Then what matters to you -- if I'm getting this right -- isn't the issue of 'cultural appropriation' (and its attendant 'just what culture do you think you're stealing') but that the issues of cultural imperialism do cause harm?
Because I would say that the Yankee preference for seeing Southern culture as filled with dim-witted potato-salad-makers very much harmed my job opportunities. It was the first time in my life (outside issues of gender) that I got a taste of the notion that "because you are X, you can only do job Y" -- run a laundry, be a maid, work construction -- and I sure as hell didn't like it, not one bit. That's not necessarily appropriation, sure, but it is a kind of imperialism: we won, you lost, we get to decide what's said about you. That kind of thing.
In which case, if you replace issues of cultural 'appropriation' and replace them with 'imperialism' -- from the blatant to the more subtle, such as that hiding in the use of pidgin, like we've discussed before -- how does that change your reaction?
For a people/person suffering under colonization, I would think to have an ersatz impression of your culture rammed down your throat is insult to injury. Not, of course, that it makes it any better to have a genuine representation of your culture bandied about by the imperialist power -- or perhaps to have a genuine version might even make it worse. At least if it's ersatz you can try and console yourself with, "that's not really us, those aren't really our sacred stories they're turning into bad cartoons on Saturday mornings." Perhaps.
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2009 06:20 pm (UTC)Because I would say that the Yankee preference for seeing Southern culture as filled with dim-witted potato-salad-makers very much harmed my job opportunities. It was the first time in my life (outside issues of gender) that I got a taste of the notion that "because you are X, you can only do job Y" -- run a laundry, be a maid, work construction -- and I sure as hell didn't like it, not one bit. That's not necessarily appropriation, sure, but it is a kind of imperialism: we won, you lost, we get to decide what's said about you. That kind of thing.
In which case, if you replace issues of cultural 'appropriation' and replace them with 'imperialism' -- from the blatant to the more subtle, such as that hiding in the use of pidgin, like we've discussed before -- how does that change your reaction?
For a people/person suffering under colonization, I would think to have an ersatz impression of your culture rammed down your throat is insult to injury. Not, of course, that it makes it any better to have a genuine representation of your culture bandied about by the imperialist power -- or perhaps to have a genuine version might even make it worse. At least if it's ersatz you can try and console yourself with, "that's not really us, those aren't really our sacred stories they're turning into bad cartoons on Saturday mornings." Perhaps.