My Culture is not your prom dress 2: electric boogaloo.
As a chinese, you’re welcome to do so. It’s Lunar new year, there’s nothing special or specific about it. Pop a beer, play firework, or whatever. Make up your culture for celebrate the new year, that’s how culture is born! There’s not even a standard for it in China, different region have different way to celebrate. And each household even have their own way to celebrate! How is any of this gatekeeping make sense i don’t know.
It’s so sad to see a melting pot now call for separation.
For you I had a cigar and sipped some bourbon. In great hopes of a fine new year for us both!
“friendly reminder that if you’re white, you’d better be uptight to the point of constipation at all times, except for moments of stress-induced diarrhea”
Gatekeeping is a special form of being special
Wat? This is so stupid it actually causes me physical pain. That’s like telling anyone who’s not a Christian they can’t celebrate Christmas. 🙄
I think this should be reinforced. If your name isn’t Christian then you can’t celebrate Christmas :(
Or anyone who is, considering it’s not a Christian holiday by origin
How pathetic do you have to be to gatekeep a celebration?
Racism from the left is just so unexpected, but here we are
Overprotectiveness. It’s irritating and misguided, but it isn’t bigotry.
It is. I’ll elaborate. The neonazis in France, Germany, Hungary, and other places with a growing nazi problem are calling for ethnostates. One country per ethnicity. No cultural exchange, no learning from other cultures, no exchange and most of all absolutely no exchange of people.
Now if you take the idiotic idea of “cultural appropriation” to its natural conclusion, you arrive at very nearly the same idea. Hermetically closed cultures separate from each other, no exchange. Everyone only gets to enjoy the culture they happen to be born in.
This is why it is racist. Because the separation of peoples and cultures is a racist idea.
Humanity absolutely thrives when cultures mix. The whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. Racism and bigotry cease to exist the more cultures and peoples mix. And I mean mix, not live separate lives that just happen to be in the same geographic location, just to be clear.
Now if you take the
idioticidea of “cultural appropriation” toits natural conclusiona ridiculous extreme, you arrive at very nearly the same ideaFixed that for you.
Opposition to cultural insensitivity and reducing cultures to exploitable stereotypes ≠ advocating for segregation and only idiots and people arguing in bad faith would ever claim anything of the sort.
I mean, is it cultural insensitivity or exploiting stereotypes for a white teenager to wear a kimono? Because one got sent home for doing so around here because it was “cultural appropriation and inappropriate”…
In the end the people who see cultural appropriation everywhere might not be advocating for each culture to have their own country (they’ll never tell anyone to move back to their country), but what they’re advocating for is for each cultures to live in the same place and to not exchange anything…
Yeah, I’m going to need a source on that incident… I bet there was a lot more to it than just “wearing a kimono”.
Even if there wasn’t, one example of overzealousness doesn’t mean that the entire concept of cultural appropriation is invalid. That’s not how anything works.
the people who see cultural appropriation everywhere
Are these people in the room right now? Or do you only imagine them when you’re actively making fallacious arguments to support your ridiculous claims that cultural sensitivity is the same thing as demanding segregation?
She really did “just wear a kimono”:
https://www.glamour.com/story/qipao-prom-dress-controversy-response
It literally says in the very headline that it’s a lot more complicated than you think and that’s your “slam dunk” example? 🤦
Also, wasn’t even a kimono, which is revealed in the very first paragraph of the article itself.
If you’re going to deliberately lie and distort to fit reality around your claims, at least make a fucking effort!
I’m Jewish. I invite you all to celebrate any Jewish holiday. But they’re all stupid religious bullshit other than the food part, so I wouldn’t bother.
The food is the best part of any holiday, to be fair.
Judaism is a closed religion, lighting candles for Hanukkah is one thing and that’s cool if you want to partake in some fun. Saying prayers over those candles is markedly different and definitely appropriation.
I wouldn’t call it appropriation. Appropriation would be claiming those weren’t Jewish prayers or a menorah, they were Christian (or whatever).
A non-Jew saying Hebrew prayers doesn’t offend me. My non-Jewish wife has done it before because she got a masters in folklore and wanted to take part. She didn’t claim it as her own, she just took part in the ceremony. And plenty of non-Jewish spouses of Jews have done the same thing.
Honestly, if you’re curious and you want to take part in Jewish ceremonies, go for it. Judaism is not as closed as you think. If it was, you wouldn’t have famous converts like Sammy Davis, Jr. and Isla Fisher (and Ivanka Trump, unfortunately). It’s not a simple process like turning around three times and saying “I’m a Jew!” but it’s not exactly a ridiculous challenge either.
A non Jew saying Jewish prayers is absolutely appropriation. There’s a rather clear line of thinking surrounding this in the greater Jewish community especially amongst the rabbinical crowd, and the Messianics are a rather large part of it.
Rabbis aren’t popes. They don’t get to decide what is or is not offensive to Jews in general. Sure, very religious Jews might have a problem with it. And I could not care less what they think. Especially when they’re the minority in the U.S.
