So as I’m writing this, I have no idea what the fall out is from Part 7, the Nazi-ing. I’m probably going to be dodging bombs or something. We’ll see.

Part 8, however, looks promisingly to be Nazi-free. And I do believe this is a first ever, it comes by actual request. I presume the person requesting it was sane (their article seems to be) right up until they decided it was a good idea to let me have a go at it. I bring you Kyaza’s Controversy: Cultural Appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of elements of one culture by another culture, and it is generally viewed in a negative light. There’s usually a pretty strong overtone of the minority whose culture is being adopted in some fashion having problems with the oppression of the majority delighting in those customs.

I love it so much when we have definitions, especially to start off with. Really helps to avoid pain later. Like fighting over what words like Enchantment mean.

Now, there are a lot of Pagans out there who will shout out loud with a lot of other minority groups that cultural appropriation is bad. The quickest reference that comes to mind is the Thor movies – practically none of the mythology in those movies is accurate.

It would be easy to see the Thor movies as cultural appropriation – there goes Marvel, borrowing from an ancient people’s faith and twisting the identity of the Gods to suit their purposes. Yeah, let’s get mad at Marvel for creating the Thor movies when Loki’s personality is pretty spot-on. So Marvel changed the background a bit, making Loki and Thor brothers – the personality of the Gods is still pretty accurate (at least as far as Loki is concerned. I’m honestly not comfortable saying that about Thor, as I’m not close to Him).

They got Thor’s sincerity. They some how missed his love of bbq and being a lumbersexual. Though Chris did a pretty good job when he wore those jeans.

Truthfully though, few outside of Heathenism even contemplated that Marvel might be committing cultural appropriation. This seems to be based on the idea that you cannot appropriate cultures from “white” people, only “PoC.” As evidenced by the apparently massive outcry about “God of Egypt.” Suddenly, adding people of different races from the original pantheon isn’t okay anymore. Imagine that.

Now, I could get up in arms about how inaccurate the mythology that they are using is, but I honestly don’t care. You could say that Marvel is using the Gods for their gain, but it would be just as easy to say that the Gods are using Marvel in order to get the exposure They need in order to gain more followers. It can work both ways, and people tend to forget how powerful the Gods are.

Ah, sweet, sweet sanity and logic.

Hel is looking forwards to seeing how she is in the Thor 3 movie. I am too. Say what you will, but Marvel has done an amazing job of casting people to actually act like the Gods (for the most part) even if they play a bit loose with the mythology.

And given how well Loki has used the movies as a recruiting tool, I think much of Heathenism has missed out by bashing these movies rather than racing to gain from them. But that is another post.

Anyway, that’s the easiest case. Now, for a different case I’ve heard of recently: Someone wrote an email to an instructor at Ottawa University complaining about how teaching yoga at a school is cultural appropriation. In response to this email, the school decided to stop offering yoga classes.

Now, my question about this case is – if the culture from whence yoga came is completely fine with the way yoga has spread from the East to the West, is it truly cultural appropriation?

I’ve heard a similar story about “white” people going and learing from Native American shamans, then going off and practicing the art. This stuff was learned from the original source, sometimes proliferates, and goes from there. But what was freely given now somehow becomes stolen after the fact.

At least according to some people.

Some people will say yes, and I will call them morons. If a culture doesn’t feel that their way of life is being threatened, then it’s not cultural appropriation. Yoga is Hindu in origin, and, in general, Hindus are okay with Westerners practicing Yoga.

This is another thing I’ve noticed about “cultural appropriation.” Half the time, if not more, it isn’t even the people the stuff has been “taken” from who are protesting, it’s other people. Like in part 6, it was a white woman complaining about white people utilizing things from non-white cultures. In part 8, it was a woman of indeterminate ethnicity claiming to speak for practices from all ethnicity.

But like with yoga, most of the time you don’t hear too terribly much from the people directly involved. And often, with things like yoga, the originating culture is all too happy to have the practice spread.

I’ve read articles about black women finding it offensive and a type of cultural appropriation for white women to wear cornrows in their hair. The argument made here is that black women will often be forbidden to wear their hair up in cornrows while working in businesses, while famous white singers or movie stars can get away with using the hairstyle that they would prefer, and one that is more natural.

