fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4994 ]

[ SECRET POST #4994 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4994 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 26 secrets from Secret Submission Post #715.
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

"Cultural appropriation" is one of those awkward situations where an originally neutral term has become negative due to usage and connotation. At its core, it just means 'one culture using a thing created by another culture' - not good, not bad, just a thing that happens.
Over recent years, though, it's come to be syncretised with 'cultural misappropriation', which is the sort of thing that is quite easy to condemn: using religious symbols as decoration, traditional costumes becoming Halloween costumes, insisting that your culture's reinterpretation of a dish is superior to the original - I could go on.
As with every topic of social justice and equality that has existed ever, it's complex and divisive, and things that are completely innocuous and inoffensive to some members of a community are absolutely outrageous to others in that same community. And that's not even touching on the different concerns of migrant communities - Japanese-Americans getting outraged by white tourists in Japan wearing kimono, while Japanese residents are just happy people are wearing their clothes (and paying for the privilege), is a popular example. Non-black people wearing particular styles of braids is another. Generally I stay out of these discussions, as I find that people on both sides get very heated and it just doesn't go well.

About the only one I'm happy to stick my head over the ramparts on is language. Any person should be free to learn any language for any reason, provided they don't take three lessons and immediately start imagining they know better than a native speaker. Saying 'kawaii' in no way diminishes the Japanese language, people, history or culture; any more than Japanese people saying 'アイスクリーム' impacts English. Some gym bro getting '油條' tattooed on his bicep doesn't make anyone look bad except him. Some girl who slept through high school Spanish calling her boyfriend 'papi' might make you want to cringe out of your skin, but it's not actually harming anyone.
And honestly, there are so many things in this world that do harm people... can't we just worry about them instead?

[N.B. All of the above is according to the limited understanding of someone who dropped out of uni six years ago, so take it as you will]

Agreed. One thing that I have to add is when it comes to writing, if you choose to write something that involves/includes significant cultural aspects of a culture that is not yours, reach out to people from those cultures. Ask them, "Is what I am writing accurate? Is it respectful?" and do NOT get your panties in a wad if they point out the 30 thousand ways it's not. LEARN.

Understand that it's okay to learn, to not know things, as long as you're making that effort to correct the things you don't know by including the people that do know them.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Personally I love research so that's one thing that's never been a problem for me - well, except when I read the work of someone who very obviously doesn't love research, and I am in Pain.
(Like, mate, the modern Japanese teenager is not going to be stymied by a knife and fork, trust me)

Japanese-Americans getting outraged by white tourists in Japan wearing kimono, while Japanese residents are just happy people are wearing their clothes (and paying for the privilege), is a popular example.

I did a home stay in Japan when I was in school and literally the first thing my host family did was dress me up in a kimono and take me to the nearby shrine for photos. I think they were having more fun with it than I was.

whew, it's insane to believe language can't be appropriated, negatively. language is so cultural (and so mutable, wildly so) that its ability to be misappropriated is legend! the idea that no harm is being done! haha, not when language policing from dominant to marginalized cultures exists. not when words easily and frequently gain connotations that overtake original meanings. i feel like people who think something cultural can be excised from the negative ideal of appropriation don't want to wrestle truly with how much dominant cultures police every single aspect of marginalized groups for the entire purpose of that marginalization and sometimes it's destruction.

do you actually have like
any citations
or are you just being a dick

dick how? did I strike a nerve because you feel like you have to feel bad for some appropriative shit you did? did you ask the person above me what citations they have to determine appropriation doesn't include language for some wild reason? what's dickish about finding it crazy that people think some aspects of culture can't be appropriated because of some other ethical understanding of cultural exchange that doesn't impact the first thing? (france is rather famous for trying to control their language appropriation so the idea that it simply isn't an issue isn't even a rl understanding of language) or countering the idea that people can't be hurt be language policing is dickish now?

anyway you can read a book on appropriation to get nuance, bb. I wouldn't stop you, I would encourage you.

https://www.questia.com/library/sociology-and-anthropology/cultures-and-ethnic-groups/cultural-appropriation

Have at it.

Well, the thing about migrant communities is a bit tricky because, to use your example, Japanese people from Japan are a privileged majority and Japanese-Americans are a marginalized minority. Nobody living in Japan would get made fun of for wearing a kimono to a festival, but a Japanese-American wearing one to a festival in the US might, only to discover years later that kimonos are now cool because white people decided so. That's where the anger comes from, and while I don't think that's a good reason to actually go and tell white people to stop wearing kimonos, the real the anger to exists often gets overlooked and the angry people get made fun of all over again, this time for being mad over "nothing."

SA to add another thing, another problem here with things like the kimono issue is that the migrant communities are dismissed as not REAL whatever their culture is. I.E. "REAL Japanese people - you know, from JAPAN - like it when white people want to wear kimonos. So take that!" As if Japanese-Americans are all now fully American and nothing else, and the Japanese part is irrelevant. Which like many parts of social justice on the internet is extremely textbook old-fashioned bigotry repackaged as the new woke.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4994 ]

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?

Re: Related to #6 - Do you believe in cultural appropriation?