this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Now if you take the ~~idiotic~~ idea of "cultural appropriation" to ~~its natural conclusion~~ a ridiculous extreme, you arrive at very nearly the same idea

Fixed 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, the complicated nature is that Chinese people weren't offended, and white people were.

Yes, it was a kimono. A qinao is a type of kimono. As it says in the article.

I'm not lying, and I haven't made any claims other than that this incident was a false alarm. Don't confuse me for the other user.

For the record, my view is that cultural appropriation is a real and serious issue, but some people are quick to jump the gun with such accusations, out of a misplaced (and potentially racist) paternalistic need to "defend" marginalised people, as if they themselves can't call people out, especially when said people are saying such a thing isn't even offensive, just like the OP.

See? That's the complicated part. I can actually describe it. You didn't even try. Just waved at the word as if it made your point for you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

There was this white singer that got uninvited by fff here in Germany because she wore dreadlocks. Cant have that when you are white it seems. No logical reason necessary, too. Can just brand it "cultural appropriation" and you're good. Oh shit, there is prove that greeks or wikings had dreadlocks? Nae, just gonna ignore that cause it doesnt fit my stereotypical views of the world.

The argument might seem overstreched, but shit like this happens.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

and yet Carola Rackete was a welcomed visitor of fff. i didn't understand the reasoning behind the singer thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

There is none, it's all signal politics, shibboleth juggling. The same people also unironically use the term "BIPOC" in a German context without realising that it means Black and say Vietnamese Germans, includes organic potatoes, but excludes e.g. Turkish or Italian-Germans as they're neither black, indigenous, or "of colour".

They simply heard that term online used by their ingroup and now parrot it to signal that they're part of that ingroup.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

My take here is that people eager to get angry at something without a proper academic background shouldn't use academic terms such as cultural appropriation, because the popular understanding of the term is definitely what @crispy_[email protected] is referring to, and has led the first person at the OP to take an absurdly oversensitive position.