Cultural Appropriation

[Symphonic]

Is being a social justice warrior the hip thing, these days, or is everyone just getting offended when they don't have to be?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/16/europe...ang/index.html

Chanel is selling a boomerang for over 1000 dollars. I have a hard time understanding if the criticism is because it's a boomerang, or because it's an "expensive" one.

(CNN) - French fashion label Chanel has been accused of appropriating Indigenous Australian culture by selling a £1,130 boomerang.

The item -- part of the Chanel spring-summer 2017 collection and priced at $1,325 for US buyers -- sparked a heated debate on social media.

"Cultural appropriation hits a new low - I sincerely hope that @Chanel is donating all the profits to underprivileged aboriginal communities," wrote one Twitter user.

https://twitter.com/BI0MECHANICAL/st...00466539094016

The firm said it "deeply regrets that some may have felt offended".

American beauty vlogger and make-up artist Jeffree Star drew widespread attention to the boomerang, which is made of wood and resin, when he posted about it on social media on Monday.

Starr said he was "having so much fun" with one.

But thousands of comments were posted in response - many of them negative.

Nayuka Gorrie, an activist, wrote on Twitter: "When I think about Aboriginal culture, I think @Chanel.

"Have decided to save for the next three years so I can connect with my culture."

Nathan Sentance, an Indigenous project officer at the Australian Museum, told The Guardian in Australia that at A$1,930, the boomerang cost almost 10% of the average annual income of Indigenous Australians.

And Kaylah Truth, a Brisbane rapper who describes herself as a Gurang / Ngugi woman wrote on Twitter: "That Chanel boomerang better be able to return even after knocking me a kangaroo and Chanel CEO for lunch."

However, some suggested that the controversy was ill-founded. "There's nothing worse in the world?" asked one Twitter user. "Kids are raped & murdered every day & a BOOMERANG is important to u?"

Another tweeted: "Its a boomerang man.. chill."

Some social media posts pointed out that other retail outlets sell boomerangs as toys -- including Australian tourist shops.

In a statement, Chanel told CNN: "Chanel is extremely committed to respecting all cultures, and deeply regrets that some may have felt offended.

"The inspiration was taken from leisure activities from other parts of the world, and it was not our intention to disrespect the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and their significance to the boomerang as a cultural object. As such, this object was included into a sportswear range."

The statement added that "sportswear has always been part of Chanel's identity" and "the spring-summer 17 collection boomerang is part of this long-standing approach."

The collection also includes other expensive sporting items, including tennis rackets, tennis balls, and beach rackets and balls.

The boomerang remained available for purchase on the Chanel website on Tuesday.

I tend to lean towards the people who commented that children are raped and murdered, and you're worried about a boomerang? If anything, someone buying a boomerang might find an appreciation for those who created them in the first place.

Reminds me of a post my wife shared with me - she likes to use a baby wrap, and someone was offended because carrying your baby in a wrap was cultural appropriation, that it is "African" and nobody else should be doing it. And we both were like... I'm pretty sure every country has wrapped babies to carry them, yes, different countries in Africa, but most Asian countries, and south american countries wrap their babies to carry them as well. But this person was SUPER offended...

[NED funded]

Cultural appropriation is pretty stupid IMO. We live in a globalized world and stuff like cultural melting pots should be promoted not bashed upon, especially if we want newcomers to properly integrate.

[Grimbold21]

Maybe they should hear about commercialization of Heritage

[purebalance]

I mean hell let me tell Beyonce to get the blonde hair and wigs off then because she's appropriating white culture.

It's also funny in this light how you can't dress up at a non white cultural reference for Halloween and yet I see non Irish people dressing up like Irish people on St. Patrick's Day.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Cultural appropriation = nobody should be sharing anything between cultures lest we 'll have such horrors as a Brit throwing a boomerang or a German eating a curry!

[Serpha]

OK another single twat complaining about something and suddenly there's an outrage. Blown way way way out of proportion.

[Revi]

Just people on Twitter being idiots again.

There's nothing disrespectful about using the boomerang design in any context. They had a good design, so it spread, that's how culture works. Nobody owes aboriginals anything for using the design.

[Kraenen]

It's interesting when it happens in reverse and you apply this as far as it can go. Should black people stop appropriating "white culture" - things like science and technology and democracy? If you see why this is so dumb, you should see why the typical examples are also dumb.

Typically if you're not a masochist you'll be fine with people adopting your way of life. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pXotxxYFlk

[Everwake]

Companies like Chanel are better off ignoring twitter weepmasters. Apologizing just legitimizes these morons.

