Serious Discussions ( Why Is cultural appropriation Bad?)

[Kitten18]

Imagine... whenever black folks dye their hair blonde or straighten it... if white folks complained about 'cultural appropriation'. But they don't... because 1) it's ridiculous and petty, 2) they'd fear being labeled as 'racist'.

I don't have an opinion on this, but just to play devils advocate. A lot of people assume that when Black girls straighten their hair that they're trying to look white. Same with when Asian girls really want double lids or pale skin. Why is the reverse (white girls trying to get really kinky hair) not true?

Also cultural appropriation only occurs when it's majority cultures using minority cultures....so in America at least, it wouldn't be considered cultural appropriation if it was minorities using white culture.


Again, not saying that OP's post is cultural appropriation, but I just wanted to point out these discrepancies.

There are E. Asians with naturally pale skin; I'm one of them. We all aren't bleaching sis. There are also a lot of us who are born with double eyelids (SHOCKER!). Yes, there are people who bleach and get surgery but this was ingrained into our culture thousands of years ago before Europeans colonized us (or tried too). Please educate yourself and stop perpetuating this BS.

[whatwut]

There are E. Asians with naturally pale skin; I'm one of them. We all aren't bleaching sis. There are also a lot of us who are born with double eyelids (SHOCKER!). Yes, there are people who bleach and get surgery but this was ingrained into our culture thousands of years ago before Europeans colonized us (or tried too). Please educate yourself and stop perpetuating this BS.

Wow.

I never said East Asians don't have pale skin. I never said East Asians bleach their skin. I never said there weren't East Asians who don't have double eyelids.

All I said was a lot of people (falsely) associate features such as straight, blonde hair, pale skin and double eyelids. with Caucasian features. Regardless of whether or not Asians have those features. Then, those same people assume that when minorities modify their features to fit this image, that they're trying to be "white." I'm middle eastern, we have blonde haired, blue-eyed, straight haired, middle eastern women. Plenty of them actually. These features are not associated with Middle Eastern women. People don't think of those features when they think of Middle Eastern women. I'm not saying that this is right. I'm just saying that it happens. The same happens for African Americans.

Although these features are found in many races all over the world, people consider them "white" features. When people modify their body to match these features, many believe that they're trying to look white. I DIDN'T SAY THAT I BELIEVE THIS. Just that they're people out there who believe this. In a similar vein, people identify kinky curls as "African" features. So it's not a stretch to say that when people change their hair to be this curly, that they're trying to look black.

I'm not saying that this is correct, or that this is cultural appropriation. I'm saying that I think this is why there may be people out there who see this as cultural appropriation. It's important to understand why someone believes what they believe in order to find a common ground, rather than just turning it into an us vs. them fight.

[whatwut]

There are E. Asians with naturally pale skin; I'm one of them. We all aren't bleaching sis. There are also a lot of us who are born with double eyelids (SHOCKER!). Yes, there are people who bleach and get surgery but this was ingrained into our culture thousands of years ago before Europeans colonized us (or tried too). Please educate yourself and stop perpetuating this BS.

Wow.

I never said East Asians don't have pale skin. I never said East Asians bleach their skin. I never said there weren't East Asians who don't have double eyelids.

All I said was a lot of people (falsely) associate features such as straight, blonde hair, pale skin and double eyelids. with Caucasian features. Regardless of whether or not Asians have those features. Then, those same people assume that when minorities modify their features to fit this image, that they're trying to be "white." I'm middle eastern, we have blonde haired, blue-eyed, straight haired, middle eastern women. Plenty of them actually. These features are not associated with Middle Eastern women. People don't think of those features when they think of Middle Eastern women. I'm not saying that this is right. I'm just saying that it happens. The same happens for African Americans.

Although these features are found in many races all over the world, people consider them "white" features. When people modify their body to match these features, many believe that they're trying to look white. I DIDN'T SAY THAT I BELIEVE THIS. Just that they're people out there who believe this. In a similar vein, people identify kinky curls as "African" features. So it's not a stretch to say that when people change their hair to be this curly, that they're trying to look black.

