Posts

Culturally appropriating tattoos.

Image
A few days ago, a friend of mine from Slovenia sent me a picture of his friend's tattoo which was written in Chinese and asking me for translation.  So I told her that the top letter is 美 as in beautiful/pretty and the bottom one is 爱 which means love. She was actually hoping that it meant hooker or something else. Well, sorry to disappoint her it actually meant beautiful love. So while translating it for her I was thinking to myself why would someone get a tattoo in another language if they don't even understand it. A Slovenian guy getting a Chinese tattoo, seems a bit weird isn't it?  Does that count as cultural appropriation?  This issue becomes even more complicated when the tattoos themselves are tied into your own spirituality, either with the actual symbols or with what those symbols represent. It is important to understand how these can be harmful and appropriative in many cases. (Coles, 2016) Tattoos of Asian deities, the Buddha, Calaveras , Nativ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Themed Parties Pt2

Image
In the year 2012, after hosting an offensive Native-themed  party  on September, Paul Frank Industries  apologized  and later collaborated with four Native American artists from different tribes and regions across the country to design a collection of clothing and accessories. (Walker, 2014)  Paul Frank also took down thousands of photos taken during the event from their Facebook page  (Keene, 2012). The poster design for the Native American themed party. (Keene, 2012) Several design flaws that I've noticed were the use of the dreamcatcher that is a symbol of unity among the various Indigenous Nations, and a general symbol of identification with Native American or First Nations cultures in the poster to depict 'Native American-ness'. Upon further inspection, the font for the word 'dream' looks like tipi/teepee. Furthermore, the monkey that is the mascot for Paul Frank is seen wearing warpaint and also a feathered war bonnet which is tradit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Themed parties

Image
Speaking of themed parties in the previous post, an annual party that was colonial themed organized by St Paul's College, affiliated with the University of Sydney was accused of being racist. Guests were asked to dress in "white tie colonial uniform" for this year's "upscale" dinner with an 'end of the British Raj' theme. Indian food was also being served during the party. Sydney Morning Herald reported that a team of Indian and South Asian waiters, dressed in colorful traditional cultural garments served guests dressed to the nines, Indian delicacies, and curries. (NDTV.com, 2012) However, an ideological war broke an ideological war broke out at the University over whether the college was basking in the glory of colonialism and slavery within days of the event. Soon the public started expressing their anger on Facebook. ''I am Indian and I used to go to college. My relatives suffered in colonial India. This theme offended me and brought ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How and when is it considered wrong? Pt2

Cultural appropriation is also something that leads to the fetishism of a culture. For example, there are slutty Indian, cowboy, Arabian dancer, gypsies and much more (you name it, they got it) as costumes or lingeries. Because these are considered as "exotic" therefore it is being used as costumes to cater to one's fantasy. This is called  racial fetishism .   "We’re often introduced to other communities via their cultural practices. We get tricked into thinking that appreciating someone else’s food, music, and other traditions are akin to being in solidarity with one another."    Rachel Kuo, a Taiwanese writer at everyday feminism disagrees with the statement above. She mentioned that we need to learn each other’s struggles and work alongside each other than appreciating other cultures. Non-Black people of color need to do better to address anti-Blackness within our many communities. "Just like we shouldn’t benefit off of Black movements without co...
Post a Comment
Read more

How and when is it considered wrong? Pt1

Image
Ok, so we've established that the fact of the cultural appropriation thing means a much more dominant group appropriating clothes from a minority group. It seems that most of the times those who are under fire for cultural appropriating are white people. So, in this post, I would like to know that is it still considered cultural appropriation if people of color get a "pass" when they appropriate others? Is it ok for one minority group to appropriate another minority group's culture? I mean, it could be like they're "sharing" one another's culture. In Malaysia, you could see Indians and Chinese wearing Saree's or Baju Kurungs during a wedding or an event instead of their own traditional clothing. A Chinese wearing an Indian's traditional clothes.. doesn't that count as cultural appropriation? An annual dinner with the theme "Bollywood Night", attendees are required to dress for the theme. Does that count as cultural appropriati...
Post a Comment
Read more

Narrowing down

Image
Here are some research questions that I wish to answer for my essay.  Does cultural appropriation actually help that certain culture gain some recognition or is it doing it a disservice?  Just to clarify, the direction that I'm going is to focus on for this topic will be cultural appropriation in fashion. So as mentioned in my previous post, cultural appropriation is a really insensitive thing to do. So how does one appreciate someone else's culture without appropriating it? Is it possible to not offend anyone by taking inspiration from it?  While looking at articles for my research I've come across this term called tokenization or tokenism from Zoya Patel's article.  " Tokenism -  The practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce."  (Oxford Dic...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cultural Appropriation

Image
Cultural appropriation involves a dominant cultural group borrowing from minority groups and exploiting their culture usually through fashion, music, dance, and movies. It is not uncommon these days to find fashion brands looking for inspirations from every culture and churning out new clothing lines, Caucasian singers imitating African/American singers in rapping, hip-hop and soul music. When these dominant group culturally appropriate, they're seen as creative, edgy and stylish while the groups where the style originated from are being shamed for it. One excellent example is cornrows. When a Caucasian person does cornrows in their hair, they're praised for looking cool and chic however when a black person does it, they are discriminated and referred to as 'ghetto'. "Ghetto" is a derogatory term used towards individuals who lack the standards of manners and ethics. (Why Minorities Hate Cultural Appropriation, 2017) Cornrow Braiding origin...
Post a Comment
Read more