History is a pyramid of skulls.

[Jon Miller]

I had forgotten how terrible it was to read BK posts.

If you attended non-Catholic churches you would know how amazing and ubiquitous spirituals and gospel music are. Then there is Jazz, Blues, Soul and more.

African-American culture is amazing considering the sustained assault that white america has made against African-Americans and their culture.

Painters and Architects (and sculpture) don't seem to have a lot of impact in modern society. As far as writers go, I think that African-American writers have made an impact that is reasonable relative to the portion of African-Americans in society. I would say the same is true of Theatre.

You seem to have forgotten Dance, where African American contribution is larger than demographics warrant (like in Song and Music).

JM
(The arts are 7: sculpture, dance, music, song, theatre, painting and literature)

[Ben Kenobi]

If you attended non-Catholic churches you would know how amazing and ubiquitous spirituals and gospel music are. Then there is Jazz, Blues, Soul and more

One, I was a protestant. I've been a Protestant longer than I've been a Catholic. That won't flip over for another decade or so.

Two, let's play along with your argument. What hymns do you sing on a regular basis in your church that had a black composer?

Jazz, was not invented by black people. Jazz is something that black people appropriated and added stuff onto it making it better.

Blues and Soul I'll give you.

That gives you two genres of music (I'll also give you rap, and reggae), for four.

My argument didn't even talk about music. I asked about architecture, writers, and painters. The reason I consider the argument of black cultural appropriation to be nonsense is because not much of it has been appropriated to any degree. If I go to San Antonio, I can find Spanish culture and architecture. I can know pretty much instantly their contribution to the city. That's not surprising considering the history of the city dating back to the 17th century.

So where are the black architects that are being emulated around America? The black authors that have a considerable following? Do you consider someone like Thomas Sowell, who is an economist, someone who's a 'black economist', or is he someone who's been appropriated into so-called white culture?

[Ben Kenobi]

Painters and Architects (and sculpture) don't seem to have a lot of impact in modern society

I rest my case.

Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Literature, Terpsichory, Theatre

I'll give you one of the 7. Music, sure. Dance - what 'dance' forms that professionals generally perform are black?

Ballet has nothing to do with black culture.

In Ballroom dancing you have Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Swing, and a ton of Latin dances.

You've got only one that I can see. Jive. That's it.

[Elok]

I think a lot of what is being called "cultural appropriation" in the arts is code for "cultural capitalization."

It sounds like straightforward "plagiarism."

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, the list of the top 100 best-selling authors ever, has a couple of Japanese names, a couple of Chinese names, a few Hispanic names. Not a single black person on the list. I'm curious now who'd be the best-selling black fiction author of all-time.

[Kidlicious]

I'm actually pretty bothered by the fact that Apolyton is now a deserted wasteland. But more broadly, the destruction of communities is something we can legitimately care about. Linguists work to preserve languages spoken only by a handful of octogenarians. City planners and sociologists are concerned about gentrification. The dissolution of rural communities into giant suburban/urban centers gets a lot of attention. It's easy to say, "Times they are a changin'; the people affected just have to adapt." That is, it's easy to say until it happens to your community.

But more specifically as this applies to minority groups, they are disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society. So to me this sounds a lot like, "Why should we care about colds? Everybody gets them and gets over them." Which is true, unless you're very old or immunocompromised or what have you.



An example shouldn't convince you. I mean this is probably a very difficult question to answer that would have to involve significant study and careful statistical analysis.

If a white person copies black culture he hasn't damaged that culture. He has contributed to it. Your claim is sort of racist. You don't seem to care about cultures so much as you care about division. A white person can be a part of black culture.

[Jon Miller]

Well, the list of the top 100 best-selling authors ever, has a couple of Japanese names, a couple of Chinese names, a few Hispanic names. Not a single black person on the list. I'm curious now who'd be the best-selling black fiction author of all-time.

Toni Morrison, for example.

JM

[Jon Miller]

One, I was a protestant. I've been a Protestant longer than I've been a Catholic. That won't flip over for another decade or so.

Two, let's play along with your argument. What hymns do you sing on a regular basis in your church that had a black composer?

We sing negro spirituals all the time. It is true that there is no black name given, but that doesn't change them from being African American. (Swing low sweet chariot, there is a balm in gilead, and so on).

BTW, I am not saying that singing negro spirituals is cultural appropriation. I am saying that African American culture (which is an American culture and not an African culture) is very rich (much much richer then so called 'white american' culture).

BTW, Ballet, Waltz, Tango, Ballroom and so on are not White American culture. Swing might be.

JM
(There is no such thing as White culture.)

[Jon Miller]

In my mind, cultural appropriation is using something or copying it without recognising where it came from.

Otherwise it is part of healthy cultural exchange.

African American culture is going to have a lot of sources in both from the healthy german/english/etc as well as from the sick racist white culture that developed in the 17th-19th century. This is in addition to that arising from being slaves and a mixed up background in west africa.

For an example of a white myth, consider the curse of ham. Birth of a Nation is white theatre.

JM

[Kidlicious]

If there's no such thing as white culture than why do democrats hate it so much? Double-talk.

[Elok]

Since we've got this thread about cultural politics, and it's starting to sink, why not: is this column intended to be satirical, or is it an honest set of questions and answers from a set of extreme contemporary leftists? I honestly cannot tell. It certainly seems ludicrous ("am I betraying the class struggle with artisanal carpentry?"), but I think if it were satire the author would play it differently. Also, the host publication seems quite earnest in its leftism, and it strikes me as unlikely that they'd either be an Onion-type publication that plays it straight that well or that they'd be an honestly prog paper with that kind of tolerance for poking fun at their readership. I'm not looking to start a fight here, I quite simply can't tell and don't know who else to ask.

[Aeson]

Capitalism

[Elok]

I should ask capitalism?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Elok, I read the first and last columns on that page --- and it stumps the heck outta me, too - and I fancy I speak reasonably good Progressive. Either it's a joke or the writer and her correspondents are all off in extremist-left Cloud-Cuckoo Land. I see no possible middle ground. (Maybe it's a New York cultural thing. Dunno.)

[Elok]

The thing that stumps me is, headlines like "I’m an American NGO Worker in Rural West Africa—How Do I Date Here?" just seem a little too on-the-nose "clueless Whole Foods douchebag who wants to change the world while remaining self-centered." And the answer even says that he shouldn't necessarily view it as immoral to give them presents for letting him screw them (this is a subtext of his question), because gold-digging is a normal aspect of relationships in many African cultures and he shouldn't have a eurocentric penis. I only doubt that it's satirical because, quite frankly, if it's satirical, it's the best damn satire written in the English language since George Orwell died. She takes it as far as it can go without tipping over into the obviously burlesque.