Of kimono and cultural appropriation
japantimes.co.jp
japantimes.co.jp
Honestly, in this sort of situation, it seems racist on the part of the people protesting. Outside of the outright division it promotes, it assumes a patriarchal arrogance, that they (Middle class Americans in America) know better than the Japanese in Japan. Are the Japanese so dumb as to be "duped" by these museums? Is the rich history of the kimono actually so weak that it will be destroyed by non-Japanese wearing them?
Of course, they, as Americans, understand the dangers of American culture and the effects it has on the world, so they must protect other countries that don't understand American culture and the danger it poses! They'll look out for you, <Insert Other Country X That They Are Not From>, so don't you worry your pretty little head about this. They know best.
What a bizarre and hypocritical stance to take.
1) Dreadlocks are a natural hairstyle for black people. Black people are not allowed to have dreadlocks for most types of jobs, since that is simply not considered an appropriate hairstyle for a bank cashier or what ever.
2) when a white celebrity gets dreadlocks she is rubbing it in, so to say, that inherently white-privilege of said celebrity. That is "I can wear your culture because I'm white, you can't wear yours because you are black"
The flaws are plenty of course. White middle class can't get white collar jobs wearing dreadlocks, either. The fact that any celebrity can wear funky hairstyles and get away with it isn't attributed to their race, but to their celebrity status.
A further argument for cultural appropriation is that the hairstyles required for white-collar jobs are based on "natural white" hairstyles, though I hardly find that to be true either.
That is as far as I can extract something resembling a logical argument, I hope this has helped you understand what is going on in the minds of these anti-appropriators. I of course don't expect you to be anymore convinced by their stance.
(Not saying you're arguing that they're correct, as you do point out it's full of flawed assumptions)
I roughly get an idea of what the beliefs behind their argument are, but they still seem absurd, and at times it certainly seems like they've "culturally appropriated" white European arrogance themselves.
It's important to remember that people with afro-textured hair have an extremely short list of what could be considered even moderately 'low effort' hairstyles. Of these, most of them are considered to be black haristyles.
You've mostly got afros, cornrows, braids, twists/twist outs, dreads, and a bunch of super-short cuts. That's a pretty short and inflexible list, and a few of those aren't what you'd usually see on guys. Most styles you see are combinations of the above, a product of (expensive and really bad-for-your-hair) chemical and heat treatments, or simply artificial (!).
As a property of being considered black hairstyles, dreads/box braids/cornrows are often considered unprofessional. Lots of people will call them 'ghetto' and you'll probably get comments when wearing them for events/school/whatever if you're not in a very black community. Dreads in particular get criticized for being 'dirty' (though this is not an exclusively black phenomenon).
Hair can be an incredible sore spot for black people. Black girls spend a huge amount of time and effort trying to make their hair look 'acceptable' (aka white) because mainstream culture tells them their hair, isn't and can't be beautiful. Black people are often verbally and physically harassed on the street by white people who think it's a novelty. It's not possible to honestly talk about perceived 'cultural appropriation' without acknowledging the power dynamics there.
When dreads are one of the few ways to manage your hair that don't involve a lot of hair-pulling and time, it's really obnoxious to see white celebs get praised for them when you can't even go through any predominantly white area with ANY black hairstyle without getting unwanted comments, hair touching/pulling, whatever. It just comes off as arrogant white tourism.
So when diversity and political sensitivity becomes religion - we get zealots. I am actually all for cultural appropriation for couple of reasons.
1) Even if it is just dumb fun for the masses, some people of the other culture want to get the real deal and genuinely help in developing and preserving.
2) Even if your culture is appropriated - you have insane amounts of culture to appropriate yourself.
3) People are not easily offended - no matter what the twitter age shows, so most of the time you don't care
4) Sometimes you strike gold - like with blues/hard-rock/heavy-metal (politely leaving hair metal out). We have something that traversed the world, left deep cultural marks everywhere and helped bring the iron curtain down.
The thing is, you can't tell other people they should or shouldn't be offended by something just because you are or aren't. It just doesn't work that way. If someone's feelings are hurt, their feelings are hurt, even if they shouldn't be. If someone feels offended by a westerner wearing a kimono, you are going to have to deal with that fact. You might conclude that you don't care about offending them, but telling them they shouldn't be offended will only make it worse.
