Rate the stupidity of this article

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

I think this article has a point. (Not joke)

That's right, I'm gonna go against the Atlas hivemind. Bring it on!

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

I think this article has a point. (Not joke)

That's right, I'm gonna go against the Atlas hivemind. Bring it on!

I would not characterize the article as "stupid", but I have a few questions:

Go ahead! Disclaimer: These are my personal views on the subject.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

A generic white person playing any one of these genres isn't problematic by itself, no more than an Asian person playing classical music. That said, it's completely possible that problematic cultural appropriation can result from this. Now, cultural appropriation isn't one single thing or one singular problem; it's actual several related issues:

One is the complete and utter disrespect of the appropriated culture. There are several ways to do this:
- Disrespecting religious items, or at least not understanding the value behind them. If you're Christian, you don't want some non-Christian wearing Jesus Christ on their underwear, right?
- Adopting some part of a culture while hating another aspect, usually the people. Example: Iggy Azalea playing black music, but then using the n-word like other people use punctuation.
- Adopting and then disposing of a culture for the sake of fame or some other purpose, as if that culture is just a commodity. Example: Miley Cyrus' adoption, and then rejection, of black culture, whenever it's most convenient for her.
- Adopting a stereotyped or "wrong" version of the original cultural item. Sure, different groups adopting changed versions of the original is how cultural change usually occurs, and that's good. But if the adopter is being dishonest by passing it off as the "authentic" version, or if they're basing their version off of offensive racial and ethnic stereotypes, then it's wrong.

Another, deeper way that cultural appropriation can become problematic is if a cultural adopter, almost always someone from a more advantaged group, economically benefits in a way the original, disadvantaged group can never do because of discrimination. To use your example, even though rock music was invented by black people, the most famous rock musicians are white people, to the point that black people who like rock music are called white on the inside.

Another example would be with food. Imagine if you're a member of a minority group who wants to start an ethnic restaurant. You get your loans and your building lease (often with complications due to discrimination and possibly language barriers). You get your customer base and you're moderately successful; however, good luck expanding your place. But then imagine some white guy selling the exact same food, but becoming more successful because they have more connections, because they have easier access to loans and other benefits, or because their restaurant is perceived as "cleaner" or just "better" by the general public. And imagine if they happen to disrespect the original food (see above).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I think any consequences should depend on if she's respecting black culture or not (see my list of ways of cultural disrespect). If she's doing everything in her power to improve the lives of black people, then she should not be punished. But if she's clearly disrespecting black culture like Iggy Azalea or Miley Cyrus do, then she should be punished, with her hairstyle being evidence for her being a hypocrite on top of being a racist. Thus, she is a worse racist than she would be otherwise. And in that case, we punish her the same way we punish other racists - with shame and more shame.

If she's neutral on race matters...then I don't think she should necessarily be punished either. But she'll likely be asked about her hairstyle anyways, in which case she very quickly will no longer be neutral.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Interesting question. Personally, what hairstyle she wears is just icing compared to the bigger issue of identifying as "black." The problem is that even if someone adopts black hairstyles, black cooking, and other material aspects of black culture in order to identify as black, they very likely won't experience the discrimination (both historical and current) that define the black experience. So my answer would be: "Sure, wear the hairstyle (so long as you respect its origins). But that doesn't mean you're black."

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You're welcome.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is all unprovable garbage and opinion. Like these are some huge assumptions to just broadly apply to all people as though they are fact.

Not all of it is completely "unprovable." For example, take black hairstyles. It's not "unprovable" and "opinion" to say that black hairstyles are stigmatized against in many situations. We can look at certain school dress codes:

- This prestigious school in South Africa attempted to ban black hairstyles, though they rescinded the ban a few days after due to protests.

- This school in Australia told two girls of South Sudanese descent to remove their braids because they "did not represent the school."

- This school in Kentucky also attempted to prohibit black hairstyles after it changed its dress code, prompting social media uproar.

In all three cases, these bans were rescinded, but only after public outrage. (So it's not like they were lifted out of the goodness of the administrators' hearts.) Admittedly, outright bans are extreme examples, but they show that black hairstyles are not seen as positively as white hairstyles.

