- A popular misconception of Yale University students, and Yale students of color in particular, has solidified in the media this week: They’re so fragile, over-sensitive and entitled that they can’t handle an intense exchange of ideas or an off-hand personal slight. They’ve been cast as politically correct, coddled millennials — “crybullies” who just need to grow up.
Yes, these students — my students — are making demands. But not because they’re pampered or looking for shelter from opposing points of view. It’s because the Yale they’ve found isn’t the Yale they were looking for.
The perception of "shouting" comes from marginalized people's frustration at having to defend themselves over and over and over from the same repetitive questions. It is exhausting to be expected to put on the teaching hat every time someone has a question. Cultural appropriation refers to the stripping of cultural symbols of their meaning or using them in a derogatory way. For example, native headdresses are equivalent to medals of honor bestowed upon soldiers and must be earned. That's why throwing it on for something like a Halloween party or a music festival is hurtful -- people are taking the symbol and disregarding the meaning. Black hairstyles are often referred to as unkempt or unprofessional on black people, but on white people, they're quirky and unique. Black people frequently get fired for wearing their hair naturally or in styles that express their blackness. Other people can put it on and take it off as they desire, but black people don't just get to say "today i don't feel like being black".
ON the subject of shouting. I've noticed that a lot of people that are around me get their daily dose of racial conversation from second hand sources, from the news, or viral videos, or forum posts, instead of one on one conversations or physical interactions with individuals in their own community. Those distanced conversations are decidedly one sided - you hear someone shouting and you naturally get rampped up, but you have no outlet to let out your ire. The conversation revolves only around discussions that conversations which have become heated enough to be yelling matches, and they generally only start at the most heated part of the conversation. You go from cat video to yelling match in a matter of seconds and it seems to make the human psyche get really boiled up. Recently, we did a tour of churches in our town - going to about two dozen churches in two dozen weeks, and listening to what they have to say. We heard from all kind of people with all kind of opinions about the state of the moral world, and listening to those groups was much more calm and informative because we weren't just having the conversation, we we're getting the context. I am sure the majority of people won't want to compensate for the discrepancy in effort expenditure between watching a 4 minute video and going and meeting people and learning their culture, but the people who do have the best chance of implementing real change (in my opinion at least).
For example, there was recently a video on /r/videos of some asian woman giving a speech about some racism she faced, and where she mentions it as a less of "Black people can be racist too" and the reaction to it should go unsaid among the protesters. However, watching the video in context, that person's story was absolutely out of context, and in the background someone says "This is why we need this space, so these conversations can happen, if we agree or disagree with them". Which really changed my perspective on what happened, turning that group from unreasonable idiots to a decently reasonable protest, although I still have a suspicion of this "space" not being too open to "all discussion", I am much more willing to support their protests as a result of watching the whole video and learning the whole context. Especially considering that, after the one group tried to stop recording, the "concerned students group" told everyone "let people record, don't stop them"
This is why it is exhausting. It's a million waves with all the strength of the ocean crashing on a a stubborn cliff over and over and over, and maybe a few grains of sand are worn away. It can't all be on marginalized people; the majority has to want to learn. And they have demonstrated repeatedly that they don't want to. People tone police and expect others to quietly accept generations of being ignored and repressed and shat on. MLK didn't shout and guess where that got him? It doesn't matter what marginalized people do; they will always be "complaining" or "whining" or "shouting". If I step on your foot and you say "ow that hurts", is that an invitation for me to debate you on how much it hurts? You don't REALLY hurt I didn't step on you THAT hard. No. You expect me to move, apologize, and watch where I'm going next time. Do you really think that a student who dressed up as a soldier with awards and honors and gets sloppy drunk and posts pictures on facebook wouldn't be criticized? I'm sure people would be all up in arms because it's disrespectful as hell. If someone says hey it's really shitty that you're wearing my religious symbols as your costume, why the hell do people think it's ok to say "no dude I'm honoring you" when clearly that person isn't feeling honored at all? Additionally, a lot of times I see girls wearing sexualized native woman costumes which is extra gross because native women face a higher rate of sexual assault than other women. I just pulled this white girl in dreads off of pinterest. She's being celebrated and treated as an aesthetic and an image to recreate while shit like this happens to black people
I'm just trying to make a comparable analogy. The recipient feels the hurt and the giver should learn from it. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm also trying to say that it's not a recipient of "shouting"'s place to determine whether or not shouting is effective by demonstrating WHY they are shouting to be heard and still not being heard. Does that make sense? this is the problem people are trying to combat. it's about trying to get people to listen to those who are trying to start the conversation. I'm hoppin' on public transit soon so deuces for nowyou have to be prepared that they might just look at you funny and say, "uh, so? It's halloween, dude."
