Deep, deep thoughts

[swatkat]

I hate shopping. I'm sure most of you know this already, considering the number of times I've whined about this. Today was an incredibly exhausting day, because that's what I've been doing all day. I don't know how much more of this I can take. *whines*

*

I've been reading through the International Blog Against Racism Week posts, and wow, there's some fascinating stuff out there. I'm not sure what I have to offer here, except that 'Racism is bad. Pls to stop it now', but I have some thoughts on certain issues that have been brewing for a while now, ever since I read a post on cultural appropriation and reverse racism which I can no longer find because I oh-so-cleverly forgot to bookmark it. This post was written by an American, speaking specifically about the America, and I have nothing to say about that because I'm not American and don't know the American context beyond what I've read, or what you guys tell me. But it set me thinking about other things. Things I know about and see everyday. It's not going to be very eloquent; quite possibly I'll be regretting what I'm going to say, but I'll say it all the same.

If there's one thing I know, it's that there's a very thin line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange, especially in the present day 'global village' context. See, I do know what cultural appropriation is. Every year some industrious European/American businessman comes up with the really ingenious idea of putting images of Hindu gods and goddesses in, say, toilet paper and beer bottles, and then wonders why people get offended when he does. Every year some random American company declares that they have now got a patent over neem/turmeric/basmati/[insert object of daily use here] and that all you Indians must now pay us a shitload of money before you use the said object because we have a *patent*, haven't we? This is cultural appropriation (although I'm not sure how appropriate my second example is). But to claim that no one has the right to eat Indian food except Indians? Or, you know, a white European individual has no right to fall in love with, say, Sanskrit and learn the language and study things written in it because he is white and European? That's just plain stupid. But this is what I see happening around me everyday, because it's so easy to tag a certain group of people as evil without thinking twice, without considering what you're talking about and scream 'CULTURAL APPROPRIATION! WE R BEING OPPRESSED!' Playing the victim is so much more fun. (A part of this, of course, comes from our knee-jerk response to every 'foreigner' out there – 'they're coming to take over our country!' It's very deep-seated in our psyche, and it will take some time before we get over it)

There's a flipside to this – the accusation of succumbing to cultural imperialism and forgetting your own roots. Listening to rap? OH NOES, succumbing to cultural imperialism. Eating burgers from KFC? (hate their chicken, by the way. why is it so popular?) OH NOES, succumbing to cultural imperialism. OH NOES, destroying tradition. Because again, it's so very easy to scream CULTURAL IMPERIALISM OMG instead of having to consider such a thing as cultural exchange, and the fact that you *can* appreciate elements of other cultures while holding on to your own. Even if the said culture is that of the evil (former) colonizers. I understand where a part of this comes from – our history - but I wonder sometimes, if we shouldn't reconsider things a bit. Redefine what consists of 'cultural imperialism' and 'cultural exchange' in the *present day context*. Playing the victim is so very easy, because it inevitably leads to a lot of very enjoyable guilt and apologies from the Imperialist White People, but is that all we are going to be? I can't but help thinking that it's this very rigid view of what constitutes of culture, of human identity that is the cause of a number of problems that plague our part of the world. Is culture such a static, fragile thing? Can identity – which is but a social signifier – have just one value for different sets of environments?

Then there's the thing called 'reverse racism' (and again, I'm not talking about the American context. I'm talking about what I experience every day), a card that supremacists in general love to play when their God-given right to be superior is challenged. And I'm not challenging the point that white/Christian/Hindu/[insert majority here] racism has the potential to be more dangerous than any other form of racism out there. But you know what? That doesn't make it *right*. That doesn't give me the right to make sweeping generalizations about every white person out there, even if my words achieve nothing. Because it doesn't hurt *you* (person from majority culture/ethnicity/religion), maybe (although I wouldn't advice being so smug), but it does hurt *me*. It stops *me* from being a sane, decent human being, and yes, that bothers me. It also doesn’t help my cause against racism much, because I'm perpetuating what I'm challenging in others. That's hypocritical. That's stupid. Sometimes – when I'm feeling much less charitable than I'm feeling now – if there isn't a sort of underlying racism in the implication that reverse racism is somehow not wrong, even if it's less damaging than the kind of racism practiced by the majority community, in the sense that 'our racism is better than yours! go on and be racist, little one, because you're not hurting us at all! we're invincible!'