Now, to be fair, the problem I see here is ignorance on the part of the businesses that don’t allow women to wear their hair in cornrows. It’s not fair to tell a black woman that she can’t wear her hair in cornrows but then let a white women working at the same business wear her hair in cornrows – if that was happening, then I would flash the racist card, not the cultural appropriation card.

I’ve heard this story too, but I’m not able to recall any instances where this “black women can’t wear cornrows” in their hair at work thing has really happened. I could see it happening in high society businesses, I suppose, but then I can only imagine that white women would also be banned from wearing said corn rows as well. Or perhaps if there was a safety issue. There are a number of jobs that ban long hair, even if braided.

But Kyaza raises a good point here. If that’s happening, it’s racism, not cultural appropriation.

I will say that it is the responsibility of the majority culture to learn more about what is natural for the minorities that exist and accommodate those differences. As a white woman, I had no idea that cornrows felt more natural to a black woman – we tend to assume similarities instead of differences because our society attempts to be colorblind (as often as it fails, it does at least attempt it).

I feel a little differently. I don’t think it’s a responsibility. Certainly, it is an ability, and probably a good idea, but I don’t think people have a responsibility to learn and the accommodate those differences if they don’t want to. And if it is a responsability, then it is a two way street. The minority must also learn what is natural for the majority and attempt to accommodate those differences as well.

In heathenism (where I think Kyaza draws this idea from) the Host must be accommodating to his guests. But the guests must also be accommodating to the host in turn.

At the same time, however, a person can’t cry: “Treat me like I’m equal to you!” and at the same time yell: “But give me special privileges because of my race!” Like, we’re either all human and equal and should all adhere to the same rules in the workplace, or we’re all different and, by default, not equal.

A good example of this is Sweden. Sweden has bent over backwards to understand and accomodate the “minority” Muslims living in Sweden. However, recently when a gay pride parade was to be held (the Swedes are very pro-gay) the Muslims insisted that the parade coming anywhere near “their area of the city” was an act of Islamophobic harassment.

Or like in parts 7 and 8, where in those writers insisted you couldn’t CA from “white cultures” and that “white people” were inherently racist shitlords all while appropriating things from “white” cultures.

A lot of people like to argue that reverse discrimination doesn’t exist, and I call bullshit. I’ve seen women bully men and blacks bully whites. Just because the opposite happened in the past does not give you the right to reverse the sides and seek revenge on someone in the present who has done you no harm based on gender or race.

Indeed. As the Doctor said, “you’re just mean people, being mean to other people.”

Hatred knows no race.

I’m sure that I’m going to piss a lot of people off with this post – I can’t help it, though, because this is something that I feel pretty strongly about due to my ties with Loki.

Of all the Gods I work with, Loki deals the most with marginalized groups of people, with minorities, and He doesn’t view cultural appropriation in a negative light. From the way that He has explained things to me, cultural appropriation is a way to bridge the divides between the majority and minority.

I don’t spend much time with Loki, so I’m going to take Kyaza’s word on this. Still, it seems valid and it always fascinates me how people end up coming to see the Gods in ways our ancestors may not have. Certainly, Hel has shaped my Individuals views very much due to her own dealings.

Going back to the example with the cornrows – a black woman getting upset over a white woman wearing cornrows could instead choose to take pride in how influential the black culture is. Assuming the two women knew each other (which they don’t, but in a different but similar situation with two women who do know each other), then the two could become friends by bonding over what they share.

Now, if that white woman with cornrows was going around talking about how she was black because she had cornrows and should be treated the same way as all other black women, then that would be cultural appropriation that could actually be harmful to society as a whole.

Actually, a white woman getting a black hair style and saying she’s black isn’t Cultural Appropriation either. It’s actually called Trans-racialism. And yes, it is a real thing (depending on who you ask, anyways). And Ironically, all the arguments against transexualism, are used against transracialism. But again, that would be another post. It is a fascinating read though.

Using images of the Gods of other faiths, unless you are doing it in bad faith and in an attempt to discredit or undermine the validity of the source of that faith, is not cultural appropriation. As an immediate example, if an arctypist pagan wants to use the faces of certain Gods from different pantheons to represent his or her “Archetype Gods,” then he or she is free to do so, as long as there is a modicum of respect in the way those images are used.

It feels so weird being anywhere near Halstead’s side of the argument, doesn’t it?