In this case it was even more absurd, because the people who created the kimono, the Japanese, were fine with it. Even the ultra nationalistic Japanese that dislike foreigners thought the protesting against this was absurd.
Why should any of the people in America be in a position where they can tell westerners they're not allowed to wear a kimono, when the people who invented it, whom actually live in Japanese culture every day of their life, do not feel that any harm is done to Japanese culture by westerners wearing the kimono? It's an extremely arrogant stance to take.
I of course cannot tell people what they can and can't be offended by. But you cannot create concessions for every single person who gets offended by every single thing. My rights are not restricted just because it might offend you
Why do I have to deal with it? So anyone can be upset by anything, so matter how absurd, and I'm obligated to deal with their perspective? Closing out the other side by claiming offense is childish.
It says something that this article against anti-racism protestors, which has nothing serious to do with "hacking" is #2 now on HN. (Or hey, let's have more articles about pop singers wearing kimonos, to pore over and learn hacking techniques.)
At least these protestors actually used tech to "disrupt" something, unlike the startups which use the term as doublethink.
I'm Canadian and live in Japan. I wear Japanese clothes very frequently, especially in the summer (jinbei, yukata, geta). I like them. They are comfortable. I live in the country side and nobody bats an eyelid. The one time I wore a jinbei to a baseball game in Tokyo, I got many compliments from people on the street.
Like I said. I don't get it. They are clothes. Wouldn't it be racist to say I can't wear them because I'm not Japanese? Similarly, I can't actually think of any class/race implications for women wearing a kimono. It's not different from a suit or dress (other than it is really complicated to get on ;-) ). This just seems bizarre to me. I wonder if the people involved just don't understand what a kimono is?
It's telling that just about every article I've read about this that bothered to ask anyone in Japan about it mentions that Japanese people aren't offended at all by Westerners wearing a kimono. It's only Americans being offended on their behalf, which does seem a bit infantile. Especially when Japan wants the wider world to be interested in their culture and to buy into it.
Two words: "white guilt"
This comic rings true in more ways than one: https://moonmetropolis.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/sjw-comic...
When I went to Japan my language exchange partner often commented on foreigners wearing kimono. They commented how they enjoyed that other people liked the things Japan is known for. That for many tourists wearing a kimono in Japan is one of their greatest joys! And that joy others had made her happy, not upset.
In urban Japan for the current generation they are very much reaching the level of costume - reserved for special occasions, festivals, etc.
This thread really piqued my interest because when I first started wearing Japanese clothes I was a bit self conscious. But Japanese people always told me it was fine. Now, if I walk down to the izakaya in my jinbei and geta, I'm just like all the other old guys in the neighbourhood ;-)
I experienced quite a lot of racism from expats in Japan who thought it was unacceptable for me to have Japanese friends, watch Japanese TV shows and read Japanese books. They kept saying, "You will never be one of them. They will never accept you." Eventually I had to distance myself from that community.
The other day, one of the neighbourhood children was playing with their friend. The friend walked up to me and tried out their English. The neighbourhood girl said, "Oh don't bother. He's Japanese."
Home is not always where you were born.
Yeah, they disrupted a totally harmless event put on by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK).
Kaori Nakano, a professor of fashion history at Meiji University put it to me this way: “Cultural appropriation is the beginning of new creativity. Even if it includes some misunderstanding, it creates something new.” It may be the key to the future of kimono fashion.
"Cultural Appropriation" seems to be oft-used in a negative term, but it's just the spread of cultural ideas, traditions, fashions, etc. We're all just individual humans, we're born without culture and we adopt the culture of those we're raised by and those we surround ourselves with. Is it "whiteface" cultural appropriation when Japanese baseball players wear American-style uniforms with their names written out in Romaji on back instead of Kanji?
This kind of protest seems like the latest in outrage culture over something that, in the end, is just human nature. Who gets to decide what is your culture and what culture you choose is appropriation? If I'm 1/16 Japanese and nobody in my family has been to Japan in 2 generations, can I wear a kimono? If my parents are both Indian but I was born and raised in Japan, can I wear a kimono? What if I'm white, born in America, but was adopted by Japanese parents at age 8?
