Damn, I really took it to heart several years ago when I started finding out almost everything I liked was considered cultural appropriation (I always thought it was cultural appreciation, and it’s not like I was profiting off of anything, but nope I was a white dude so apparently it was a problem if the pattern on my shirt looked a little to meso-american. I just liked the shirt).
Like, people were downright cruel about it. It really killed me on the inside, just day-by-day learning all these new things that I wasn’t supposed to like, even though I had liked them for a long time. I didn’t know what to like anymore. Music, clothes, food, etc.; just crushed me more a little each day because it was so cool to gang up on the white guy I guess.
But I wanted to do my best, be a good person, examine my biases and overcome my ignorance, etc., so if I argued with it much at first I didn’t for very long and after a while I started giving up a lot of things I previously enjoyed…
Yep. There are definitely some lines though, like I would be offended if I saw Americans tattooing a moko because they thought it was cool. It’s a sacred symbol and has meaning. But wearing generic clothes, cooking food, etc, using parts of every day culture, that’s just culture spreading because people appreciate it. That keeps culture alive.
Ripping on a white girl because she wore a Hindi styled dress achieves absolutely nothing. And I never see those people attacking Koreans for wearing suits or driving cars, which are very much European culture.
Yep, cultural appropriation is a myth created by white women to put down other white women. I’ve never seen it in any other circumstance.
Damn, I really took it to heart several years ago when I started finding out almost everything I liked was considered cultural appropriation (I always thought it was cultural appreciation, and it’s not like I was profiting off of anything, but nope I was a white dude so apparently it was a problem if the pattern on my shirt looked a little to meso-american. I just liked the shirt).
Like, people were downright cruel about it. It really killed me on the inside, just day-by-day learning all these new things that I wasn’t supposed to like, even though I had liked them for a long time. I didn’t know what to like anymore. Music, clothes, food, etc.; just crushed me more a little each day because it was so cool to gang up on the white guy I guess.
But I wanted to do my best, be a good person, examine my biases and overcome my ignorance, etc., so if I argued with it much at first I didn’t for very long and after a while I started giving up a lot of things I previously enjoyed…
Yep. There are definitely some lines though, like I would be offended if I saw Americans tattooing a moko because they thought it was cool. It’s a sacred symbol and has meaning. But wearing generic clothes, cooking food, etc, using parts of every day culture, that’s just culture spreading because people appreciate it. That keeps culture alive.
Ripping on a white girl because she wore a Hindi styled dress achieves absolutely nothing. And I never see those people attacking Koreans for wearing suits or driving cars, which are very much European culture.