[Moralgy]

Culture is shared, it spreads from culture to culture. The people that take it to an extreme and say NO YOU CAN'T EVER DO THAT CAUSE X/Y/Z are idiots, but the original idea of being against appropriation is to avoid making money off the back of another culture when you did no work to create said thing and/or being insulting. Akin to selling a "native american headdress" when all the company did was see a picture of it and copy it, not to mention warping it into something it was never meant to be.

Honestly, I never bothered caring about the "appropriation is bad" type mentality cause the same cultures that people try to protect incorporate other culture's stuff to profit.

[Kalis]

That's really just an extreme version. A more general perspective is that people should simply be a bit more considerate towards other cultures and try to avoid using elements of those cultures in a way that may be disrespectful or particularly ignorant or that may perpetuate harmful ideas about those cultures. Furthermore, people probably shouldn't be seizing the elements of other cultures as a way of making money, especially if they do so to the detriment of the people who actually belong to those cultures.

So no non-British person should create business suits to sell then? No non-British person should play football, cricket or golf professionally? No non-British person should ever build a train? British people could do all those, so anyone not British doing so is seizing elements of British culture as a way of making money to the detriment of British people.

Alternatively, accept that cultural appropriation is a shit concept and sometimes people will do things you do not like.

[The Oblivion]

my god. this is just more made up sjw/pc bullshit. attention seeking whores is all they are. PC is the new paris hilton/kim kardashian, just further along the autism spectrum.

[NED funded]

It's interesting when it happens in reverse and you apply this as far as it can go. Should black people stop appropriating "white culture" - things like science and technology and democracy? If you see why this is so dumb, you should see why the typical examples are also dumb.

Typically if you're not a masochist you'll be fine with people adopting your way of life. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pXotxxYFlk

Not surprised tbh. From personal experience Japanese don't have a problem with others adopting their culture, I think it would be more interesting to know what's the general opinion on the opposite happening.

[Kalis]

I'd swear you people deliberately misunderstand if I didn't know better.

I used your wording, it is your argument.

[The Oblivion]

That's really just an extreme version. A more general perspective is that people should simply be a bit more considerate towards other cultures and try to avoid using elements of those cultures in a way that may be disrespectful or particularly ignorant or that may perpetuate harmful ideas about those cultures. Furthermore, people probably shouldn't be seizing the elements of other cultures as a way of making money, especially if they do so to the detriment of the people who actually belong to those cultures.

this is an extreme version and utter bullshit.

[Independent voter]

Lil Dicky does cultural appropriation right.

[Hammerfest]

The thing that fascinates me about the concept of "cultural appropriation" is the notion that anyone owns the things that are being "appropriated" in the first place.

[Kalis]

This isn't even worth taking seriously.

You are disagreeing with your own argument, all I did was insert a particular culture...

"...people probably shouldn't be seizing the elements of other cultures as a way of making money, especially if they do so to the detriment of the people who actually belong to those cultures."

"...anyone not British (people outside the culture) doing so is seizing elements of British culture (the other culture) as a way of making money to the detriment of British people (people who belong to that culture who lose out financially)."

[Torto]

That's really just an extreme version. A more general perspective is that people should simply be a bit more considerate towards other cultures and try to avoid using elements of those cultures in a way that may be disrespectful or particularly ignorant or that may perpetuate harmful ideas about those cultures. Furthermore, people probably shouldn't be seizing the elements of other cultures as a way of making money, especially if they do so to the detriment of the people who actually belong to those cultures.

How is buying and throwing a boomerang inconsiderate to anyone?

For years, the British Museum kept aboriginal remains taken from when the empire colonised Australia. This caused ongoing angst with the aboriginals here because culturally it doesn't get any worse than that. They become offended if there is even a photo of a deceased aboriginal. Finally the museum returned the remains and all is well.

That is an example of cultural insensitivity, not the purchasing and throwing of a bent stick.

[Dr Assbandit]

Cultural appropriation is a stupid concept to me and honestly it just seems like an excuse to critize when white people do it.

Yes respect and deference should be shown to different cultures, but you can't argue that you are for multiculturalism on one hand and then with the next breath clutch your pearls that some white chick dressed as a geisha or a white dude dressed as a monk.

Barring the unsavory practices of a culture, mixing of clothes, traditions, architecture, food, song and many other examples creates something wonderful and greater than the sum of its parts.