Eh, does this make any sense at all? Never mind. Maybe I should lock this thing? It's late, and I had a very exhausting day. I'll go re-read the new chapter of 'Three's a Crowd' instead.

Comments

I have nothing *important* to say...

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

hate their chicken, by the way. why is it so popular?

Fast food chains thrive because what they offer is fast, cheap, and the same no matter what day of the week it is or what city you're in. And it's often salty and greasy, which never hurts. That it's kinda disgusting or that it's unhealthy aren't really enough to stem the allure of the reliable.

'our racism is better than yours! go on and be racist, little one, because you're not hurting us at all! we're invincible!'

Heh.

Re: I have nothing *important* to say...

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Fast food chains thrive because what they offer is fast, cheap, and the same no matter what day of the week it is or what city you're in. And it's often salty and greasy, which never hurts. That it's kinda disgusting or that it's unhealthy aren't really enough to stem the allure of the reliable.

I know! I just wish there was more chicken in their chicken, lol!

[nell65.livejournal.com]

I'll have to think on the rest, although I just read an interesting blurb in an alumni mag about native-americans and appropriation and exchange, pointing out that a Seminole (from FLA, but insert other tribe here) driving a hummer is, while perhaps being an environmental dickhead, still very much a Seminole and he hasn't *lost* his precious culture by deciding to spend his casino-earned bucks on a giant car.

As for the KFC chicken? Well, while there are plenty of people who just don't like it - I do, partially because it the food of childhood family events. And because making your own fried chicken is such a pain the ass! LOL!

But I do wonder if what you're getting is the same as what I get, taste-wise (among other things, our KFCs don't serve burgers....). The 'familiar fast food' that I've ordered around the globe, for various reasons, often doesn't really taste quite the same. In Spain, just for example, they fry all the potatoes at the various local franchises of global burger joints in an olive oil mix - familiar to the Spanish, utterly bizarre at first to Americans. In England, natch, the offer vinegar with the fries. Small, but significant nods to local taste and practices....

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

I'll have to think on the rest, although I just read an interesting blurb in an alumni mag about native-americans and appropriation and exchange, pointing out that a Seminole (from FLA, but insert other tribe here) driving a hummer is, while perhaps being an environmental dickhead, still very much a Seminole and he hasn't *lost* his precious culture by deciding to spend his casino-earned bucks on a giant car.

See, I agree with that. If the said Seminole also forgot everything else about his culture, then yes, he has lost his culture and is something of an idiot. But otherwise, I'm not sure *why* he shouldn't be driving a hummer (apart from the fact that it's a gas-guzzling environmental menace).

The KFCs here are extremely Indianised, as is every other foreign food chain out there. They wouldn't survive otherwise. McDonalds comes up with new, Indian-style dishes every month in order to stave off competition. And I haven't actually had a burger at KFC, although I do know they serve it - that was just the first example that came to my mind. *g* The fried chicken was so terrible that I lost all interest in eating there.

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

My comments are probably inevitably going to be influenced by my experiences as an American, and as a Californian in particular. So bear that in mind when reading this.

Or, you know, a white European individual has no right to fall in love with, say, Sanskrit and learn the language and study things written in it because he is white and European? That's just plain stupid.

It may be stupid. But...consider what might happen in the long run. This well-meaning, genuinely enthusiastic-about-the-culture student may go home after his studies and suddenly, after really only gaining say, intermediate-level knowledge about a narrow specialty, he's the *expert* on India. He'll get the university position, the think-tank job, the job with the intelligence agency, etc. And then he'll spend the rest of his life "explaining" India to Westerners in a way that (a) will often misrepresent issues or otherwise be less accurate than if they had asked Indian people themselves; and (b) will provide intellectual support for acts of economic (or other) exploitation by corporations or financial institutions or Western governements.

