Now you all know my issues with "when white people co-opt other people's stuff." I am referring to things like ethnic garb, cultural practices (hello, salsa dancing!!), food, music etc. This for some reason always bothers me and i'm not really sure why. Americans have this love of taking other people's stuff. And in my travels America appears to be the only place that does this. You will never see an italian person eating non Italian food. it's part of who they are it's a means of expressing themselves. Like there is no such thing as fusion. Mexicans eat mexican food and thai people eat thai food. My mom has never made anything non mexican in her life, except for the one time i asked her to make spaghetti so she bought a jar of prego. And for some reason i feel that this is not an uncommon practice for non mainstream Americans to have "food theme nights" once a week in their house. "Jimmy, it's taco night!!" OR how they love taking ethnic names from other cultures/languages. "this is my daughter xochitl. It's nahuatl for flower." Ok xochitl is probably not on the top 10 list of ethnic names that white people choose for their children but it was the first one to come to mind
Yet in America we/they (i can't exclude myself from this) love to have this idea/fantasy that we/they have no real culture. "oh I'm american and this exempts me from having heritage that is my own so i need to sample other people's heritage to find out who i am." It is this idea that they live outside of a context that truly bothers me, because when you are living outside of THEIR context in the fucking margins you realize that they have a HUGE fucking contextual/cultural identity. and it also assumes this "norm" "control group" type thing like when i try to do research and people tell me i need a "white control group" as if white people are the normal ones and everyone else is in some fucked up social experiment where the experimental condition is being done to them....but that is all for ANOTHER post.
But anyways I started contemplating this as i was riding my bike home for lunch. I concluded that this adopting of other people's cultural heritage really only happens in the overly educated upper class. The farmer in the town over from me i'm guessing does not try to make paella. We also have a ridiculous access to random things in the US that you don't get access to in other countries which makes "fusion" possible. It reminds me of the wealthy girl in "the namesake" whose family throws dinner parties and buys foreign cheeses and cooks fancy (read ethnic) cuisine and are shocked to hear that the main characters parents only eat indian food all the time in this really condescending way (guys the book is way better than the movie, i'm just saying). And the truth is that i'm part of the overly educated elite so maybe all of this is just my own attempt to deal with my own issues with myself...but i'm just saying, it bugs me. On the one hand i love that we are a culture of blending but on the other hand i hate this idea that people take from other cultures in this very pretentious "i'm gonna take your poor cuisine and make it haute" kind of way. Is this ringing a bell with anyone???
the point of this whole entry was to say that tonight i'm going to the monthly Soul Night at our local hole in the wall venue. I have very mixed feelings about soul night as it tends to be a white dude from nebraska (he really is. My roommate is friends with him) mixing soul beats with white hipsters dancing all around in a small dingy room, and not a single black person in sight. I don't know why but something about this bothers me immensely. And usually within 15 minutes of dancing i come to realize that no one is looking at me BECAUSE I BLEND and really i'm part of the whole problem. And one time i went with some Black people and they were like....this is whack...cuz for reals it was, but we blazed nonetheless.
But there is something bothersome about a bunch of privileged White kids taking this things called soul which is meant to be an expression of black culture, both now and historically, and turning it into another fad. And it makes me wonder...do they actually get it?? It's like if somehow magically Mariachi music were to become this cool fad that hipsters adopted (this will NEVER happen) and all these white kids were to start buying vicente fernandez records and ernesto galvan records and setting up mariachi theme nights centered around tequila shots and gritos and trying to talk to me about what vicente means to them. That would piss me off cuz vicente is something sacred, like waking up on weekends hearing your parents gardening/drinking in the yard listening to this music because it's a reminder of where they come from. It's like an anchor. And it's this same feelings that i think people might associate with Soul and here we are, turning it into a weekly theme night, that completely excludes them. This is just like my issue with suburban White mom's having Taco night!! But also it's my issue with wealthy chelsea residents spending hours perfecting a curry.
so guys....DISCUSS as i am getting a little too heated. But i guess i'm asking for my White friend's opinions on this issue. Respond via your own blog (wow we are douches) or in the comments below. Why do you choose to adopt other people's stuff and what does it/tacos/soul/mariachi mean to you???
Also take my anger and high horseness with a grain of salt as i go make myself some chinese herbal Kombucha tea.
5 comments:
You want a discussion? You got one!
1. Americans don't have a love of taking other people's stuff, culture, or heritage. As cliche as this sounds, America is a melting pot of a thousand different cultures, each one bringing its own collection of stuff to make a beautiful mosaic of stuff that is, as you correctly point out, unique in its own way (i.e., it has its own cultural context). Since you mention Mexican people and Thai people, I will use them as counterexamples. You, an American, are surrounded by people who are Indian, French, Mexican, Cuban, Azn, and even Albanian. Your average Mexican or Thai person living in his homeland doesn't have these influences on which to draw.
