0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind

0:05

from how Stuff Works dot com.

0:13

Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

0:15

Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger Robert

0:17

Our. Last episode, we were talking about samurai swords,

0:20

and I neglected to bring up one

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of my favorite aspects of that

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historical Japanese culture sort of tied into

0:27

samurai swords. Do you remember

0:30

ever seeing a net suke before. They're

0:32

these little carved objects

0:34

that would be in different shapes and

0:37

you would use them. Essentially they had

0:39

like a hole through them that you would use to

0:41

tie strings like for purses

0:44

and things like that, that you would hang from a sash or belt.

0:46

Yeah. Yeah, I believe I've seen the Yeah, I've

0:48

got one that's like a little cat.

0:51

It's an anthropomorphic cat that's wearing

0:53

a robe and it's supposed to be like a mythical

0:55

figure of this sort of like cat creature

0:58

transforming itself so it looks like a woman

1:00

in tricking people. Uh. And I got

1:02

this at the pbody ESX Museum in Salem,

1:04

Massachusetts. They have this amazing uh

1:07

collection of Asian artifacts

1:09

but also just marines stuff.

1:11

Basically, the gist is that um

1:14

sailors who are from the area

1:16

would bring all of these things back

1:18

after their journeys around the world, and they

1:20

eventually went into the PVD SX Museum,

1:22

so you can see all of this really cool historical

1:25

material there. But I

1:28

had this net suk. It sits on my desk as

1:30

I'm working on episodes like this one, and

1:33

I kind of wonder, like, is

1:35

there something inherently weird

1:37

about me, you know, uh,

1:40

fetishizing this and it mind's

1:42

not a historical and that's okay. It's

1:44

like a mass produced one that you get at the gift

1:46

shop or whatever. But there's

1:48

something kind of odd about

1:51

me incorporating that into my I

1:53

don't know, artistic aesthetic

1:55

my setup of my desk, right, you know, it's

1:58

next to literally a

2:00

a plastic sculpture of a Xeno morph

2:02

that ec Steiner gave me for my birthday,

2:04

you know, so it's like it's not like I'm

2:07

only into Japanese historical

2:10

aesthetics. Well, this this

2:12

is an interesting question because I mean, obviously

2:14

we're talking about the idea of cultural appropriation

2:17

today and I think

2:19

we're more and more, uh, we're

2:22

we're forced to ask these questions about our

2:24

lives and the things in our lives, the physical

2:26

objects as well with the ideas. I

2:28

like what you said about the sailors enturing

2:30

out into the world and returning home with these

2:33

essentially knickknacks and uh and

2:36

and artifacts. And I

2:38

mean our lives are kind of like that. We we travel

2:40

around, we experience new

2:42

places, new ideas,

2:44

and we end up incorporating those

2:47

ideas into our own

2:49

worldview, into our own sense

2:51

of self. We end up bringing

2:54

um artifacts into our home,

2:56

and our homes become reflections

2:58

of our of our interest and our travels and our

3:01

experience. Yeah. Yeah, and that's how

3:03

I think about it. I don't just like,

3:05

it's not like a just collection

3:08

of random items that I just throw on my desk

3:10

or something, you know what I mean, although

3:13

you know, obviously there's certain things that I

3:15

will that stay on the desk and other things

3:17

that go in a box somewhere. But yeah,

3:20

I don't know. It's strange. Like

3:22

the alien for some reason is fine because

3:25

that's like American culture,

3:28

But there's or is it Swiss culture, right

3:30

exactly? That's true based on our our Hans

3:32

Rudy Geeker episode. There's also I

3:35

have a statue of Ganesh on

3:37

my desk as well of the Hindu god

3:39

of removing obstacles. Well, I

3:41

have I have a goodesh in my pocket. I forgot about that.

3:44

I always always carry a ges with me. So

3:47

we're kind of laying out some of the details of our

3:49

own um, our,

3:51

own homes, our own sense of selves

3:53

self. And I imagine everyone listening you're probably

3:56

doing the same thing. You're thinking about, all right, what

3:58

what items are on my person, are

4:00

in my house and just in my mind? And

4:03

from what cultures do those things

4:05

arise? Yeah, and there's probably

4:08

some of you two who are having a reflex

4:10

that I think is pretty common in Western culture,

4:12

which is like, well, what would be wrong about

4:14

that? You know, there's a there's sort of an immediate

4:17

defensiveness, and we're gonna

4:19

talk a little bit about that today as well.

4:21

Like, you know, basically, we're looking at

4:23

cultural appropriation and then we're gonna

4:26

look at examples that are positive

4:28

and negative of it, but then look

4:30

at the arguments for and against it, because

4:32

there's been plenty, Like, let me tell

4:34

you, this is an episode that there was uh

4:37

no lack of research. There was

4:39

plenty of stuff out there to incorporate

4:41

into the literature. And at the end of this episode,

4:44

we are not going to have This is not one of those episodes

4:46

where we're gonna have a you know, a bullet list

4:48

of what something is. We're hopefully

4:50

going to provide you with some additional tools

4:52

to evaluate, uh, your

4:55

own life, your own sense of culture, to know what sort

4:57

of the arguments are on both sides.

4:59

We are also not going to do an exhaustive

5:01

examination of every

5:04

form of alleged cultural

5:07

appropriation out there, because

5:09

I mean, you get into say, the music genre, the

5:11

fashion genre, and there's

5:13

so many different examples that pop up, and

5:16

many of them are specialized, and they had their their

5:18

arguments on both sides in many cases. I

5:20

can think of one example off the top of my head that I

5:23

came up in a bunch of the articles, but I didn't include

5:25

it here. The singer

5:27

Selena Gomez apparently wore a

5:30

bindy at one point like a music video

5:32

or maybe a live performance or something like that, and she was

5:34

criticized for it. I was just like, I

5:37

don't feel like this really fits into the discussion

5:39

that Robert and I are going to have. That is probably

5:41

for some of you, like one of the first examples

5:43

that comes to mind, right like Likewise, I don't

5:46

think we're going to talk a whole lot about

5:49

hip hop culture and it's uh and

5:51

and it's and and how it is treated in an

5:53

American culture, but that certainly is a huge

5:55

area of discussion as well. Now,

5:59

I guess the first thing we need to do is just

6:01

say what is cultural appropriation?

6:03

And that really that really splits into

6:05

two questions. Here, what what is

6:08

cultural appropriation? And then what does it

6:10

consists of? So the first

6:12

question is a little easier broadly,

6:14

and I mean broadly speaking, we're talking

6:16

about the adoption or use of

6:19

the elements of one culture by members

6:21

of another culture. But of course

6:23

that that again, that's extremely broad because

6:26

this sort of cultural exchange has been going

6:28

on as long as human society

6:30

has experienced a convergence of cultures.

6:33

Uh, the cats kind of out of the bag in terms

6:35

of keeping most global

6:37

cultures entirely pure for a variety

6:40

of reasons. Now, we'll

6:42

get on into a lot of this as we progress, but it should

6:44

come as no surprise that there are plenty of

6:46

vantage of individuals out there who prefer the term

6:48

cultural misappropriation. So

6:51

it's not merely the fact that one culture

6:53

is adopting or using elements of another culture.

