Cultural Appropriation: The Latest PC Guilt-Trip

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Cultural appropriation is the latest guilt trip in the world of political correctness, which seeks to control by defining what is okay to think, say and do.

Cultural appropriation is the latest hot topic

in the deluded world of PC (political correctness), which seeks to control people by defining what is culturally acceptable to think, say and do. As I covered in the article Political Correctness = Language and Thought Control, political correctness is intolerance disguised as tolerance and fascism disguised as manners. It’s a form of soft control, a kind of cultural marxism that encourages people to police themselves, rather than relying on the more obvious hard control of governmentally enforced law, which people would more easily spot and against which they would more readily rebel. Cultural appropriation is a recent PC theme which accuses dominant groups of borrowing or “appropriating” cultural elements from minority or marginalized groups without “permission” and without the proper “love”, “respect” and “understanding” that is somehow required to do so. This begs the question, of course: who decides whether someone is appreciating or appropriating, and who decides whether someone has enough love, respect and understanding to do it? The answer is: the PC crowd, or the PC police, as this group may better be called.

Cultural Appropriation: Further Attempts at Control by the PC Police

The PC crowd is claiming they are standing up for the rights of the minority and the oppressed. Yet in doing so, they are doing the precise thing they are fighting against: oppression. Enforcing the made-up concept of cultural appropriation means criticizing and shaming people (often white people) for exercising their basic freedom to imitate, borrow, enhance, exchange and create. People are being attacked for wearing American Indian garb or a Japanese kimono; wearing their hair in dreadlocks; wearing Hindu bindis; and many other examples. Take a look at this video (embedded above) where a young black woman heckles a young white man for wearing his hair in dreads because dreads supposedly originate (solely) from her culture:

“You’re saying I can’t wear my hair style because of your culture?”

“Yes … because it’s my culture.”

In this video Franchesca Ramsey tries to defend cultural appropriation by criticizing a fashion designer for taking Maori tribal tattoos and using them in ads to sell sunglasses. She states that these tattoos had deep family meaning and cultural significance. She says:

“In order to show that you truly love [someone else’s culture], you need to have respect and understanding.

“No matter how much the designer liked the look, he stripped the tattoo of all its cultural meaning just to sell a product. If you really appreciate something, you should respect it, instead of assuming you can use it however you want.”

“If you think you have the right to use any cultural tradition just ‘cuz, that’s where you get into oppressive territory.”

Lots of “needs”, “shoulds” and moral commands there. Oppressive territory? Really? The only one getting oppressed in the video above was the white guy who was being bullied for wearing his hair in a certain way. Cultural appropriation used in this way is another inversion, where the truth is the exact opposite of what is being stated or proposed.

“Say you’re invited to an Indian wedding, and you’re not Indian. Wearing a traditional sari or getting henna would be a great example of cultural exchange. You’re being invited to participate and enjoy the culture, instead of just picking and choosing parts of it for yourself.”

“You can also travel, take cooking classes, read books, listen to music and visit museums if you really want to learn about and enjoy other cultures.”

Wow! Thanks for giving us permission to read and travel to learn about other cultures. But remember: don’t pick and choose for yourself. That’s way too independent. You have to get explicitly invited by that culture, or else you’re disrespecting it!

The Unfounded Assumption Behind Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation is based on the large and unfounded assumption that people from a particular culture will have a uniform way of responding to something. Some black people may think white people with dreads are cool; some may think they are lame; some may not care at all; and some may get offended. Even if the majority are offended, is this enough reason to start shaming people into certain behaviors? We’re back to exactly the same point as we are with the main issue of political correctness: is it better to value the right to free speech and expression, or to value people’s feelings of getting offended? These feelings, for the most part, are not of genuine pain or hurt, but rather a fake, egoic type that comes from identification with form, as Eckhart Tolle says. Since getting offended is a personal reaction to a situation, how can an outside authority of any kind ever set up a society where no one gets offended? It’s impossible. Meanwhile, everyone is being encouraged to walk around on eggshells (sheep policing themselves in the pen) in the meantime just in case somehow they will labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or whatever other label that the PC crowd will try to pin on them.

Who Owns a Culture?

Cultural appropriation is also based on the idea that you can easily define a culture and point to its owners. But can you? How can anyone really “own” their culture? Since the beginning of time, human cultures and societies have interacted and traded with each other, subconsciously and consciously borrowing from each other in order to create, diversify, enhance and improve. Look at food. The tomato is native to the Central and South America, but at one point it was “culturally appropriated” by Italy and is now a prime ingredient of Italian cuisine. Cilantro (coriander) and cinnamon are a big part of Mexican cuisine today, but they came from Arabia. The same is true with music, fashion, art and just about any other human endeavor you can think of. Any time an “owner” steps forth, chances are good that he or she got it from somewhere else first. Do we really want to curb or ban this flow and exchange of information and ideas because of political correctness? Can we even curb this flow?