62% of self-described American Jews say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while just 15% say it is mainly a matter of religion. Even among Jews by religion, 55% say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while 66% say it is not necessary to believe in God to be Jewish.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism
Do you honestly think most Jews would have a big problem with my wife saying a blessing over the menorah when most of them don’t even think you have to believe in a god? I guarantee you more Jews were offended by Bradley Cooper playing Leonard Bernstein with a prosthetic nose than they would be over a non-Jew saying a Hebrew prayer.
Rabbi’s aren’t Pope’s and they’re born to argue so when the vast majority of them clearly state that a non Jew saying Jewish prayers is contrary to the principles of the religion then I’m going to accept that as a religious decree.
So yea your non jewish wife saying the bracha is a problem. You’re welcome to practice as you see fit, no one’s going to pull your Jew card over it but that doesn’t make it halacha/Kosher/ cool or any other version of acceptable.
Why do Rabbis get to declare what is cultural appropriation when only 15% of American Jews say Judaism is about religion?
It sounds like you are offended by it. I would love some evidence that the general Jewish population agrees with you.
Why do the people who devote their lives to studying the scriptures of the religion get to be the ones who decide what’s acceptable within the religion and what’s not?
Because they’re literally the subject matter experts. It’s also pretty damn clear in the tanach too. In order to perform the mitzvah you need to be Jewish.
I’m not offended by how you choose to practice your religion, I’m pointing out that what you’re doing is absolutely cultural appropriation and off sides with the understood practice of the religion as a whole. You’re the one who seems to be offended by being called out on this, and that’s for you to come to grips with not me.
I recall when I was first informed about “cultural appropriation” and how it boiled down to the concept that if a white person enjoys any aspect of a non-white culture it was an act of racism. Gotta love the gravity well of ultra liberal bullshit warping back in on itself and becoming fascism.
That’s a bullshit explanation of cultural appropriation and the person you heard it from is an idiot. Actual cultural appropriation is when you take something from another culture and either erase or overwrite its origin, so the original culture in its original form becomes forgotten.
For example, when white artists re-recorded songs from black artists and specifically removed them from the credits and claimed them as their own, that was cultural appropriation. When movie studios chopped up Indian culture and presented it in a completely distorted and inaccurate light, so much so that the original meanings were lost, that was cultural appropriation.
Simply being a participant in someone else’s cultural celebration is not cultural appropriation.
Considering I’ve seen a lot of gatekeeping morons go on about cultural appropriation without ever mentioning that, I think most don’t understand this crucial distinction.
If you form your understanding on topics you don’t understand based on what “gatekeeping morons” think or do, you are going to be perpetually misinformed
No one falls on a sword for people who didn’t ask like left leaning white women in first world countries.
You understand countering ignorance with prejudice isn’t helpful, right?
Hey, you leave them and their strawwomen alone!
It’s chinese new year? Why they call it lunar year? Yes I know their calendar is running by the moon. Is “lunar year” ultra-woke to avoid a “ugly” word like “chinese”? An other case of woke racism?
No racism, just accuracy.
It’s more because so many cultures have a lunar calendar, so even though China is the largest population that uses the lunar calendar, it’s not precise to just call it the Chinese New Year, since so many countries and cultures also have a lunar calendar that share significant dates.
Sorry, today it’s New Year in the Chinese Calendar. It’s celebrated by Chinese all over the world. And it’s not even a really “lunar” calendar. More precise is to call it a “lunar-solar” calendar. Racism, not accuracy.
We agree; all of the stuff you’re saying is just racism, not accuracy.
Who is “we”? Cancel Culture! Haha.
Definitely! Haha, let’s cancel your personal culture(shouldn’t be difficult with the minimal amount of culture you possess)!
Also, I guess Yolo, that seems in your wheelhouse.
Happy New Chinese Year!
Thanks! Inaccurate, but consistent with your line of reasoning.
These people want to show, so hard, that they care but in the end they don’t realize they are practically pushing for segregation.
This is what happens most of the time when people scream cultural appropriation. The problem is that people without understanding of the terms use the terms every day. This leads to scenarios like the one above, or where someone is getting offended you’re enjoying a cultural food, or listening to a specific kind of music. Appreciating other cultures isn’t appropriation.
Exactly, appropriating means to take and pretend you invented it or created it. Interacting with culture or enjoying other people’s culture isn’t harmful and if these people actually went to other countries they’d realize their people WANT to share their culture.
Yeah I agree that there is a TAKE vs a SHARE.
Some of the reason cultural appropriation is a bad thing is due to capitalism. Taking something, even symbolically, for profit, is different than learning, experiencing and sharing.
These people are racists. That’s it.
That’s why I laugh at anyone who unironically says “Cultural Appropiation”
I wonder if they realize that if cultures didn’t borrow from other cultures we wouldn’t have anime or instant ramen.
Or colleges, paper, math, the entire judicial system, and fireworks.
Hundred. Percent. It’s astounding, I am astounded at the number of messages I have received as a result of this post exactly mirroring the less desired sentiment you’ve described.
But it’s cool, they can go f*** themselves, there’s like 2 billion people wholesomely celebrating this holiday in defiance of bigotry, so it’s not a real problem.