I'm not saying that this is correct, or that this is cultural appropriation. I'm saying that I think this is why there may be people out there who see this as cultural appropriation. It's important to understand why someone believes what they believe in order to find a common ground, rather than just turning it into an us vs. them fight.

[passionkiller]

what bugs me the most about a lot of the "cultural appropriation" crusaders is that all they care about is fashion. and most of the time, they confuse culture and religion because they're america-centric. bindis, for example, are actually religious adornments. same goes with hijabs. anyone can join a religion regardless of their race, last i checked.

and i know this is an anecdote, but my stepfather is black, and when i asked him about dreadlocks, he said he didn't care when white people wore them. obviously, he doesn't represent an entire minority, but it raises a good point. if someone isn't using it to harm you emotionally/physically, why is it your business to tell them how to wear their hair?

it's just people looking for an excuse to harass other people, and it sickens me that they're using racial equality as a false pretense for it.

and no, the girl in the first post is not appropriating. that's how literally 80% of girls wore their hair in the eighties.

[whatwut]

what bugs me the most about a lot of the "cultural appropriation" crusaders is that all they care about is fashion. and most of the time, they confuse culture and religion because they're america-centric. bindis, for example, are actually religious adornments. same goes with hijabs. anyone can join a religion regardless of their race, last i checked.

and i know this is an anecdote, but my stepfather is black, and when i asked him about dreadlocks, he said he didn't care when white people wore them. obviously, he doesn't represent an entire minority, but it raises a good point. if someone isn't using it to harm you emotionally/physically, why is it your business to tell them how to wear their hair?

it's just people looking for an excuse to harass other people, and it sickens me that they're using racial equality as a false pretense for it.

and no, the girl in the first post is not appropriating. that's how literally 80% of girls wore their hair in the eighties.

I definitely don't know how I feel about the picture in this thread, but there are different kinds of cultural appropriation.

There's the cultural appropriation that's pretty clear cut...when you take religious symbols and wear it as fashion.

There's also cultural appropriation where you take a fashion element that a culture has done for ages and ages, and incorporate it into white fashion and then call it trendy. For example, the whole thing with dreads, lots of minority cultures have worn them throughout the ages. But they only began to be considered mainstream, trendy and fashionable when white people started wearing them. So the people that object to stuff like this I think are more objecting to the system that considers it trendy when someone whose white starts doing it, rather than the individual person whose doing it.

I don't know if I agree with that, but that is the rational behind people who object to cultural appropriation of things that are seen as items of fashion.

[passionkiller]

what bugs me the most about a lot of the "cultural appropriation" crusaders is that all they care about is fashion. and most of the time, they confuse culture and religion because they're america-centric. bindis, for example, are actually religious adornments. same goes with hijabs. anyone can join a religion regardless of their race, last i checked.

and i know this is an anecdote, but my stepfather is black, and when i asked him about dreadlocks, he said he didn't care when white people wore them. obviously, he doesn't represent an entire minority, but it raises a good point. if someone isn't using it to harm you emotionally/physically, why is it your business to tell them how to wear their hair?

it's just people looking for an excuse to harass other people, and it sickens me that they're using racial equality as a false pretense for it.

and no, the girl in the first post is not appropriating. that's how literally 80% of girls wore their hair in the eighties.

I definitely don't know how I feel about the picture in this thread, but there are different kinds of cultural appropriation.

There's the cultural appropriation that's pretty clear cut...when you take religious symbols and wear it as fashion.

There's also cultural appropriation where you take a fashion element that a culture has done for ages and ages, and incorporate it into white fashion and then call it trendy. For example, the whole thing with dreads, lots of minority cultures have worn them throughout the ages. But they only began to be considered mainstream, trendy and fashionable when white people started wearing them. So the people that object to stuff like this I think are more objecting to the system that considers it trendy when someone whose white starts doing it, rather than the individual person whose doing it.