Conclusion: Reject Cultural Appropriation and the Political Correctness Behind It

Looks like the PC police are setting themselves up to be the new cultural authority to tell us exactly what is acceptable and appropriate. We have enough people telling us how to think, feel and act. Be wary of cultural appropriation and any other kind of offshoot that stems from cultural marxism. Cultural appropriation reeks of social engineering. Be on the lookout for it. After all, who needs tyrants when you have political correctness?

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Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative news / independent media site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com (FaceBook here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.

Sources:

*https://thefreedomarticles.com/political-correctness-language-thought-control/

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3x1yefjWWw

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXejDhRGOuI

7 Comments

gininitaly May 24, 2016 - 1:31 pm

I find this a fascinating subject from a cultural point of view, I do understand both sides.. the pride in who you once were, and the flexibility of another to adopt a new cultural fashion. Isn’t imitation the highest form of flattery?

Because that’s what came to my mind with the black girl… here was a boy flattering your culture and showing solidarity.. and you chose to brow beat him about it. The sad part is that this divided instead of united with both parties embracing our fundamental human sameness. I would have rather she said, “cool man, thanks for appreciating us.”

Haven’t we as human been in a constant state of melding, adapting and mutating from the time we first walked upright on this planet, didn’t the mountain folk trade what they had with the ocean folk? An acorn prized by one and seashells by the other?

The problem today is that we have been strategically brainwashed to believe we are different as a distraction from the evil being inflicted upon all of us by psycopaths.

I understand pride in our heritage, sometimes it is even a safety net, but when we are all born human, grow, fall in love, work, have families and try to give the best life we can to our children…. these things unite us all as the family of man and we should never forget how the SAME we ALL are.

As the author stated, “PC police are setting themselves up to be the new cultural authority to tell us exactly what is acceptable and appropriate”.

It’s time to break all these shackles of separation and join together nationally and globally for what is respectful and humane for all of us and against those who created these divisions in the first place.

Charles May 24, 2016 - 1:42 pm

Excellent! Bang on! I also think this point could be extended to the arts in general. When ‘art’ loses the power to offend, all you have left is ‘artifice’, empty visual, aural, tactile or literary craft. All the great revolutions in art–and history–have reacted–offended–the status quo–in their desire for change. Without the power to offend–freedom is gone. You may not like what the other person is saying, doing or whatever–but then you’re free NOT to like it. And ironically enough, this is the freedom that opens windows and unlocks doors. I found in my own experience that generally speaking, most of the people who get so fired up over PC are not the most innovative or integrated souls, either intellectually or spiritually. Unlike the revolutionaries, they are followers and this is so unfortunate because it could be otherwise.

Meltonmark May 24, 2016 - 6:20 pm

That’s one of the reasons the Godless try to propagate a belief in Darwinian evolution. Without God, opinions are whatever we [the ruling elite] say they will be.

Peter Whittaker May 25, 2016 - 3:48 am

Great article, thank you.

Tom Goldstein May 28, 2016 - 11:06 am

This is a great article and I also agree with the comments from gininitaly.

Makia, your arguments are sound and you are obviously a smart guy. Most likely a smart, white guy. I think where this article falls down is your failure to understand your political opponents.

Do you think the black lady in the video is motivated by the ideology of political correctness? Do you think she is passionately anti-freedom? Is she a fascist? Enough already. Her crazy, pitiful attack on that innocent white man mostly comes out of weakness. She is part of a minority, oppressed ethnic group. She is fighting for some sort of control. She is like a Charlie Hebdo terrorist, so weak and insecure that they feel they have to shoot someone who appropriates their prophet.

You are right to call out deluded PC behaviour, but you should understand where it comes from. It is not an abstract ideological war for most of your targets. It is not a conspiracy to control your elite white mind by exploiting your white guilt. It is the misplaced outraged cry of the weak, the marginalised, the lost, the dispossessed.

Makia Freeman May 28, 2016 - 8:04 pm

Well said. I agree with your assessment that the cultural appropriation is the misplaced outraged cry of the weak, in some or many cases. Thanks for adding some depth to the discussion. Of course the young black woman in the video is not ideologically “anti-freedom” or “fascist”. I am talking about the PC/cultural appropriation movement as a whole.

Yes, I am a white guy – but why does it matter? The point about PC is that it is so fixated on form (on color, race, ethnicity, gender, majority, minority and on and on and on) that it’s forgotten the wood for the trees. We’re all human, regardless of gender or nationality. Let’s remember what we have in common. Yes, some races and genders have done some horrible things to other races and genders. We have to acknowledge it.

However, by fixating on everyone’s color, race and ethnicity, rather than seeing them as another human, another divine being, another child of God, then we unconsciously perpetuate the problem by projecting separation onto a situation.

Olga May 29, 2016 - 6:59 pm

“Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society” (Aristotle)

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