Professor Nakano has it right. Cultural appropriation should not be a dirty word, it should be a sign of mixing of ideas to create new ones, and bringing people together over something that they didn't know they had in common.
Could you give example when cultural appropriation is bad without something obviously bad shit being bundled with it?
E.g. consider how black women often get criticised for styles that are then praised on white celebrities. Things like hairstyles that have been common in black culture for a long time, like corn-rows, for example.
In those cases, it's easy for people to dismiss criticism of this as not having anything to do with racism by saying that "oh, no we really didn't like them, but now someone has shown it can be cool, and it has nothing to do with race" or something similar. Fashions change. It's a plausible excuse. Sometimes.
Talking about cultural appropriation then becomes a way of criticising that practice in a way where you make the "oh no it's not racism" excuse moot by re-framing the debate.
In that way, it could be a useful way of attacking hidden racism.
The problem, of course, is that it works exactly because it ignores the intentions of the people involved and becomes a weapon that hits equally hard against people intentionally or unintentionally perpetuating hidden racism as against people who are genuinely appreciative of something.
If you allow dishonest stuff to pass because it combats racism, then there is a risk that you just paint SWJ crowd dishonest.
If racism is well enough hidden, I don't see the point opposing it anymore. I don't think people should be burned because of thoughtcrime.
We can agree that it's not cool behaviour to run around with plastick indian headress while high. Or dunkenly sing Elvis songs in karaoke. But I don't think it is immoral, and I don't think who does it matters too much.
I've never seen it defined in a way that doesn't seem ripe for this kind of abuse. Some define it as someone of one culture adopting qualities of another culture wholesale- which begs the question then, what's the difference between that and appreciating another culture?
Others define it as adopting said culture in a disrespectful way. This ends up closer to a mark I could understand and be on board with- but then you get situations like that defined in this article, where so much of the complaints seem to be on another's behalf.
In general, I'm not sure how the concept of cultural appropriation lasts into the future as anything more than a way to steer people away from letting their ignorance walk over another culture's traditions. Considering how quickly sacred cows are slaughtered in modern pop culture, in nearly every technologically-engaged culture on earth, it seems just so difficult to not have the phrase lose what little meaning it might have.
Then again, I know that I'm ignorant on many pieces of this subject, despite dozens of hours reading and trying to educate myself on it. If anything, that in itself is my biggest frustration with identity politics- there's no easy path to learning it or being pointed to the right resources, and yet it seems like my own ignorance hurts others gravely. It's troubling.
That's because any definition of it is ripe for abuse, because out of a very specific context it's a dumb idea with no basis in fact or culture. Said's thesis mentioned in the article is more about appropriation as a symptom of wider oppression and prejudice, and more importantly it is more about incorrect, or exaggerated, perceptions of foreign cultures. The Japanese do wear kimonos, mainly in August.
At worst, cultural appropriation reinforces existing prejudices - deal with the prejudice, and cultural appropriation is a non-issue - but you can't eliminate prejudice just by forbidding any cultural exchange at all.
Eventually you get to today. Almost nobody is racist, but everyone's on a hair trigger when it comes to racist language or behavior. And otherwise sane and good people get angry about white people wearing kimonos. The process is described much better by this blog post: http://blog.jaibot.com/outcast-arms-race/
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
Edit: When I say "racist", I mean consciously so. We're all prone to unconscious biases, and it's good that we try to discover and correct for them. But the signalling game I'm talking about? That happens with beliefs that people are themselves aware of.
It's awfully like with Christian morals. Everybody is a sinner. Everybody pretends to be Zealous. And everybody mocks everybody else for being sinners. Donate money/buy indulgence, what's the difference? Just remember to be ashamed of yourself.
I'm not sure if this is Christian cultural undertones finding a new way to surface. Or did church just capture something very integral of human psyche with their rhetoric. Hopefully this bullshit is eradicated if the idea of "thought crime" becomes unpopular enough.
