What is cultural appropriation?
“Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. It's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects.”
-Susan Scafidi
-Susan Scafidi
What is wrong with being racially color-blind?
The greatest failure of our generation is the myth that by not acknowledging cultural difference and race that those differences will cease to exist. The myth that we are homogenous beings that are equal members of society is damaging, because it omits white privilege. This fallacy is championed by the idea of colorblindness: a sociological movement that seeks to disregard racial and ethnic characteristics. Colorblindness positions itself as race neutral; that is misleading because by disregarding color, race and culture you also disregard the historical contexts of racial inequality as well as contemporary institutional inequality. Colorblindness also creates a pathway for those of the dominant race or mainstream culture to adopt and appropriate culture. Often masked as appreciation, individuals of the dominant group are allowed to embody the culture of a marginalized group and receive praise while the actual members of that community are demeaned for their identity.
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What is white privilege?
White privilege refers to the explicit and passive advantages white people do not recognize they have in western society, in this instance the United States. This privilege distinguishes them from overt racial biases (Worthington). White privilege encompasses cultural affirmations of self-worth, presumed greater social status, freedom to move, play and speak freely (McIntosh). This privilege affects all aspects of life from the professional to the personal. This concept also, “implies the right to assume the universality of one's own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal” (Vice). In Ruth Frankenburg’s book, White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, she discusses the construction of “whiteness” as an identity and how that construction placed white women as the pinnacle of popular culture and standards of beauty.
Sources
Frankenburg, Ruth.White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis, MN: Universty of Minnosota Press, 1988. Print.
McIntosh, Peggy. "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." Beyond Heroes and Holidays. 1998. Endid Lee. Teaching for Change, 1998.
Neville, H., Worthington, R., Spanierman, L. (2001). Race, Power, and Multicultural Counseling Psychology: Understanding White Privilege and Color Blind Racial Attitudes. In Ponterotto, J., Casas, M, Suzuki, L, and Alexander, C. (Eds) Handbook of Multicultural Counseling, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Vice, Samantha (7 September 2010). "How Do I Live in This Strange Place?". Journal of Social Philosophy 41 (3): 323–342. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2010.01496.x
Scafidi, Susan. Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Print.
Header Photo:http://amer495fall14.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-problem-of-problemless-society.html?m=1
McIntosh, Peggy. "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." Beyond Heroes and Holidays. 1998. Endid Lee. Teaching for Change, 1998.
Neville, H., Worthington, R., Spanierman, L. (2001). Race, Power, and Multicultural Counseling Psychology: Understanding White Privilege and Color Blind Racial Attitudes. In Ponterotto, J., Casas, M, Suzuki, L, and Alexander, C. (Eds) Handbook of Multicultural Counseling, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Vice, Samantha (7 September 2010). "How Do I Live in This Strange Place?". Journal of Social Philosophy 41 (3): 323–342. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2010.01496.x
Scafidi, Susan. Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Print.
Header Photo:http://amer495fall14.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-problem-of-problemless-society.html?m=1