Here's another interesting statistic, released by Pew in a survey on interracial marriage:



Source: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/intermarriage-in-the-u-s-50-years-after-loving-v-virginia/

Notice the wide gender discrepancies for couples with a black or Asian partner, in contrast to the lack of such discrepancies for couples with a white or Hispanic partner. Now keep in mind that in Western society, both black females and Asian males are considered "less desirable" than other race-gender combinations. Granted, correlation is not causation, but given that knowledge, it does not look good.

Ultimately, in America and other Western societies we have biased beauty standards, standards that favor white people and disfavor other groups. Of course, measuring beauty standards is quite hard (and experiments in social psychology are hard enough on their own!), but looking at proxies like these provide other ways to measure such standards (and provide evidence to some of the claims in the article).

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

I don't really care? As a Christian, it doesn't bother me that millions of people celebrate a commercialized holiday literally named after the son of God, who aren't Christians. I think it's just that this thing that started out Christian has evolved into something more secular.

Religion is a sensitive subject, and different people can have different views on how to treat their religious traditions. It's kind of ironic that you choose Christmas as your example, since there are Christians who view the secularization of Christmas as very bad. War on Christmas, remember? And secularizaing certain religious traditions is a very different beast from outright trivializing said religion, as when people put Hindu gods on socks or toilet seats.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

First, you have the issue that Azalea is a white person using the n-word. By itself, that opens up a whole can of worms (to say the least), even if she's a rapper.

But the main point is that this aspect - of cultural approrpiators picking and choosing what cultural items they like best while hating the rest, especially the people - does happen. If you want another example, just recall Trump's taco bowl photoshoot.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

In your example, the Chinese immigrant has a valid reason to not use Chinese with non-Chinese speakers. How would they survive otherwise? On the other hand, Miley Cyrus adopts and discards black culture not as a matter of survival, nor as a matter of advancing the interests of the black community or black artistry, but for her own commercial purposes. Surely Ms. Cyrus can still be a famous person if she hasn't gone through the whole thing of adopting and un-adopting.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Here we're in agreement on the general gist of it, and our disagreements are mostly details/semantics, so I won't address this.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Again, we are in agreement, this time with respect to the idea that white privilege is the main driving force behind these discrepancies. Where we disagree is the idea of whether cultural appropriation is a special manifestation of that privilege or not. I still maintain that it is, as there is a special ironic pain that results from seeing someone be more successful than you with your culture, in a way you can never be. Sure, seing someone be more successful than you because you're discriminated against hurts in general, but to have an important part of your culture and (ahem) identity be effectively used against you makes it worse.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

First, if I was being vague, it's because there are myriad ways that one can "respect" black culture, whether by rallying for their particular political causes, tutoring/mentoring black kids, or even partaking in black cultural celebrations with other black people. Likewise there are myriad ways one can disrespect black culture. Different people will have different views on which ways are better/worse than others, or which ways should be counted at all (in either direction). What I described in my previous post are my opinions, not the views of other so-called SJWs.

As for the white women who are attacked? Were they actively helping black people, actively hurting them, or doing neither? The third option is the most likely, I presume. Considering that the default state of American society is one where white privilege and institutionalized racism rule the day, doing nothing means that this default position has not changed by one iota, and black people are still as screwed as they were yesterday. So...it's not like they help black people by doing nothing, and hence this is where the "disrespect" comes in, in the eyes of many SJWs.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Would they? Historical reasons are (largely) why so many black people are forced off into segregated sections in American cities, why they are forced to go to inferior school districts, and why they have less wealth than white Americans. If someone who identifies as black grew up in a white household which never had to face these historical obstacles, then the answer, with regards to those aspects of life, is no.

But what about discrimination that persists in the present day? This may sound dumb, but a lot of this has to do with peoples' appearances. If someone identifies as black but looks like a stereotypical middle-class white person, then it's unlikely they would be discriminated against in daily life. If they take on the look of a stereotypically poor black person, then perhaps, but even then it wouldn't be at the same level of an actual black person.