CULTURAL MISS-APPOPRIATION by Christina Chen

CULTURAL MISS-APPOPRIATION

SEPTEMBER 25 2012

By CHRISTINA CHEN

http://www.lbunion.com/culture/289-cultural-miss-appopriation.html

Illustration by Gillian Woodson

Every now and then I read an article or blog post about cultural appropriation (which in the context of the argument, I think misappropriation is more apt) and it amazes me that it’s still a problem considering the number of people, feminists and social activists in particular, who should be offended. Cultural misappropriation, for anyone who doesn’t know, is the devaluing of a group of people by using a symbol of their culture in a disrespectful context, and while it appears in everything from clothing to food labels, an example that most American Halloween-lovers should recognize is the Native American costumes found in every single Party City in the world. In between “Sexy Guitar” and “Sexy Baby," you can find something called "Sexy Indian Princess” or “Sexy Tribal Trouble” with a woman, oftentimes pale and blonde, wearing a barely-there, faux suede mini-dress with tassels, feathers, beads, headdresses, and other Native American-y stuff we like to see hot sorority girls prance around in.

Actual Native American women aren’t generally emaciated, blonde, giantesses in miniskirts, and the Native American symbols, like the headdress, are offensively misused. In Native American culture, one earns their feathers; one does not simply walk into Mordor…uh…I mean, Target and buy them. Cultural misappropriation, then, for those who are bound to assume I’m calling them racists, does not imply that a person with an appreciation for traditional culture is a Nefarious Nancy. I’m talking about people (hipsters mostly, and I think in this context the word “people” is a little too indulgent) who sport garish misrepresentations of non-white culture because they see it as an opportunity to make something “silly” or “ridiculous” look cool.

The thing that bothers me most about “Sexy Indian Princesses” is the amount of stuff associated with minority women and not minority men. No, I don’t think there ought to be a greater supply of stupid men’s costumes, because there are already enough. The problem is that in associating minority women and the symbols of their individual feminine power with sex and sexiness, these women are reduced to nothing more than sexy playthings and that does nothing to inspire respect for minority women.

That in mind, depictions of women in traditionally-inspired costume have a disturbing effect on the public. The title “Sexy Indian Princess” is really just as bad as “Seductive Squaw” or “Naughty Navajo” and objectification is not just a Native American plight. When you see Asian-inspired costumes, they usually have names like “Libidinous Laotian” or “Mama Mongolia.” And while those are exaggerations, I have seen a “Sexy Take-out Box” costume which might as well have been called “Chinky Chow Time.”

Sexism and racism are as apparent in the names as in the costumes themselves. And how do you think people view real Laotian women and real Native American women? When you Google “Native American Women,” one result is an article entitled “The 30 Hottest Native American Women.” Found in a second search for “Asian Women” is an article on an Asian woman’s secrets to pleasing her man (always have dinner ready, don’t talk too much, don’t be a sex hungry maniac, etc.). The other results for the same search consist mostly of porn and prostitution websites. I told someone about this and his response was that at least all women are being equally objectified, a point that while made in jest, deserves discussion.

Being Asian or African doesn’t translate to “lesser being” any more, you say? I disagree. The list of “Native American” women consisted of white actresses and singers, who appeared to groom themselves in the Western model of beauty, with very little trace of Native American heritage in their appearance. Wikipedia has a handy little list of famous Native American women and they generally don’t look a whole lot like Megan Fox (apparently one of the 30 hottest Native American women) and are remembered more for their contributions to society than for their appearance. That’s more of an indication of our preference for Bonnie Blue Belles than of the aesthetic value of different colored women. It's really just that we find the idea of colored women sexy, but only as a reference for sexual role play, not as something we would want in real life. Obviously we like what “Naughty Navajo” is wearing, but apparently we don’t want to see her wearing it; we’d all prefer to see “Cutie McHotpants of Beta Beta Beta.” Constantly seeing inaccurate representations of an identity or group warps how we see said identity or group. If Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was the only point of reference for what Asian men were like, we’d want nothing to do with them. Oh wait, that happened. If all we see is caricatures, all we know is caricatures, and “Sexy Squaw” is a caricature.

The other problem with cultural misappropriation is the implication that some women are better than others, as if being a white woman entitles you to the symbols and styles of other cultures. Considering that minorities generally had no choice but to assimilate to American values and culture, it is incredibly dismissive of their plight to assume their traditional clothing without question and without permission.

