Dumbs angry about high school senior wearing Chinese dress to prom

[tallguy23]

Omg this is so dumb

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Cultural appropriation is one of those concepts that makes sense (even if you don't agree with it) in the rigidly defined world of academia, but has proven super invasive and moronic as a meme by your Intro to Post-Colonial Theory 101 crowd, who have morphed it into a deranged form of shaming others for performative wokeness.

To me it's almost offensive in the era of Trump and his followers to be overly concerned with this trivial nonsense.

Woke af

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Cultural appropriation is anti-racist.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I wonder what Trumpy thinks of the dress.

To be prefectly honest, half of these media blowups are grossly overstated.

The media now reports "Internet goes into meltdown" and "Social media outrage" for stories that dont actually have any real outrage.

The story probably had 30 people on Facebook looking at it to begin with.

Someone named Gary from Indiana thought she was smokin' hot. Someone named Beatrice from LA thought Gary was supporting an image of cultural insensitivy. Then they disagreed verbally.

Nek minnit. World news.

The asian guy's tweet got 150k likes, so it was a bit more than 30 people lol

[Crumpets]

I wore a tie to prom. Was I appropriating Croatian culture?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

That people spend the energy they spend getting bent out of shape over this is Exhibit A in making the case that we are no longer a Serious Nation.

I thought that was when we chose a President whose only qualification was that he played a witty, successful, take-no-nonsense businessman on a reality TV show?

[BBD]

Why is the BBC even reporting on this??

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

I wore a tie to prom. Was I appropriating Croatian culture?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

OmegaScarlet seems oddly quiet on this subject.

[KingSweden]

It's weird how everyone looks at this dress controversy differently.  Personally, I see it as white and gold.

Close the thread we have a winner

[Figueira]

Well, I mean, if it's not your culture, don't display it.

Who decides who owns what culture, and in what capacity? Cases like Urban Outfitters and the Navajo patterns are very rare.

Uhhh the Chinese.

What if two Chinese people disagree with each other?

[dead0man]

Well, I mean, if it's not your culture, don't display it.

Who decides who owns what culture, and in what capacity? Cases like Urban Outfitters and the Navajo patterns are very rare.

Uhhh the Chinese.

What if two Chinese people disagree with each other?

the one claiming victimhood is always the winner in some people's eyes, no matter the facts or how many people must be punished.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Well, I mean, if it's not your culture, don't display it.

Who decides who owns what culture, and in what capacity? Cases like Urban Outfitters and the Navajo patterns are very rare.

Uhhh the Chinese.

What if two Chinese people disagree with each other?

Well, you see, what we call China, is actually the People's Republic of China. If you look at their government, you can clearly see that it is entirely composed of communists. Therefore, all Chinese think alike. QED. Checkmate.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I live in a city where Chinese people were literally relegated to the swamps. My province used and abused them to build our railroads, run our mines, work our farms, catch our fish, and can our foods. Our white business owners took advantage of the desperation that so many Chinese families felt when they came to Canada, paying them considerably less than they'd pay white labourers. Chinese workers were segregated from others in pitiful conditions, made to do hugely dangerous work, and subjected to cavalier racism on the daily.

Our newspapers and magazines featured white people taming Chinese immigrants in traditional garb like pets, as if it was an accomplishment to domesticate these "exotic" subhumans. Our government enacted racist policies that made Chinese immigrants pay exorbitant "head taxes" upon entry to the country. When that didn't work, we banned them outright for over 20 years.

Their traditional clothing has its own meaning divorced from politics, but it's also a symbol of resilience amidst all the bullsh-t they've had to endure. I imagine that it must be a real mark of pride for Chinese people to wear these clothes. This garb once set them apart and made them a target... now it's a way to celebrate who they are, remember what they've been through, and relay the clear message that they are here and they are strong. These pieces of clothing belong to them.

And then for some basic white girl to come along, strip it of its meaning, and wear it to prom like it's just another consumable accessory...? Not cool. I'm not going to say there are hard and fast rules about cultural appropriation, but this clearly was not thoughtful. If she was being thoughtful she would have humbled herself and made a different choice, because there were many others that would have allowed her to avoid even being construed as disprespecting an entire group of people. Instead, she wore it. Because the only thing she was really thinking about was herself.

[IceAgeComing]

Well, I mean, if it's not your culture, don't display it.

i'm sure that people from ireland would love it if you practiced what you preached when it came to that

[dead0man]

Well, I mean, if it's not your culture, don't display it.

i'm sure that people from ireland would love it if you practiced what you preached when it came to that

white people can't appropriate another white culture dontchaknow, for the same reasons this wouldn't have been a story had the girl wearing the dress been some other non-Chinese Asian.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Instead, she wore it. Because the only thing she was really thinking about was herself.

Do you usually consider the societal consequences before dressing yourself in the morning?

