Explain to me why "cultural appropriation" is so bad

[Damajin]

And what about the coyote finding its prey under a fullmoon in a hot midsummer evening? Have you ever considered that fate?

The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.

[Deleted]

The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.

You speak in riddles, wise chief. May the wind blablabla.

[Adam Jensen]

Cultural Appropriation is on my list of Things that Make Me Ashamed to Call Myself Liberal.

Like seriously. How racist can you get, saying "this thing belongs to my race and my race only!"

[Damajin]

You speak in riddles, wise chief. May the wind blablabla.

It's from the Proverbs of Hell, part of Blake's 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' you uncultured swine.

Here, let me do the heavy lifting:

Proverbs of Hell

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.
All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
One thought fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others bad not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox. he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
Enough! or Too much.

[s_bushido]

Cultural Appropriation is on my list of Things that Make Me Ashamed to Call Myself Liberal.

Like seriously. How racist can you get, saying "this thing belongs to my race and my race only!"

But that's the thing. The people who take this nonsense seriously have also redefined racism in such a way that they themselves can never be perpetrators because "muh power structures." It's a vicious cycle of stupid.

[BannedForViews]

Except mathematics is supposedly a universal concept, ramen is not.

I could argue that anything that can be, already exists and is just yet to be discovered. Ramen is no different than math in that respect.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

But that's the thing. The people who take this nonsense seriously have also redefined racism in such a way that they themselves can never be perpetrators because "muh power structures." It's a vicious cycle of stupid.

Yeah, I hate that. I know that the meaning of words can change.. but the "idea" of racism shouldn't change. I hate hearing about how the "sociological definition of racism is..."

[Deleted]

It's from the Proverbs of Hell, part of Blake's 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' you uncultured swine.

Here, let me do the heavy lifting:

Cool reference.

[jimboa24]

"literally no one"
"strawman"

You're culturally appropriating the English language incorrectly.


http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/11/...appropriation/
https://spoonuniversity.com/news/why...-is-offensive/
http://people.com/food/lena-dunham-o...appropriation/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...-cultures-food

Pardon me while I take a moment to visit each site you listed here just to leave a comment of "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES!" I like good food and I'll eat whatever I want from whatever culture I want, and if any SJW wants to tell me that's bad and I should feel bad, I got two middle fingers ready to tell them otherwise.

*edit*

Of course not a single one of those links has a comment section. Cause of "safe spaces" or some bullshit.

[Deleted]

The only time I can see cultural appropriation as a bad thing is when you take an element of culture used for sacred rituals that has a deep spiritual meaning and make a shallow fashion gadget out of it. Anything else is open source.

[Moralgy]

It is supposed to be about taking a specific culture's practices, say some tribe in South America, and profiting off it without giving anything in return. A sort of copy-write infringement/stealing. The issue is people have turned it into "all black/asian/mexican people own this or that and you can't do it". A lot of the problems arise when some western company exploits a culture, cites that culture to say they care, and then tourists flock and slowly destroy it(or modernize it since capitalism and all). People see both the destruction and modernization as destroying the culture at times, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I still stand by the idea that culture is to be shared, so I really don't care about any appropriation as long as it isn't harming, such as exploiting workers etc, the people it was taken from(in the sense of my example of the South American tribe).

[Kraenen]

Cultural Appropriation is on my list of Things that Make Me Ashamed to Call Myself Liberal.

Like seriously. How racist can you get, saying "this thing belongs to my race and my race only!"

This is really the best summary of the whole issue.

[Cheze]

like most social issues these days, the idea of 'cultural appropriation' is an important one that's immediately gotten used as a stalking horse for a bunch of people online who are really only interested in finding new and inventive ways to troll one another

as with the example of that white dude who's a virtuoso chef specializing in mexican cuisine, for the most part nobody is upset if people actually immerse themselves in a culture, learn about it, and reproduce/sell/etc it genuinely. Like, the dude genuinely loves mexican food, cooks it faithfully, and for the most part is celebrated for it.

The downside is stuff like the cleveland indian, or folks using a pastiche of another culture to make a quick buck or a cheap joke (the recent classic example is white girls wearing native headresses for halloween.) Using a (generally negative) stereotype of another race or culture that way sucks, especially when you're a member of the dominant racial/cultural group and can't really be threatened in a similar way.

[Dug]

I don't have a problem with it I just think its painfully tasteless to say... as somebody not of that culture... get like idk a Ta-Moko (maori tattoos) when they have deeper cultural meaning behind them and aren't just a fashion statement. Or people desperately trying to adopt Jamaican culture and think they all worship bob marley, smoke weed 24/7 etc.

Like there's nothing wrong with having an appreciation for a culture and its flattering in many ways but there's a line between having respect and making yourself look like a huge tool.

I guess what I'm trying to say is adopt practices of other cultures if you wish but try and understand the meaning behind what you're doing/wearing and not just for a fashion statement. If you respect a culture actually respect it.

[Tyrgannus]

What I ask people that insist the cultural appropriation is some form of oppression or at least micro aggression is what is the end goal? What exactly do you want?

It's not even some well worded academic question. It's simply asking what they want. Prepare to get a long winded mouthful of weasel words that make less and less sense with each sentence uttered as they try to defend their cognitive dissonance that legitimately wants people to live as stereotypes and segregate themselves.

Oh, and far as music goes specifically, no one owns notes or rhythms. No one.

[Jinpachi]

what is that supposed to mean?

It means fuck safe spaces

[Deleted]

I always think of this quote from Churchill when i hear stupid shit like cultural appropriation : "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"

Question is how far does cultural appropriation stretch, cars ? airplanes ? clothes ? traditions ? work ethics ? Using a tablewere while eating ?

[Direpenguin]

It's hard to understand when you don't have any culture of your own. White people are so boring and lacking culture they feel the need to surround themselves with others' culture. White people have no culture to appropriate.

Try having some empathy instead of just blaming everything on some "SJW" boogeyman. FYI white people came to america, killed native americans, forced them onto reservations and now dress up like their ancestors to ask for candy. If you can't understand why dressing up as an indian might offend a native american then i don't really know what more to say.

Nordic people have no culture? How about the French? Dutch? German? Russian? Which "white people" were you referring to, exactly? Because most of them have culture coming out their fucking ass. It's nice how you just lump "white people" into some generic wrapping, as if they all just came over from a single, isolated iceberg floating in the ocean for 1000s of years.

Oh, what race/nationality are you, and where are you from, that your ancestors didn't kill or enslave any other peoples in their history? I'm willing to bet there are literally zero people on this planet who can make that claim.

And what are you defining as 'culture'? Hair styles? Music? How about hygiene? Is wearing pants or taking baths appropriating culture? Or does it just have to be hip, in your eyes, to be something that can be appropriated?

[May90]

"literally no one"
"strawman"

You're culturally appropriating the English language incorrectly.


http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/11/...appropriation/
https://spoonuniversity.com/news/why...-is-offensive/
http://people.com/food/lena-dunham-o...appropriation/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...-cultures-food

Not a single one of these said that eating taco if you are not from taco-creating culture is bad. *yawn* You people are not even trying any more.

[Kraenen]

Not a single one of these said that eating taco if you are not from taco-creating culture is bad. *yawn* You people are not even trying any more.

What taco creating culture?