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sophiaserpentiaFor me the question of cultural appropriation, especially when it comes to, "Where does the inter-cultural exchange of ideas stop and misappropriation begin?", is endlessly fascinating. The thing is, there isn't a monolithic answer to these questions, and we can't come up with an easy answer or template and just tack that on whenever the question arises.
How such an exchange, or misappropriation, occurs has to be seen in the historical context of how it came to be. As a jumping-off point, there's this interesting video of Jennifer 8 Lee talking about Chinese restaurants in America (seen in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
debunkingwhite):
From the point of view of a merchant, trade between nations and cultures is a good thing -- because it means more potential buyers, more potential profit, more potential opportunities. So it may have seemed to restaurant owners or merchants in Chinatown when white folk started coming in greater and greater numbers to see what food or decorations they could buy that were unlike anything else they or their neighbors had.
And so i think the notion of cultural misappropriation feels to white people like a glass of cold water thrown in the face when a friend accuses them of it because they have a statue of Buddha sitting on their fireplace mantle. Well, hey, they might reply, i bought it in Chinatown from a woman who seemed happy to sell it to me; if *she* doesn't have a problem with it, why should *you*? Or, taking it a step further, doesn't it foster understanding if the people of different cultures who live side-by-side sell things to one another? It makes them less alien, and therefore less scary... doesn't it?
And on their own these are perfectly valid points, IF and only if you exclude the macropatterns of racism in our society. On the micro-level, it's not necessarily a huge deal; where it becomes a problem is when it's enough people in the privileged class who partake of the "exotic" that it starts to drown out the voices and living cultures of the minority.
What i've seen in the last couple of years is that awareness is starting to spread among white people that there's this thing called "cultural misappropriation" and if you're not conscientious you could be doing it too, and ZOMG i don't want to be an oppressor so how can i make sure i am not a cultural misappropriator?
It's gotten to where i've seen people say they're only comfortable with seeing white people exploring the religious traditions of their ancestors. Anything else is too close to cultural misappropriation. So, what, someone has to get a mitochondrial DNA test before they know what religions they are allowed to explore? And isn't this in its own way a restriction on people of color, in that it prevents them from potentially sharing their faith or beliefs with white people?
And yet, i don't mean to deny that cultural appropriation of religious ideas and imagery is very real, and very detrimental. Where it concerns me most is (1) when cultural motifs are reduced to "entertainment value" or "diversion" to the extent that their original meaning is obscured; when this happens, people of color can no longer express their own ideas or criticisms using those motifs without white people hearing "entertainment" when they encounter it; (2) when cultural motifs are stripped of any political implications, especially those which are critical or subversive towards the dominant paradigms; and (3) when people of privilege are turning a profit by stripping the meaning away from cultural motifs. The motif in question becomes an element of the larger culture, and the meaning the larger culture attaches to it drowns out the original meaning attached to it by the smaller culture.
In short, it is a part of the greater pattern of commodification and of misappropriating the language of dissent, the process by which meaningful utterances which pose any threat of causing people to question the authoritarian ideology are rendered harmless.
So, the question becomes, how can people of different cultures share ideas, motifs, food, relics, without them losing their meaning in the context of the original culture? The only way, ultimately, to share ideas in a truly free way is in a world free of hegemonic dominance... which is a tragedy, because humans have so much to share with one another.
How such an exchange, or misappropriation, occurs has to be seen in the historical context of how it came to be. As a jumping-off point, there's this interesting video of Jennifer 8 Lee talking about Chinese restaurants in America (seen in
debunkingwhite):From the point of view of a merchant, trade between nations and cultures is a good thing -- because it means more potential buyers, more potential profit, more potential opportunities. So it may have seemed to restaurant owners or merchants in Chinatown when white folk started coming in greater and greater numbers to see what food or decorations they could buy that were unlike anything else they or their neighbors had.
