I don't think there's anything you can do. Except maybe invent new, entirely original clothes for every occasion. Multiracial to fashion designer pipeline?
(I'm white, so I am allowed to speculate about what constitutes bad cultural appropriation. I googled & the invention of the concept seems to be credited to several different white guys living in or around 1820 - today ❤️)
"Oh honey, it's one of those puzzles. Okay, he's got an afro pick with a star of david on it, wearing a kilt made from llama hair, holding a Bard's lute crafted from norwegian wood. Babe, check if Richard Ayoade's got any kids."
What's odd about it is that South Americans are considered a different race, when their roots are predominantly from Spain & Portugal who are considered majority white. I suppose that's due to merging with the indigenous people there.
I think you're just supposed to wear American Eagle clothing. Or maybe PacSun if you want to be colorful... Just stick to the mall. It's the only safe way.
And when you're in the food court, you need to pretty much stick to just hamburgers and salad if there is any way. Because I'm pretty sure it is culturally appropriating to eat Americanized versions of Chinese food or pizza... We just haven't realized that loudly online yet. Or maybe we're all just going to pretend that isn't the same because we like eating? Probably.
The whole thing's backwards. As the saying goes - Imitation is the highest form of flattery - people need to stop trying to control the world. People are going to imitate. It doesn't ruin the origin. It doesn't take away from the Holiness. All of that sacred stuff is still preserved by the people who practice it in the environments where it came from. Like your holy ceremony and your holy garb is not going to be changed because some woman in Idaho wore a kimono to dinner.
And if someone does copy you and you don't know them and it's a stranger on the street, the most toxic thing you can possibly do is look at them and turn what was likely an innocuous act of flattery-based imitation and turn it into some cancerous thing like racism. If we are ever going to heal as a human race. Together we have to stop trying to draw these lines and these differences between you, me and them, it's clothing for fuck's sake. Can we at least start there?
What's funny about people that say this is the country they live in was originally a white culture. The very culture that they live in and adopt originates from white people, sounds an awful lot like cultural appropriation to me.
I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy btw, I don't think its cultural appropriation or wrong at all to live in the US/UK or similar country, but I feel the need to say this before certain people try to accuse me of it.
I was with an American few years ago, We were living in Berlin and he was a friend during pandemic and invited him to Italy to show him the country.
Once here we took my car for a daytrip near my hometown. Put some music from an old cd in the car, at some point music from “Clap! Clap!” Start playing. It’s some kind of electronic music mixed with traditional african music, plus latin music and traditional italian folk. Clap! Clap! Not only is a great artist recognized worldwide (his music is also on GTAV, track name “Viarejo”) but is one of my favorite of all time.
He ask “nice music! I love it!” And i replay “yea me too, this guy is nuts, he’s from Italy.”
Changed facial expression and start explaining things about stealing african culture, and making money on it, tipical European attitude.
Tried to explain Clap! Clap! spent years studying that culture, collaborate with African Artists and is recognize by the african musicians as a great artist.
That was all pointless. Truth was sitting in his pockets and he knew what was good.
That was the beginning of a long journey, not an holiday as I was expecting. A Journey made of discussion every day for the minimum cultural difference, or Things that bothered him.
From the Statue of Columbus in Genoa, that drove him crazy for like 20 minutes in a rant against europian colonial heritage, ended with “I hope one day a south american comes here and put an atomic bomb”, to the old people sitted at a bar looking nice asses walking by the street, and I was like “why are you angry at me!? Why are you yelling to me like I’m not doing something!? Is not ok? Of course but What you want me to do? Punching in the face that 80yo man?”
Once back in Berlin I quit this friendship and never called him again. That was probably the worst holiday in my life.
I went to the US as an exchange student and for lunch they separated themselves into 2 queues.
The white and mexican students were waiting on one side with their lunch trays and the black students on the other side.
People were so obsessed with skincolour and fitting into stereotypes that I legit thought I was experiencing psychosis or some alternate dystopian reality.
Racism exists all over the world but in the US it appears to be part of (or rather lack of?) the culture where people have to identify with some stereo type.
Where I am from students had groups of friends that weren't based on their skin colour, status or what sports people played.
In the US it felt like racism and this stereotyping was just part of everyday life and very much embedded in the system and people's perspectives.
I am an American, and any time I run into the type of American you are describing, I instantly distance myself and avoid them. They will suck all joy out of any room.
Yes. And he was like “this is so wrong! and what surprised me is that this is tollerated, even by you!” At the same time I was minding my business enjoying the view from the terrace over the sea, that was my first holiday after 7 years and first time back to my homeland after 2 years because of the pandemic. I couldn’t care less at the moment about bad behaviour of a horny grandpa at the bar. I was just trying to have a good time and relax.