Maybe "almost nobody" exhibits racism openly in face to face situations (though I've experienced plenty; try being in an interracial marriage for a few years and you're likely to se racism from both sides), but go online in the right places and it gets ugly.
I think the only people getting angry about that are Americans, I don't think cultural appropriation is a problem in most other places in the world.
You don't see me outraged about the "Greek system" in fraternities, I couldn't care less.
What is the basis for this conclusion?
You can see how some members of the "taken from" group take this in a bad light, they've already had so much taken from them, and now to top it off there's somebody who takes and ingests what made the "taken from" group unique in the first place. It's not a far step from there to have people in the "taken by" group try to make that stop, and in some cases these people go way too far.
In OP's link this doesn't happen - Americans and the Japanese really don't have much history of oppression (except for WW2 internment), so I'd say it "doesn't count" as cultural appropriation.
Edit: I should say that there's not much history of systematic oppression between Japanese and Americans, that would exclude your day-to-day racism
Yes, except for that time when the US forced Japan into treaties at gunpoint.[1] And that time when they put everyone of Japanese ancestry into prison camps. And the time they firebombed Japanese cities. And the time they nuked Japan twice. And the time they occupied Japan and executed civilian politicians.[2] Except for those things, there's not much history of oppression.
I apologize for the snark, but your comment is completely disconnected from reality. Cries of "appropriation" are only tenuously correlated with oppression. For example: the French never oppressed the Maori, but people got angry when a French ad used their facial tattoos.[3]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition
For cultural appropriation to happen you'd first have to live in the same country, not at other sides of the world.
It happens on Metafilter quite often. Someone posts a funny video and the comments go on about intersectionality, cisgendered cissexual and heteronormativity.
The first film only had a black mayor (who used to be a cleaner) and a group of black musicians (who smoke weed out back during the break). Their entire purpose, for the most part, is to serve as the butt of several jokes (e.g. the cleaner being overly excited that he's going to become the mayor in the future, the musicians scaring the ruffians by outnumbering them) and Marty directly gets credit for the achievements of at least two black men (the cleaner getting the idea and confidence to enter politics and run for mayor, one of the black musicians calling Chuck Berry, giving him the idea for Johnny B Goode when Marty is performing).
Martys girlfriend is left out of the majority of the first film's plot, spends the majority of the second's film knocked out (both initially and again later) -- pretty much only serving as an excuse to distract Marty and Emmet long enough that bad things can happen, and then only returns at the very end of the third film.
The only strong female character is the teacher in the third film, whose first appearance is literally as a damsel in distress and who again ends up in distress during the film's climax (so Emmet can save her). Heck, a lot of the plot of all three movies is built around saving damsels in distress.
Don't get me wrong. Personally I think the three films make an awesome trilogy and I understand why they have become the pop culture icon they are, but they make incredibly easy targets if you want to call out racist/sexist stereotypes in popular media.
I find that forcing myself not to use such words means I have to actually express why I don't like something, which is a nice side bonus.
The most clear example of cultural appropriation that most people agree is inappropriate is headdresses. Many cultures view the headdress as a sign of respect but it's been used as a for musical festivals across the United States. So I think that is cited as the most common cultural appropriation.
Where the lines draw would be something like a Kimono, where if you wear it and use it then are you paying homage or respect if you use it correctly within the culture? Can't you innovate and improve it?
The example that I was using that was I thought was odd was Yoga. It's originally a very long tradition in India with a complicated history but it's usually considered a religious and spiritual experience. In the West many view it only for the physical and health benefits though and do not consider the spiritual parts of it. The question is that appropriation?
It's good that you can't grasp the notion, because it is based in irrational thinking.
Its not simply white people performing black music, that is wrong, but rather that the white people filled a demand for black music that could have been supplied by the original culture were the market not racist. Its like, no direct racism, but making racism easier? If those white people had said "No I will not play this music", then the market would either have had to listen to black muscians or not get the music at all.
But by doing so they are "aiding and abetting" a racist society by enabling racists to listen to music they desire, from people they desire. If they choose not to it makes it harder for racists to be racist.