This happens *all* the time. The CIA is full of people who started out as perfectly sincere admirers of another country's culture. (I could have been one of them, actually.) And universities are full of white experts who got hired instead of qualified candidates who came from the relevant country's cultural background (although thankfully that's changing somewhat).

The problem comes not from it being "wrong" for someone to want to study another culture, because it isn't. The problem comes from what happens when people do that in an environment where there is still an inequity of power, internationally. No one operates in a vacuum. Even a goodhearted Roman was still a citizen of the Empire. Today's goodhearted Westerners who study non-Western cultures still need to support themselves afterwards -- and more often than not, the only way to do that is to work for the Empire, in one guise or another.

But it's wrong to attack the individuals. The attack needs to go against the system that perpetuates these inequalities. When there's truly a level playing field, then the study of another culture truly will become benign. (And the irony is -- which might start a whole other conversation -- that part of what's needed to attack the system is...Westerners who've familiarized themselves with non-Western cultures. Complicacted, no?)

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

It may be stupid. But...consider what might happen in the long run. This well-meaning, genuinely enthusiastic-about-the-culture student may go home after his studies and suddenly, after really only gaining say, intermediate-level knowledge about a narrow specialty, he's the *expert* on India. He'll get the university position, the think-tank job, the job with the intelligence agency, etc. And then he'll spend the rest of his life "explaining" India to Westerners in a way that (a) will often misrepresent issues or otherwise be less accurate than if they had asked Indian people themselves; and (b) will provide intellectual support for acts of economic (or other) exploitation by corporations or financial institutions or Western governements.

Now that's stupid too. *g* And I'm glad I used the Sanskrit example, because that goes on to say just how stupid it is, considering how Sanskrit is a dead language that also happened to be limited to only a certain section of a certain society. And I'm glad you mentioned this below, because surely something is wrong with a system that allows an individual proficient only in Sanskrit to be hired as an expert on India?

I was talking more about the scenario I see around me everyday. I don't see this system being questioned. I don't see this system being even mentioned, because the said critics are as ignorant about America as the system is about India (perhaps even more so, because the system at least has your Sanskrit expert who knows *something*. the critics know nothing beyond Hollywood and Bush). And what I was trying to point out is that while your ignorance about me is hurting me because you're in a position of power and I'm not, my ignorance about you is also hurting *me* because it's not helping my cause any. As long as I hold on to my misconceptions about you, there is no way I can contribute to the creation of a level playing field. I can only play the victim, which is mostly what I see happening around me every day.

I should also mention that I *have* come across Indophiles who happen to know more about India than I do. *g*

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Well, continuing on with the Sanskrit example, I'm presuming this person would have spent a few years as a grad student *in* India, studying Sanskrit texts at one of your universities, for example. He could wind up being hired as an analyst not necessarily for his knowledge of *Sanskrit* but because he happened to live in the country for a while. And because he demonstrated himself to be linguistically proficient, which means he could probably learn *other* more modern Indian languages as well. This is a lot more common than you might think.

I was certainly being steered that way myself when I did postgraduate studies in Korea. Mind you, I was studying economic development which is of more obvious practical value, but I wound up in a class taught by someone with defense industry ties who encouraged me to do work on North Korea, and had I continued down the path that was opening up to me I'm sure I'd be writing white papers for some think tank getting Defense Department funding right now. But when I originally chose to do "Asian Studies" as my minor, it was only out of a genuine admiration for the culture. You don't think of it becoming your meal ticket (much less who might be paying for those meals), although ultimately that's what can happen.

And what I was trying to point out is that while your ignorance about me is hurting me because you're in a position of power and I'm not, my ignorance about you is also hurting *me* because it's not helping my cause any. As long as I hold on to my misconceptions about you, there is no way I can contribute to the creation of a level playing field. I can only play the victim, which is mostly what I see happening around me every day.

