See on Scoop.it – Mixed American Life
The killer’s Asian heritage matters. So does his ugly class entitlement. Misogyny crosses lines of race and culture
See on www.salon.com
White Privilege
Cultural Appropriation Explained, and What We Can Do About It
Cultural appropriation is a complicated yet socially significant concept that powerfully affects and reflects the way people from different cultural identities connect with each other.
It is pervasive in my personal experiences. It’s when a non-Asian boy can wear a rice paddy hat for multi-cultural week and be perceived as trendy for it, whereas if I’d gone to school wearing the same thing I’d be perceived as backwards and be harassed for being a FOB. I saw it one Halloween when hordes of white girls wore headdresses and feathers in their hair and paint on their faces as part of their “Indian costumes.” I see it in the Facebook pictures of the tattoos my peers pay for of religious symbols from other cultures because they look exotic and they can relate to them “spiritually.”
Those guilty of cultural appropriation can find it easy to feel personally offended there might be something wrong with “appreciating” a culture outside their own and cry for “freedom of expression.” This is understandable in a country as diverse as ours and because of the innate fluid nature of culture change itself. However, cultural appropriation and the looking down thereof stems from a history that has not always been so accepting or welcoming of different cultures.
What does it mean, exactly?
Cultural appropriation is the process of one culture taking parts from another culture. Specifically, it usually is a dominant culture taking symbols or practices from another culture without fully understanding them or using them in ways they were not initially intended.
Why does it happen? What causes it?
It is simply the consequence of centuries of the assimilation and exploitation that stems from white colonialism and imperialism. The newcomers establish their home country’s culture as the norm and adopt any of the conquered kind’s and people’s artifacts, symbols, rituals, and other practices as they see fit. White privilege today, within the realm of cultural appropriation, is the continuing belief that whites are free to barge into other cultures at their whim and taking what they like while disregarding context, history, and any else of the less flattering parts of what it means to be a part of the latter culture. It’s a power play.
Aren’t people of color appropriating white culture all the time?
It is impossible to culturally appropriate “white culture.”
This is because of, again, the idea of white privilege as a consequence of a violent history. Where white is the majority, white is the norm. My mother would not be able to walk into work wearing traditional Vietnamese ao dai without looking unprofessional and out-of-place by Western standards. My aunts advise me to use skin lightening methods because though their respective husbands each found something attractive in their sun-kissed faces, they know that I must conform to a Western ideal of beauty in order to be socially accepted and socially mobile in this culture. I cut my hair a certain way, listen to certain music, talk a certain way so I don’t have to deal with being called a FOB or be asked if I can speak English. I personally am torn between my parents’ culture and the one here I was physically born into. Assimilating to survive is not a choice and could hardly be considered offensive. Assimilating to the white norm is practical, but cultural appropriation is entertainment.
What are the consequences of cultural appropriation, then?
Cultural appropriation involves the picking and choosing of specific aspects of the culture in question, aspects that are exotic and appealing. This appropriation creates a caricature of the culture and even propagates racist stereotypes.
Cultural appropriation commodifies, cheapens, and sometimes even sexualizes, and thereby dehumanizes other cultures and their respective people. It takes what is prized and precious from other cultures and mutates them into whitewashed products completely out of cultural context. It ignores and erases history, and it ignores and erases culture.
What can we do about cultural appropriation?
The mixing of cultures is inevitable and it is natural for people to take an interest in others’ backgrounds. What is needed is cultural exchange, or the idea of approaching learning about other cultures from a stance of humility and respect. Time to understand another culture and an awareness of the boundaries a guest has in approaching another culture are essential in fostering a healthy exchange of sharing and appreciation.
The condemnation of cultural appropriation isn’t cause for over-analyzing , tip-toeing around anything that might seem remotely out of one’s own cultural sphere, or policing others’ actions. Rather, it is an opportunity to become acquainted with the diversity and most importantly being mindful of how the way we carry ourselves can be representative of identities larger than us.
Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person…
Being a Straight White Middle Class Able-Bodied Male can be like winning a lottery you didn’t even know you were playing.
See on thefeministbreeder.com
The trouble with ‘passing’ for another race/sexuality/religion …
Koa Beck: The broadening of the definition historically used for those of mixed-race who ‘passed’ as white exposes the power of privilege
See on www.theguardian.com
“A Curious Confluence: Where Racism & Privilege Collide”
by Rema Tavares When two sources of water come together to form one body, it is called a confluence. This is a place where two distinct sources of water crash and tumble over each other, churnin…
See on 1nedrop.com
Owning white privilege and then what?
My own brand of narrow vision at work here: I’m not a big coffee shop person; I go rarely and usually when I have a deadline that I have put off until I can’t bear it anymore and I need a change of venue to focus.
See on www.transracialparenting.com
The Third Enlargement of American Whiteness
See on Scoop.it – Mixed American Life
The Third Enlargement of American Whiteness (1930-1980) was when the Jews, Italians and others from southern and eastern Europe became White Americans, when they melted into the melting pot. Nell I…
See on abagond.wordpress.com
Understanding White Privilege by Frances Kendall, Chps. 1 & 2
See on Scoop.it – Community Village Daily
“It is important to note that in the United States, while any racial group might view itself as superior, only the white group has the power to institutionalize that belief into laws, policies, practices, and culture and to subordinate other groups based on that institutional held power (page 21-22).”
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“If we do not work to change ourselves and our systems, we continue to be complicit in the oppressions of others whether we mean to or not (page 23).”
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There is a cost to not keeping race and white privilege as a regular part of conversation as we loose a critical lens through which we can interpret situations.
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We must know about ourselves before we can learn fully about others.”
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Kendall spends some time reflecting on the financial benefits of a “racial contract”. Clothes manufactured mostly by people of color globally at low wages, and loss of jobs by people in the lower classes of the US, many of whom are people of color, because of the offshoring of jobs are but two examples.
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Kendall goes on to discuss the emotional costs for whites to ignore the negative impact that our white supremacy has on the rest of the world. Ultimately, we can only survive by anesthetizing ourselves. “I think that most of us who are white don’t even know that we’re not whole. We feel like something is missing, but we’re not sure what. Some sense of ourselves as whole human beings is not there, because for us to be whole and present every day means that we have to re-member ourselves, and that is painful (page 38).”
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“I wonder what would it be like to feel that all others are as valuable as ourselves? What if we believed in the humanness of each person? What if we understood that each of us is connected to all others – that if others aren’t able to thrive, we aren’t either? (page 40)””
See on mwolske.wordpress.com
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About White Privilege Today | Psychology Today
See on Scoop.it – Community Village Daily Activist
Enhance understanding and connection across differences By Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph.D….
See on www.psychologytoday.com
Mixed American Life 