6:55

It's that they're doing so in a way that is

6:58

dishonest or harmful, insensitive

7:01

or crass, or plays on some

7:04

some larger inequity. Yeah,

7:06

there were actually arguments made

7:08

in some of the articles that I read for this that

7:10

essentially we're like, there's a linguistic

7:13

problem at hand. Here are semantics issue

7:15

that cultural appropriation is the

7:17

term we're all using for this thing,

7:21

but misappropriation might be better.

7:23

Yeah, because if you you often hear

7:25

it just thrown out like, oh, that's cultural misappropriation,

7:27

that's like that's a sin stop

7:30

it, where whereas there's

7:32

obviously going to be a lot more nuance at play.

7:34

Yeah, if you just look at like the Salem

7:37

Encyclopedia, it's entry

7:39

on cultural appropriation says that it

7:41

is quote the lifting of aspects

7:43

of one culture or society for use

7:45

by another culture. Pretty close to what you just said.

7:48

This can be anything from art to music,

7:51

fashion, etcetera. Sometimes

7:53

the intermingling creates highly regarded

7:56

new pieces of work, though right and regardless,

7:59

some argue that the adoption of

8:01

their culture by outsiders

8:03

is seen as disrespectful and offensive,

8:06

so sometimes it's actually defined as

8:08

quote the use of works of indigenous

8:11

people's by non indigenous

8:13

people, so there's a little bit of a distinction

8:15

there. The concept actually emerged

8:17

in academia in the late nineteen

8:19

seventies and nineteen eighties, and it was a critique

8:22

of colonialism, so you can see why it

8:24

applies, for instance, to our

8:27

Western society, American society, or

8:29

British colonized society. But

8:32

by the nineteen nineties it had a solid

8:34

place in academic discourse, and

8:36

I can say when I studied for my master's

8:39

degree between two thousand and six and two thousand,

8:41

it was a significant part of the literature

8:43

for rhetoric, cultural studies, and communication.

8:46

I mean every class I was in

8:48

there was at least a section on cultural

8:50

appropriation and how it fit into

8:52

the theories and discourse around those ideas.

8:54

Now, I think one way to help us

8:57

get started here is to keep in mind, what

8:59

is culture right? Like that alone

9:02

is a really hard question to answer in

9:04

my mind. When I'm usually just talking about

9:06

culture casually or on one

9:08

of these shows, if I don't have a lot of research

9:10

in front of me, I'm thinking about

9:13

culture as how people make sense

9:15

of the world. There's too much of a cacophony

9:18

of sensory information going on for

9:20

us as human beings to make sense

9:23

of There's so much happening our

9:25

brains literally can't keep up. So culture

9:28

is how we understand all

9:30

of this stuff. Is basically like a filter, right

9:33

uh. And obviously it's way more complicated

9:35

than that. But some people will say, well,

9:38

culture is norms or social

9:40

behavior, or materialism, or politics,

9:43

or customs and traditions. But let's

9:45

not forget there's also subcultures

9:47

as well that exists within

9:50

larger umbrella ones. The

9:52

main one that I always think, well, you just brought up hip hop.

9:54

Hip hop is a good example of the subculture, but I think

9:56

of punk is a subculture that exists

9:59

within what dain culture, right uh.

10:01

And then the dictionary says culture

10:04

is quote the way of life, especially

10:07

the general customs and beliefs of a

10:09

particular group of people at a particular

10:11

time. In general, it's

10:14

used to refer to our use of symbols

10:16

to represent our experiences,

10:19

but done in a creative way.

10:21

Yeah, this is one of those areas where

10:23

I often come back to this, this analogy I keep

10:25

rolling out of lenses and

10:28

uh. And while it's it's easy, it's easy to think

10:30

that our view of reality is completely

10:33

unfiltered by by anything.

10:35

Or we might think, oh, I'm seeing reality

10:38

through a single lens, you know, a single

10:40

pane of glass that that comes down

10:42

over my space helmet. But I

10:45

feel that all of us

10:47

have multiple lenses that are employed,

10:49

uh, many at the same time, and then

10:52

in various combinations. And

10:54

and so when you try and yeah, when you

10:57

try and boil down what is this culture,

10:59

you end up countering not one lens,

11:01

but several, and some of them may not be employed

11:03

at all times. Yeah, that's a really interesting

11:06

way to look at it. And I think too, And I'll

11:08

get into this, we'll talk a little bit later about a guy

11:10

named Gert Hofstad and his sort of cultural

11:13

theories. Uh. But

11:15

I think that is the best way to keep

11:17

this in mind, that your analogy

11:19

of lenses essentially is that

11:21

like, different people have their different lenses

11:23

on, right, and they're not always seeing the same

11:25

thing. They're understanding those symbols

11:28

through different experiences. Yeah, and

11:30

that's important for understanding how we're

11:32

viewing the world, but also how another individual

11:34

is looking at the same topic. And

11:37

that's key to this whole entire discussion because

11:39

it's there's the aspect of how am I

11:41

interacting with a cultural idea

11:43

or an artifact? But then how was another person

11:45

looking at that? And then and then how

11:47

are we supposed to have a conversation

11:50

about it? Yeah, that's the inherent problem in human

11:52

communication, is that there's going to be

11:54

a misunderstanding no matter what.

11:57

There's always what's like referred to as psychological

11:59

noise is in verbal communication. Right,

12:02

we're not telepaths, We're not beaming our

12:04

thoughts directly into somebody else's head. But

12:07

through words and the use of other symbols,

12:09

we're trying to convey meaning back and forth

12:12

to each other. It's just that our way of understanding

12:14

that meaning is vastly different, especially

12:17

depending on what kind of culture you were raised in. All

12:19

Right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we're

12:21

gonna jump into some examples of

12:24

sort of positive cultural appropriation, definite

12:27

negative examples of cultural appropriation

12:30

or cultural misappropriation, as

12:32

well as the the ever cantalizing

12:35

gray areas. Thank

12:41

Okay, we're back. So before we get into

12:43

positive and negative examples of cultural

12:46

appropriation here, I actually

12:48

have one that I'm concerned

12:50

about for myself. It's something that I'm

12:52

working on. Most of our listeners now that

12:54

I work on. Well, both of us do we both

12:56

do fiction outside of the

12:58

podcast. I do comics. You do short

13:00

fiction. Uh, well, you've

13:03

you've written long fiction too, right, Yeah, the

13:05

short stuff is the main the main material that is out there

13:07

though, and and of course that that means

13:09

something. With both of our work, we're talking about multiple

13:12

characters, multiple voices, and the characters

13:15

of varying um ethnicities,

13:18

cultural backgrounds, etcetera. Yeah, so

13:20

I mentioned this actually in the Samurai Saw It episode.

13:23

I'm working on this project right now, and

13:26

basically I recognize that the diversity

13:28

of race, gender, sexuality,

13:30

nationality, and age really needs

13:33

to improve in modern fiction, especially

13:35

if we want our culture these artifacts

13:38

to represent the world that we live in. This

13:40

is kind of tricky for a straight white,

13:43

middle aged guy like me. Uh.

13:45

And I'm working on a news story that's

13:48

a sci fi story. It's set in Trinidad

13:50

and the majority of the characters are black. It's

13:53

also going to incorporate elements of Japanese

13:55

culture into it, including the samurai

13:57

ethos that we're referring to in that other

13:59

episoisode. So I'm trying to write this thing,

14:02

and I want to address themes of class and race

14:04

and violence in it. But I genuinely

14:06

wonder am I appropriating somebody

14:09

else's culture here? Right? Like? This is

14:11

a tricky tightrope. Should I stick

14:13

to only what I know? Should my characters only

14:15

be white, an American

14:17

and male? Right? Or

14:20

should I try to improve diversity

14:23

leading by example through my storytelling.