[dead0man]

Instead, she wore it. Because the only thing she was really thinking about was herself.

Do you usually consider the societal consequences before dressing yourself in the morning?

I'm sure Hagrid only wears clothing his anscotrs wore 1000 years ago, to do anything less would be cultural appropriation and you cal tell by that spiel that this is a very important topic for him so there is no chance he has ever worn anything wrong.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Btw this style of dress was first designed in the 20s. Its not some ancient traditional dress. Also it was designed to be easy to do housework in, not some notable ceremonial purpose,

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

the big problem with this (for the left in general) is the media (including social media and discussion boards like Atlas) loves discussing and debating and reacting to stuff like this, which leads to the perception that the left and people concerned about racial justice are frivolous. There is probably more discussion in popular media about problematic Halloween costumes then there is about poverty (in PoC and white communities alike). Of course, this is a problem that the right promote, because peddling in outrage over outraged liberals itself gets clicks and doesn't hurt there movement as much.

[dead0man]

the big problem with this (for the left in general) is the media (including social media and discussion boards like Atlas) loves discussing and debating and reacting to stuff like this, which leads to the perception that the left and people concerned about racial justice are frivolous. There is probably more discussion in popular media about problematic Halloween costumes then there is about poverty (in PoC and white communities alike). Of course, this is a problem that the right promote, because peddling in outrage over outraged liberals itself gets clicks and doesn't hurt there movement as much.

Indeed, both sides feed off these things (in different ways and for slightly different reasons) and nothing changes other than people have (good) reason to dislike the other side a little bit more.


edit-recreational outrage is a pox on our house

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Instead, she wore it. Because the only thing she was really thinking about was herself.

Do you usually consider the societal consequences before dressing yourself in the morning?

I wouldn’t buy something that was so clearly a symbol of an oppressed minority’s culture in the first place. I wouldn’t put it on like it was some meaningless costume. So yes, I do actively think about these things when making purchases. And surprisingly, it hasn’t actually hindered my life.

I mean, yes—there’s  a line that’s difficult to place. But wherever that line is, this is pretty obviously on the wrong side of it. If you folks can’t see the difference between wearing a pair of jeans or a plaid shirt and wearing this, that’s on you. You’ve decided to be obtuse on purpose. Good people try their best to be thoughtful and humble. They don’t go on a rampage or get totally defensive when another points out something they’ve done that could be genuinely offensive.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Instead, she wore it. Because the only thing she was really thinking about was herself.

Do you usually consider the societal consequences before dressing yourself in the morning?

I wouldn’t buy something that was so clearly a symbol of an oppressed minority’s culture in the first place. I wouldn’t put it on like it was some meaningless costume.

I mean, yes—there’s  a line that’s difficult to place. But wherever that line is, this is pretty obviously on the wrong side of it. If you imbeciles can’t see the difference between wearing a pair of jeans or a plaid shirt and wearing this, that’s on you. You’ve decided to be obtuse on purpose.

LOL, this isn't a "symbol of an oppressed minority's culture". It's a dress that was designed for ease of doing housework in. There's nothing sacred about it. They're mass produced in China and sold in bulk just as easy as it is to get jeans at department stores here.

(Chinese are also not an oppressed culture, at least in the US, but that's beside the point.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cultural appropriation is one of those concepts that makes sense (even if you don't agree with it) in the rigidly defined world of academia, but has proven super invasive and moronic as a meme by your Intro to Post-Colonial Theory 101 crowd, who have morphed it into a deranged form of shaming others for performative wokeness.

To me it's almost offensive in the era of Trump and his followers to be overly concerned with this trivial nonsense.

I think the biggest problem is lack of nuance. Initially these sort of complaints were over things like people getting drunk while jokingly wearing Native American war bonnets or using Hindu bindis as fashion accessories. I can see why that would be considered insensitive and tasteless (albeit still not the biggest deal, especially in the age of Trump.) The problem is that some people have now decided the safe thing is to never do anything from another culture ever, and rail against white people for eating at ethnic restaurants or wearing hoop earrings. In this case here as noted the dress is not some ancient sacred item, it was designed less than a century ago, and for the purpose of doing housework. It's also mass produced in China and sold by boatloads, just like jeans in the US. Including to tourists. Anyone who can't tell the difference between that and war bonnets or Hindu religious symbols, on either side, is quite obtuse.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What disturbs me most about this sort of thing is that people start acting as if the people involved are public figures, and not just public figures but public figures with a degree of responsibility - i.e. people from whom we may demand accountability from. Whereas in actual fact the people involved in this particular farrago are a) some teenager who found a dress that showed off her figure without being too risqué and was delighted and b) some random man from the diaspora with regrettably typical issues about cultural belonging who got Mad Online about it. We don't actually have a right to demand anything from them, particularly.