Globalisation: On Cultural Appropriation and Why it Isn't Always Bad
This post can also be subtitled “Why certain things aren’t problematic when certain races say them.”
(SN: This post is meant to be informative.)
As a black American woman (of caribbean descent) who has lived in three countries, nothing bothers me more than getting on tumblr to see things from my culture being used to label celebrities as problematic and guilty of cultural appropriation, or a prominent black celebrity’s words being labelled as problematic when given the culture we ourselves come from and the understanding behind it, they are more helpful to who she was speaking than harmful (referring here to the post on Tyra).
To start with the Tyra thing, the danger of running a blog where you are criticizing celebrities for the harmful things they say/do is that when encountering a culture you’re not familiar with it is easy to misconstrue their meaning as something bad, when it is in effect the opposite. When Tyra told the contestant “I don’t want another black bitch” (and I remember that episode; I watched it), she wasn’t saying something racist. She was referring to the stereotype of the “black bitch” that is seen throughout all of America. It’s an extremely harmful stereotype, and it does nothing to help the women who perpetuate it succeed. Tyra has to be hard on the black contestants because of the nature of the industry they are trying to enter. It is not her job to challenge the industry, rather to help these young women gain a foothold, and there are certain things that people–especially black people–have to conform to in order to work in American society. When Tyra tells Danielle to change her accent, its not about condemning her Southern accent as wrong. It is that certain black accents really are not seen as acceptable. It is almost impossible to get a job as a black person if you speak with certain accents. This is just how society works.
But beyond that. Most celebrities listed here are being accused of cultural appropriation, and while some are blatant cases of what is most definitely a bad thing, one has to remember that “cutural appropriation” in and of itself is not a bad thing. Sure, the connotation associated with it is largely negative, but in actuality it has more to do with the transfer of cultures as we interact with each other. Culture isn’t cut and dry, we’re next to each other but completely separate. There are overlaps always. And the society we live in today is a globalised society. Every culture from around the world interacts with each other; we are not as separated as we have been in the past. And this always leads to cultural appropriation. When someone gets a tattoo of a Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic word that is cultural appropriation in a way, but it is not the negative stereotype of cultural appropriation. That is merely an example of globalisation. Would you call it cultural appropriation still if someone got a french word tattooed on them? More than people from that particular culture speak the language. People all over the world learn different languages every day. I myself have spent time studying French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin. That is a form of cultural appropriation. But it’s not negative. Partaking in anime? Also cultural appropriation. But also just the sharing of cultures.
When I see you accusing, say, Christina Aguilera as having participated in cultural appropriation because of her cornrows/do-rag, I feel that you are missing the point of what makes cultural appropriation problematic. Hairstyles are not generally a negative cultural appropriation. I myself proudly rock a frohawk somedays–which is an appropriated form of a mohawk. Many a white person goes and gets corn rows/locs done, and the only issue I have with it is that they look stupid half the time because their hair is not the right texture for the style. But if a white person can rock the locs, then more power to them. It’s a hairstyle.
Generally, I like what you’re attempting to do here. But I feel that you need to narrow down your range of what is “cultural appropriation” because not everything you have listed is entirely problematic, and running a blog like this means that people will accept you as an authority on these things, whether you know what you’re talking about or are just winging it.
So my point here is, cultural appropriation in its truest form happens around us on a daily basis. Other cultures participate in it, too. Eastern cultures using things that are decidedly Western in nature, and not just because of imperialism. Because they look cool. There is a whole subculture in Japan dedicated to people who want to be black and try and act like what they think “black” is. This is a natural occurrence when cultures come together, and our world is one big, giant melting pot of cultures at the moment. What the issue should be here is picking out the parts that are problematic. And you do that here. It’s just the flip sie of the coin, the appropriate cultural appropriation, that needs to be recognized.
(Oh, and for the record, black face is okay in historical movies/shows if portrayed properly and in such a way as not to be glorified because it is part of our history and we can’t just wipe that away with a “it’s problematic so it should never be portrayed ever because it requires people to do blackface”.)
I understand if you don’t post this because it’s about the content of the blog, rather than adding a new submission in line with what this blog is portraying, but at least read this and if you want to respond to what I have to say, please do so. My ask is always open.
Mod Note: not sure I agree with this, but it’s important to have multiple perspectives on here
-COB