14:26

I don't know. It's something I like, I genuinely

14:28

worry about. I've done stuff in the past, um

14:31

where I've had characters of diversity

14:33

that I've made the focal point of my work,

14:35

and other stuff I've written have been from characters

14:37

who are, you know, essentially variations

14:39

of meat. Yeah. I mean, this is always

14:42

a quandary as as a writer,

14:44

as as a creator, probably of any form,

14:46

because there certainly are voices that insist

14:49

that say, an African

14:51

American perspective should not be approached from

14:53

from a non African American writer. So

14:56

is a writer, then, you know, forced to exist

14:58

within the confines of their own cold sure? And if

15:00

so, how far does it go? Can Stephen

15:02

King right about a Southerner. Did did

15:05

Tennessee raised Coleman McCarthy

15:07

appropriate the cultures of Mexico and

15:09

the American West when he moved out there

15:11

and started to write westerns. Uh

15:15

yeah, this is this is the kind of way

15:17

that I think that the modern writer's mind especially

15:20

continues to eat away as yourself.

15:22

You know, it's like a dog gnawing its own tail, your

15:25

second guessing all of your creative choices. But

15:27

but I have to I have to say from my own part, like

15:30

when when I've written, say, I wrote about a biracial

15:33

character in one of my Grave Stoppers tales

15:35

and it was a it was a slide homage

15:38

to Joe Christmas and Faulkner's Light

15:40

in August. But and personally,

15:42

I always approach a character like that as an attempt

15:44

to understand another viewpoint, uh,

15:47

you know, to to respectfully understand

15:49

how they are viewing the world, what their worldview

15:52

consists of, and and you know, and putting

15:54

in some research as well, like looking

15:57

at at authentic voices from

15:59

those realm is to try and create it. I

16:01

mean, that's part of the exercise. What

16:04

what you don't want to do in My opinion is to is

16:06

to sort of go the the old school

16:08

pro wrestling, you know, root where

16:11

someone is is nothing more than the archetype.

16:13

There's nothing more than the stereotype character, and

16:15

that's all they are, right. Yeah, that's

16:17

a really good example. Um

16:20

the like sort of wrestling characters

16:22

from like the eighties. I'm thinking of

16:25

like the Iron Cheek here, and that guy is

16:27

kind of still performing that personality, Like

16:29

have you ever seen the Iron Cheeks Twitter feed?

16:32

That's pretty wild. I understand there's some disagreement

16:34

on to what extent that is him or people

16:37

who handle it for him, So I

16:39

didn't know that, but I don't know a lot of detail about

16:41

about that argument. But to Glow on Netflix

16:43

is a is a big right now, and that that discusses

16:46

some similar territory. Yeah, And Glow is fascinating

16:49

because you see these women come

16:51

in in the first couple episodes and

16:53

they have all of these different backgrounds,

16:55

right, but they are essentially coming to

16:57

the same project, Like what

17:00

on earth is this? Like they've all got this like

17:02

what we're gonna be female wrestlers? Huh.

17:05

But then the characters that are created for them are

17:07

totally two dimensional. And kind of grotesque.

17:10

Um. Yeah, And so like, when

17:12

I'm thinking about these projects, I think, well, diversity

17:14

should be improved behind the scenes as well.

17:16

Right, it doesn't just make up for a lack of diversity

17:19

to have white people appropriating

17:21

culture there. There should be more creators

17:24

of diversity given a platform. And I was

17:26

trying to think of recent like examples

17:28

to do like a uh compare and

17:30

contrast here, And the two that came

17:32

up for me was I just started watching the American

17:35

Gods TV show that's based on that Neil game

17:37

and novel, and it really

17:39

attempts to tackle the African American

17:41

experience. But at the same time,

17:44

it's based on a book by a white Englishman

17:46

and it's adapted by a white American.

17:49

Then I think of a show like Atlanta, which

17:51

we talked about in this Ironically we talked

17:54

about Atlanta in the in the Samurai storied

17:56

episode. Uh, that is written

17:58

and run by a majority of African Americans.

18:01

Is one necessarily better than

18:03

the other? Is one more authentic than

18:05

the other? They both. As I'm

18:07

watching them, I'm getting different things out

18:09

of them, and I'm enjoying the experience and

18:12

maybe listeners out there who are engaged

18:14

in creative projects to have this floating in the back

18:16

of their head, like what am I allowed to engage

18:19

with? Yeah, alright, well,

18:21

let's let's continue to discussion then by

18:23

discussing some some some first of all

18:25

clear positive examples or or

18:28

what I'm I'm presenting as a

18:30

as a positive example. So one

18:32

that came to mind instantly is British

18:34

British singer of Swiss and Greek

18:36

heritage, Cat Stevens. He

18:39

famously converted to Islam and

18:41

uh and became use of Islam.

18:44

Now, clearly this is a case of an individual

18:46

entering into another culture's customs

18:49

and religious worldview with with clear

18:51

permission to do so. As with Christianity

18:54

and Buddhism, Islam is a missionary

18:56

religion with a clear mandate to bring

18:58

other people's into the faith. Everyone,

19:01

it is said, our our Muslim at birth.

19:04

So actually, one of the pieces that

19:06

I turned to for research on this was in

19:08

the Atlantic and it was by an author

19:10

named Jenny Avans, and she

19:13

argued that without cultural appropriation,

19:15

we wouldn't have the following things.

19:17

These are positive examples. New

19:19

York pizza, Japanese

19:22

Denim. I didn't know that was a thing. Uh,

19:24

yeah, I didn't either reading

19:26

what she was talking about. Apparently it's an older

19:28

style of denim may democratic

19:31

discourse. That's interesting. It

19:33

makes sense like democratic discourse came

19:35

from Greece, but here in America we've sort

19:38

of assumed that it's like our thing,

19:40

right, you know. Uh, and

19:42

then from the Atlantic as well. Connor

19:44

Freedersdorf also had

19:46

an interesting interview, and he provided

19:48

the following examples. Imagine a

19:51

Korean food truck owner who puts

19:53

beef bulgogie in a burrito.

19:55

Are they appropriating Mexican

19:57

culinary culture? Or a malays

20:00

Asian housewife who rents a kimono

20:02

when they're on holiday in Kyoto?