I don't know if I agree with that, but that is the rational behind people who object to cultural appropriation of things that are seen as items of fashion.

now i definitely understand where you're coming from by saying people shouldn't use religious items in everyday fashion if they don't belong to the religion in question. i was kind of unclear originally about that, but yeah. don't wear bindis unless you're hindu, don't wear rosaries unless you're christian, etc. it leads people on about your beliefs and trivializes religious imagery.

well, the first people to wear dreadlocks were egyptian, but they wore wigs over the dreadlocks, so dreads weren't exactly culturally sacred, that's just how their hair happened to grow. most modern black americans don't have lineage that traces back to egyptians, anyway.

and no, white people did not popularize dreadlocks. that assumption is probably more racist than a white person wearing them. dreadlocks were reintroduced into modern american fashion by black musicians during the seventies and eighties when bob marley and rastafarian culture got big. a lot of the white people i've met who wear dreadlocks (and i live in boulder, where they're everywhere) wear them more to pay homage to rastafarian culture than to discredit it (although these people, again, do not represent all white dread-wearers)

i think i might be biased about this, though. i've seen people get doxxed and threatened with violence for having dreadlocks, and that's pretty extreme for something that's only debatably racist from the perspective of the minority the style belongs to. headdresses are for native americans; it's objectively racist when little white girls wear them because they're basically like a general's medals. but dreads aren't sacred like headdresses are.

idk, i guess i only support getting angry when the item in question is sacred in some way. i'm not exactly an expert on this sort of thing, lol.

[teafreak22]

Ughhhh I wrote this long thing and got logged out before I was able to submit, so forgive me if it doesn't flow together cohesively.

The thing about cultural appropriation that makes me frustrated is that minority features and fashion that were once shamed by society are now celebrated and praised when white people wear them. I had thicker eyebrows growing up, was made fun of for having them because thin eyebrows were "in". Now a white girl with thick eyebrows comes a long, it becomes all the rage. Now I'm not saying that having thick eyebrows is cultural appropriation. It's something that was not common in majority society and now is desirable. Same with cornrows. And hijab. And bindis. And harem pants. And Native American headdresses. And natural African-American hair. People were shamed, made fun of, and were looked down upon for having these features that were fairly common in their own culture so when they come in to or grow up in a society where it's uncommon, they receive negative reactions for it. White people generally don't have features that society looks down upon (not counting body shapes portrayed in mainstream media because that doesn't affect white people exclusively) so it may be difficult for them to understand this at first glance.

Therefore, the "oh black people are dying their hair blonde, so it's cultural appropriation" doesn't cut it. Western ideals of beauty has spread around the world so that lighter eyes, skin, and hair are viewed more desirable and beautiful than those with darker eyes, skin, and hair. A brown person doesn't consciously think hey I want my hair blonde because I'll look like a white person. It's more deeply rooted than that. It's when the parents and families get a little extra happy that their baby was born with lighter eyes. When parents disapprove of their child marrying someone else because they have darker skin than they do.

Do people go a little crazy and accuse everyone and everything of cultural appropriation? Maybe. There's hurt in there somewhere and I think it's important to understand where that comes from. Minorities now have a louder voice due to social media. To some, it may seem that they have become too sensitive/offended. But not necessarily. It could also mean that society has become too culturally insensitive all these years and now we have come to a point where we want to point it all out. You don't have to be culturally insensitive and appropriate to appreciate another's culture. If you don't understand why it may seem like it's cultural appropriation, look it up. Read. Understand a point of view other than your own. Twitter helped me understand where cultures other than my own come from in regards to cultural appropriation and I have learned a lot.

Idk, these are my feels on the subject. If you're white and have natural kinky curls, rock it. You were born with it. If you're white and want to wear the bindi for coachella season or want to wear whatever cultural piece for the sake of looking "exotic", girl bye.

It goes without saying that I don't mean every white person or every minority. Also, this is mostly about US society.

[passionkiller]

The thing about cultural appropriation that makes me frustrated is that minority features and fashion that were once shamed by society are now celebrated and praised when white people wear them. I had thicker eyebrows growing up, was made fun of for having them because thin eyebrows were.

correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't thick eyebrows coming back because they're "fifties-esque" and retro? i agree with what you're saying about bindis, hijabs, and headdresses, (fucking coachella), but idk if the eyebrows are a very good example because they're like tie-dye where they're constantly coming back and going out of style.

harem pants are probably a better example of the whole "it becomes stylish only after some white designer says it's 'in'" logic of american fashion. that kind of stuff pisses me off, too, especially when credit for coming up with it isn't being given to the cultures they began in.

i know the thick eyebrows feel. i've always had thick eyebrows and when i was a preteen i got lots of "buy a pair of tweezers!" type comments. i'm glad they're popular now, lol.

kind of OT but idk if twitter/tumblr is a very good source when it comes to world history and culture. there's a lot of misinformation out there.