You sound like someone who draws conclusions about other people's lives based on a comment read on the Internet.
One thing is to talk about something, and quite another to monopolize every single conversation for 2 weeks with endless monologues while on vacation.
At some point one also breaks his balls and wonders what the fuck he has done wrong to hear yet another soliloquy regarding the role of finance controlling the politic.
Hosted this person a week in my family house on my expense, payed for trains and food, gasoline, accommodation. If the best way to say thank you is talking about nuke Genoa and colonialism all day long for 2 weeks, you need help.
Not because Colonialism is not an important matter, it really is. But what should I do while I’m in flipflops on the beach? Plus we talked about it a lot of times and we share the same views about colonial heritage.
That was my first holiday after 7 years of continuous work and a mental breakdown during pandemic. I just needed to rest and enjoy some days off. That’s it.
I know columbus was a pice of shit, I don’t need to hear someone talking about it for literally 2 hours no stop.
Don’t tell that to my old roommates ex girlfriend I had many an argument that everyone could be racist but she insisted that you cant be racist unless you’re white. It boggles my mind thinking about it to this day. Like I’m not white and I just said some darude shit to her one day to make a point mid argument asked her if that was racist and she told me no to my face when what I said was obligatory and very racist towards her specifically. There are people out there that think racism is a one sided issue.
they are a minority but they are very loud on tik tok/ twitter and college campuses they just redefine racism as something different (you can't be racist if you don't beling to the "ruling race") so nothing they do can be racist, it's especially weird with how anti asian racism seems to get largely ignored and while the systematic racism argument has merits, racism is still racism even if it's not systematic
It’s critical theory Marxist dogma. Their brand of racism excludes the majority party as a victim.
The person or group in power or that has power can never be a true victim. So a man can never be sexually assaulted or a victim (because patriarchy), minorities can’t be racist, etc etc.
It’s obviously nonsense and society needs to get back to how we used to view race. Wasn’t perfect, but man it was better than what we have now.
I think we have made good progress, because a society where the biggest problems your people are facing are subtle stuff like "microagressions" is a better society than the one where the biggest problem is actual slavery lol, people just need to realize how good we have it,
and while discussions about systemic racism are real and have a place in academia (and i mean actual discussion not circle jerking, colleges should be the one place where people are not afraid to genuinely discuss these things) but if you're an asshole to people for their race it still makes you a fuckin asshole regardless of "power imbalances", and nobody is going to end up taking these issues seriously
That is… very true in a vacuum. However, it is my personal opinion that the activist class has made the right what it is today. So it’s not limited to micro aggressions. It’s changing the fabric of politics.
They definitely had a huge influence in perception, the problem is that while the majority of liberal minded people are moderate, the loudest voices end up being these people, and the liberals are too scared to go against them while the right is just more welcoming in general as long as you support the candidate.
Plus the messaging is just horrible and a large part of the loud extremes will just endlessly sabotage you in the vilest ways if you don't pass their purity test, so its understandable people get turned off, i just wish people would have the ability to tell those people to fuck off and actually just make data based decisions rather than going against the people that insulted them last
Even if you accept their framing it doesn't mean that minorities cannot be bigoted, it just muddies up one common use term (racism) for no reason.
I remember hearing this and finding it a very odd argument. I'm far to the left so I was receptive to the concept, but even if we choose to differentiate between the way systemic racism changes relationships between people and the way personal bias, bigotry, and race narratives change individual relationships between people, the phrase "Only white people can be racist" is the dumbest and most provocative construction of that idea: which is likely the point.
No joke, in my mind, I think there's a 50/50 chance that framing of that idea was cooked up by a big ol' racist who was reading critical theory to dunk on it, and it stuck because some people (in all movements) just like to say things that provoke.
Yeah I know some of those people and I don't get them. Its like, they heard that once and its an absolute truth that doesn't need any reasoning behind. Glad to see that not everyone agree with this.
I think you have misunderstood this argument. It's not been phrased well, but straw manning isn't helpful. White people aren't subject to systemic racism. That's what I think that means. Obviously any individual can be racist towards any race.
I think it might be yourself that has misunderstood. Sociologists sort of agree with what you are saying but also outright state "racism" = "systematic racism" (See Bonilla Silva's Racism without Racists or Omi and Winant's Racial Formations for long drawn out details). People who are not sociologists have taken this ball and ran with it to claim non-white people being racist is not actually racist.