Acceptance through assimilation was not a choice, or at least not one anyone wanted to make, and I doubt that if a white woman were suddenly forced into wearing a burka she would feel particularly “accepted” culturally. I can’t count the number of times during my childhood I decided not to wear something in public because of how “Chinese” it was. I just wanted to look like everyone else in the classroom or mall or supermarket and none of them were wearing brocade dresses. At the same time, I never had any qualms with wearing the embroidered shirt my grandma brought back from her trip to Mexico, and I remember being told by a Mexican friend that it looked great on me, but that she would look “too Mexican” in it. The idea that if you’re black, a dashiki makes you look blacker, or that if you’re Vietnamese, an aoyai makes you look more Vietnamese is ludicrous, and that anyone should think that being blacker or more Vietnamese is a bad thing is terrible. Feeling that someone else is arbitrarily more qualified to wear black blothes or Vietnamese clothes is worse.

That considered, it’s still pretty easy to forget the role of other factors in a social or political movement. Sexism thrives on the division of women (and male victims of patriarchy) based on the divisive power of race, religion, and socio-economic status. In combating sexism, blurring the lines between black and white, queer and straight, poor and rich is a victory for feminist cohesion, which will positively affect the strength of the feminist movement.

Most social/political movements will vouch for this fact: being a group dominated by one economic, racial, or religious demographic is not good PR. Any successful rally, event, or protest in the name of “the cause” features every kind of supporter they can find. Being part of a minority helps in garnering the support of other minorities, but even a certain politician, who I will refer to as Bitt Blomney, is reaching out to Latin Americans in an attempt to appear less racist than the rest of the racist elite, but that’s another discussion entirely. No one succeeds in the world of social and political activism without cultural sensitivity. At least not for long. If we view the world of social justice as a metaphorical microcosm of the world, it makes sense that we would all want to strive for that cultural sensitivity, knowing that everything we do is with the purpose of human improvement.

With respect to the effects of racism on feminism in particular, cultural misappropriation is disastrous for the aforementioned feminist cohesion that we strive for. Feeling that some women in the movement are more entitled to an identity than other women is crushing and it leads to alienation of the minorities. Feminists believe in improvement of our perceptions of the female body and identity and that includes not being made to feel bad about being black or white, blue or orange, tall or thin, beautiful or ugly and so on. Cultural sensitivity shouldn’t limit you from wearing what you want, but lack thereof shouldn’t alienate the people you need and care about either. Combating all forms of prejudice within and without a movement makes for a stronger community of people working toward a better future and that’s a goal we don’t generally oppose.

A Collective Response to "To Be Anti-Racist is to Be Feminist: The Hoodie and the Hijab are Not the Same"

A Collective Response to "To Be Anti-Racist is to Be Feminist: The Hoodie and the Hijab are Not the Same"

 

9Apr 15 2012by Jadaliyya Reports

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5064/a-collective-response-to-to-be-anti-racist-is-to-b

[Screenshot of original posting of letter.]

[The following statement was issued by a group of feminist writers, activists, and academics in response to a recently published article, entitled "To Be Anti-Racist Is to Be Feminist: The Hoodie and the Hijab Are Not Equals." It was originally published on The Feminist Wire, the publication that featured the original article. To sign on to this statement, please email sophia.azeb@gmail.com with your full name and institutional affiliation.]

To our friends and allies at The Feminist Wire:

It is with loving concern with which we, the undersigned feminist writers, activists and academics from diverse racial, religious, economic, and political backgrounds, write to this brilliant collective today.

An article recently published on The Feminist Wire’s website and circulated via its facebook page has prompted this note. In her article, “To Be Anti-Racist Is To Be Feminist: The Hoodie and the Hijab Are Not Equals,” Adele Wilde-Blavatsky attempts to address the important question of what it means to be an anti-racist feminist in the 21^st century. Her article, however, serves to assert white feminist privilege and power by producing a reductive understanding of racial and gendered violence and by denying Muslim women their agency.

