The Problem With The Problem of Cultural Appropriation

The Rachel Dolezal problem just won’t go away, mostly because Millennials won’t let it go away. Dolezal, the former NAACP leader discovered to be biologically white while she groomed herself to appear black – both figuratively and literally – said in an interview two days ago “I was biologically born white,” saying in effect that despite this fact she still doesn’t identify herself as a white person. This has Millennials – those kids always looking for something to be offended by – up in arms (again).

By now, we are already familiar with the glaring inconsistencies of the Millennial thought process as it is perfectly okay for Bruce Jenner to feel like he is actually a she and grooming himself to appear this way despite being biologically born a man. Now, perhaps this was okay for Jenner because he/she was a celebrity (celebrities get away with anything as long as an apology is issued when outrage is of a sufficient degree) or that the guardians of social justice feel like Dolezal disguised the fact she was ever white, but what you never find these supposed guardians doing is asking tough questions about their beliefs. For instance, what exactly constitutes a black person? According to African-America writer/director Justin Simien, “Being black in America involves a process of moving through and adopting from many different cultures. To define what's authentically black is virtually impossible, as there are as many ways to be black as there are black people.” Presumably, this would go for nearly every other ethnicity as well. But if one could define a black person within the confines of one singular culture, is a black person then restricted to only behaving as a black person?

If being a black person comes with a built in identity aside from their appearance, then so must every other ethnicity. So, if it is wrong to borrow from the black culture because that culture doesn’t belong to any other ethnicity, it is wrong for any ethnicity to borrow culture from any other ethnicity and the power dynamic that is often used as an accusatory device against, say, white people, has nothing to do with it. Accusers of cultural appropriation have long argued that minorities such as black people have adapted white culture as a matter of survival, but this is no longer a necessity in modern day America. So, this particular argument of theirs is no longer valid as to why black currently engage in any appropriation of any other culture.

Another question that comes to mind about whether it is appropriate to borrow from another culture is whether the culture being borrowed from is the originator of a given practice. In many instances this is simply impossible to know. Even if we were concede that black people invented rap music, they did it by borrowing English and recording technology from white people. As Simien noted earlier, black culture is not “authentic” but rather an amalgamation. (This goes for every culture, as well. There is no completely unique culture since human beings all generally behave the same; this manifests itself in our social practices. This is, for example, why some kind of spiritualism exists in all cultures.)

As a logical extension to the previous question, we might ask if a given practice was indeed invented by one ethnicity, does that ethnicity claim an exclusive right to use such that practice? Let’s take hair-braiding, for instance. According to various sources, this practice originated in Africa anywhere from 5,000-30,000 years ago, spread far and wide, and has undergone many changes depending on the culture that adapted it. One version of hair-braiding, known in black culture as ‘corn-rows’ traces its history back thousands of years and appears to have been a sign of social significance and wealth at some point. So, African Americans cannot claim a ‘right’ to the exclusive use of corn-rows (much to Kylie Jenner’s relief, I’m sure). Or maybe they can claim a right because one is allowed to borrow practices from the people in power, though in this instance I fail to see what adapting corn-rows would have to do with survival.

Furthermore, can one claim a right to the achievements of one’s ancestor? Doing so amounts to thinking ‘we’ won the Superbowl when in fact you, the spectator, had nothing to do with it. It’s basically riding the coattails of someone else. (Naturally, people who view themselves as victims often employ this kind of historical thinking to accuse those who are not a part of their group so that their own underachievements look benign in their own eyes. To be clear, I am NOT accusing any group in particular of this.) At any rate, at this point in evolution, no one is a pure-breed anymore, not that such a thing ever existed for human beings. So, we cannot accept historical usage of a practice as meaning that practice solely belonging to any single group.

Bizarrely, Millennials don’t seem to mind most of the things white people have culturally appropriated from black people as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with appearance.* If Dolezal had only acted black instead of trying to look black, sure, she may not have gotten a leadership job for the NAACP but she would simply have been mocked by black and white alike and forgotten. The fact that she tried to look black without acknowledging her ‘whiteness’ appeared as a mockery of black people. I get that. But the same people vilifying her are the same people on one hand want to think of everyone as special regardless of looks or even achievement, but on the other hand want to demonize whites for simply being white, something no white person ever born had a choice in being. Dolezal took her identity in her own hands – something usually applauded – but because she is really white, this is villainous. And thus, the racism of Millennials is exposed.

[*Nor do Millenials care if the Chinese, currently the most powerful group of people in the world, all things considered, borrow cultural practices from the U.S. As a matter of social justice, shouldn’t the guardians of social justice berate the Chinese for wearing blue jeans? Americans invented blue jeans so it belongs to us! Right?]

As I often tell conspiracy theorists, if you don’t like it, leave. But they never do that because despite how horrible it is to live in the U.S. these days, no matter how horrible white people unintentionally contribute to white supremacy (? You hear this line often in these kinds of discussion), living in the U.S. it’s still remarkably better than most other places, places where people cannot even begin to have this kind of discussion.