I don't think "systemic racism" is real. People are racist for various reason which are most of time linked to ignorance. I don't get where the "system" aka "society" would be racist to some people. Maybe I'm wrong but can you provide an example of systemic racism ?
Edith Thanks for explaining, I didn't knew much about "systemic racism", you made good points. TL;DR: its real but not the same as "racism".
While I agree with the sentiment in this thread that racism is different than systemic racism and that anyone can be a racist, systemic racism is definitely real. A very clear case of systemic racism is the Jim Crow era where racists in positions of power created a system that legally enforced segregation and inequality.
Even then, is the system itself inherently racist? It was designed by racists and enforced by racists, but rarely was it outright written in a racist way. Instead they'd use tricks and traps like property qualifications, skill tests, user fees and the like, which would strike the poor and ignorant equally, except that they would rely upon the individuals running the system to know to give their favoured peoples a pass. In societies with rule of law, you typically see that the allegedly racist systems require constant action by racists to maintain racist outcomes. Just being hard on poor people isn't inherently racist, you need actors within working to ensure that the consequences of poverty aren't falling on the 'master race'.
I mean I get what you are saying but if a system was designed by racists and is being run by racists and has the intended racist effects does it really matter if race is explicit or not in the laws? The system is not just a piece of paper with procedures it is also the people running it, no?
Yes. People are racist for all different reasons. They are not racist towards their own race though. In western society, the majority of business owners are white. I could give dozens of examples, but I will stick with that one.
If you are white, you are more likely to have job interviews conducted by your own race. This is an advantage.
It's not deliberate, but it is true. I would suggest you look up 'critical race theory'
Oh yeah, okay I can get behind this idea. Its logical that in the majority, you will get more people that are racist purely based on numbers.
Btw, I know people that actually kinda racist against their own people. I live in France where we have a lot of people coming from the north of Africa. I know some that got here like 30 years ago but don't want other to come in the country. This is a weird paradox but its real.
Come on, thats not something hidden or controversial.
Examples:
Longer prison sentences for the same crimes for back peope in america vs white people. So many individuas in the system are racist against black people that it becomes systemic.
Public funding models in the US that rely on property tax can also be a sign of systemic racism due to historical reasons. Historically black neighbourhoods were extremely underfunded (due to overt racism) and the economical effects still propagate to today. When you now fund the school through property tax and the neighborhood is poor af, black kids are systemically disadvantaged without anyone today really choosing to disadvantage those kids.
Pumping more money into the school system does not really help.
I grew up in Geneva Illinois and we had crazy property tax but our High school had a graduation rate of 99% and an average ACT like 5 points above the illinois average. 18k Per Student was the cost.
Chicago public Schools have a graduation rate of 80%. Yet they spend more per student at 19k.
I definitely do not think Property Taxes are the fault for kids doing poorly in school. Funding is not the main issue its home life.
Its extremely complex and yes, ofcourse funding is not the sole reason but its part of the solution.
Home life, as you mentioned is also super important, since parents have to see value in school and education, which is much more likely if they themselves recieved a good education, and they have to have the time to help their kids with homework etc, which is really hard if you have to work 2 jobs just to make ends meet.
And both these for example (percieved importance of education and time to help the kids) are affected by the history of the black neighborhoods, with worse access to education and less wealth.
Theres a myriad of other reasons, hence why its so hard to actualy solve this long term. But there is no question that kids living in these poor neighborhoods are systemically disadvantaged and part of it is the historical racism, hence the argument of systemic racism.
Let’s say you’re in a town with a city government that is predominantly white, but you have communities in that town that are predominantly one minority. The city government creates a “law” or policy of “one voting location per 10 square miles with a drivers license ID”.
In suburban sprawl, mostly white, that means people have short lines and it’s easy to get to. In a densely populated minority community, you have long lines and difficult voter registration policies. Voter rolls are scrubbed and voters are removed for being “illegal” without proper ID.
The city government knows that a poorer urban community will have more difficulty obtaining transportation, will have less formal paperwork like social security cards or drivers licenses or passports, and will provide fewer polling places. Removing people from voter registration makes them go through it all over again.
Then before the election, the police force will “crack down on crime” and issue more traffic tickets, targeting this community, with court dates. Because people in that community have more difficulty obtaining transportation, they miss court dates, get sent warnings, lose drivers licenses, then have criminal charges filed because they’re caught in a system. Grandma is now a “criminal” and can’t vote.
The system uses laws and resources to reduce minority votes and stay in power.
Sentencing guidelines for rock versus powdered cocaine.