It's very hard (indeed, practically impossible) to say that X culture existed because of Y culture - in reality they were all tangled up in each other and likely self-reinforcing. In reality X causes Y causes X causes Y causes Z causes Y causes X.
Which IMO is the case if we're talking about the 50s cover phenomenon - the covers arose out of pre-existing racist culture, but said racism was allowed to more easily persist itself via the covers, which allowed radio stations an avenue to provide black R&B (that the audience clearly wanted) without forcing people to confront the fact that it's black R&B by relabeling it and dropping an all-white cover band on it.
The success of said white cover bands (who were able to get much more airtime than their black counterparts, because duh reasons) was also used to reinforce the superiority of the white covers over the originals.
Sadly, a lot of things have feedback loops built into them, it makes untangling cause and effect pretty hard.
Not sure how familiar you are with the phenomenon - it's all rather fascinating, if not a bit depressing to study. It wasn't so much that black bands weren't being listened to - they were, some managed to chart, and they were at the very forefront of a generation's changing preferences. The (to some people, alarming) popularity of these bands is what prompted the covers in the first place, in large part driven by concerned parents who feared their children listening to black musicians, but were under the gun to provide an alternative outlet for a new generation whose tastes were markedly different than their parents'.
I think there's a pretty strong case that the cover band phenomenon made it easier for existing racism to persist - though of course that's not particularly quantifiable - in any case I think it's not particularly farfetched to say that the whole phenomenon was harmful.
If you're interested in listening to some concrete examples (all of these are on Spotify), the aesthetics here are fascinating:
Sh-Boom by The Chords, covered by The Crew-Cuts (whose band name clearly wins the award for "least subtle reflection of society's fears in the 50s")
Tutti Frutti by Little Richard, covered by Pat Boone (who was a central figure in the cover phenomenon, and largely built his career on covering and out-charting a vast number of black musicians)
and because we just celebrated Back to the Future Day - Earth Angel by The Penguins, covered the Crew-Cuts (again with them!)
Of course that couldn't be more different from the events of this news piece. The arrogance of the "offendees" is an astounding exercise in suppressing cultural awareness and integration. Talk about supremacy.
In eastern Europe and Russia blackface is chimney sweeper usually. Also there are virtually no black people there. The world is big.
I'm aware of the implications of blackface in the US (and of blackface used to actually imitate darker skin tones) but it's incredibly insulting to assume that the US is representative for all Western cultures.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-20/australian-couple-mobb...
I think we just have a case of spoiled Americans that want to be the world's police.
Is it the shared language and the ease of communication?
There is Hollywood and most of stuff in internet in English is written by people form the states.
But then there is also the U.S. geopolitical and economical hegemony. People copycat everything american hoping that magically some of that success would stick too.
Results are weird. Some people advocate saving tap water here in Finland. Despite our country having very large number of lakes and swamps and no foreseeable shortage of water.
Analogy: Let's say you take a free intro taekwondo class. They outfit you with a white belt, obviously. But you think the red/black belt looks cool, so you start wearing that instead - maybe not in the dojang even, but just around town. You don't think martial artists should have a problem with that, maybe even challenge you to a fight? And even non-martial-artists shouldn't think you're kind of a poser?
If you walk around in army uniform and have never been in the army, you will invite criticism or even a kick in the butt. If you dress up as a nun or as a priest you are an impostor. If you decide it's cool to wear the "Ring of O" on your right hand, you'll invite some inconvenient misunderstandings - especially as a woman.
Everyone should be aware of societal codes and either obey them or live with the resulting misunderstandings. Shrugging your shoulders and violating those codes makes you a not nice person at worst, but casting this in "oppressive west vs. the rest" terms just muddies the water.
No they shouldn't. It in no ways diminishes the value or meaning of a red/black belt in taekwondo.
However, if they were to insist that practitioners treated them as if they'd earned the belt or, conversely, somehow prevented a legitimate holder of the belt from wearing one then you have a case for grievance.
http://theunitofcaring.tumblr.com/post/131242817286/ive-noti...
I guess that's why it's important to have neither the right nor the left take the hold on power for too long.
