oyceter | Cultural appropriation, pt. 2

Or, in which I make myself extremely unpopular and get flamed through the roof.

I am limiting this to America because I live here now and because the majority of people who've been commenting seem to be from there. This isn't because I think America is most important (because I don't), but because I need to limit the scope of this somehow. I apologize to those living elsewhere, and I really want to make a more global post about this later, unless people are absolutely sick of me going on and on and on about this.

There has been much discussion of cultural authenticity and the problems of cultural authenticity in the comments of my previous post, yhlee's post, cofax7's post, and rilina's post. I feel conflicted about this -- discussion of cultural authenticity is by necessity related to cultural appropriation, but I am very uneasy as to how it has somewhat usurped the discussion of appropriation. This uneasiness is further cemented by the fact that a lot of discussion of cultural authenticity has to do with minority cultures adopting the dominant culture, or questions along the line of "If I can only write about my own culture/race/ethnicity without cultural appropriation, what can I write about?" And from the comments, it does seem like a majority of the people asking these questions are from European/American descent. I am not finger pointing, I swear. I know that's a horribly passive-aggressive way to say it, but I really don't want to call people out because I think it's unproductive, and because I am reading through all four threads and trying to suss out common themes.

Which leads to...

Even if there is no such thing as cultural authenticity, the question of cultural appropriation is still present. Furthermore, I am not saying that you can only write about what culture/race/ethnicity that you belong to. Instead, I am saying that the problems inherent in cultural appropriation exist and will very likely exist for many, many decades to come. Also, the very act of writing about another culture, particularly one in which you are a part of the dominant culture that has a history of subjugating minority cultures, that very act is problematic.

It is even more problematic when you look at means of colonization in the past and how much of colonization involves language and schooling and learning the mythos and culture of the colonizers.

This is not limited to white American and/or European culture (see: Japanese culture with regard to Korean culture), but because white American and/or European culture was so often the colonizer in the past few centuries, I think deflecting the issue back to minority cultures avoids the larger issue.

Does this suck? Yes.

Is this fair? No.

Does this mean you shouldn't write about it? No.

Does this mean you have to think about it? No. Feel free to ignore it if you want.

But even if you think you're writing in a vacuum, your readers are not reading in a vacuum. People read in historical context. I read Naomi Novik's Throne of Jade as a third culture kid with the (slight) knowledge of Qing Dynasty China and what happened to Qing Dynasty China, and even if Novik wrote without that in mind (which I don't think she did), that still doesn't make my reading experience any different.

And because rilina says it better than me and because I think it bears repeating many times:

"It's very hard for a minority culture to "coopt" something from a dominant culture. I'm sorry if this doesn't seem fair to dominant culture folks (and I'm not saying it's impossible), but I think this is true. When cultural things flow in that direction, it's usually less appropriation and more assimilation." [emphasis in the original]

Unpopular thought about assimilation: I think if you are a hyphenated American or an American of color, claiming American culture as your own is problematic. I wish this weren't so, and I struggled against this in college. But the fact is, if your skin color is different from that of people around you, no matter what you think you are, people will very often treat you differently. They may be well-meaning and be very cautious about the subject of race, or they could just say incredibly stupid things, but the issue of race is always there.

We aren't at the point where things are colorblind, and as such, cultural assimilation is problematic. No, I don't think this is fair, and yes, I think it is limiting, particularly when you don't want to feel different and are made to feel different. But again, sadly, things don't exist in a vacuum.

As an addendum to this: no, it isn't fair that minority authors are often corralled into minority fiction and said to write about the minority experience. On the other hand, since so few other people are writing about the minority experience, it's a lose-lose situation. I do think that limiting minority authors to the minority experience is very much like limiting female authors to the female experience, but... BUT! seeing the minority experience as a limiting factor can very much be as denigrating as the whole "OMG women writing about female things, the horror!"