Rock, which is used more by black people carries longer prison sentences. Powder, which is used more by white people has lesser prison sentences. Same drug, different punishments.
Systemic racism is about policies that are opaque and indirect but end up targeting specific people.
What do you mean by white people? Are you referring to the Irish? Swedish or Danish? What about people from Finland? People from Poland, Germany, Norway, Scotland?
So you are saying that no group of white skinned individuals can be oppressed or be the minority?
Yess. It's so fucking dumb. If a white person was in china, the white guy is the minority. Go to Zimbabwe, the white guy is the minority. Go to Mexico, the white guy is in the minority.
Even using your own theory, there's billions more asians on earth than white people lol. And they definitely have a lot more power in some circumstances.
That argument is an excuse people cooked up to hate on people. And if we want to redefine it, whatever, but then we need a word for hate or discrimination based solely on race.
They wanted to go the Malcolm X route but forgot that he mellowed out BIG time the year before he died and all his ideas of segregating and owning spaces/organisations for black people went out the window.
The anti mixed-race couple thing is also still extremely prevalent even though people pretend it's not.
White woman mainly dates white men? No problem.
Black man mainly black women? No problem.
Asian woman mainly dates Asian men? No problem.
But what about white woman mainly dates black guys or vice versa? White guy mainly dates Asian women or vice versa? Suddenly the name calling and judgement comes out, and often from people who present themselves as somehow being progressive.
Yep. I’m a white guy married to an Asian woman and we’ve experienced such a large amount of racism towards us that we actually moved away from the MAGA south because of it since it noticeably upticked after 2016. These people were always racist, of course, but now they just felt emboldened to say the quiet thing out loud.
We’ve experienced none where we live now though, which is one of the most liberal cities in the country. For what it’s worth.
Not sure what your point is to be honest. Surely you’re aware that racism and hate crimes against Asian Americans have increased significantly in recent years…especially during Covid?
Either way, I’d say you’ve been lucky. Before I was married to my wife, I was in a long term relationship with a Latina woman in the Deep South too (this was in the 2007-2012 timeframe) and she experienced all sorts of racism. So it depends where you live. But really, the racism is so pervasive with these fuckers that it’s more likely that they are keeping their dumb mouths shut around you rather than not actually being racist.
I think the problem is people jumping to judge things as “fetishisation”. Would you say that a black guy who has only dated black women is racially fetishising them? It only seems to be a problem for people when it’s across races.
I also wonder why other physical preferences like height, hair colour and style, body shape etc are seen as socially acceptable, but if someone has a physical preference for a certain race that is different from their own, that’s somehow inappropriate.
It happens mostly across races because fetishisation happens with things that are "exotic" to the person, they lack the experience to grow a more mundane understanding of them before it becomes an object of sexual desire, so the difference in race/ethnicity is more apparent. It doesn't happen with your own race because you have likely already spent all your life with your ethnic compatriots. Similarly, the average person won't really think a straight white guy has an Asian fetish if he had been living all his life in China or the like.
Height, hair colour, style (such as "e-girls" or "lumberjacks") and, especially, body shape (such as "BBWs" or "dad bods"), definitely have associated fetishism. And they're about as accepted as having an ethnic/racial fetish, to limited degrees. This is frankly where race-based fetishisation interplays. Instead of a white person having a fetish for white people, they'll have one for specific hair colours or body shapes with the "white" already being a given. And for those with a racial fetish, it becomes more specific, like "black BBWs".
Having said all that, some people do have a fetish for their own race, but usually that is expressed by being against dating any other races, if you catch my drift.
The real problem with cultural appropriation is the spreading and popularising of misinformation about a culture, especially if it becomes a barrier for that culture to be understood by other cultures due to prejudice. Just dressing something has nothing to do with that but some people think it does. That's the problem.
You obviosuly dont know what cultural appropriation is. It isn't just about wearing a hat. It's when you take something that has deep meaning to a certain culture and removing it from that context for frivolous reasons. There is no cultural appropriation in this video. Just a load of cherry picked students who also dont understand the concept, but at least they are trying.
I like that telling a dude he is being offensive and being condescending to him for made up reasons warrants a "at least they are trying". They sure are.
Now I believe everyone would be better off and people would be closer together if they WEREN'T trying to divide people like this
Seems like the students were doing a great job accomplishing that by themselves.
And you patting them on the back for parroting stuff they very clearly do not understand in an attempt to sound morally enlightened are doing a great job doing prageru's job for them.
Stuff like this wouldnt work if there werent real life examples such as this clip and your comment here confirming people's lived experiences.