If you look at anything closely enough, everything becomes problematic. But of course the correct conclusion is that if you define everything as problematic, the term "problematic" ceases to be a useful distinction, so you should dial back a notch and figure out what problems actually matter.
kimonos are fashionable. I'm sure denim heads here will agree I have a few from Quebec :)
Japan's status in the West does seem to be different to that of other Asian nations, probably because it's a 'developed' country. But then, isn't that only because in the Meiji era, it rapidly 'Westernised' itself to appeal more to Western tastes and be taken seriously?
If anything, Japan and the West (the US particularly) have a mutual fetish for each other.
1. http://www.refinery29.com/cornrows-cultural-appropriation
To the point, it's this kind of thing that annoying:"It seems the more popular cornrows have become among white women, the more they are drained of their history. “Sometimes editors see something that someone pseudo-popular does and they say it’s new, fresh, or edgy,” says India Jewel Jackson, an editor at Hearst Publications. “But, when it was us doing it, it was ghetto. Now that it’s someone blonde and blue doing it, it’s fresh."
2. http://jezebel.com/what-the-hustle-looks-like-on-etsy-in-201...
"“Hustling” as it presents itself in the 2015 economy erases the barriers posed to wealth acquisition by sexism, classism, racism, cissexism and ableism, instead chalking up a lack of financial success to a lack of entrepreneurial spirit. It makes no acknowledgement that some people have to hustle much, much harder than others.
This one isn't exactly cultural per se, but it erases the message the word use to carry. Now I can no longer use the word "hustle" in tech circles because I don't think it means the same thing to them as it does to me. When my parents came to America from Nigeria, their stories of things they did and things they saw in Oakland carry the definition of "hustle" that I know. While I'm sure starting up a company is very hard work, it doesn't in general contain all the facets of the historical hustle. Where one is constantly walking the tightrope between homelessness and not eating for 2 days while playing a game that seems pretty rigged against them. You certainly didn't have extra money to be buying fancy pencils and coffee mugs with the word "hustle" printed on them.
Btw, this is extremely similar to the #AllLivesMatter hashtag that washes away the original message. http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-al... --- "Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-@$$ comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!"
We have recorded usage of it meaning "bustle, work busily, move quickly" dating back to 1821. "to get in a quick, illegal manner"? 1840. "to sell goods aggressively"? 1887. "pushing activity; activity in the interest of success"? 1891.
"The key-note and countersign of life in these cities [of the U.S. West] is the word "hustle." We have caught it in the East. but we use it humorously, just as we once used the Southern word "skedaddle," but out West the word hustle is not only a serious term, it is the most serious in the language." [Julian Ralph, "Our Great West," N.Y., 1893]
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hustle
If we look at where the word came from, it's taken from a white European language - meaning that it's use for you in Oakland growing up was appropriated from elsewhere. And that's perfectly okay.
>>it was modified to mean largely the same thing but a bit different
To you it's a bit different. To me it carried the constant struggle of poor minorities, including my parents, and that difference is huge enough that I don't go just tossing the word around freely. You're definitely not going to see me with coffee mugs & pencils with "hustle" engraved on it. Btw, "The Struggle" is also another term that carries significant weight in poor communities. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+struggle ...yes, you can show all the history of the word "struggle" but it now carries a big definition with poor people, especially african americans. At this point, there's nothing more I can say. This kind of thread never ends on HN and eventually someone will come along and say something that requires a whole school semester on history, culture and the different forms of oppression throughout history to respond to.
But calling out e.g. fashion magazines who promote it for not recognising its history, or for celebrating it as "fresh" when it appears on white women, when it's an old, well established style, is another matter.
Imagine the potential for different reaction if said magazines instead went with "we were wrong to dismiss cornrows; here are some great examples" and showed a mix of past and new pictures with a focus on black women instead of, or next to, the pictures of white women wearing them.
Unfortunately the protestors names are logged forever online, so their stupidity will follow them for their entire lives.
I almost think that it is worth creating a disposable username for use in real-life and not just online.
Wow, seriously? I enable JavaScript just to see what exactly on the page requires JavaScript so badly that they have to replace all the content with this message, and what do I see? A completely text-based article.
.no-js .single .main_content #no_js_blocker
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