[teafreak22]

[quote] correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't thick eyebrows coming back because they're "fifties-esque" and retro? i agree with what you're saying about bindis, hijabs, and headdresses, (fucking coachella), but idk if the eyebrows are a very good example because they're like tie-dye where they're constantly coming back and going out of style. /quote]

Oh, I noticed all the eyebrow craze when model Cara Delevingne got popular. I could have made the wrong assumption. I tried to speak from personal experience but I guess you're right it wasn't the best example now that I'm reading it again lol

[quote] kind of OT but idk if twitter/tumblr is a very good source when it comes to world history and culture. there's a lot of misinformation out there. /quote]

I don't use Tumblr so idk about that. I don't believe everything I read about on Twitter, but I like to search up a topic and read the various tweets from various people and see what the main consensus was about a subject or current event. There are certain people I trust with their point of view more than others. Plus I enjoy reading the debates people have. It's a starting point, if used correctly.

[lilypad]

now i definitely understand where you're coming from by saying people shouldn't use religious items in everyday fashion if they don't belong to the religion in question. i was kind of unclear originally about that, but yeah. don't wear bindis unless you're hindu, don't wear rosaries unless you're christian, etc. it leads people on about your beliefs and trivializes religious imagery.

So you would say if you're not a particular religion then you shouldn't wear a bindi? I find the topic of cultural appropriation so confusing especially as I was recently in India and every time I went to a place like a school they would welcome us by putting bindi's on our foreheads, and when we went to a party where we had to dress in sari's some of the students at one of the Indian universities I was visiting were so excited helping us buy them and bought us bindis as well. I wore a bindi both to the party where I dressed in a sari and another party at the end of my trip.

At the time the topic of cultural appropriation did come up and some of the English-Indian girls on the trip said that they didn't see an issue with it because they liked the fact that these parts of the culture were more fashionable now than they use to be to others, because when they were younger they would be embarrassed by it (which is kinda sad ). And when I talked to my friend at the university who helped me buy a sari and he also bought me a bindi I tried explaining what cultural appropriation is and why people think it is an issue. He was so confused by it and could not understand at all why people would find a issue with it (such as the bindi).

And now basically I've got a bunch of bindi's I've been given and I really don't know when I will wear them again, especially with the issues of cultural appropriation, I still don't really know what's right and what's wrong
Especially now I've googled about bindi's and cultural appropriation and I found a flow chart which says unless you're Asian or part of a religion that uses bindi's you should not wear one - is that really true though? Should I have rejected a bindi when I was offered one? How rude would that have been if I just said no when they tried to put one on me or when they had bought me one!

Just some food for thought really because I am still confused on the topic and want to know what others think

[passionkiller]

now i definitely understand where you're coming from by saying people shouldn't use religious items in everyday fashion if they don't belong to the religion in question. i was kind of unclear originally about that, but yeah. don't wear bindis unless you're hindu, don't wear rosaries unless you're christian, etc. it leads people on about your beliefs and trivializes religious imagery.

So you would say if you're not a particular religion then you shouldn't wear a bindi? I find the topic of cultural appropriation so confusing especially as I was recently in India and every time I went to a place like a school they would welcome us by putting bindi's on our foreheads, and when we went to a party where we had to dress in sari's some of the students at one of the Indian universities I was visiting were so excited helping us buy them and bought us bindis as well. I wore a bindi both to the party where I dressed in a sari and another party at the end of my trip.

At the time the topic of cultural appropriation did come up and some of the English-Indian girls on the trip said that they didn't see an issue with it because they liked the fact that these parts of the culture were more fashionable now than they use to be to others, because when they were younger they would be embarrassed by it (which is kinda sad ). And when I talked to my friend at the university who helped me buy a sari and he also bought me a bindi I tried explaining what cultural appropriation is and why people think it is an issue. He was so confused by it and could not understand at all why people would find a issue with it (such as the bindi).