20:04

Is that appropriating traditional Japanese

20:06

dress? Or a Canadian who writes a novel

20:09

that's inspired by Cervantes, they're

20:11

technically appropriating Spanish literary

20:14

culture. Or an Irish American

20:16

who sings opera for a living they're

20:18

benefiting from the world's appropriation of

20:20

Italian art. So there's a lot of complication

20:23

here, right. It's not as easy as just pointing at Selena

20:25

Gomez or Miley Cyrus or somebody and saying

20:27

stop doing that. Yeah, I mean the culinary

20:30

example. Um, I'm glad you brought it

20:32

that up, because I was I was turning a number

20:34

of these around it in my mind, like, oh,

20:36

what about the Portuguese influence

20:39

on Thai cuisine, you know, the incorporation of

20:41

of peppers for instance, Or

20:44

a better, more clear cut example, I suppose

20:46

would be the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine,

20:48

because there you have an even clearer, uh,

20:51

colonial influence. And

20:53

of course this leads to an important

20:56

detail in charges of

20:58

cultural misappropriation. It's it's usually

21:00

the superior power, the colonial force,

21:02

that is charged with misappropriating something,

21:05

and the reasons should be obvious. I mean, for instance,

21:08

if you're if you're a population of Africans

21:10

transposed to to a Caribbean island,

21:12

and you incorporate aspects of the colonial

21:14

and local culture under your own practices,

21:17

I mean that survival that falls in line with

21:19

a lot of what we're talking about in our Cargo Cults

21:21

episode. But when the

21:23

colonist appropriates the culture of

21:26

subjugated people, I mean, that's

21:28

that's where it gets a lot ickier

21:30

or potentially ickier. Right, Okay,

21:33

So yeah, I'm seeing that as like definitely

21:35

like a hallmark for these cases that

21:38

are brought up with outrage,

21:40

right, is that usually it's if somebody

21:42

who is from a colonial culture

21:45

is appropriate again indigenous versus non

21:47

indigenous. Um. One of my

21:49

favorite books of all time is a graphic novel called

21:51

Pride of Baghdad. It's about lions

21:54

that escape the zoo after the

21:56

Americans bomb Baghdad in two

21:58

thousand three, and the lions, or of

22:00

the story, they essentially become symbols for us

22:02

to see different versions of the war through. It's written

22:05

by Brian K. Vaughan, is drawn

22:07

by Nico Henrikin. Neither

22:09

of them are Iraqi, but this modern

22:11

folk tale really made me think about the Iraqi

22:14

experience differently. I think

22:16

about, uh, this is a non

22:18

colonial example Japanese

22:20

post rock bands I like Mono

22:23

and the band Boris. Uh.

22:26

These musicians adapt Western

22:28

styles of rock. They come up

22:30

with something that's totally new and kind of wonderful

22:32

in the process. I'd never dream

22:35

of referring to Boris as cultural

22:37

appropriation, right, but arguably

22:39

it is. It's just because Japan

22:42

is not a colonizer of the United

22:44

States, we don't really think of it that way.

22:46

In fact, part of why I think I like it so much

22:49

is the multiculturalism to it. And I think

22:51

we'd be remiss if we didn't recognize. One of the

22:53

major examples that comes up over and over again the

22:55

literature is that white people have been accused

22:57

of appropriating rock from African

22:59

American culture. Uh. And

23:01

then you and I were trying to we were talking earlier

23:04

before we went on air, like,

23:06

what's a great positive example of

23:08

the sort of colonizer, white

23:11

vanilla guy really

23:13

doing a great job representing

23:16

another culture, And you said, David Simon,

23:18

the guy who created the wire and tremay.

23:21

Yeah, Yeah, this has come up a lot and

23:23

uh, and in some of the

23:25

resources we were looking at for this episode. And

23:28

I think the reason that it is often brought up as a good

23:30

example is because David Simon

23:33

and the teams that he as symbols, they

23:35

tend to approach these topics with, you

23:38

know, out of a sense of wanting to understand a very

23:41

empathic, uh journalistic

23:43

mission in mind. Yeah, yeah, I

23:45

think that's important. Uh. And as

23:47

we go through these examples, it becomes clearer

23:50

to me that that part of it is like

23:53

actually engaging with the culture

23:55

that you're influenced by or

23:57

appropriating, right, like engaging with that

23:59

and not just the artifact. Uh.

24:02

That goes a long way. Now that being

24:04

said, I do have to I do have to

24:06

throw out there that I know that David Simon does

24:09

make an effort to bring in members of

24:12

of of cultures that are that are depicted

24:14

in his shows, because I remember him talking

24:16

about The Wire and towards the end

24:19

and saying that if they were going to do another season,

24:21

they would have to incorporate like

24:24

another racial demographic of Baltimore,

24:27

and if they did not have anybody uh

24:30

on the team that had had

24:32

expertise or knowledge or or participation

24:34

in that culture. Yeah, I was gonna say, I

24:37

can't remember the character's name.

24:39

There's like a preacher on

24:42

the show, and I want to say, like the real life

24:44

version of him is in the writer's

24:46

room for that show, or was in the writer's

24:49

room. I don't want to call off remember, isn't I'm

24:51

sure some Wire fans will point

24:53

we'll answer that question for us. So then let's

24:55

let's look at some really clear negative examples.

24:58

And this again maybe where some people

25:00

sort of react defensively and say, what how

25:03

is that how is that negative? The

25:05

most people agree the adaptation

25:08

of Native American garments in the fashion

25:10

industry UH isn't seen

25:12

in a positive light. UH So in

25:14

a brief period of time in the last couple of years,

25:16

we had Victorious Secret feature

25:19

a model wearing a feathered headdress

25:21

and turquoise jewelry, and a fashion show

25:24

that at the same time, Michelle Williams was criticized

25:26

for wearing braids and feathers in a magazine

25:28

photo shoot, and contestants on

25:30

Germany's Next Top Model also

25:32

did a photo shoot wearing headdresses

25:35

UH in Native American style clothing

25:38

UH and Native American writer Jessica Metcalf

25:41

actually points out in The Guardian. She says,

25:43

quote, our cultures have been reduced to nothing

25:45

more than patterns on a shirt. I

25:47

think this is a good point. This is again

25:50

it's the culture is about understanding

25:52

the world through these symbols. But when their

25:54

symbolic meaning is completely discarded,

25:56

they're divested of that power, right,

25:58

and then the meaning is lost, and so why

26:01

engage with it other than just like I

26:03

like feathers, or I like turquoise, you know,

26:05

or or to what extent is that even are

26:07

you engaging with it? Are you are? You're not really engaging

26:10

with it at all, if you're just taking it on as

26:12

a hollowed out, superficial thing.

26:14

It's especially viewed as worse because

26:17

these artifacts have spiritual

26:19

and ceremonial significance to them

26:21

too. So I think like maybe

26:24

looking at this example, it seems that cultural appropriation

26:26

is quote unquote worse when

26:28

it's done for commercial purposes. So we've got

26:30

sort of two hallmarks here, the colonial one a

26:33

commercial one in this sense. For instance,

26:35

fashion businessman Oscar mets

26:38

of it. I think that's how you say his name.

26:41

Met sav Hot gave

26:43

royalties from his twenties sixteen spring

26:45

collection to the asha Nika tribe

26:48

that these clothes were inspired by. They

26:51

also contributed to public awareness about

26:53

the tribe struggle with illegal

26:55

loggers. This was in Brazil, so

26:58

you know, he's clearly like trying

27:00

to uh put

27:03

out any fires. I guess ahead of time because he

27:05

knew like he had a commercial product

27:07

essentially and that he could be criticized for it. Now,

27:09

if that was a clear negative

27:11

example, that had some

27:14

perhaps some wiggle room for for some people

27:16

to say, well, I don't understand you know, I need that explained

27:18

to me a little more wine. That's offensive. I feel

27:20

like the next one should be pretty pretty

27:23

clear cut, you think so, And yet there's

27:25

so many there's so many examples

27:27

of this one still being used. So

27:29

blackface is essentially like the

27:32

big no no. Right. Uh,

27:35

And this is where I think he gets important to like,

27:37

is that cultural appropriation or is that just

27:40

making fun of race or ethnicity? You

27:42

know, well, yeah, it's I guess it's It

27:44

tends to be the the

27:47

the most unrefined example of

27:50

just blatant um mockery.

