Valentine’s Day. Halloween. Color run is successful because people want to throw dyes at each other. Holi on the other hand will never have this success because of its religious and cultural meanings. It’s like Christmas in Japan. They’re not celebrating the birth of Jesus when they go to KFC and I have never heard people claim this was cultural appropriation. Culture is a living concept and should be shared and modified as best fits a given situation. We should not be any more offended by this girl wearing this dress to her prom than a person on the other side of the world wearing a tuxedo or a white Victorian dress to their celebrations and festivities.
People know what Halloween is and the history behind it. Valentine's day never had any cultural context. And even the Japanese know what Christmas is about jesus. But the organizers of the color run didn't even mention where they pulled the idea from. This is the issue. It's ok for white people to completely take what they want from a culture and sanitize it from the culture they take it from to make it their own, but it doesn't happen the other way around. Then you have people talking about how amazing Western Civ is and how they teach the other cultures things without acknowledging what they have taken. It's not about cultural appropriation - it's about how western culture acts "superior" to other cultures and you and many others here and demonstrating that. Frankly, liberals are some of the worst offenders of this.
No. Take what I like and turn into something else that I like even more. It has nothing to do with the original culture, as I'm probably not even aware of what was the original culture. I intent no harm. The idea that culture must stay constant and cannot be adopted and modified is what prevent progression. Thing are always changing and new usage of old ideas happen all the time, for the better often.
You're making a straw man argument now. The whole reason you don't know the original culture is that all reference of it is stripped to make it palatable for white people. Do you understand that is what is happening? yes make it better by making it white. Because god forbid that you have to associate the color run with having roots from a Hindu holiday - which would make it less palatable to Christians. Christmas doesn't get stripped like that. Everyone knows the Christmas comes from Christianity. Yet by your own admission you have no idea where stuff comes from, and you think it's a good thing! It's great that you intent no harm. Most racists say the same thing.
Do you see a lot of outrage on social media from Northern Europeans complaining about Christians appropriating their Yule traditions? When American's put up their Christmas tree, do you think they are paying tribute to Odin or Thor?
The fact that 1,000 years later people know the story behind these traditions show that it was not cultural appropriation. Do you realize you are making my point? I am not talking about one culture taking someone from another culture because it's a good idea. I am talking about one culture sanitizing it for itself because it doesn't want to accept the connection to the other culture.
I’m giving you an example to your statement that this is about white people. I hear a stuck and narrow view there. Take your example of Christmas. That is a religious celebration. But it has become a standard holiday that nearly everyone enjoy, including some who doesn’t give a crap about Christianity or even knew the origin of Christmas. That is why some Christians hate the “commercialization of Xmas”. As for goodness, if you can put the “whiteness” down a bit, you may see where I’m coming from. Take something like a method that is used in design in a very traditional way. Someone come along and take that and improve upon it... that’s goodness. Saying that it cannot change and must stick to traditional way is preventing progress. This sort of taking something traditional and changing it for the better happens all the time.
You're making my point for me again. That's exactly what I am saying - Christmas is still known to be a Christian holiday - it's celebrated by everyone but it is not stripped of its context. Other culture's holidays are. Why can't you at least even acknowledge that?
Seriously? Is it for sale in California or online? The first time I had sotol it was moonshine in Mexico, and was bottled in previously used liquor bottles. But the stuff would make people go crazy. Then I saw it at a restaurant in California. It was the only other time I'd seen it. I ordered some, and it was delicious. It didn't make me go crazy either.
Dunno about Cali. I'll ask if they're planning on going nationwide. https://www.desertdoor.com/sotols
Apparently the consensus in China is they are happy the girl wore the dress, because as real Chinese, they want to see their culture shared. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/world/asia/chinese-prom-dress.html
I imagine that's how most sane people would view this. It's only the absolute lunatics who would freak out about a girl wearing a dress and the appropriate response should be to point and laugh at those sad pathetic bastards before moving on.
that's total BS, Christmas in China for example is completely stripped of its religious context. It's all about Xmas trees, lights, and Santa Claus, oh and Xmas gifts. People likes the festivities and the pretty lights, and kids like Santa Claus in malls and getting gifts. Your average Chinese citizen that celebrate Christmas have close to no idea about the religious context.
Funny enough, almost all of those things you are listing actually have pagan roots, not Christian roots....so yeah, the "religious context" has for sure been stripped, and not just once. Hell even the date of Christmas has nothing to do with the supposed Christian reason. Jesus was almost certainly born in the summer or MAYBE early fall, absolutely not anywhere near the winter solstice....the Christians just took a popular pagan holiday and re-branded it by suggesting that it was now celebrating Jesus' birth instead of the winter solstice or Yule.
also regarding the dress, it's not even a traditionally Chinese to begin with. If anything Han Chinese people took a traditional Manchurian garment and make it something more fashionable and modern to wear for formal events. There's nothing culturally significant about the dress in its current form, it's was created 100 years ago as a fashion statement based on a ethnic traditional garment. A lot of the "outrage" are just some Asian Americans projecting their insecurities onto other unrelated things, I bet the same people complaining are the LOF's posting on clutchfans.
Probably the ratio of people that know the story behind the original tradition and the participants of the sanitized version is lower in the case of Christmas than it is in the case of the Color Run. I would guess not one in a million people with a Christmas tree connects it in any way with the Norse gods. Given that (according to their website, which acknowledges Holi as one of the inspirations for the Color Run) there have been about six million participants in the Color Run, that would mean if seven of them know the connection to Holi, it would be less appropriative than Christmas (according to your metric). Setting aside that metric, why would anyone care? If people enjoy running through the streets and having cornstarch, baking soda, and food coloring thrown at them, why would that have a negative impact on someone else for whom that has some sort of cultural significance? If someone wants to exchange brightly wrapped gifts under a decorated tree, why would that have a negative impact on someone else who celebrates Jesus on the same day? If someone wants to wear their hair in dreadlocks, why would that have a negative impact on a rastafarian? The reason cultural appropriation is stupid made up SJW nonsense is because nothing stops the people from the original culture from enjoying the tradition for its original meaning just because someone else does the same thing for a different reason.
Anything you do will be offensive to someone somewhere. If you want to wear an Asian dress, wear it. If you want to wear crocks, a fanny pack, pleated shorts, and a Tommy Bahama shirt wear it. It doesn't matter what race or culture you are from. Someone might try to tell you to stay within your own racial lineage and exclude everyone else. You're not black enough. You're not white enough. You didn't learn your ancestral language. You should only wear white people clothes (some racist here will have to tell me what that is and what options this girl had to choose from based on her skin color). Who gets to decide what skin colors can wear what clothes and eat which foods and play what music? Who would want to control people like that anyway? Whatever. Haters are going to hate. Whiners are going to whine. Do what you want to do and if people want to put you in a box and tell you to stay with your own kind then screw them. They are racists who want to keep the human race divided. America is a blending pot. We are all various levels of mixed races and are free to express ourselves thanks to countless wars and political movements. Don't give that up because someone got offended. There are many ways to control people and there are many evil people who want to do it. Political correctness is one such method. Keeping us divided into little manageable groups is another. Don't fall into their trap.
Of course no one can outdo this alt-right Brexit supporter "musician" in his Nehru jacket and magen david appropriating working class African-American music. A pure symbol of hate, I tell you.
