One of my favorite Hobby Horses -- Who Owns Culture and What Does "Cultural Appropriation" Mean?

[osewalrus]

 It's the dress that broke the Interent, kinda.
https://www.todayonline.com/world/teenagers-prom-dress-stirs-furore-us-not-china

Well, not the famous The Dress (which actually provided the first new thing for neuroscientists specializing in color perception to debate in years). This involves Ms. Keziah Daum of Utah's decision to wear a cheongsam (also called a qipao) to her prom. For those who have never heard of it, it's dress popular in China from the 1920s into the mid-1960s. Like everything else, it has had a bit of a revival recently, including in China. Critically for the conversation, it is not a dress of any particular cultural, religious or ethnic significance. It's roughly the equivalent of someone in Beijing deciding to wear a Jackie Kennedy-style knock-off complete with 1960s style hat or, God help us, one of those awful corduroy suits that were popular in the U.S. in the early 1980s (please do not ask to see my Bar Mitzvah picture).

As the article notes, a number of Asian Americans got upset on Twitter when Ms. Daum's instagram picture began to circulate. They Tweeted quite angrily about "cultural appropriation" and the inappropriateness of a white teen wearing a Chinese-style dress. OTOH, when news of this reached China (and the rest of Asia), many there viewed this with pride. Their opinion was "look, we are a big deal. Even some white girl in Utah wants to wear our stuff."  A number of others also noted that Asians have picked up a number of European cultural things (like celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday -- something I saw in Dubai as well).

All of which raises several questions that really are deserving of discussion. The problem, of course, is that no one ever actually wants to "discuss" anything these days. People generally prefer to start with either a very passionate opinion, or a thorough disinterest/aversion to any topic that will bring out all the people with strong opinions. 

But in any event, the questions are fun for people who actually care to discuss and debate such things. For me, his raises the following:

1. What the heck do we actually mean by "cultural appropriation?"

2. Who gets to define culture? 

3. How do people of immigrant ancestry -- particularly non-white immigrant ancestry -- define their connection to their culture while also remaining firmly American?

Since Dreamwidth has the annoying tendency to lose my drafts and make me start from scratch, I'll have to dig into the answers in a follow up post.

Comments

re: Cultural Appropriation

[etherial]

I would begin by watching "Cultural Appropriation: The Musical", AKA The Nightmare Before Christmas.

You know, I think this Christmas thing
It's not as tricky as it seems
And why should they have all the fun?
It should belong to anyone
Not anyone, in fact, but me
Why, I could make a Christmas tree

The thing about Cultural Appropriation is that it's when the Majority Culture takes away something from a Minority Culture. One of the reasons that Asians loved the dress and Asian Americans hated it is because Asians don't have to put up with white people "ching-chong"ing and "flied lice"ing at them all the time.

Or when African Americans are routinely fired for wearing their hair in tight braids or dreads (AKA styles that are natural to their hair) but white people are praised for being "edgy" when they do all sorts of horrible things to their hair in order to get them to look like that.

Or when white people open up ethnic restaurants and ethnic dance studios and leverage their white privilege economically to put their non-white competitors out of business.

But mostly it's about stealing other people's stuff and shitting all over it.

And there's no reason I can find
I couldn't handle Christmas time
I bet I could improve it too
And that's exactly what I'll do

Re: Cultural Appropriation

[osewalrus]

Ah, but this response contains lots and lots and lots of implicit assumptions. Particularly this part:
"But mostly it's about stealing other people's stuff and shitting all over it."

But in this case, the :shitting all over it" is the simple act of wearing it when not from one of the target cultures. So "shitting all over it" is something of a null, because there is no act of use that does not constitute "Shitting all over it."

Which brings us to the other more interesting point -- you are defining all "cultural appropriation" as, basically, "fuck you for making me conform to your majority culture!!" Which is certainly part of what animates it, but then it isn't really about cultural appropriation, it's about being pissed off at the majority culture.

Nor are you factoring in something else, because you are entirely focused on this being about oppression. But there is a more interesting element: what constitutes "your culture."

Chinese people living in China do not have to worry about defining themselves as Chinese and connected to Chinese culture. they live in China. Whatever they do is "Chinese culture."

But it is a standard problem of second and third generation immigrants as to how they define their membership in both the "parent" culture and the surrounding majority culture.

Those who live entirely cut off from the majority culture -- usually first generation who often do not even speak English, generally do not care what other people of the surrounding culture wear and eat of their culture. they don't need to worry about it. First generation immigrants from China are Chinese. They have no problem defining themselves as Chinese. It's who they are. This doesn't mean they won't get upset about someone profaning some important symbol or showing disrespect. But they generally do not display nearly the need to define themselves in terms of is and isn't permissible to themselves or others.

Again, the key flaw in your Nightmare Before Christmas analogy is that Jack Skellington *literally* appropriates Christmas by kidnapping Santa and holding him prisoner. He takes all the symbols of Christmas and "improves" them by incorporating Halloween twists. But that is totally absent here. The woman in question wore a dress. She did not in any way seek to change it. She did not steal it from someone else. No one else anywhere is short a qipao.

For your analogy to hold, the mere act of wearing it by specifically a caucasian person (or anyone non-Asian?) is "shitting all over it." It takes no negative action or intent. It is the mere use of an item from another culture that constitutes an "appropriation."

I agree that there seems to be a sizable portion of folks who use it this way, but you still don't answer the question of "who decides?" Also, what items? Chopsticks? Decorated silk scarves? Wax parasols? All are cultural artifacts that have at various times been associated with Chinese culture and crossed over into European or American fashion from time to time. And who decides? If something is the product of multiple cultures, such as certain styles of dress that are common in Japan, China and S. Korea, who decides? What about martial arts? Is the wearing of a martial arts uniform associated with a particular form (in my case, Aikido, which is very definitely a Japanese martial art) allowable? Why? Because it is "sport" rather than "culture?"

The answer is usually to avoid the question because it basically boils down to "I know it when I see it." Which is essentially a form of heckler's veto. The other answer is to usually cite all sorts of extremes where it is clearly actual appropriation (taking one thing from another and they don't have it left) or actual sign of disrespect.

Again, to engage in the discussion is to generally be assigned a side. But the concept is sufficiently nebulous as to warrant serious debate -- as well as to ask the fundamental question: why do you (for whatever value of 'you') care? My answer to the later is that those who have the most tenuous connection to their "native culture" tend to be the most vigorous in defending their cultural prerogative. Which becomes problematic, because the natural response of the majority is to simply exclude all non-safe things entirely.