In her article, Wilde-Blavatsky takes “issue with … the equating of the hoodie and the hijab as sources of ethnic identity.” Oblivious to the important cross-racial and cross-ethnic connections and solidarities made in light of the tragic murders of Trayvon Martin and Shaima Alawadi, the author contends that the hoodie and the hijab cannot be compared because “the history and origin of these two items of clothing and what they represent could not be more different.” For her, Trayvon Martin’s hoodie signifies a history of racism, whereas Shaima Alawadi’s hijab signifies only male domination and female oppression. Revealing her own biases, Wilde-Blavatsky writes, “The hijab, which is discriminatory and rooted in men’s desire to control women’s appearance and sexuality, is not a choice for the majority of women who wear it. The hoodie, on the other hand, is a choice for everyone who wears it” (emphasis in original).

As readers on The Feminist Wire facebook page and website began to object to the piece, a respondent posting as “The Feminist Wire” (who later identified herself to be Wilde-Blavatsky), attempted to counter some of these objections by obfuscating whiteness and showcasing a lack of knowledge of the history and function of the hijab. To defend her position, the author cited her intimate connections with people of colour and informed her critics that “acknowledging the differences between women in terms of race, religion and culture” was politically divisive. We know these to be common defensive responses from those in positions of privilege. And our response is as common: “Listen.”

As feminists from diverse backgrounds, we value challenging, difficult, and necessary conversations on patriarchal violence within all our communities. We also recognize the importance of having an honest discussion about how racial hierarchies, discrimination, and prejudice differently impact racialized communities (for example, as blacks, Muslims and/or black Muslims). What we do find deeply problematic, however, is the questioning of women’s choice to wear the niqab and the presumption that this decision is rooted in a “false consciousness.”

We also take issue with Wilde-Blavatsky’s depiction of the violent motivations behind Alawadi’s murder. Wilde-Blavatsky states, “Scratch the surface and what is underlying racist fear and violence is an all-pervasive global culture of male power and domination.” In writing this, the author has all but stripped women of colour of an intersectional understanding of violence against women, one that is attuned to both patriarchal andracist violence. Instead, Muslim women and women of colour feminists are reduced to a piece of cloth and the experiences of people of colour and practioners of an increasingly racialized and demonized religion are repeatedly questioned and denied.

To us, it is deeply troubling to be patronized by a person who insists the hijab is never a choice made of free will. But what is even more saddening is that such opinions are being propagated on a feminist site with a commitment to highlighting the consequences of the “ill-fated pursuit of wars abroad and the abandonment of a vision of social justice at home.” The consequences of such wars have included the demonization, incarceration, and oppression of Muslim men, women, and children at home and abroad.

Wilde-Blavatsky’s desire to see “women as human beings first and foremost” is admirable. However, for many of us, the category of “women” is not singularly understood. We live our lives not simply as women but as people with complex, diverse, and intersecting identities. These identities – including religious, racial, and sexual identities – are not universal, absolute, or stagnant. Recognizing this is essential for building solidarity among feminists and our allies.

As feminists deeply committed to challenging racism and Islamophobia and how it differentially impacts black and Muslim (and black Muslim) communities, we wish to open up a dialogue about how to build solidarities across complex histories of subjugation and survival. This space is precisely what is shut down in this article. In writing this letter, we emphasize that our concern is not solely with Adele Wilde-Blavatsky’s article but with the broader systemic issues revealed in the publication of a work that prevents us from challenging hierarchies of privilege and building solidarity.

We hope The Feminist Wire will take our concerns to heart and initiate an honest conversation about privilege, racism, and Islamophobia within feminist collectives and movements.

Sincerely,

Ziad Abu-Rish, PhD Candidate, Department of History, University of California Los Angeles

Safia Aidid, University of Toronto

Sophia Azeb, PhD Student, American Studies & Ethnicity, University of Southern California

Abbie Bakan, Professor and Head of Gender Studies, Queen's University

Nancy Barrickman, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo

Golbarg Bashi, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Liat Ben-Moshe, University of Illinois Chicago

Simone Browne, Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin

Syeda Nayab Bukhari, PhD Candidate, Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Simon Fraser University

Lisa Bunghalia, PhD Candidate, Geography, Syracuse University

Fathima Cader, MA, JD, University of British Columbia

Carolyn Castaño, Los Angeles based artist

Josh Cerretti, PhD Candidate, Global Gender Studies, SUNY Buffalo

Sylvia Chan-Malik, Assistant Professor (incoming July 2012), Departments of American and Women and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