I hesitate to comment as a white person but I'll try to explain cultural appropriation. The minstrel show isn't appropriation. It's straight mockery. It can be tied into appropriation but blackface isn't really the same thing. Cultural appropriation is taking a cultural tradition and adopting it as the name would suggest. The example I use is rock and roll. It's an outgrowth of the blues and was invented as a style of blues by artists like Chuck Berry. Here's a familiar song originated by a black blues performer that was appropriated by a white artist and made more popular than Big Momma Thornton could have ever achieved: This is regarded as the first rock song (just so I don't give sole credit to Chuck Berry): Cultural appropriation can become outright theft as when it comes to rock music. It probably won't happen like that again now that minorities have a voice moreso than in the 50s. Apropos of nothing last time I tried this speech, I think on reddit, I was told there are still a lot of black rock and country, another blues outgrowth, musicians and that's not the case compared to rock now being the music of white people. It can be like minstrel shows when frat boys have pimps and hos balls. It can say "What I do or what I am is acceptable when you do it but not when I do it?" White girls with dreadlocks would fall into this category and so would Vanilla Ice's album sales during the nascent years of hip hop as pop music. It can say "Who we are is amusing to you?" Pimps and ho balls and the occasional stereotypes that pop up about Asian culture. It's a real thing and it can be a real problem. When white girls wear dreads? Well not really in my opinion. When it borrows with disrespect or just because what one group's doing seems cool so we're going to do it? Yeah, that's more like it. It's about mild offense but it's also about a history of disrespect and cultural whitewashing that goes beyond being offended and continues today. You can say it's all PC bullshit and some of it is and you can put scare quotes around the term but it's a real issue
I agree with the definitions others have posted. I just wanted to add, I've never met someone who thinks cultural appropriation will stop just "because it offends them". Most people are hoping that by creating discussions around it, educated people will no longer see it as trendy and continue to commodify it.
This whole thing is just mind boggling to me. You know about 3 blocks from Yale is the projects right? Almost entirely black, and the school system has failed so bad they have to bus kids to other schools because they are technically denying them an education when they go to that school. They bus these kids into majority white schools, where they go through their teen years awkward and isolated as one of the one or two black kids in a 300 person class. If you were young, intellegent, and black at Yale, looking at the inequalities literally surrounding you, wouldn't you be pissed? They are college students trying to improve the world. Their methods need some work, but why is everyone so pissed about this? Because some black 18 year olds argued with a professor and were wrong? Do you know how many times white kids do the same thing and it doesn't make national headlines? Daily, and with much less justification. Their methods need work, bit I think their heart is in the right place. I don't know if I'd say the same for people who are treating arguing students like national news.
Cultural appropriation != cultural exchange. If you are taking on parts of a minority culture because of a genuine interest or desire to raise awareness, with no ulterior motives then yeah, you do you. If at any point a power dynamic comes into play, or it is because it is the trendy thing to be doing at the time, then you have cultural appropriation, which further marginalizes the culture in question. The context matters. arguewithatree is right, until we start listening, and until we start acting your'e going to continue to see shouting. If that turns you off, well, what else can you expect? These are the people who don't have much and whose very culture is the thing that other people are profiting from or passing off as their own, or as a costume, or something of insignificance. I don't blame them for shouting, but yes, sometimes there could be more a why thrown in there. This was a wholly unnecessary qualifier.As an upper middle class white guy from the suburbs of New York
Because, to me, it comes off as framing it as "this is why I don't know what this is" and excusing the lack of knowledge due to environment. Which could be completely wrong and if it is I apologize, but that's how it reads (coming from another middle class white guy formerly from the suburbs of New York). And also yeah what bioemerl said. Doesn't matter.
