected to discrimination or consequences of discrimination that are still active in some way and having a negative effect on that demographic.

Just because some people may think things are in the past doesn't mean they are.

But I'm talking about things that actually are in the past, or that eventually will be.

 

[muichimotsu]

I'm saying that negative stereotypes should have an expiration date. Insisting that if something is bad now, it has to be just as bad forever seems like a way to focus only on the negative.

As another poster brought up, their effect doesn't have an expiration date in the same way that black people have a lived experience that has continued to show their marginalization even in spite of an ostensibly black president being elected back to the Civil Rights Act, even back to the emancipation post Civil War.

White people still had control and were able to create a status quo where they maintained that by tricking black people into thinking they had rights, when they were given partial rights at best that are still being fought for in the sense of genuine equitable treatment versus biases that are not the same as outright prejudice, but are far more damaging because society treats the ideas as normal, because they're stereotypes, generalizing a common tactic for us to think "faster"

 

[muichimotsu]

But I'm talking about things that actually are in the past, or that eventually will be.

Irrelevant: minstrel shows were probably not run since about 100 years ago, that doesn't mean blackface has lost the impact of demeaning and insulting black people by the sense that it's a face you can just put on, when it's race, not something that should be regarded like a costume or anything to be made light of in regards to black people being expected to just "deal with it" when people treated them like a joke

Empathy, that one word seems horribly misunderstood by those who try to act like, "no I'm not racist," when they're playing into racist stereotypes and systemic biases without necessarily being aware of it because they benefit from the systemic racism as white people

 

[Triumvirate]

As another poster brought up, their effect doesn't have an expiration date in the same way that black people have a lived experience that has continued to show their marginalization even in spite of an ostensibly black president being elected back to the Civil Rights Act, even back to the emancipation post Civil War.

White people still had control and were able to create a status quo where they maintained that by tricking black people into thinking they had rights, when they were given partial rights at best that are still being fought for in the sense of genuine equitable treatment versus biases that are not the same as outright prejudice, but are far more damaging because society treats the ideas as normal, because they're stereotypes, generalizing a common tactic for us to think "faster"

What I'm about to describe is slightly off topic - it's not costumes and it's a different ethnic/demographic conflict, but it's been on my mind reading this thread.

At one point during the interminable faffing in this country over Brexit, Ireland managed to seriously inconvenience the UK's negotiating position - thanks to support from the other EU member states, Ireland essentially managed to boss around its former colonial power for a short while.

This meant that Irish/UK history inevitably ended up being discussed, and inbetween a lot of expressions of really bad anti-Irish prejudice that I'd long thought was gone, a lot of UK people were acting as if Irish people had no right to be upset at how Ireland was being talked about. 'That's all history!'

Well - there's literally a border in Ireland that wasn't always there, that's still demarcating part of that island as belonging to the UK. Why would people think that a major structural issue like that was just over and done with? For many, people pretend this because it is advantageous for their side of the argument to do so.

The notion of 'oh but all that's in the past now' should always be scrutinised, very closely. More and more I see it being used where that simply isn't true, and the consequences of historical events are still be worked out.

 

[Triumvirate]

But I'm talking about things that actually are in the past, or that eventually will be.

That's not what we're talking about here though? As far as I can tell anyway

However, I'd still say it's a problem - old bigoted rhetoric can still be brought back and given its old meaning back. Some antisemitic tropes and imagery you see today have quite a long pedigree - on the order of a couple of centuries in some cases - but that doesn't mean it isn't still harmful today.

 

[Triumvirate]

Systemic biase is nonsense. Anyone of any race can be biased.

They can be, but that doesn't mean systemic bias is nonsense. The two statements here have nothing to do with each other.