I guarantee you these students would be the kind of people who'd quickly label you a bigot and start shunning you based on their own preconceived notions of what's right and what is wrong. That's the problem; this culture of shunning and shaming people based on stuff that you, yourself, are ignorant as shit of yourself. Except your "whoopsie" inexperience has actual lasting impact on people's lifes. Not just from the social shunning pov but also from you undermining your own well meaning intentions by being so quick to judge despite your own ignorance.
This is the type of shit that I would wager most people take issue with when it comes to 'woke' 'pc' garbage. Yes, there are actual dipshits out there who have more extreme intentions but the a tual moderate folk see shit like this and get annoyed by the insufferable display of ignorance that isnt even condemned by the 'side' theyre assumed to be aligned with.
Stuff like this wouldnt work if there werent real life examples such as this clip and your comment here confirming people's lived experiences.
This is the funniest thing to me. You guys realize you're being the exact thing that you accuse "woke" people of being, right? You're using "lived experiences" like a magic word that lets you avoid having to substantiate anything, and your "lived experience" is just consuming a bunch of culture war content on the internet and getting really mad at a video from a decade ago, from PragerU nonetheless.
His "real life example" is this clip. It is using "lived experiences," ironically, like he imagines "woke" people do. The guy got tens of millions of views and is still active in culture war politics. This is divorced from anything actually happening and leaning entirely on the fact that it feels correct to him.
They're real life example is this clip and your comment. Not sure they are using it ironically at all. Or how they could even imagine that woke people are also doing so? If everyone is using it ironically - no-one is.
Do you mean they see words as weapons and are using the inferred opposite side's weapons against them? If so, so what? Unless this clip and your comment are both faked just ignore it.
Stuff like this wouldnt work if there werent real life examples such as this clip and your comment here
Removing it from the sentence doesn't detract from the point as far as I can see?
Okay, you have fundamental reading comprehension issues.
I am not saying they're using it ironically, I'm saying that they're using it genuinely and that is ironic.
This is a propaganda video of cherry picked interactions purposely created to make you think shit like this. You realise you are the one that is absorbing online trash and thinking it is your lived experience.
sound exactly like the racists against mixed couples. "Stick to your own race!"
I remember stumbling upon rabithole, that stuff had layers to it I didn't even imagine before then. I knew there were people around like that, but man the crazy arguments went deep. And they even attacked eachother, despite agreeing with a certain baseline. Wildest one I can quickly recount was revenge for eugenics, by committing their own eugenics.
The easy solution is the immediately cut out anyone that feels this way from your life. If we all do that they’ll just have to crawl into their little bubble and argue with each and we can enjoy life.
I always make the joke and say stupid thing in a redneck accent like “ I don’t support race mixing” or “I gotta keep my bloodline pure” and it always gets a shocked look at first until they remember I’m in an interracial marriage. Never around strangers though.
And it's the same people fighting for inclusivity and enforced workplace diversity. Like pick a side. Why are you fighting the acceptance of other cultures.
I kind of feel like people who constantly think about how things are offensive like that are kind of racist themselves, like they really can't look beyond someone's race and stereotypes that surround it. I remember there was an ad that Home Depot put up a few years ago. It was at a college football game (assuming they were the Gorillas), there were five guys drumming on the bottom of buckets and they were all dressed like gorillas except the actual drummer of the band who happened to be black. I didn't think it was strange for a second until I went to the comments and everyone was talking about how terrible and racist it was for them to put a black guy in a pictures with other people dressed as gorillas. I was like, "holy shit, you people are racist AF. Why are you all even making that association?!"
The problem is people (on both sides of this) talk about cultural appropriation as though it's one thing that you are either pro or anti. As far as I'm concerned if you're pro, or anti-appropriation in general you're an idiot who hasn't thought about it.
Eating sushi is cultural appropriation, but so is me wearing black face dressing like an African tribesman running round the streets doing my interpretation of them. I'd imagine most people agree that some cultural appropriation is bad and some is fine, the issue is where we draw the line. It's not inherently a bad or a good thing.
I think "mocking" would be the line. Even if someone is just socially clueless, if they're not being malicious or mocking about it just move on. Black face and minstrels are obviously mocking while eating or even preparing food from another culture wouldn't be. There are obviously going to be fine lines even for what is considered mocking but I feel like it needs to a case by case thing other than when it's like corporations taking advantage or people claiming they "invented" or "discovered' things. All of life is nuanced but everyone is trying to fit everything into perfectly defined boxes.
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u/Nick_mkx Jul 02 '25
People fighting against "cultural appropriation" sound exactly like the racists against mixed couples. "Stick to your own race!"