Of course, if you look like the dominant culture but aren't from that culture, the issues are very different. But since there is much discussion about hyphenated Americans in the other comment threads, I would very much like to leave it out of this particular post and the comments to this post.

And now, look, even this post has become about minorities writing about minorities and not about dominant cultures writing about minorities and the inherent problems therein.

I'm sorry, I'm really angry about this, and like rilina says, I think many of the issues here are like feminist issues, in which all discussions seem to go back to the men and femininsts must continue to argue why feminism is still relevant. I know this is a horribly uncomfortable topic, probably more so than feminism on LJ, because most of the people I know on LJ are female, whereas most of the people I know on LJ are not minorities in terms of skin color.

I am highlighting this not because I want to call out people, but because I think discussion of cultural appropriation keeps skirting around this fact. I am highlighting skin color because despite what I'd like the world to be like, it is still a very important factor and one that can divide people at first glance.

In conclusion, no one is ever going to tell you that cultural appropriation is ok or that there is a way for a dominant culture to write about a minority culture without these problems rising up. If they do say that, I'm sorry, they're lying or they're from the far future, in which there is no race disparity, no racism, and all nations are on equal economic, political and cultural standing.

This does not mean you shouldn't write about it. Nor does it mean you should write about it. I mean, I personally wish everyone would write about it, or include minority characters, or do something to change things so that the default of a character is not white male. But in the end, it means that even though you may think you're writing in a vacuum, you aren't, and, more importantly, no one is reading in a vacuum. So no matter how you think you should deal with this issue or disengage from it, writing another Euro-centric fantasy is still contributing to the mass of Euro-centric, non-ethnic fantasies out there, and writing a non-Euro-centric fantasy will by necessity run up against these issues.

I wish there were an easier way, but I don't think there is.

Also, does anyone know about critical theory regarding race like Joanna Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing?

Ok, um, flame away.

ETA:

yhlee responds

ETA 2: Most recent link round up that I know of

Also, I am going to answer comments. I just need time to think and time to stop being overwhelmed.

ETA 3:

ladyjax on discourse on race

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am Asian, born and raised in San Francisco, a city in which there are many minority groups, but population-wise, dominated by whites and Asians; the issues of racial identity are complicated, and yes, there is a tendency to group American-assimilated, US-born Asians as white. Or semi-white; we're different, but not that different from the mainstream, and we're differentiated from the Asians who consciously put on cultural identifiers as Asian Americans, who have certain ways of dressing, wearing their hair, souping up their cars, etc. It's the difference between cultural and ethnic, I think. We're all ethnically Asian, but we broadcast our cultural identity in a certain way.

I feel... conflicted about this inside. On the one hand, it's marvelously convenient to be accepted in mainstream culture without cavil -- it's so routine it almost doesn't feel like cheating -- but at the same time, I'm practicing cultural appropriation of mainstream culture of my own. My friends totally tease me about how I'm the least Asian-seeming person they know; I'm an English major, geek out over high-art books and low-art movies (Buffy, comic books and science fiction movies), remember none of my native language, dress like a hippie-influenced hipster style... It makes me cringe inside because the kernal of ugliness in their teasing is the accusation of someone non-white dressing up in the clothes of the cultural overlords, and I don't want to be perceived that way. Of course, balanced against that is the reality, that in San Francisco, most US-born Asians are perceived as sort-of whites. We're not really categorized as WHITE but we're not really put in the ethnic minority box either. It's an interesting place to be.