27:53

And you have to ask yourself, to what degree

27:55

is this energy present in more deluded

27:58

amounts in other acts

28:00

of alleged cultural misappropriation

28:02

exactly? I mean, really, any dressed

28:04

up perpetuation of an ethnic stereotype

28:07

is going to be bad here. Don't

28:10

make fun of someone else's culture

28:12

or ethnicity. Don't treat it like a joke. Right.

28:14

You remember this from our previous Halloween episode

28:17

that we did must be two years ago. Now,

28:19

Uh, there's a kind of in clothed performance

28:22

that happens around that holiday. Another example

28:24

of this is, for instance, when white

28:26

people think that Dio de los Muertos

28:29

is Mexican Halloween, and they wear

28:31

skull face paint. They don't even consider

28:33

sometimes the cultural implications of

28:35

the actual tradition. And Connor

28:38

Friedersdorf again, he has a good quote about

28:40

this. He says, a white college student who

28:42

dons black face is not engaging

28:44

with African American culture. He

28:46

or she is just caricaturing physical

28:49

features of another race. The act

28:51

is offensive partially because it's reducing

28:53

people to the color of their skin. Uh.

28:56

My example that I came out from this recently,

28:59

I meant in this I think in previous episode. I'm rereading

29:02

it this summer. Stephen King's

29:04

in anticipation of the new movie. I had

29:06

forgotten how racist some

29:09

of the characters in that are. The Richie

29:11

Tozier character puts on like

29:13

a quote black character voice in

29:15

the book, Uh, and it completely pulls

29:17

me out of the story every time it happens. I

29:20

don't think Stephen King is racist.

29:22

I don't think he was making fun of ethnicity.

29:24

I think he was probably trying to critique the era

29:27

that he grew up in the nineteen fifties,

29:29

when something like Amos and Andy was acceptable.

29:31

Right. It still feels super culturally

29:34

weird to read that today. I can't

29:36

imagine in that movie the kid from

29:38

Stranger Things is playing Richie Tozier.

29:41

I can't imagine they're gonna have him repeat those

29:43

lines when he plays that character, especially since are

29:45

they updating the backstory to the eighties? Yeah,

29:47

they are. Yeah, They're going to be in the eighties, and I think

29:50

the modern version will be in present day.

29:52

Yeah. Uh. Jonathan Blanks

29:54

was interviewed in the Atlantic and he says there's

29:56

nothing wrong with adopting terms

29:58

like was up as they come into

30:01

white pop culture through various media.

30:03

But there's a difference between the natural

30:05

assimilation of language and black

30:08

imitation as a caricature. Yeah.

30:11

Obviously yellow faces another example of

30:13

this, and the big the big

30:15

like just cringe worthy example, I mean, at least

30:17

crunch worthy. Is Um

30:19

Breakfast a Tiffany's wonderful film,

30:22

except you have this this horrible

30:25

character played by Mickey Rooney, Mickey

30:27

Rooney playing a Chinese

30:29

American and the most stereotypical

30:32

way possible. Uh,

30:34

just blatantly offensive to

30:36

to to to modern viewers of

30:38

the film. Uh, and and some contemporary

30:41

viewers of the film as well. If you look back at at

30:43

some of the reviews. But

30:45

again, there's this, there's not an attempt

30:47

to really understand this person or

30:49

to embody this character as

30:52

anything other than a mockery. You

30:54

know, another one that I had forgotten about from

30:56

our childhood adolescents

30:59

Twin Peaks. Yeah, I had completely

31:01

forgotten about this. Uh there's a character

31:03

who does yellow face and that uh

31:05

Katherine at one point pretends

31:07

to have died. Spoilers for the but I

31:10

haven't haven't seen it yet. You've never seen the original

31:12

the original Twin Peaks. Oh well, okay,

31:14

I won't go too far with it, but as long as you don't

31:16

spoil who done it, I'm not fine. Oh

31:19

yeah, I won't go there. But there is a character

31:21

who dresses up like a Chinese man.

31:24

Uh. And it's super offensive.

31:26

And when you watch it now you realize, like,

31:28

oh, this was David Lynch making a commentary

31:31

on Americans and racism.

31:34

Right. It wasn't like David Lynch was being racist,

31:37

but it is extraordinarily

31:39

weird to watch something like that or read something

31:41

like it that you know I was consuming

31:43

when I was a kid and not really

31:45

recognizing, oh, hey, this is this

31:47

is wrong, not quite right.

31:50

Here, so Jenny Avans again

31:52

in her article she argues that we

31:54

shouldn't just engage with the culture on an

31:56

aesthetic level. It was put

31:58

another way actually by an actress named Amanda

32:00

Stenberg. She was in the Hunger Games,

32:03

and she said in a video that was actually

32:05

very much criticized, what would America

32:08

be like if we loved black people as

32:10

much as we love black culture. Nicki

32:13

Minaj of all People, actually

32:15

echoed this. Her point was basically,

32:17

don't cherry pick cultural elements without

32:19

engaging their creators as a part

32:21

of a process of understanding

32:24

the world from a different perspective than

32:26

yours. And this is where it gets interesting.

32:28

You see a lot of these contrasting viewpoints.

32:30

In NPR actually

32:32

did a story about how young Americans don't

32:35

identify hip hop

32:37

with race. They actually think that

32:39

that culture is now possibly seen

32:42

as global because

32:44

you can see it as far away as places

32:46

like Korea and Russia. At

32:48

the same time, others are arguing, well, when

32:50

you culturally devalue black people,

32:53

that subsequently paved the way for violence

32:55

against them. Right, and as we're seeing

32:58

in so many cases of incidents

33:00

in which police are shooting young black men,

33:03

Okay, so let's talk a

33:05

little more about gray area is here, um

33:07

briefly, So as always,

33:10

you know, the gray area is only as gray as

33:12

the critic paints it. So if it helps,

33:14

think of think of these as less as gray areas,

33:16

but areas of question, areas of possibility

33:18

even as we discussed them, and as you discussed

33:20

them and think about them in your own lives. Uh,

33:22

places where the charge of cultural

33:25

appropriation or misappropriation become less

33:27

clear. So one example that comes to

33:29

my mind a video was

33:31

making the rounds recently on social media in which

33:33

a group of Caucasian women performed

33:36

at traditional African dance in presumably

33:39

traditional costume. Now, it is often

33:41

the case with social media content, any

33:43

context was completely lacking. Here we

33:46

didn't we were not told who

33:48

these women were, why they were

33:50

doing it, where they were doing it, even there was no no,

33:52

no clue at all, the messages in the hand

33:54

of the share and then in the in the commentator. Now,

33:57

a number of commentators on this video, when

33:59

I was looking at they strongly condemned the footage,

34:01

saying that it was, you know, just a blinding example

34:04

of cultural misappropriation. A

34:06

few credit commentators,

34:08

however, pointed out that we didn't know to

34:10

what extent these women had permission to engage

34:13

in this dance and really what the

34:15

spirit of their performance was. It

34:18

did not I mean, they certainly were not wearing

34:20

black face. It did not seem to have comedic

34:23

um aspects to it, But

34:25

we just simply don't know. In short, did they do

34:27

it to mock anybody? Did they do it to engage

34:29

in a surface level experience, or was it part

34:31

of a deeper effort to understand is

34:33

their honor instant and understanding there is

34:35

their permission there? Essentially context

34:38

is important here. Yeah, I feel

34:40

like I mean again, it's it.

