[RD] Cultural Appropriation: The Solution?

[Thorgalaeg]

Soonx Wex willx writex everythingx withx xx

 

[Hygro]

I just assumed the x was silent and the hipsters and social justicists finally caught up to my use of Latin over Latino/a. If that x is to be pronounced... you guys go on without me

 

[Senethro]

In your opinion, everything you dislike is genocide.

You're being spectacularly unclever tonight and the idea that having supposed good intentions excuses those committing genocide somewhat is ridiculous. Trying to raise the bar on the definition of genocide so that it has only occurred two or three times in human history would turn it into a useless concept, and if some other CFC posters advocated for this would call it sinister, whereas I think you're just mistaken.

 

[metalhead]

Perhaps we need the crimes of Genocide and Light Genocide.

Less filling! Tastes great!

 

[Senethro]

If you are convicted of Light Genocide, you are merely hung by the neck until you are very sorry.

 

[Bootstoots]

Or you get 20 years and a book deal.

 

[Berzerker]

Who can serve as the poster child for cultural appropriation?

 

[metalhead]

Rachel Dolezal.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm curious if second- and higher-generation immigrants could be considered cultural appropriators. Do they have as much say in how to use their culture as their first-generation and non-immigrant counterparts? Or could their complaints be considered offense by proxy?

You mean, if I caught my Indian neighbors doing Swedish or Norwegian stuff I could scream at them for cultural appropriation?

What would be the point of that? Canada is a mosaic, and we pick and choose what cultural stuff we do, within certain boundaries of law or propriety. That's something the MP who ranted at the other MP over her Chinese dress hasn't learned yet. To the best of my recollection, the "offendee" did not immigrate from China.

I'm not a big fan of the term cultural genocide, as I think it waters down the meaning of genocide as practiced by the Nazis, Turks, Khmer Rouge, etc.

Oh, please. By discussing the cultural genocide that was attempted in Canada, it doesn't mean I don't care about the other things that happened. I don't know if you're aware of this, but public Holocaust denial is considered hate speech here, and depending on circumstances, people have been in legal trouble for engaging in it.

I do agree that the suppression of Indian culture was often tragic - I can speak of the Brazilian case but am not that familiar with the Canadian one. But I also know that, unlike the Nazis who had evil goals, the assimilation and conversion of Indians arose from people who genuinely wanted to "save" them. Often this "salvation" was carried in a brutal way that today we can only call stupid, but we can't really use the same word as we use to describe Auschwitz and the Cambodian killing fields.

No, the Anglican and Catholic churches didn't round the native kids up and gas them. But they did literally beat them for speaking their own languages, expressing their religious beliefs in words or ceremonies, and many were taken hundreds of miles away from their families so there was no way to have contact with them. Some of the kids ran away to try to get home; a few made it, but most were either caught or died on the way.

Are you seriously telling me that this was all because of benign motives? I'm reminded of Senator Lynn Beyak, who should be kicked out of the Senate but can't be unless she breaks certain rules; she's got a whole raft of racist letters and emails posted on her official website, praising her for prattling on about how "loving" the teachers were in these schools, and that yes, there were a few bad incidents, but overall it was a wonderful experience for the kids, and on and on and on... I'm sure the kids who were raped multiple times were just overjoyed at such treatment, right?

There are generations of screwed-up people, as what happened to the kids didn't just go away with their generation. They grew up apart from their own languages and traditions, and many had no idea how to build functional families when they became adults. So this had consequences on their kids, grandchildren, and so on.

Perhaps we need the crimes of Genocide and Light Genocide.

Not funny.

 

[Hehehe]

This seems like one of those things where some people get real mad about disrespecting their symbols like flags or arguably genocidal leaders, but when asked for the sake of politeness to not misuse the religious and cultural symbols of others then they angrily and with no awareness of irony assert that they must have the political freedom to be crass and insulting. (which noone was trying to take away but its like they're deliberately missing the point)

Alternatively its like the kindergartner who only wants another kids toy when they see them having fun with it. All things MUST be available at all times to white americans to do with as they please. They don't take no for an answer.

It's one thing to mock someone else's culture. It's completely another thing to copy it out of admiration. Cultural appropriation is like the opposite of "racism". But perhaps the most ridiculous and absurd thing about all of this is that it's yet another episode of white people getting angry about something small and fairly irrelevant to "help" those poor minorities who never asked for it. If those Sikh baby head wraps had generated outrage in the Sikh community, then there would be a case for forgoing their use. But there wasn't. This whole concept of "cultural approppriation" seems like nothing more than white people looking for stupid stuff to get offended about in order to feel important

 

[Thorgalaeg]

In fact genocide is one of the most useless words ever. UN had a hard time finding, or more exactly, negotiating a definition for it, and the result is so broad, vague and difficult to prove in all its elements, that can be applied almost to any conflict in the world or to none depending on the side you are.