Piya Chatterjee, Association Professor, Department of Women Studies, University of California Riverside

Sabina Chatterjee, Centre for the Study of Gender, Social Inequities and Mental Health, Simon Fraser University 

Elora Halim Chowdhury, Associate Professor, Department of Women's Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston

Christopher Churchill, Assistant Professor, History and Global Studies, Alfred University

Maria E. Cotera, Associate Professor, Program in American Culture/Latino Studies, Department of Women's Studies, University of Michigan

Jessica Danforth (Yee), Executive Director, The Native Youth Sexual Health Network

Huma Dar, UC Berkeley

Lamis J. Deek, NY-based Arab-Muslim Organizer-Activist-Attorney, JD 2003

Amal Eqeiq, PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature, University of Washington - Seattle

Zillah Eisenstein, Professor of Political Theory and Anti-racist Feminisms, Ithaca College

Nassim Elbardouh, Gender, Sexuality, and Women Studies Alum., Simon Fraser University

Lisa Factora-Borchers, feminist writer and editor

Carol Fadda-Conrey, Assistant Professor, English Department, Syracuse University

Meaghan Frauts, PhD Student, Queen's University

Trieneke Gastmeier, MA Public Issues Anthropology

Macarena Gomez Barris, Associate Professor, University of Southern California

Jasmin Habib, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo

Lisa Hajjar, Sociology Department, University of California Santa Barbara

Maria Hantzopoulos, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Vassar College

Deborah Heath, Director, Gender Studies, Lewis & Clark College

Adrienne Hurley, Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, McGill University

Fatima Jaffer, Interdisciplinary Studies PhD Student, University of British Columbia

Susanna Jones, Associate Professor of Social Work & Co-Chair, Gender Studies, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY

Suad Joseph, University of California Davis

J Kēhaulani Kauanui, Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology, Wesleyan University

Dr. Laleh Khalili, Senior Lecturer in Politics of the Middle East, Research Tutor, Centre for Gender Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies

Farrah Khan, Violence Against Women Counselor & Advocate, Toronto, Canada

Brandon King, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Anarchist People of Color member, DJ/ Visual Artist/ Cultural Worker

Molly Kraft, Geography MA, University of British Columbia

Jennifer A. Liu, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo

Jenna Loyd, Department of Geography, Syracuse University

Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

Eli Manning, Gender, Sexualities and Women's Studies, Simon Fraser University

Theresa McCarthy, Assistant Professor, American/Native American Studies, Department of Transnational Studies, SUNY Buffalo

Anne Meneley, Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Trent University

Dian Million, Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies, University of Washington

Salma Mirza, Third World History Student, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education & Dean's Professor of the Humanities, Syracuse University

Scott Morgensen, Department of Gender Studies, Queen’s University

Amitis Motevalli, Iranian and Los Angeles based artist

Catherine Murray, Chair, Gender, Sexualities and Women's Studies, Simon Fraser University

Nadine Naber, Associate Professor of American Culture and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan

Mary-Jo Nadeau, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga

Marcy Newman, Independent Scholar

Dana M. Olwan, Ruth Wynn Woodward Junior Chair and Assistant Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, Simon Fraser University

Margaret Aziza Pappano, Associate Professor, Department of English, Queen's University

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, independent artist and performer, co-founder, Mangos With Chili

Nicola Pratt, University of Warwick, UK

Melanie Richter-Montpetit, York University

Krista Riley, Editor-in-Chief, Muslimah Media Watch

Robin L. Riley, Assistant Professor, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, Syracuse University

Lynn Roberts, Assistant Professor, Community Health Education, CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College

Judy Rohrer, Assistant Professor in Residence, Women’s Studies Program, University of Connecticut

Samah Sabra, Canadian Studies, Carleton University

Dr. Jillian Schwedler, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts

Sherene Seikaly, Assistant Professor, Department of History, The American University in Cairo

Simona Sharoni, Professor and Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies Department, SUNY Plattsburgh

Loubna Skalli-Hanna, Ph.D, International Development Program, School of International Service, American University

Athalia Snyder

Tamara Lea Spira, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California Davis

Itrath Syed, PhD Student, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University

Farha Ternikar, Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of Peace and Global studies, Le Moyne College, Syracuse