This is very true. It's no coincidence, for example, that the leadership of 20th century anti-colonial movements had often studied in the colonizer's own universities. Or that many effective people in today's anti-globalization movement also have that cross-cultural experience, in one form or another.

Knowledge is an enormously important thing, and the desire for knowledge should never be disparaged.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Well, continuing on with the Sanskrit example, I'm presuming this person would have spent a few years as a grad student *in* India, studying Sanskrit texts at one of your universities, for example. He could wind up being hired as an analyst not necessarily for his knowledge of *Sanskrit* but because he happened to live in the country for a while. And because he demonstrated himself to be linguistically proficient, which means he could probably learn *other* more modern Indian languages as well. This is a lot more common than you might think.

Hmm, that makes sense. That brings up another question - how much qualification is enough qualification for such a post?

I'm sure I'd be writing white papers for some think tank getting Defense Department funding right now

Hee.

It's no coincidence, for example, that the leadership of 20th century anti-colonial movements had often studied in the colonizer's own universities. Or that many effective people in today's anti-globalization movement also have that cross-cultural experience, in one form or another.


Yes, exactly. Most of the Indian leaders were.

And re. the anti-globalization movement: in India, the leaders of the anti-globalization movement also happen to be the 'critics' I was talking about. Needless to say, they are not very effective, and I will not talk much about them because then I will start frothing in the mouth.

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

That brings up another question - how much qualification is enough qualification for such a post?

For something entry-level? Not necessarily very much.

And re. the anti-globalization movement: in India, the leaders of the anti-globalization movement also happen to be the 'critics' I was talking about. Needless to say, they are not very effective, and I will not talk much about them because then I will start frothing in the mouth.

Eek! I'm sorry I went there. Except that now I'm curious! Someday I'll ask you for your opinion on some of these people, and I won't mind if you froth a bit. *g*

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Eek! I'm sorry I went there. Except that now I'm curious! Someday I'll ask you for your opinion on some of these people, and I won't mind if you froth a bit. *g*

I could write you a book on the Left. It would be a very strange book. (incidentally, i live in a state where the Left has been in power for the past 30 years. yes, that's a record. and I can safely say that they're going to be power for at least another ten years or so. i also voted for them this year - my first vote in a big election - and will probably continue to do so in the future. like i said, it would be a very strange book)

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

There's many forms of racism, andpeople don't realize it.

A friend of mine from when I was younger had a racist father, and sometimes she'd spew out the most racist stuff, even though she was always going on about how against racism she was. (One of her boyfriends was black,as well as a few of her friends). She called a black friend she got into a fight with the N-word (you will never get me to type it or say it) behind her back, and used to sing a racist song I won't repeat.

But I've also come across other forms of racism. When we were studying WWII in history in eleventh grade, these kids decided to make jokes about Germans. We (the kids with German heritage) were alllike, "wtf?" I'm sorry, but as someone with Jewish friends, being accused of sympathizing with the Nazis is just disturbing. (If you want to know, I really wish that someone had gotten to kill Hitler and the rest of his sicko minions, preferably one of the innocent people he'd sent to Concentration Camps). And I also came across someone who said she didn't like Jewish people because a Jewish family she'd known was horrible to her for being Christian. Look, I'm sorry, but basing a whole group on some idiots? I've also known a Jewish woman who said she had thousands of years worth of reasons to hate Christians.

Personally, I think hate needs to stop. "Innocent" reservations towards certain groups turns into what's happening between Israel and Lebanon, why slavery and segregation happened, why Hitler imprisoned people he didn't deem "worthy"... I mean, do we not realize that if we teach our children "don't play with those kids", when they and "those kids" become adults, there will be bad feelings, which creates bad feelings for the next generation, until it turns into hate, which turns into war?

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

If you want to know, I really wish that someone had gotten to kill Hitler and the rest of his sicko minions, preferably one of the innocent people he'd sent to Concentration Camps

Hee. Most people do. And your example is the perfect proof of how idiotic the 'innocent reservations' can get. Reservations about a certain group of people based on ignorance/past prejudices are never innocent.

Hate does need to stop.