fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3424 ]

[ SECRET POST #3424 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3424 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #488.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I find this so weird. Becuase the US is a literally an amalgamation of cultures. We are referred to as a "melting pot".

Yet we seem to be the only country who has freakouts over cultural appropriation.

It sounds like the cultures don't mix enough, though. I hear that there are white people who can grow up never having seen a non-white person, and that kind of boggles me.

Then again, (and I'm drawing this from conversations I've seen my friends have with Europeans), many of them consider the Americans extremely racist in terms of your categorization of race, and the fact that you systematically categorize people by race, and that people will start telling you what percentage of what type of blood they are.

A lot of that is because we have A) a history of redlining and 2) a long-standing tradition of suspicion of foreigners and immigrants and D) a tendency to demand the subsuming of imported culture (typically Asian, African or Central/South American) by "American culture" (which seems to be code for "white American culture.")

To put it another way, there's a joke I heard a long time ago. Two guys from Saudi Arabia move to the US with their families. They're all dressed in the traditional clothing, complete with the checkered keffiyahs and the stuff. As they're to be situated on opposite sides of the state, they make an agreement to meet in one year to decide who has assimilated better.

One year later, they meet. One of them says, "Well, I'm feeling pretty American. I just dropped off my daughter at softball practice and I'm gonna pick up some beers for the big game tonight. The wife's got a big steak dinner planned! We even went hunting last month and tomorrow we're gonna go watch a monster truck rally! What about you?"

The other one takes one look at him and says, "Shut up, raghead!"

... well, that is definitely multiple levels of fucked up.

I do think that to some extent, all countries demand that immigrants subsume their own culture. The whole structure of "multiculturalism" is a fraught one, and as long as nation-states remain the basis for countries, there will have to be a measure of society building. tbh, I'm not sure where we'll go from the nation-state; a bunch of the most outspoken opponents of it seem to be in the liberal American academia, and ironically, they have the cultural heft not to even notice how powerfully they export their own culture and yet see themselves as "transcending" their nationality (also, notice that the US hasn't actually had its mainland threatened in a while... undisputed borders are a luxury).

That joke definitely drives the point home, though.

(I like how your numbering is A, 2, D :P)

In Canada we call ourselves a multicultural society, and we are, because the cultures mix. There's no one freaking out over "appropriation" (more freakouts happen over cultural exclusion from school curriculums) because we all share culture and aspects of it fairly freely.

Everyone where I live sort of comes out knowing a bit about India, a bit about China, a bit about Korea, a bit about Japan, a bit about France, a bit about Native culture... etc. It's not weird to have symbols or participate because we all sort of do it.

I think you're incredibly naive if you think that no POC are "freaking out" about cultural appropriation in Canada. Maybe you're just too privileged to realize the negative outcomes of appropriation.

Once more, with less racism on your part.

Edited 2016-05-20 04:17 (UTC)

How is what AYRT racist in any way?

It's obviously racist to imply that they know better than someone who's actually from the culture they're commenting on.

Now let's all play the who's more privileged than who game. Fun for the whole family.

IA but that's not what AYRT was talking about. Arguing that no Canadian POCs are upset over cultural appropriation IS naive.

that is not how racism works...?

How do you know that someone commenting anonymously isn't Canadian?

As a fellow Canadian, I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment. There may not be "freak outs" about appropriation but I still think it's an issue. And as much as we might like to think we've got no racial problems, well, we need only look at our FN reserves to know that is not true.

Also, you live in a city--that is far different from rural Canada--and I say that as a rural East coaster. Unless we teach it in the schools the majority white (supposedly Christian) population around here would have no idea about other cultures. Yes, it is very slowly changing...but in my school of over 400 kids we have maybe 5 or 6 kids of African descent and maybe that or a couple more who are First Nations/Aboriginal and another 4 or 5 who are of Asian descent. When I went through HS in the late 80s (over 1500 kids) there were maybe 5 black kids--and one of those was an exchange student.

I have older relatives who have no hesitation about using the n-word. I had a co-worker ask me just the other week why African descent people can use the n-word (and she actually said it) and European descent folks can't. That was a fun convo. I know people who hide the fact they have some First Nations ancestry, simply because it would cause them issues in their community.

Overall, I think we're slightly better on the racism front than the US, but we're certainly not a shining Utopia, especially once you get outside the major cities. (Oh, and cities: Halifax city council is refusing to remove the name Cornwallis from things named for Edward Cornwallis who helped found the city--but also issued the Scalping Procolamations--paying for the scalps of Mi'kmaq). We've still got a long way to go.

I just want to point out that I grew up in a rural place. I happen to live in a city now, but like... I lived in the middle of goddamn nowhere with one whole black kid in my high school (more Asian kids, and it's more diverse these days, but damn).

I think I've shared that information before, but tl;dr I'm not a "city person" by any stretch of the imagination. I can't speak for the east coast of Canada, obviously, but I stand by my assessment. As far as our great nation goes I've only lived here and Edmonton and I will say that Edmonton was way the hell more insular and racist in four months than anything I've experienced on the west coast in 25+ years.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3424 ]

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different

Re: Now for something different