And so i think the notion of cultural misappropriation feels to white people like a glass of cold water thrown in the face when a friend accuses them of it because they have a statue of Buddha sitting on their fireplace mantle. Well, hey, they might reply, i bought it in Chinatown from a woman who seemed happy to sell it to me; if *she* doesn't have a problem with it, why should *you*? Or, taking it a step further, doesn't it foster understanding if the people of different cultures who live side-by-side sell things to one another? It makes them less alien, and therefore less scary... doesn't it?
And on their own these are perfectly valid points, IF and only if you exclude the macropatterns of racism in our society. On the micro-level, it's not necessarily a huge deal; where it becomes a problem is when it's enough people in the privileged class who partake of the "exotic" that it starts to drown out the voices and living cultures of the minority.
What i've seen in the last couple of years is that awareness is starting to spread among white people that there's this thing called "cultural misappropriation" and if you're not conscientious you could be doing it too, and ZOMG i don't want to be an oppressor so how can i make sure i am not a cultural misappropriator?
It's gotten to where i've seen people say they're only comfortable with seeing white people exploring the religious traditions of their ancestors. Anything else is too close to cultural misappropriation. So, what, someone has to get a mitochondrial DNA test before they know what religions they are allowed to explore? And isn't this in its own way a restriction on people of color, in that it prevents them from potentially sharing their faith or beliefs with white people?
And yet, i don't mean to deny that cultural appropriation of religious ideas and imagery is very real, and very detrimental. Where it concerns me most is (1) when cultural motifs are reduced to "entertainment value" or "diversion" to the extent that their original meaning is obscured; when this happens, people of color can no longer express their own ideas or criticisms using those motifs without white people hearing "entertainment" when they encounter it; (2) when cultural motifs are stripped of any political implications, especially those which are critical or subversive towards the dominant paradigms; and (3) when people of privilege are turning a profit by stripping the meaning away from cultural motifs. The motif in question becomes an element of the larger culture, and the meaning the larger culture attaches to it drowns out the original meaning attached to it by the smaller culture.
In short, it is a part of the greater pattern of commodification and of misappropriating the language of dissent, the process by which meaningful utterances which pose any threat of causing people to question the authoritarian ideology are rendered harmless.
So, the question becomes, how can people of different cultures share ideas, motifs, food, relics, without them losing their meaning in the context of the original culture? The only way, ultimately, to share ideas in a truly free way is in a world free of hegemonic dominance... which is a tragedy, because humans have so much to share with one another.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:17 pm (UTC)Oddly enough, what this makes me think of more than anything else is "V for Vendetta". In its original comic book form it was a radical and dangerous call to anarchy - in the movie version, which popularized the story, the story was ever so slightly and subtly changed to a tale of how bad authority makes bad people but good authority can set things right again after a rebellion.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:58 pm (UTC)I have actually known for a long time that what we consider Chinese food is not what most Chinese people eat. There's a funny bit in The Bonesetter's Daughter about that, where the woman emigrates from China to work in a friends restaurant and only after living here 3 months does she realize that this weird food is what Americans think Chinese food is.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 06:06 pm (UTC)Just like "Mexican food" does not necessarily resemble what you'd actually find at a restaurant in Mexico. Certainly not the "Mexican food" they sell here in Boston; in Texas, at least, Tex-Mex food has a lot of the same ingredients as actual Mexican food. But, again, Tex-Mex is American food that started out as Mexican-American food.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 06:05 pm (UTC)So I think the movie is more radical, more revolutionary.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 07:15 pm (UTC)Whereas the film had a government that much closer to our own, so seemed to be saying we should struggle against our goverment- now. On the other hand, the film didn't depict V in quite such a pure anarchist light.
Basically, I felt the comic was a very stark fascist vs anarchist story that had little relevance to the modern situation, whilst the film made it muddier but more relevant. I felt the comic was a fantasy with little to say about the present, whilst the film was a modern political attack. Personally, I prefer the second. It's easy to make people not like fascism; it's far bolder to point out the flaws of the modern political world.