Sunera Thobani, Associate Professor, Centre for Women's and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia

Elizabeth Tremante, LA Art Girls

Amina Wadud, Visiting Scholar, Starr King School for the Ministry

Harsha Walia, activist, writer, co-founder of No One Is Illegal, Radical Desis, and Anti-Authoritarian People of Colour Northwest Network

Theresa Warburton, PhD Candidate, Global Gender Studies, SUNY Buffalo

Waziyatawin, PhD, Indigenous Peoples Research Chair and Associate Professor, University of Victoria

Laura Whitehorn, New York Taskforce for Political Prisoners

Bekah Wolf (Abu Maria), Social Justice Activist, U.S./Palestine

Cynthia Wright

Valerie Zink, Editor/Publisher, Briarpatch Magazine

[If you would like to be added to the list of signatories, please send your full name and institutional affiliation to sophia.azeb@gmail.com]

Speaking Out or Staying Silent on Violent Crimes: What's Behind Our Words or Lack Thereof?

Speaking Out or Staying Silent on Violent Crimes: What's Behind Our Words... or Lack Thereof?

When a violent crime occurs, we react. To our friends and neighbors,  through spoken and written word, through traditional and social media. Or, we stay silent. We skim an article, and go back to our lives. 

How we choose to react depends on many things. What are the factors that drive us to speak out, or remain silent in the face of human tragedy? How does our race and racial identity affect our reaction and response?

Are we more likely to speak out against a crime if it is perpetrated against our own race/group/community?

Is it racist if we only speak out when it is our community affected?

How does the media distinguish between 'hate crimes' and 'violent crime' in portrayal of the event?

Opinions:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/08/an-american-tragedy.html 

Internet pap smear: A random sampling of blogs on race and feminism

http://dearwhitefeminists.wordpress.com/

http://shadowscrescent.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/the-default-feminism-is-white-privilege/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/22/957012/-White-Privilege-Diary-Series-1-White-Feminist-Privilege-in-Organizations

http://feministwhitenoise.wordpress.com/

http://www.eurweb.com/2012/03/white-feminists-dont-care-about-black-women/

http://femonomics.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-race-and-feminism-primer-on-feminist.html

http://www.feminist-reprise.org/docs/fw2.htm

http://radicallyqueer.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/white-feminists-its-time-to-put-up-or-shut-up-on-race/

http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/the-pathology-of-white-privilege/

Women of Color and White Girls...investigating the uneasy relationship between white privilege and global feminism

The title of this blog, "The White Man's Daughter", is a play on the "The White Man's Burden", the title of economist William Easterly's 2006 book exploring the failure of Western foreign aid to improve rampant poverty in the developing world. 

In a review of the book, Population Council's Geoffrey MciNoll writes...

"The main theme is the one implied by the book’s provocative title, taken from Kipling in full imperial flight: that there is a parallel between the colonial enterprise of the former Western powers and the de facto relationship of today’s donor countries (mostly those same powers—collectively “the West” in Easterly’s usage) with aid recipients (“the Rest”). The similarities, Easterly maintains, lie both in the

colonial and postcolonial West’s self-regarding defense of their actions as bringing a beneficent order to backward peoples and, pace Kipling, in the typical reality of their doing nothing of the sort—indeed, in the sheer bungling of the endeavor."

I find parallels between Easterly's argument about the relationship between western donors and developing countries, and the relationship of white feminists and feminists of color in both the developed, and developing world. 

I assert that suppressed white guilt and unexplored white privilege lead white feminists to ignore, deny and  minimize the struggles of women of color in both the developed and developing worlds. White guilt leads white feminists to believe that they need to intervene on behalf of women of color who have suffered at the hands of white, western men/colonial powers, while white privilege leads white women to assume that they are the best qualified to undertake this task. As a result, in a desperate attempt to be included in a global feminist movement and feel solidarity with the "women of the world" white feminists are blindly and carelessly plunging into issues and areas they know nothing about and have no claim to, causing deep and lasting damage. 

As a white feminist, I want to look at the relationship that white feminists have to national and international feminist movements, and explore what it means to be the daughter of the white man... a force that has oppressed women and many other groups throughout recent history. 

What does it mean to have a "blood relation" to the oppressor, and as white feminists, how do we engage with this?