It is certainly one thing to appropriate a look or practice to intentionally mock a culture. Dolezal didn’t do that; if anything she could be considered to be mocking white people, if white people cared about these things. Black people certainly should feel a little angry that they are under- or misrepresented in the workplace and the media and are generally made to feel they need to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. Of this there is no doubt. But the only person that can make you feel like your (natural) identity is being stolen from you is you. Even if white people all started growing afros tomorrow, an afro on a black person wouldn’t make that person any less black. I know minorities feel otherwise, which makes it hard to understand why they don’t invent some other new look or practice and patent it for use by their own group. Remember that it is okay to borrow cultural practices from the group in power, so why not try using the power group’s practices against them. Oh, wait, what? You can’t patent a look or cultural practice? Gee, I wonder why that is…

Rachel Dolezal, Caitlyn Jenner, and the Double Standard

Of the all memes that plague the Internet these days, one finally caught my attention for not being instantly recognizable for its stupidity.

The question implied by the meme asks why is it socially acceptable that former Olympian Bruce Jenner – a white person – wants to pass himself off as a something he is not but it is not socially acceptable for former NAACP chapter president Rachel Dolezal – another white person – to attempt to pass herself off as something she is not? Is the difference about gender, is it about race, is it about celebrity; what the heck is going on here?

We should all know by now what Dolezal did wrong: She is guilty* of cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation, if you don’t know already, is adopting or using elements of a culture you’re not considered a part of and using them for your own benefit. Moreover, minorities and Caucasians of an extremely guilty conscious will tell intimate to you – if not tell you outright – that this criminal behavior only applies to Caucasians given the historical treatment of everyone else in the world by said Caucasians, or something. Dolezal, during her tenure as a chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was discovered to be Caucasian and not an actual African American, as she portrayed herself as and continues to identify herself as. This outraged pretty much everyone who chiefly identifies themselves as a victim (which is occasionally for a good reason) and/or operates solely on emotion. (Nevermind that there is no bylaw of the NAACP that states that a chapter president must be of ‘colored’ descent. ) Dolezal, being Caucasian, comes from what is considered the upper and more powerful class and that in itself apparently means she is not allowed to identify herself as an African American no matter how much she acts like it or how much tanning she does. Dolezal, being Caucasian, because of her genetics, her race, is not allowed to portray herself as a member of a disadvantaged class in any manner. Why this is the case is not the question right now, but keep in mind that this is the state of ‘social justice’ mentality in the U.S. right now.

[* Guilty in the eyes of those who chose to accept the definition and the negative connotation of ‘cultural appropriation.’]

By comparison, what Bruce Jenner apparently did right was come from the upper and most powerful class of all – white men – and change himself into a member of a disadvantaged class, borrowing all the bells and getting rid of some of the whistles to do so. Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner went much further than Dolezal did with his/her cultural appropriation. Yet uber-liberals and every disadvantaged class in the U.S went ga ga for Caitlyn. So, on the face of it, this would seem to be a double standard unless something else is going on. Why is what Ciatlyn did acceptable and what Dolezal did unacceptable?

Is it the case that it is okay to go from being one gender within an ethnicity to another gender within the ethnicity because you’re staying within the ethnicity? Is it the case that it is not okay to identify with one ethnicity because you are not genetically that ethnicity? [For argument’s sake, we will concern ourselves with the genetic component of ethnicity since this appears to be the primary basis for accepting or rejecting people into a wide cultural group.] If both these cases are true they must have some kind of philosophical justification. Otherwise, it would seem up to ‘herd mentality’ to arbitrarily judge what is socially acceptable and what is not, and this would mean there is no rational basis for accepting Caitlyn Jenner for who she thinks she is. And that’s just it; there is no philosophical basis for the cases such as I’ve stated them and possible reasons for rejecting them, mostly on the basis of what is considered an ethnicity.

The reality is that ethnicity is almost as fluid as language and this mightily complicates anyone’s attempt at any sort of identity. Take for example someone like Barak Obama who is half-African and half-Caucasian; should he identify himself as one or the other? Based on what, the dominance of one parent’s genes over the other, what he looks more like, based on how he talks, based on what cultural practices he observes? While Barack Obama looks more African than Caucasian, he definitely acts more Caucasian than African. Maybe both ethnicities should reject him as a strange anomaly or as something less than either (and member of both ethnicities surely do). And what would we make of someone who is equal parts African, Caucasian, Asian and Latino? So, we can’t (or shouldn’t) base the acceptance or rejection of someone within a cultural group based on their genetic constitution. If Rachel Dolezal identifies herself as ‘colored’ because that is what she feels inside, this should be exactly the same as Bruce Jenner wanting to change his identity because of how he feels inside. But if we’re going to bring genetics into the argument, that Bruce is good to go because he’s staying within the same ethnicity, the reality is that one can no more actually become a woman than one can become African. But if changing one’s identity is just a matter of drug therapy and surgery, than anyone can become another gender or ethnicity and the stewards of today’s social justice will have to accept it.

Although I am no fan of Kylie Jenner, the black community should get off her back for putting her hair in cornrows. She’s a 17-year old nitwit who hasn’t formed her own identity yet. But when she does, if forming her identity means she is going to walk, talk and look like she’s black, her identity must be accepted for there to be any consistence to the term ‘social justice.’ On the other hand, if what’s really going on here is that it is okay to be racist if you’re from a disadvantaged class because historical Caucasians haven’t treated your group well, well then, let’s call a spade a spade and recognize today’s ‘social justice’ for what it really is – vengeance.