Still, Kyaza is correct. Unless you’re deliberately disrespecting or discrediting, and denying the originators the right to use it, it’s not cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation has started to replace cultural exchange in everyday language, and the next thing we know, the cultural appropriation movement (if it can be called that) will be getting so out of hand that it will be considered cultural appropriation for a citizen of the United States to drive a Japanese-made car.

You had to give them the idea, didn’t you. -_-

Like, there’s a limit to how ridiculous people can be. And if someone wears a Halloween costume to a party that offends someone, then the person who takes offense is the idiot. I mean, seriously, it’s a costume. Let’s draw a line in the sand somewhere.

There’s no limit to stupidity. It’s to dumb to know there should be. It will just keep getting stupider.

Also, to explain a little more in-depth what I meant when I mentioned how Loki ties into this – Loki is everywhere. Seriously, I find Loki in some of the weirdest places. There are the Thor movies, of course, but then he also pops up in the anime “Kamigami no Asobi,” and he also pops up in Orson Scott Card’s “Lost Gate” series. Loki is also a shapeshifter, and I’ve encountered Him in human form, dog form, and spider form (not that the animal forms have anything to do with cultural appropriation).

Of all the Gods, Loki is the most fluid. He is the most capable of crossing divides between cultures and assimilates Himself into those cultures. Is Loki performing cultural appropriation when He does that? Not even close. Sure, it’s different in a way because Loki is a God – He can literally take on the appearance of any race He wishes. That doesn’t make Him part of that race, however – He is always a God, and therefore always separate from the mortal plane.

Sadly, I’ve yet to find Hel in lots of different places. But she is the Hidden one, so.

Still, I’ve heard this is pretty common. apparently if you watch the movie True Grit, you can see Odin, Thor, and Tyr in it with the three main characters.

The real problem with cultural appropriation, when it isn’t truly damaging (there are some cases where it is damaging, such as the problem the Indians are having with the name of the Redskins – that’s damaging, and it needs to be addressed), is that it’s divisive. Damaging incidents, like the one I mentioned, aren’t the kinds of cultural appropriation I’m talking about – issues like that are serious, have potential to cause extreme emotional trauma, and need to be fixed.

The type of cultural appropriation I’m discrediting is the kind that says that teaching yoga is inappropriate even though the culture where it originates encourages the spread of yoga. That’s not cultural appropriation, and it shouldn’t be treated that way.

I actually heard most of the Native Americans were fine with the “Redskins” name thing. It was more PC people who were getting up in arms over it.

Which brings me to an interesting point. Most of the AC talk tends to really just break down in to “racial/cultural” purity stuff. Once you strip away all the “justifications” what you get right down to is “races should be kept pure and separate, not mixed together.”

When a person engages in an activity favored by another culture out of respect and admiration, that isn’t cultural appropriation, but it gets viewed that way. Those are the incidents that could allow for connection, but cause division instead. Those are the incidents where the bridges are burnt before they ever get a chance to be laid down.

As an example for myself, I watch tons of anime – I watch almost no other type of television. Because I’m a citizen of the United States, does that mean it’s cultural appropriation for me to enjoy Japanese anime? No, absolutely not. I’m watching the anime because I respect and admire the Japanese people, not because I somehow want to steal their culture.

Sorry, gotta do this.

 

Humans, as a whole, typically only emulate others when we admire them. And if we are mistreated because we admire someone else, told that we are thieves of the worst order because of our admiration, that causes resentment to build and division to grow. On the other hand, if the people we admire find it respectable for us to admire them, we can build common ground.

The Lokean connection may not be clear, but from what I understand, Loki is a catalytic God. Without connections between people, there is no catalyst for Loki to work with. It’s impossible to induce anger in someone who is already angry, just as it’s impossible to induce peace in someone who is already peaceful. The same can be said for controversy for the same of controversy – there’s no catalytic potential for Loki to work with, and Loki thrives on controversy.

If I need to talk more in-depth about what I meant about incidents of cultural appropriation that do need to be dealt with, let me know in the comments. I didn’t discuss them here because I felt they should be obvious, but I could be wrong  (Also, let me know if you need me to discuss why it is I disagree with the very concept of being politically correct and policing my speech. I’m willing to do either).

I want to thank Kyaza for her wonderfully put article. And since I can never let a good joke (or the chance to mess with people go apparently) I shall reward her in the only way that one may reward anime obssessed otaku girls.

With Yaoi.

 

Hela Bless