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Comment by yehudalouis | Hacker News Reader

I'm still not sure I understand the cultural appropriation argument as a whole, including this one.

I think the indigenous argument is that we (Americans) decimated them and shipped the rest to reservations, then here we are making a cutesy pun with their name. I don't think the Apache foundation is unique in this regard. There's really no indigenous cultural exports from North America, so what we see for the most part is pretty bastardized.

The associations with the name are neutral or beneficial to the software foundation, but is not a chosen association of the actual people who are apaches. They have their own culture and ideas of themselves, and this isn't part of it.

It's not easy to explain because there really isn't an analog if you've never been part of an exploited or erased group in some way. You just have to put yourself in their shoes I guess. What would it be like to be part of a culture that was very nearly successfully genocided, and is now treated as a mythologized part of the past that people are free to use as inspiration for their names and logos. Meanwhile you still exist, have your own traditions, history, names for yourself, religion maybe. It's not some deeply sophisticated academic argument it's just a shitty way to treat people and we should try not to do it.

As a member of a people who were attempted to be genocided (I am Jewish), I like when people adopt pieces of my culture.

Please, by all means, spread matzoh ball soup as far and as wide as you can. It's delicious. Use the name `maccabee` as the name of your new software that is resilient and strong.

Then you can make that statement when it comes up? It's not necessary that all groups come to identical conclusions or approaches here, because all groups have their own history and traditions and relationships to other groups.

BTW how do you feel about "messianic judaism?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism

I don't really think it has a material impact in how people view my culture. I understand that they've incorporated some of the core tenants and mixed them with their own, but the existence of it doesn't bother me, and I don't think you can really appropriate ideas.

Free for me to use, free for you to use.

So the issue is many people are okay… but you may always come across ”orthodox/y” which isn’t. Does the minority opinion get to rain in the parade for everyone?

When "the minority" is a specific cultural group choosing to be known by a certain name, and "everyone" is an economic entity with no associations to that group? Yes.

So cultural group has a majority which is okay and a minority within the group which isn’t, then you have a smaller group where a majority of the group are not okay but a minority is and both the small group and larger group are in turn members of an umbrella group, by what reason does the small group get to decide for the larger group what is and isn’t okay?

English is a language like most languages that does not have a policing academy prescribing usage. People/speakers are allowed to use words as they see fit and use them in new and innovative ways.

Are you interested in understanding it more than you currently do? I'm sure it's not too complicated a concept for a reader of this site. Maybe if you tell us a quick rundown of your current understanding of "cultural appropriation", we could dispel some misunderstandings?

I am interested! I mean that genuinely. As a member of a few different cultural groups (Russian, Jewish, United States), I always have enjoyed people adopting pieces of my culture. Especially food.

Okay! So what's your current understanding of the concept, and what confuses you about it?

I imagine it would mean to take an element of someone's culture, and then adapt it to your own use case that allows you to benefit from it, even if it shines a light on some sort of negative stereotype. Is that a decent definition

It's missing a key part, which is the decontextualization of the cultural element being adopted.

In another comment you wrote "Please, by all means, spread matzoh ball soup as far and as wide as you can. It's delicious." What if I took a recipe for cholent, added sour cream and cheese and some kind of shrimp ball, and sold it to people under the name "Authentic Jewish Matzo Ball Soup"? Imagine if that food product exploded in popularity and suddenly people that have never interacted with Jewish culture or food are talking about and making a "matzo ball soup" that contains beef, dairy, and shellfish (but no matzah).

That's all fine, to you, I'm sure.

Not all cultural appropriation is aggressive. Cultural exchange happens and not everything keeps cultural context. Japan loves to adopt bits of other cultures without context, and I don't think people are upset about that.

An imbalance of power can compound the issue. Back to the bastardised soup. A "regular joe" altering a recipe for a traditional Jewish food to repackage it and sell to a wide audience can be excused in a number of ways. But what if a violent antisemite was engaging in that kind of behaviour? Would that change anything for you?

picking parts of a different culture that sound cool to you and use it for your own benefit, to give you some cultural cache. You still think the people who produced this culture are not on par with you. Whites don't think native americans are on par with them so using apache for name is cultural appropriation.

corollary, picking up something from white culture like wearing jeans isn't appropriation because whites have established themselves as top dog already.

Its pretty simple, really.

> You still think the people who produced this culture are not on par with you.

I do think they are on par with me.

sorry. I was using a generic you, comment wasn't directed at you specifically

No worries. But I think that points out something of a hole in the argument, no? If the generic `you` is what you intended to mean, isn't that a blanket assumption?

Sure yea. I think people on receiving end can only think in aggregates and general patterns. Individual opinions are not really relevant.

Native americans are the poorest class of people in America so its obvious that the mainstream culture doesn't view them as equals.

No, it's not obvious at all. Economic wealth does not necessarily equate to cultural equality.

You need to get out into the real world more.

ditto.

As a white person, am I allowed to pick up something from another culture if I think that the culture is “on par” with me?

Or is the “on par” piece completely made up and just assumed to not be the case?

> Or is the “on par” piece completely made up and just assumed to not be the case?

You think the fact the native americans are poorest people with lowest life expectancy is made up ?

yes your fellow compatriot belonging to poorest class of people for belonging to a particular group of people should be a good hint. Like i said its really simple. People trying over complicate this or trying to find gotchas are being disingenuous.

as a white person, your culture is defined by taking things from others (e.g., the english language is a melange of many languages).

therefore, it is cultural appropriation to adopt cultural appropriation as a perjorative

As a white person of only partial English descent, that's not my definition of my culture.

try to find purity in an american rendition of northwestern european culture. language, holy days, vakue systems--all are taken from elsewhere. lmk what you find. I'll wait until St Paddy's day to find you crying in your green beer...

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