Just this evening, riding home from the movies with two friends and we got a little bit into a discussion of racial identity and language. My other Asian friend and I both admitted we no could longer speak the native tongue of our immigrant parents -- we were born in the US and English and acculturation had killed that dead. While my other friend, who looks on the surface as white and American as apple pie, was born in Russia, came to this country at 6, speaks perfect English and imperfect Russian. In San Francisco, none of us are perceived as minorities, but inside each of us is a different story. I know my Asian friend moves easily in mainstream culture, but has deeply held views about Asians not fitting in perfectly with the mainstream. My Russian American friend slips easily and unself-consciously between her perfectly white American identity and her ethnic Russian identity, with an ease I envy. As for me, I'm a cultural appropriator and mostly chill about it, which on of days, worries me, but mostly, it comes so naturally I don't think of it consciously. I'm so much more aware of my gender and gender issues, it's not even funny how much the subtleties of racial/ethnic issues pass over my head.

Really, not funny.

I think... I dunno. I dunno if it is possible for a minority to appropriate a mainstream culture? Because when you (general) do it, you aren't becoming a potential representative of the mainstream culture, whereas when a mainstream culture appropriates a minority culture, it can very often be seen as the representative of the minority culture. Does that make sense?

I think the status of Asians as the not-quite-minority is really weird! Actually, I didn't know about it before people were commenting, just because I've always felt so, so Asian in the States (in contrast, I feel Chinese-American in Taiwan).

I think the status of Asians as the not-quite-minority is really weird!
I didn't think it was weird until I moved back to Australia as an adult. In the area of southern California I went to high school in, Asian kids did seem to be in that not-quite-minority group (I guess like Jewish kids used to be, or possibly still are?), but down here, Asians are definitely minority. Maybe because most of the Asians at my high school were middle class + with mostly professional parents and accents more American than mine was, and that's not necessarily true here?

It's interesting to see how that perception works with self-perception on the part of people like

ladyagnew, as I did realise (once I thought about it at all) that it was probably different for people who were Asian in those areas, but couldn't imagine how and wouldn't know how to ask.

(By the way, I'm not entirely sure how I got here, but very interesting discussions. :))

Oh, I was thinking the weirdness was more to do with the fact that I've gotten several comments to the effect that Asians were seen as white in the individual commenters' schools.

Because I certainly do feel like a minority, even in Bay Area California, chock full of Asians and Latinos, and it was really, really, really weird hearing from non-Asians that they saw Asians as white.

I do think it's weird that some of us see/saw Asians as white, definitely. (And, actually, it's probably pretty frustrating, in the way it is to hear men say "Of course women are equal now!" for you & other Asians watching the discussion.) I might have been unclear in my last comment?

I've heard people in Australia say the sorts of things about Asians that I'd never heard about Asians in California--the "taking over, taking our jobs" sorts of things. It threw me for a loop the first few times, because I really hadn't been seeing Asians (especially Asian-Americans) as non-white, and certainly not enough to be a threat in any way. But even when I was in high school, some of my Asian friends & classmates had made comments to the effect that they did feel like part of a minority; the comments just hadn't registered to me at all. I was so caught up in my own perceptions, I didn't even notice how they might see themselves & how they'd interact with the overwhelmingly white media, white standards of beauty, expectations from the larger American community, etc. I didn't think that it'd be at all different from my experience, even when Latino and black Americans obviously experienced America differently.

Oh, yes, you do make sense, I misread the previous comment!

Thank you for clarifying, and yeah, it is interesting seeing how many people's perceptions differ! Certainly this discussion has had a lot of that ;).

I'm so much more aware of my gender and gender issues, it's not even funny how much the subtleties of racial/ethnic issues pass over my head.

Doh! I also wanted to say "me too" to this. Because the race thing, it's been bugging me for a really long time, but I haven't been able to articulate why until recently. And a large part of that was going to WisCon, discussing feminism with friends on LJ, talking about male privilege and etc. And then, I started substituting "white privilege" for "male privilege" and I realized a lot of the patterns that feminism talks about wrt how feminist discussions go and how many discussions are diverted to discuss maleness once again apply to race as well.

Um, this is not to say that I am Enlightened Person, because, wow, so am not! But that... it took me a long, long time to even start thinking about race, despite being troubled by it a lot.

Cultural appropriation, pt. 2

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