Since one of the key requeriments is to prove the concious intention of eradicating a social group physically or culturally i dont think it can apply to 16th century colonizers who didnt have this kind of considerations and saw the indians simply as a cheap labor force similar to slaves and didnt care about if they kept his culture at all. They killed the rebellious or disobedient indians of course but also mixed with the peaceful ones. The final result was not the destruction of the indians or his culture but the spanish/indian cocktail USAians call latin culture. Nothing of this fits in the definition of genocide accepted by UN.

Another different matter is the official policy, which curiously being much more humanitarian than the colonizers themselves may fit the definition of genocide better, since the objective was to re-educate the indians and convert them to Christianity and to european culture forgetting his barbarian old ways, all thanks to the encomienda system, which was a mandatory labor service of two years every indian was meant to serve under the authority of the encomendero. The 1512 Burgos laws stablishes the encomienda system requirements minuciously. Since Indians were supposed to be free spanish citizens, it was supposed to be a remunerated work with 40 vacational days. The encomendero should live along the indians eating the same food as them, teaching them spanish language and customs. Physical punishnent was totally forbidden and the indians were allowed to keep his social organisation and authorities.

Laws were rarely applied though and the paternalist encomienda system as interpreted by the colonizers turned to be something very similar to slavery in practice. Colonizers were ruthless and violent, the worst of Spanish society. Many were veteran soldiers hardened in European wars willing to get his compensation in America. Attempts to enforce the law did usually lead to rebellion. In fact the Viceroy of Peru who tried to enforce the encomienda laws was killed by the colonizers led by Gonzalo Pizarro, who preferred the much simpler old Inca labor system, which was basically raw slavery.

 

[metatron]

Do i have to get the picture* and write "#didnotdisappoint"?

*We don't have to guess or argue. You allready know it exists. It just has to.

Oh yeah I meant to say, I did not understand the gotcha at all.

[fanfare]
We shall coin a new law of the interwebs!
[/fanfare]

Justin's Law
If there is clothing, jewelry, feathers or other adornment that is culturally symbolic in such a way that some would deem if insensitve for a "white" person to wear it...
a) Justin Trudeau has done so
b) There is selfie-obsessed-girl-level of photographic evidence
​

Barong tagalog... check.
(Never mind that i doubt "white" people being barred from wearing them is a thing).

"highly dubious"

Oh, this could be a fun sentence completion game.

"Europe is so much more racist...

...Afro-Europeans fall asleep in their dorm common rooms and very white "feminist" womenfolk don't call the police on them.​

Europe is so much more racist...

...Afro-Europeans golf there.​

Europe is so much more racist...

...the Police don't lynch people (not even white ones for training).​

Europe is so much more racist...

...elections happen.
Afro-Europeans vote in them."
​

Anyway... in trying to examine your claim specifics would be helpful, such as:
Since you imply that the US had been more racist in the past, but that today Europe was more racist now, when is the crossover point?
At some point, presumably while both got ever so slightly less racist, the US must have overtaken Europe.
When would that be?

Who can serve as the poster child for cultural appropriation?

Rachel Dolezal.

You wish.

Alas, there is the man they call "Talcum X".

I believe there is a certain amount of memeage.

Oh, our Canadian government did a bunch of stuff (to our aboriginal population) I would call evil, as long as we're calling things evil

A really good first step on this (as well as on some other issues) would be - just to pick one random excentric idea - not to have statues of hateful raging racist eugenecists on Parliament Hill.

Just a thought.

 

[Traitorfish]

They didn't kill the people, just their identity. It's progressive.

But to be serious for now, is it not their culture that defines them as a people? In that sense, it is still the slaughter of a people.

The usual term for this is "cultural genocide". It's not a recent innovation, either, before the usual suspects cry "SJW!", it was defined by Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who coined the term "genocide".

He had hoped to include the concept in the 1948 Genocide Convention, but it was rejected more or less because its inclusion would render pretty much every major power guilty of genocide.

NBC and a few others have reported that there is both anecdotal and historical precedence for it in Latin America and Indigineous Mexican communities. Its spread in the US has been pushed by Latinx student groups who are, well, Latinx.