The problem is where you draw the line between "appropriation", "exchange" and on if wearing a costume to look like a X is either. Firstly, as an example, because I love weird internet communities, consider this: www.reddit.com/r/tulpas. What you may note about this community is that it is really fucking odd. People trying to make imaginary friends, having big discussions on it, and so on. What you may not notice is that it is derived from what you could call a case of cultural appropriation. Specifically that this community, the whole concept of creating a tulpa, is derived from some old book where someone found a bunch of Tibetan monks and wrote about their practices, one of which innovated the creation of a "spiritual guide" or a tulpa (other names were used). From there it got popular on 4-chan, then on the my little pony 4-chan board. /r/tulpas, and similar internet communities have, on the surface, taken this deep and meaningful practice and "americanized" it, stripped it of most it's meaning, and turned it into a "companion creator for lonely people". Very few who join into that community are aware at all of what tulpa really mean, and what tulpas were originally. It's a somewhat sacred cultural practice twisted and squished into a secular view. But if you look a bit deeper, you see an interesting trend, specifically that this practice has come to mean something for all the people in that community. Many are the sort of people who have some sort of mental issue in the first place, seeking a community that actually seeks to become like they are, when they may have thought they were damaged all along. The practice of making a friend, even if it is a hollow gesture in my opinion, seems to offer a huge comfort and draw to a large number of people. In many ways, it's become a religion all on it's own, a group of people with a central practice and a core ideal, coming together over a common theme. But it's also a great example of cultural appropriation. Tulpas, to these people, is something stolen from a disenfranchised and misunderstood culture. So, good or bad? Appropriation or exchange? You don't get cultural exchange without cultural appropriation. Culture is not some monolithic, unchanging thing. It's the actions of people based on their upbringing, their environment, and so on. You can't have exchange without the twisting and destruction of the original values in some form. And if a person grows up knowing the term which was "exchanged" then that's the original meaning of the term, and will continue to be forever. That cannot be prevented. But exchange of ideas, of practices, is a positive thing. It shouldn't go away. ___ Consider Halloween. It's a time to dress up as miscellaneous crap in a stupid funny manner. The whole concept is a tradition stolen from past cultures that died out due to the actions of churches past. Witches are part of an actual, ancient, religion. Vampires a production that belongs to Romania. Zombies an ancient concept as well. Strip away the appropriation, and you are left with what? Candy corn and consumerism? Pranks played by kids on houses? When a person dresses up as a "Mexican" or as a "Ninja" or as a "Witch" they aren't "appropriating" anything at all, they aren't making those things meaningless, or attempting to make them any less serious or sacred than they are. They only are making the statement "this is what I think of when I think of Mexican culture". They aren't saying "these things are meaningless", they are saying "these things are Mexican". Yeah, perhaps it dilutes the meaning of such things, perhaps it encourages people to view places with stupid steriotypes, but if it weren't for Halloween, people likely wouldn't be aware of the practices at all. Without Mexican costumes and restaurants, it is likely the vast majority of the US would think of mexico as "beaches and cartels" rather than thinking of "stereotypical Mexican music and maracas". If it weren't for the "Indian with a headdress" we wouldn't be aware of that aspect of Indian culture at all. Without those costumes, it would be some boring, pointless, bit of history that almost nobody cares about. How do we know that such actions "marginalize" a culture rather than increasing awareness of it? How do we tell if people would or would not be exposed to zombies, wiccans, indian headdresses, and so on without such topics? We don't, not so far as I am aware. We just have people angry that "their" culture isn't uniquely followed or used by the people they think it's supposed to be followed by. Perhaps their feelings should be respected, perhaps we need to be setting up the social standards/constructions in society that prevents them from feeling their culture, this identity separate from all others around them, is important. However, they go against the long-standing trend of what happens to all cultures. They either die, or are transformed into something new as the world changes around them. You either bend or you snap under the pressure, I'd rather we bend. Of course, I don't really have much of a culture to "disrespect" myself, and I don't dress up for halloween at all. Maybe I just lack perspective into the motivations and thoughts of both groups?