Merf. Thinking is Hard.Appropriators hate the word “No”
At the end of the day, appropriators show their asses because they’re more concerned about being angry that POC dared to say “No” to them, than anything else - NEVER do you see them stepping up to fight against all the backlash and discrimination POC receive, when they do those same cultural practices.
You can show up to goggle at Black church choir- you’re not there when the place is firebombed.
You can demand to get to wear dreads - you don’t even know about natural hair discrimination in the workplace.
You want to be a “Native shaman” - you don’t know jack about the residential schools or the current state of the tribe (or even what tribe) you’re appropriating from.
Etc. etc.
If you think all these things “are cool” why don’t you help the people who originated these practices/fashions/beliefs BE ALLOWED TO PRACTICE THEM? (and that’s before we even GET to the part of them choosing how and where and who gets to practice these things…)
Oh, that’s because it’s all about you, really.
And that’s where you show your white supremacy and domination attitude - you’re more invested in making sure that the world cheers you on for donning the practices of others like a fashion or a toy or a hobby, than you are about the survival of the practice itself.
And suddenly we’ve got white jazz and white rock and roll.
You’re not celebrating culture, you’re celebrating conquest. Cultural genocide, we see you.
Oh man 4 AM before-work blogging.
You had me for a while, but then I realized.
Culture does not work like that.
Do I want to make sure everyone in native cultures are allowed to practice said native cultures? Yes, very much so.
Do I want every white person wearing Dreads to know about natural hair discrimination? Hell yes. I want every white person…every person in general, to know about natural hair discrimination, because it is really stupid that it is still so damn prevalent in our society. It really needs to be stopped.
Do I want people, when they like a cultural element, when they take a cultural element and want to use it, to actually understand what it is, to comprehend its significance in the culture, and have that inform their attitudes to using it? YES. CAPITAL YES.
But then you start up about Rock and Roll.
Let me tell you how culture works, how culture has always worked.
People see a thing that they like, they take it, and understand it, and make it theirs. And the thing that is theirs? It is a new thing, and the old thing is still there, and still belongs to the original people. And the original people often see how the new people have changed their thing, and if they like it, they change their thing. But they change it even more.
Things build up, and grow.
Anime and manga had some roots in the original sequential art tradition of Japan, but it never really became a thing until Osamu Tezuka borrowed tricks from Walt Disney. Anime and western cartoons have been swapping elements back and forth between each other like horny teenagers swap spit.
And do you listen to any music made after the 1950s? Because any rock and roll made after around then has the inexorable taint of white people. White people like Buddy Holly and Elvis. The Beatles. Rolling Stones. Pink Floyd. Even rock made by black people. Things go back and forth. It’s how it’s always been, and with jet planes and worldwide governments, things are just faster now.
And that kind of thing makes our entire cultural experience, on the balance, richer.
It makes the world a better, more livable place.
People will stop trading back and forth cultural elements when you put all the black people in one place and the white people in another place and all the Indians in another place and all the native people in a lot of places based on tribe. And build a whole lot of walls. And they have to be high walls.
And this is generally regarded to be a bad idea. Because it is.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ask people to be informed or good about it. You should.
But people do not sit back and just admire culture. People PARTICIPATE in culture. It is how it has always worked, and it makes our lives livable.
There is so much ridiculous bullshit in this post racial paradise fanfiction that I cant even begin to try and take this down.
For those of you who live on planet earth and actually want to know about the theft of Black intellectual property that underlies rock music, I suggest you read the following:
Stealing the Blues: Does Intellectual Property Appropriation Belong in the Debate Over African-American Reparations?
Black artists and performers created virtually every original American musical genre, but found their work appropriated wholesale in the early American music industry. The combination of copyright and contract law grafted upon a pervasive system of racial stratification facilitated the widespread exploitation of Black artists. As the debate over reparations for African-Americans proceeds, the systematic deprivation of creative artists deserves consideration within the debate. Claims for theft of creative product overcome some, although certainly not all of the traditional obstacles to reparations. For these reasons, IP deprivations arguably belong in the debate over African-American reparations.
kitsuneofdoom, have a seat and read this essay. Maybe then you’d not miss the point so much.
