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?
Only if we are using "cultural imperialism" as another way of saying "prejudice." -- otherwise, I don't find the term meaningful as it's normally used. Since it's loaded with connotations of someone's culture being conquered, I would think the only thing that can properly be called "cultural imperialism" is when the ersatz notions about someone's culture are forced back onto that someone, and they are made to live under the misrepresentation instead of what they used to have. For example, if the BIA had not stolen children and forced them to go to schools where their native languages and customs were forbidden, but instead had gone onto the reservations and forced the people there to live some Saturday morning caricature based on "Pow Wow The Indian Boy." (Sherman Alexie nicely skewers this kind of cultural imperialism: "This ain't 'Dances With Salmon,' you know.")
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.
Right, and that's why I don't like to call this "appropriation" but rather just plain pigheaded prejudice. As to whether it's "imperialism," I know that the idea is that as with political imperialism, the conquerer gets to say what's real, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with the term being used in this context for a number of reasons. For one thing, that image of Southerners (a nebulous term, IMO) as either (a) ignorant goobers, or (b) Nouveau Riche plantation owners with no real sense of class, far predates the Civil War, and was no more imposed on people living in the South by Mssrs. Sherman, Grant, et al, than the image of the Yankee pedlar out to rip you off was invented by Stonewall Jackson. These caricatures existed for many years prior to the war. For another thing, the caricature of Southerners as backwoods hicks has persisted not because of a campaign by the Northern Raj, but because of popular culture. (Which, I would point out, has also presented an opposing view with southern role models from Davy Crockett to Flo to Fried Green Tomatoes.) So I'm not sure I am as comfortable with the label "imperialism" as I am with just plain ignorance, racism, and classism.
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2009 07:15 pm (UTC)Only if we are using "cultural imperialism" as another way of saying "prejudice." -- otherwise, I don't find the term meaningful as it's normally used. Since it's loaded with connotations of someone's culture being conquered, I would think the only thing that can properly be called "cultural imperialism" is when the ersatz notions about someone's culture are forced back onto that someone, and they are made to live under the misrepresentation instead of what they used to have. For example, if the BIA had not stolen children and forced them to go to schools where their native languages and customs were forbidden, but instead had gone onto the reservations and forced the people there to live some Saturday morning caricature based on "Pow Wow The Indian Boy." (Sherman Alexie nicely skewers this kind of cultural imperialism: "This ain't 'Dances With Salmon,' you know.")
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.
Right, and that's why I don't like to call this "appropriation" but rather just plain pigheaded prejudice. As to whether it's "imperialism," I know that the idea is that as with political imperialism, the conquerer gets to say what's real, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with the term being used in this context for a number of reasons. For one thing, that image of Southerners (a nebulous term, IMO) as either (a) ignorant goobers, or (b) Nouveau Riche plantation owners with no real sense of class, far predates the Civil War, and was no more imposed on people living in the South by Mssrs. Sherman, Grant, et al, than the image of the Yankee pedlar out to rip you off was invented by Stonewall Jackson. These caricatures existed for many years prior to the war. For another thing, the caricature of Southerners as backwoods hicks has persisted not because of a campaign by the Northern Raj, but because of popular culture. (Which, I would point out, has also presented an opposing view with southern role models from Davy Crockett to Flo to Fried Green Tomatoes.) So I'm not sure I am as comfortable with the label "imperialism" as I am with just plain ignorance, racism, and classism.