I think the problem is that to a Spanish reader, the "x" clearly reads as a placeholder- the fact that there is no intuitive pronunciation seems to be part of the point- but in an English-language context, it's typically just reads as a wonky, unpronounceable word.

That probably owes a lot to the fact that English-speakers aren't used to switching out word-endings in quite the same way that Spanish-speakers are, rather than because there's anything inherently abominable to English-speaking eyes about the combination of letters than comprise "Latinx", but it is what it is.

All the culture war crap can't help, either.

 

[Lexicus]

Since you imply that the US had been more racist in the past, but that today Europe was more racist now, when is the crossover point?

Not more racist. Never implied that.

 

[metatron]

Not more racist. Never implied that.

Let me read what you wrote again.

[...]Europe probably is more racist than the United States these days. We have - arguably - the worse past, but we've begun to come to terms with it. You are still mostly in denial.

Well, the comment is explicit as far as the present is concerned: "More racist".

As for the past, racism - being "more racist" - appears to be the dimension you were talking about.
And i take it by "we" in "we have [...] the worse past" you meant the United States or North America or some such.

This all reads rather straight forward to me.
In which way am i misunderstandiong your comment?

 

[innonimatu]

Laws were rarely applied though and the paternalist encomienda system as interpreted by the colonizers turned to be something very similar to slavery in practice. Colonizers were ruthless and violent, the worst of Spanish society. Many were veteran soldiers hardened in European wars willing to get his compensation in America. Attempts to enforce the law did usually lead to rebellion. In fact the Viceroy of Peru who tried to enforce the encomienda laws was killed by the colonizers led by Gonzalo Pizarro, who preferred the much simpler old Inca labor system, which was basically raw slavery.

So the spanish did not practice cultural genocide against the Inca because they kept the old systems of slavery and exploitation set up by the Inca Empire in place? By this "cultural genicide" standard the spanish conquistadores were actually "nicer" than the humanitarian missionaries. Funny what some politically correct ideas can lead to, isn't it?

Cultural genocide is when the original culture is erased, by assimilation or, as was done to the residential school kids in Canada, by literally beating it out of them, all the while preaching at them about how God and Jesus love them and they're supposed to love God and Jesus in return. This created generations of people who were completely messed up and felt they didn't belong anywhere - they were too "Indian" to be accepted by white society and too "white" to be accepted back on the reserve. Some of the kids tried to escape and return home and were later found dead of starvation and/or exposure.

The resources necessary to even attempt that were only available in the modern world. Before that there was no state organized education system. The only way to achieve such cultural substitution was outright genocide and migration. And the real way cultures changed was through trade, imitation of more prestigious more practical cultural norms, slow mingling or assimilation - there are natural processes and it is insane to think they can be prevented.

We had to wait for the 20th century with all its accumulated technology, organization, and ambition, to have really sick things such as medical experimentation on children organized by a state.

 

[Berzerker]

The Spanish piss me off, god only knows what knowledge was lost in their zeal to destroy Mesoamerican literature with their book burning

 

[Lexicus]

Let me read what you wrote again.

Well, the comment is explicit as far as the present is concerned: "More racist".

As for the past, racism - being "more racist" - appears to be the dimension you were talking about.
And i take it by "we" in "we have [...] the worse past" you meant the United States or North America or some such.

This all reads rather straight forward to me.
In which way am i misunderstandiong your comment?

Alright, fair, I didn't remember saying that. But specifically what I mean is that the European mainstream appears more or less in denial that an anti-racist politics is even necessary there, even as openly racist political parties start winning elections and racist narratives become ever more common in the mainstream.

 

[innonimatu]

The Spanish piss me off, god only knows what knowledge was lost in their zeal to destroy Mesoamerican literature with their book burning

Probably not that much, they actually recorded a lot of what they saw immediately after conquest, you can find numerous descriptions of the area, the people, etc. Some authored by indians who survived the conquest and "assimilated" into the new polity. And they saved some of those writings by the Aztec. Absent the arrival of the spanish odds are the Aztec would have been wiped out by some rebellion (as were several previous polities in central america) and their written history totally lost, only some ruins left.

If there was something that the 16th century europeans were more obsesses with and far better at than any native americans, it was record-keeping! Too bad they had intolerant priests carrying a state religion as part of the conquest, but it could have been worse. Time itself is unforgiving towards any unmaintained archives in tropical climates.

 

[Kyriakos]

The Spanish piss me off, god only knows what knowledge was lost in their zeal to destroy Mesoamerican literature with their book burning

Including various brutal techniques to skin people alive with even more pain extracted so as to please Tezcatlipoca and help him fight the other alien gods