34:43

It kind of depends on the commentator here

34:45

and who is making the charge of cultural

34:48

misappropriation, and they're going to go to

34:50

varying extremes in making that charge.

34:53

Another example that came to mind Big

34:56

Trouble in Little China. Yeah, this one. When

34:58

you put this in the new It's immediately like

35:01

a light bulb went on over my head. I was like, oh, yeah,

35:03

Like again a thing from our childhood

35:06

never even occurred to me as a kid that

35:08

that would be any in any

35:10

way offensive to somebody. Yeah, and this

35:13

is I have to say this is uh, this has always

35:15

been one of my my favorite films. But

35:17

it's a thing, and it's a you know, film I've I've always

35:19

loved, but it is a film by

35:22

a group of Western Caucasian filmmakers.

35:24

Now, it does it does invoke Chinese

35:26

martial arts movie stereotypes. But

35:29

on the other hand, it does feature a large

35:31

Chinese American cast. It plays

35:33

with its stereotypical stereotypical

35:35

characters to some degree, and even counters

35:38

some stereotypes, uh within

35:40

key characters. Plus, while

35:42

it certainly plays fast and loose um

35:45

Hollywood style with Chinese mythology,

35:47

it does seem to try reasonably

35:49

hard to incorporate some key elements

35:51

there. So in my current experience

35:54

of the movie, I'm inclined to appreciate

35:56

it within those parameters and see it as a

35:58

net positive expression. But I also

36:00

understand that other

36:02

individuals might take a different view. I

36:05

have a hard time imagining Big

36:07

Trouble in Little China getting made the same way

36:09

today. Now. I know, like there's been rumors

36:11

that they're like they're going to remake it with a rock or something

36:14

like that, But I just I can't

36:16

imagine that it's going to engage with

36:18

Chinese culture in the same way, because like again

36:21

I'm bringing this up twice in a week Transformers,

36:25

uh whatever the whatever number five

36:27

that I saw this weekend. Like don't

36:29

get me wrong, I have a problem and

36:31

I go see all those movies in the theater, but they

36:33

are really offensive at

36:36

some points and how they appropriate culture. And

36:38

there's like a basically

36:40

like a Japanese stereotype

36:42

Transformer that like dresses like a

36:44

samurai and has a katana

36:47

and has um. I

36:49

can't remember the actor's name, but isn't it a Tokyo

36:51

drift based car transfer might

36:53

be Yeah, it's some sports car I don't recognize,

36:56

but he it's a Japanese actor performing

36:59

this character. It's like super

37:01

offensive in the same way that like some of those Star

37:03

Wars aliens were seen as being like

37:06

caricatures as well. Uh.

37:08

And that they had another one in this in this recent

37:10

one that was French, and they're like, oh, yeah,

37:13

can Transformers be French? And somebody

37:15

says, oh, no, he's not actually French. He

37:18

just he's just pretending

37:20

to be French, like he really likes French culture.

37:22

And I was like, this is like, I

37:25

mean, there's so many things about those movies that are confounding.

37:27

But yeah, any statement

37:29

it tries to make about ethnicity or culture

37:32

I wouldn't take with a whole lot of

37:34

brain as salt. All Right,

37:36

well, let's take another break, and when

37:38

we come back, let's get a little more into

37:41

the case against cultural misappropriation.

37:49

Alright, we're back, al right, so

37:51

let's look at cases against in cases

37:53

for this. Now. Bell Hooks

37:55

actually said about this topic, and we're talking about

37:58

cases against here quote at nicity

38:00

becomes a spice a seasoning

38:02

that can liven up the dull dish that

38:05

is mainstream white culture.

38:07

Uh. In the New York Times Pulse, Agal actually

38:10

argues that cultural appropriation is

38:12

actually about America's original sins,

38:15

whereas origins are bound up in quote,

38:17

theft and colonization. This gets

38:19

back to what we were talking about earlier with some of those negative

38:21

examples. It really seems like the colonization

38:24

aspect in the commercial aspect

38:26

are the two big no nos here, right.

38:29

Uh So if you're if you're combining

38:31

the two, it's even worse. Yeah,

38:34

I mean, we always come back to the idea of America

38:36

is a melting pot. But did

38:38

everyone want to go into the pot, and to

38:40

what extent is the pot proportionally

38:43

stirred? Right, Yeah, that's that's a fair question.

38:46

Connor Friedersdorff actually argues that

38:48

the claims of cultural

38:50

appropriation are actually objectionable

38:53

if there's an underlying animous

38:55

dis or dehumanization to them.

38:58

That's his words, not mine. The problem him

39:00

becomes when this is conflated

39:02

with cultural appropriation that's seen as

39:04

absurd. So for instance, the example

39:06

he gives is if a college cafeteria

39:09

serves sushi, uh

39:11

and for starters, Well yeah,

39:13

I mean you probably can get sick. But

39:16

but his example is basically like somebody

39:18

could find that as a case of cultural appropriation,

39:21

and then somebody else would see that as being

39:24

absurd, as being a conflation right

39:26

off, if you saw that as cultural appropriation.

39:29

So this is where you get into this like sort of battle

39:32

between whether or not something is or isn't offensive,

39:35

and it gets worse when the conflation backfires.

39:38

Then all examples are considered absurd.

39:40

So, for instance, even when something is malicious

39:43

like the fraternity party where

39:45

everybody's wearing black face for example,

39:47

right, uh, And I just realized

39:49

as I was doing the research for this, and I had this moment

39:51

where I was just like, oh, uh,

39:53

that you could use this.

39:56

This is basically cannon fodder for content

39:58

creation on the internet, right, for little media

40:00

outlets like without engaging with

40:02

the larger question in any manner like

40:04

we're trying to do today.

40:07

It's basically any time an incident

40:09

like this happens, it's just all right, that's

40:11

a perfect five word piece that we can

40:13

just like spit out there and get people to

40:15

click on, right, Like if we feign

40:18

outrage over something, or

40:21

we feign outrage over somebody else's

40:23

outrage. I mean, you see this everywhere.

40:26

It's it's so much of what

40:28

I think makes a Facebook probably

40:30

uh intolerable right now? Yeah,

40:32

and then commenting or critiquing another individual's

40:34

outrage and what degree is that outrage

40:37

appropriate? Right? So, I think

40:39

what we're finding here is this is essentially a problem with

40:41

language, right, that we're not using

40:43

words accurately to describe the

40:46

differences between something like racism and

40:48

cultural appropriation. And the example I think

40:50

of, uh, and when you first brought up this topic

40:52

to me it came to mind was Paton Oswald

40:54

has this great comedy bit about this on Netflix.

40:57

The specials called talking for clapping. He

41:00

jokes about the difference between terminology

41:03

versus listening to someone's heart, on

41:05

the difference between their words

41:07

and their intent, And he does these these sort of caricature

41:10

characters. You know, one person is using

41:12

all the exact right terms, but

41:15

they're what they're saying, the content

41:17

of what they're saying is offensive, versus

41:20

like somebody who doesn't know the exact right terminology,

41:22

but they meanwhile, um,

41:25

and it's probably. This is where I think

41:27

is a good point to mention Gert Hofstad

41:30

and his cultural dimensions theory. Now,

41:32

the idea here, we could whole episode

41:35

on this, but I'm gonna try to boil it down quickly. He

41:37

breaks down cultural factors and communication

41:40

and how they contribute to miss

41:42

communication. And there's five factors

41:45

that he's pointing us to here, power,

41:47

distance, individualism versus

41:49

collectivism, uncertainty, avoidance,

41:51

masculinity versus femininity, and

41:54

long term versus short term orientation.

