Let’s Just Talk About It…
This week I kind of wanted to just talk about it. This whole cultural appropriation argument keeps running in circles. I have really found that there aren’t many answers to it. Everyone has their own opinions and we can’t really change that. This is not my only class where I am focusing on this topic. This controversy is discussed a lot in the classroom and we still come to the same conclusion every time: there isn’t one.
It’s a controversy where people’s feelings are involved and certain things affect others personally whereas other things don’t. How can we have a big argument in the public sphere about something that has to do with people’s feelings? It’s really hard and there are no guidelines.
I think this controversy is only going to get worse and worse. This week leading up to the Coachella music festival, there were multiple articles flooding my facebook feed that said “Coachella Trends That Are Actually Just Cultural Appropriation” or “Things To Not Wear To Coachella”. These articles are there to warn people to not wear things that would offend people, but some things are just taken too far.
I serve as the Chief Marketing Officer of my sorority and I have to monitor things that the girls post on their social media. I had to give a talk in our chapter meeting about appropriate attire for Coachella and I had to reiterate that headdresses are in fact very offensive to wear and that they are not allowed to wear them. This is something that has only come up in recent years, which makes it very confusing for some. I remember my friends dressing up for Halloween as an indian and nobody thought anything of it.
None of this means that I don’t understand why cultural appropriation arguments are made because I really do, but I think people are going to continue to use it as an argument when sometimes it should just be let go.
I gave a presentation in one of my classes on the topic and we got into a class discussion about the level or hardship that each culture goes through which makes their cultural appropriation argument more valid. That probably sounded really confusing so let me explain…
People were using the argument that people from Native American cultural have more of a right to be offended by cultural appropriation because of the oppression they have received from Americans. They felt that people from say, German descent do not have as much of a right to be upset if an American wore a “sexy beer girl costume” because many Americans are from European descent. I do not necessarily agree with this argument, but if people are going to get offended by everything then this whole thing just gets so exhausting.
I think that dressing up as other cultures is going to continue to be offensive and we are always going to be offending each other in one way or another. It has become a part of our culture as a world to borrow from each other and we can’t change that at this point. I recently went to St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland and dressed in all green and I am not Irish at all, but they welcomed me. If someone from another country came to celebrate the 4th of July with me, I would welcome them. All I’m saying is I think when this argument takes the sensitive route, then it all just gets lost in translation.