And now basically I've got a bunch of bindi's I've been given and I really don't know when I will wear them again, especially with the issues of cultural appropriation, I still don't really know what's right and what's wrong
Especially now I've googled about bindi's and cultural appropriation and I found a flow chart which says unless you're Asian or part of a religion that uses bindi's you should not wear one - is that really true though? Should I have rejected a bindi when I was offered one? How rude would that have been if I just said no when they tried to put one on me or when they had bought me one!

Just some food for thought really because I am still confused on the topic and want to know what others think

well considering that actual indian people gave them to you, yeah, wear them. most of the people on the internet telling white people what they can and can't wear don't even belong to the minority the item(s) in question belong to. in my experience it's usually just other white people who want to excuse to hop on their high horse and harass random people. see my own story about dreadlocks earlier in the chain.

and if an actual indian person has told you it's okay, their opinion is 1000% more valuable than that of some random person on the internet. wear them if that's what you want to do, and if someone tries to give you flack for it, tell them that an actual indian person in india gave them to you, inviting you to wear them.

but i'm definitely not an authority on this sort of thing. i'm a white person who used to be a die-hard "social justice warrior" (if you want to call it that), but recently i've just become jaded and pissed off about the pettiness and immaturity going on in this otherwise well-intentioned "movement". point being, know that i'm going to be a little biased.

at the end of the day, it's your fucking body, the bindis are your property, and unless you're using it make fun of people (see racist halloween costumes) or purposefully commit some kind of sacrilege, you can wear it whenever you damn well please, in my opinion.

[lilypad]

well considering that actual indian people gave them to you, yeah, wear them. most of the people on the internet telling white people what they can and can't wear don't even belong to the minority the item(s) in question belong to. in my experience it's usually just other white people who want to excuse to hop on their high horse and harass random people. see my own story about dreadlocks earlier in the chain.

Yeah I can defo see the trend of that. I think the main point of cultural appropriation is important, for example I remember reading articles about native american headdresses at festivals and agreeing that was wrong. As you said though there are instances of it getting really petty now, such as the original post about how certain hairstyles have now be branded as cultural appropriation in the youtube comments (which I defo don't agree with)

[larrie]

i can't take people who complain about cultural appropriation seriously most of the time. i remember there was a white girl in my last school who told my friend he's racist for having a tattoo in arabic even tho..his dad is arab.

plus i feel like there is a double standard. a lot of the time poc artists (rihanna/beyonce/nicki minaj/etc) appropriate other cultures but no one raises a finger or it's seen as less bad. i think there can be legitimate cirticism made but tumblr has made it something so trivial that i just can't help but roll my eyes every time someone mentions it.

[BornThisWay94]

he time. i remember there was a white girl in my last school who told my friend he's racist for having a tattoo in arabic even tho..his dad is arab.

plus i feel like there is a double standard. a lot of the time poc artists (rihanna/beyonce/nicki minaj/etc) appropriate other cultures but no one raises a finger or it's seen as less bad. i think there can be legitimate cirticism made but tumblr has made it something so trivial that i just can't help but roll my eyes every time someone mentions it.

People have mentioned this a lot, actually, I remember seeing a post on Tumblr saying that Nicki Minaj was appropriating culture by dressing up in Japanese fashion for a music video. Of course there was a long rant by obvious Nicki fans who said "Nicki is actually part Japanese, so therefore it is NOT culture appropriation." Okay? But what about when white people do that? I remember one time someone told me I tried way too hard to make myself sound more mixed and exotic because I said I was half Greek lmao like what? So when Katy Perry wears Japanese fashion to an awards show, it's culture appropriation but when Nicki does it for a music video it's not? I don't understand people anymore haha. I feel like a lot of these SJW's are just special snowflakes who find something wrong with everything.

[fihe]

imho people who screech about cultural appropriation are just crybabies looking for something to complain about. But then again, I have absolutely zero tolerance for SJWs.

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