41:57

Now, I'm not a hundred percent of propos

42:00

of his theory, but I recognize I think he's

42:02

kind of on the right track here of looking

42:04

at how different cultures communicate and

42:07

understanding one another. Differently,

42:09

And basically the idea here is to ensure

42:11

that the symbols themselves aren't misunderstood.

42:14

Communicators need to be cognizant

42:16

of the factors themselves. Right. The

42:18

way he actually does it, he'll he breaks

42:21

them up by nation, which I think is probably

42:23

part of the problem here, because I don't think one

42:25

nation necessarily has a culture per

42:27

se, right to say, like American

42:30

culture, uh doesn't

42:32

recognize like so many of the subcultures

42:34

within it, right Oh yeah too. I think to

42:37

to to boil down another nation

42:39

to a singular, you know, monolithic

42:42

culture is generally to betray a

42:44

very incomplete idea of

42:46

of who these people are. Yeah, And so

42:49

I think that might be why a lot of the

42:51

examples we're seeing in the literature

42:53

here come from mass media. The

42:55

communicators themselves aren't actually targeting

42:58

like a single audience, so they're

43:00

subsequently unintentionally offensive

43:03

to people that they just forgot about

43:05

that would be part of this mass broadcast.

43:08

Right. Um,

43:10

yeah, I mean countless examples. I

43:12

don't think when Selena

43:14

Gomez puts on a bindy or um,

43:17

what what did Katy Perry do? Did she have corn rows?

43:19

I think that was what people. Uh,

43:23

I think that was the example. She was Egyptian. I

43:26

don't know that dark Horse. The

43:28

Egyptian culture is an interesting example

43:31

too, because what is we'll get into it will discuss

43:33

the idea of like what happens if a culture is not appropriated

43:35

and it runs the risk of becoming outdated.

43:38

It kind of runs the risk of becoming something

43:41

like Egyptian culture. Which not to say that

43:43

you could not misappropriate

43:46

ancient Egyptian h iconography

43:49

your dress in a way that would offend someone. But

43:52

given the distance, given the time, given

43:55

the fact that the the ideas of the ancient

43:57

Egyptians did not travel well even

43:59

during their time, much less into modern times,

44:02

um, it makes it a little safer for

44:04

some for sale pop singer two to utilize.

44:06

I haven't seen that new Tom Cruise Mummy

44:09

movie. I can't imagine that it is

44:12

in any way portraying Egyptian culture

44:15

in a positive I mean, like I said, it tends

44:17

to be this this safe zone, or

44:20

relatively safe at least, you know, compared

44:22

to so many things. I mean, we still have Mommy movies. We

44:25

talked before about how kind of

44:27

weird it is that we have these tales

44:29

about Uh, these bodies

44:31

that were stolen from from tombs

44:33

by by colonial powers and they

44:35

come to life and start killing people, and and for the

44:37

most part, like no serious self

44:40

examination is conducted. Yeah,

44:42

yeah, well right and again, so like I

44:44

think all of this comes back to like a matter of

44:47

semantics and language, kind of paying attention

44:49

to what you're saying and what you're doing, and probably

44:51

where the term misappropriation needs

44:54

to be clarified and used instead of appropriation.

44:58

Now, another notable area here or

45:00

that that the factors

45:02

into our discussion concerns American sports

45:05

teams and the use of

45:07

Native Americans stereotypes as

45:09

mascots. Now, certainly this is a this

45:11

is a whole discussion onto itself. But

45:14

what's interesting here for the purposes of our discussion

45:16

is that is that there was a study that was published

45:18

in the Journal of Consumer Psychology by

45:21

a team of researchers from the University of Montana,

45:23

the University of Washington, and Washington State

45:25

University, and they set out to empirically

45:27

test the use of American Indian

45:30

brand imagery and how it increases

45:32

UH stereotype beliefs in the broader population.

45:35

And they wanted to see what kind of impact the

45:37

brands would have on both negative

45:40

and positive stereotypes. So examples

45:42

here would be Indians are warlike versus

45:45

Indians are noble, so it's a noble savage,

45:47

right that kind of Yeah. Then the idea

45:50

that these are the two private predominant stereotypes

45:52

and these are the only two that can exist

45:54

when you're doing just search a surface level understanding

45:57

of another culture. So interestingly

46:00

enough, they found that while conservative

46:03

individuals that they tested, they did

46:05

not change their opinion about Native Americans

46:07

upon seeing such imagery. Uh. Liberal

46:10

individuals were far more malleable.

46:12

Uh, and they were affected by both positive

46:14

and negative stereotypes. And this apparently

46:17

falls into line with previous studies that have revealed

46:19

that that liberal individuals tend to

46:21

have more malleable worldviews and are

46:23

therefore sometimes more sensitive to contextual

46:26

clues. So I have a great

46:28

example of this. We

46:31

live in Atlanta, Georgia. Have

46:33

you ever going to see the Braves play? No,

46:36

yeah, it's not my thing, but a couple

46:38

of coworkers at a job previous to this

46:40

took me to a Braves game. And

46:43

did you know about this? The tomahawk chop? Oh

46:45

yeah, yeah, I'm sir, I'm familiar enough with

46:47

it to know that as we chop your arm.

46:50

Yeah, So, like there's a certain point during the game

46:52

where that, you know, the crowd gets excited in support

46:54

of the home team in Atlanta Braves,

46:56

and they do this tomahawk chop thing where they

46:58

like use their arms like the tomahawks that they're

47:00

like bringing them down on the skulls of their opponent. There's

47:03

actually like a I don't even

47:05

know what it is, like a robot like animatronic

47:07

thing that kind of comes out and swings the tomahawk

47:09

and everything. And I remember the first

47:12

time I saw that just being like WHOA, Like,

47:14

what is happening here? This is super

47:16

offensive? Um, But again

47:19

that might just be like my predilections, right,

47:21

Like uh, I just saw it

47:23

as being like, Okay, this is the

47:26

the savage stereotype being brought out to

47:28

play here. Now. They had a

47:30

separate field study as well, and the researchers also

47:32

found that exposure to a quote more

47:34

negative ethnic logo A significantly

47:37

strengthened negative stereotypes among

47:39

liberal individuals, while exposure to the less

47:42

negative logo did not significantly

47:44

influence negative stereotypes At

47:46

any level of political identity.

47:49

So what what does all this fit into our conversation

47:51

here. Well, I think one of the things that's interesting

47:54

is that it reveals that one can interact

47:56

with such artifacts of cultural appropriation without

47:58

necessarily thinking about them,

48:00

without certainly without engaging

48:03

with them, but also not realizing why

48:05

they could be offensive. And

48:08

it also is interesting to see how malleable

48:10

worldviews can cut both ways.

48:13

So the very the very, the very

48:15

aspect of your psyche that makes you more

48:18

willing to to see

48:20

the situation from another individual side

48:22

and to shift your worldview accordingly.

48:25

Uh, that can also lead

48:28

to the to the less desirable effect

48:30

that you're influenced than by

48:33

bits of negative stereoto typing um

48:36

and and you know, negative cultural misappropriation.

48:39

So this is actually part of the sort of factor

48:41

of leading to the whole like is it absurd?