2. Re: Fusion food. Have you been to a fusion food restaurant lately? Do you remember the prices of those entrees? Do you think your average Mexican farmer or Thai fisherman can afford those prices? What you are railing against are the excesses of wealth, which is frankly a little disgusting.
3. Re: Ethnic cuisine turned haute. Ummmm, helloooooooo! This isn't new, or unique to white people. Why are you so rrracist? First of all, anything that's new and unusual becomes exalted in this manner, be it tacos or dim sum. Second, other cultures do the same thing. Who's to say hot dogs aren't a high-priced item in, say, Thailand. Actually, don't the Thais make a salad with hot dogs, sliced up all nice and raw? I'm pretty sure I've seen a recipe for that in some blog (wow, talk about douche...)
This is called cultural diffusion, and if you had paid attention in your social studies class in high school you would know it (oh snap!), but at the same time I do understand your vitriol about cultural items that are appropriated and lose their original meaning and importance in the new context. That's pretty much the worst thing ever.
-o
First, I will say that Cristina DID pay attention in social studies, because she was a nerd. Get her drunk and ask her about prom.
Next, Crisitna, I don't agree with you at all. I think exposure to others, usually vis a vis food (which is the most accessible part of most cultures), lends to an open mindedness that isn't found anywhere else. This is why I miss Los Angeles SO FUCKING MUCH whenever I leave it. I think that people who raise their children to try new foods also give their children an ability to be more accepting of anything that's different. It might be food, or the people themselves, or perhaps it will prompt a desire to live in that country. Why, for example, did you live in Italy? I understand your problem with blindly co-opting other cultures, but I'd still rather have that than being completely closed-off to anything different.
Besides, who wants to eat fucking meatloaf??? Not this white girl.
Also, funny, re Xochitl:
http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/happy-birthday/happy-birthday-xochitl-058011
Also, that's big talk for a girl who wanted Thai wrap pants...
haha, whoa...i just got to this post, but whatevs...this is a v. complicated issue and i think there is a privileged position in terms of education and class from which a certain person can a.) afford the time, energy and resources to sample other cultural artifacts and integrate them into their lives and b.) exhibit an inclination or, to use a more class-informed term, taste for such cultural commodities...so while, yes america is a melting pot and there is an incomparable exchange of culture, the nature of the exchange is such that, like other forms of education, only those that we would term the leisure class can take FULL advantage of it. if i might be so bold, it takes the shady form of a kind of domestic class-imperialism. and i DO think it's a class and not a race issue, though, as we all know the two things are not unrelated in this country...NEVERTHELESS...
i think i would probably have a similar reaction to cristina, including that feeling of participation...but, as we have discussed, cristina and i have the misfortune of having developed a sensitivity to such issues. i think i am absolutely 100% with cultural exchange and adoption of customs like food and music, but i think the privileged position and leisure that we all have (myself and cristina included) requires an added responsibility of being aware and educated about those inherited or assimilated cultures...i.e. know what a tamale means to mexican tradition or what soul music means to the african-american community.
my two cents,
ivan
so i'm like 15 hours ahead and just got this. i found myself agreeing a lot with what you said and also to the "other side" if you will. (particularly the fact that its a class issue and not so much a race thing), but i tihnk what pisses me off about it is not the adoption part. i'm all for people embracing other people's music, food, culture, etc. but what i hate about it is the attitude towards it all. it almost seems patronizing at times. sometimes it feels like rich white people do things like "soul night" not because they really understand and appreciate all the meaning behind it but because they think it makes them look cool so they can sit around with their other friends at their dinner party and brag about "how quaint the whole experience was" cause they know other white people will think they are cool. its like that "stuff white people like" blog post on studying abroad. i can't really explain it in words but something about it irks me too.
there's this book by this guy edward said, called orientalism, that kind of speaks to something similar. its all about how the west has this romanticized view of what they think the arab world is actually like built upon all these false assumptions and how that kind of implicitly served as justification for their imperialism.
like i said, i can't really put into words.
the other thing thats annoying thhough is how it does become a fad and eventually gets consumed into this overall "american culuture" of which minorities are generally excluded. like, someone was trying to tell me things about "american" culture versus "balck culture" and i was like, what the hell, "american" shouldn't equate to "white." and how rock and roll was "white culture" and i was like, well rock and roll came from blacks. and he was telling me how "evlis presley, was an icon of white culture." but all those songs that elvis presley popularized like hound dog and others, were covers of songs by BLACK people.
you know, its how people have taken mexican food, turned it into "texmex" and now its an "american" thing. but do you think they are thinking of mexican-americans when they say "american"?
and sure i could just assume this one guy is ignorant and mildly racist but its not the first time i've heard stuff like that and no, it wasn't entirely in the south.
so yeah, those are my jumbled inarticulate thoughts on the whole thing.
p.s. casey it was emily who wanted the pants. and by the way, they are super comfortable.
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