48:43

Is it not absurd? Should it be blamed?

48:45

Should it not be blamed? So, yeah, there's

48:47

so many complex factors here.

48:50

Now let's look at some of the cases for

48:52

cultural appropriation and see if we can get anything

48:55

more out of them. Uh. Sometimes

48:58

it's seen as being positive when it's

49:00

seen as appreciation and influence

49:02

rather than appropriation. Also when

49:04

creators seek permission from the person or culture

49:06

they're appropriating from, or they're

49:09

paying homage to the artistry,

49:11

then it gets complicated. How do you know who you're supposed

49:13

to ask? Like this whole thing gets into

49:16

intellectual property. I found so many

49:18

articles about intellectual property and ownership

49:21

of cultural artifacts, and that there's

49:23

actually legal precedent for culture

49:25

being copyrighted in certain cases. To

49:28

Um and Jenny Avan's argues

49:30

in that Atlantic piece, the cultural appropriation

49:33

is actually a result of globalization, so

49:35

subsequently it's inevitable, but it's also ultimately

49:38

positive. In her mind, it's an exchange of ideas,

49:40

styles, and traditions, and it's showcasing

49:43

the joy of living in a multicultural

49:45

society. Susan

49:47

Scaffitti wrote a book that is called

49:50

Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and

49:52

Authenticity in American Law, and

49:54

she says that culture shouldn't freeze

49:57

itself in time as if it's like part

49:59

of a music e M diorama. She

50:01

actually argues cultural appropriation

50:03

can save cultural products

50:06

from fading away. And Pakistani

50:09

novelist Camilla Shamsi

50:11

called for more, not less, imaginative

50:14

engagement with her country. She says,

50:17

quote, the moment you say a male

50:19

American writer can't write about a

50:21

female Pakistani, you are saying,

50:23

don't tell these stories. And even worse

50:25

so, you're saying, as an American male,

50:28

you can't understand a Pakistani

50:30

woman. She is enigmatic, inscrutable,

50:33

and unknowable. Therefore she's

50:35

other. Leave her and her nation

50:37

to its otherness. Write them out

50:40

of your history. I

50:42

ran across a wonderful article in Ian magazine.

50:44

No surprise that they come up pretty frequently

50:46

here. Nabilia At jeffre Uh

50:49

makes some really good points in the article is

50:51

Nothing Sacred? And when she discusses, among other

50:53

things, the experience of seeing non Sufi

50:55

Muslims take up the dervish

50:57

whirling. Okay, he talks about, you know,

51:00

the origins of this custom and then what it's like to

51:02

see it, uh, it practiced by

51:04

by non Muslims and say, uh,

51:07

West London, and you

51:10

know, it's hard to to see it as anything other than

51:12

like a hollowed out portion of someone's culture.

51:15

But he also points out that quote religions

51:17

and cultures, and indeed nations have survived

51:19

only by being open to new ways

51:21

of representing themselves, and that the survival

51:23

and spread of a culture's core values

51:25

come at a price, and the alternative to

51:28

paying that price is sometimes fossilization.

51:31

Uh, your your culture just becomes

51:33

irrevalent. So this is again like plays

51:35

right into that whole American Gods thing. Essentially,

51:37

the thesis of American Gods as a TV

51:40

show and a novel is that these gods

51:42

are are representations

51:44

of cultures, and they either become

51:46

fossilized and are forgotten and subsequently

51:49

die, or they incorporate

51:52

themselvesselves somehow into these new cultures.

51:54

Yeah, like belly dancing comes to mind

51:57

as a as as a potential, you know, area

51:59

to ask questions like this, but one that so maybe

52:01

a little more related to to you and me. Yoga.

52:03

I think it fits nicely in here because you have a practice

52:06

with roots in India, but a practice

52:08

that has undergone heavy alteration, alteration

52:10

by Western practitioners and continues to

52:12

undergo alteration as it takes

52:15

takes on various forms, sometimes

52:17

increasingly secular forms, other

52:20

forms that reinforce spiritual concepts,

52:22

concepts that that might uh

52:25

that that you might argue or misappropriated as

52:27

well. But if the core physical

52:29

practice improves the human experience, then

52:31

isn't it worth the adaptation? That's

52:33

what I'm asking in, and can't

52:36

the same beset of meditation in various

52:38

spirit spiritual models as long as

52:40

there's a you know, an openness there, and

52:42

uh, an honesty and its use. So

52:45

there is actually an article in the Boston

52:47

Globe that came up about this, about

52:49

yoga specifically and whether it was cultural

52:52

appropriation. The tone of this article

52:54

is a little bit more confrontational than I'm

52:56

really willing to engage with here, but essentially

52:58

the author was pushing back because there

53:00

was an accusation that Western

53:03

practitioners of yoga were ignoring

53:05

colonialism and the oppression of where

53:07

the practice originated from. Uh.

53:10

And his pushback was similar to what you said,

53:12

which is essentially like, well, if the practice is

53:14

beneficial to mankind, shouldn't

53:17

we do it anyway?

53:19

Yeah? I think that at times. I'm

53:22

certainly not trying to boil all this down to this one

53:24

question, but I think sometimes we have

53:26

to ask ourselves is there a legacy of horror

53:29

here? And in the answer,

53:31

no matter where you are in life, for culture is

53:33

almost always yes, uh. And

53:36

again that's not not too blanketly forgive

53:38

any cultural transgression, but maybe

53:41

it's simply important to on some level acknowledge

53:43

the legacy of horror and everything we do.

53:46

Uh. And I realized it sounds a bit dark even

53:48

for us, but but you know

53:50

it, it kind of falls in line with what we've

53:52

been talking here, like be prepared to, uh,

53:55

to slip on the horror lens from time

53:57

to time, if only for a moment, if only

53:59

to ground or present choices, beliefs

54:01

and privileges. Uh, you know, in

54:04

in a in an appropriate frame

54:06

of reference. That's my personal

54:08

take on it. Anyway. Yeah, so

54:11

you know we're winding up here. I think

54:13

uh that you know, the research

54:15

looking at this it helped me a little bit with my

54:18

question in terms of like the work that I'm

54:20

creating, but also in terms

54:22

of, you know, what are things that I

54:24

should be offended by or or things that

54:27

I maybe should question out loud versus

54:29

other things where it's sometimes, like I said,

54:32

there's lots of content created on the internet

54:34

about this because it's fuel for the fire and it gets

54:36

AD clicks. So you

54:38

know, is this worth clicking

54:40

on? Is this headline worth engaging

54:42

with? Or should I just skip right past it. So

54:46

hopefully we've provided you with some additional insight

54:48

here and some additional tools, uh

54:50

for you to just figure out where you stand on all

54:52

of this and and to understand where other

54:55

people are falling on

54:57

on the topic of cultural appropriation and

54:59

cultural appropriation. Yeah,

55:01

and I have to say, as a fan of

55:03

the show before I joined the show, Robert

55:06

does a really good job on Stuff to Blow your

55:08

Mind dot Com of incorporating

55:10

a lot of different cultures

55:13

into our examination of sciences

55:15

and philosophy over the last what

55:18

is it now, six seven years that the show has been going

55:20

on that. Yeah,

55:22

So if you visit stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, you're

55:24

just gonna find a lot of really interesting

55:26

insights and that are connected to what we were

55:28

talking about here today. And not only that,

55:31

we've got all these are from our blog posts,

55:33

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55:35

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55:38

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55:40

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