US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5094

On September 22 2016 23:20 Falling wrote:
I could definitely see wanting to push back against cultural appropriation. I was very on board with it at first and still agree with it in principle (if your describing someone's cultural, do so respectfully), but I have had some major shifts in thinking based on how it is being carried out- University of Ottawa cancelled their yoga class due to cultural appropriation claims- I have zero interest in yoga, but it strikes me that most anything comes from a culture somewhere.

On September 22 2016 23:20 Falling wrote:
I could definitely see wanting to push back against cultural appropriation. I was very on board with it at first and still agree with it in principle (if your describing someone's cultural, do so respectfully), but I have had some major shifts in thinking based on how it is being carried out- University of Ottawa cancelled their yoga class due to cultural appropriation claims- I have zero interest in yoga, but it strikes me that most anything comes from a culture somewhere.

It's starting look like a race to claim the cultural equivalent of intellectual property, which in terms of history starts look like the privatization and therefore the downfall of the idea of public history. Only First Nations may tell the stories of their people, yet we as teachers are supposed to teach First Nations content- I suppose that means we can only teach it by bringing a representative of each local band in. Here's the problem- what if they are wrong? Like dead wrong? Even wrong in a very racist way? The current application of cultural appropriation tends creates a protected body of knowledge, so long as you are speaking about your people's history.

This is where Vox Day has actually changed my thinking- not because I agree with him, but because I think he is dead wrong and a racial supremacist. But he is rather clever because he wields his Native American ancestry against any who would contradict him. So either I'm left arguing about whether he has sufficient Native American ancestry to be counted as such, which is a dumb conversation to have or people outside the culture can also critically (and yes, respectfully) tell someone else's cultural story. I still believe in going to good sources and being respectful and accurate (all good stuff for the historically minded), but I don't agree that an ethnic group can have the exclusive rights to tell their story- It only works until they are wrong and belligerently wrong with no hope of correction. And I say this as a person with what I would consider a rich cultural background (not this nebulous "I'm a white person"). Sure I would prefer if my own people were the ones telling our story if possible, but I also believe anyone could research properly and have a decent outside perspective and could give a respectful and even a critical account of my cultural history. I believe that history is public, which does directly contradict others belief systems that believe history can be sacred and therefore exclusive. Call me an imperialist, but I still disagree with them.

On September 22 2016 23:07 farvacola wrote:

Are the members of a particular minority group inseparable by virtue of their shared characteristics? If not, why should the actions of some impact the expressions of others when there pretty clearly exists a wide disparity in approach among members of the same group?

On September 22 2016 23:33 Plansix wrote:
The funny part about the yoga class is that Indians came to the US to market yoga as exercise and sell classes on it. That is partly how it caught on.

Although PC culture can be dumb(see above) it also fine to say that something we considered harmless before may be insensitive. There was a time when Black Face was fine. There was a time they called Native Americas “Indians” in schools and text books.

“We’re allowing these people to come into our country and destroy our country, and make it unsafe for people. We don’t want to do any profiling. If somebody looks like he’s got a massive bomb on his back, we won’t go up to that person … because if he looks like he comes from that part of the world, we’re not allowed to profile. Give me a break.”

— Donald Trump, interview on “Fox and Friends, Sept. 19, 2016

After the explosions in New York, Donald Trump complained about restrictive policies that he said do not allow “profiling” of potential terrorists on ethnic grounds. Under profiling, law enforcement officers target people based on their race or ethnicity or other factors on the grounds that certain minority groups are more likely to commit crimes.

Oddly, as our colleagues at PolitiFact found, Trump has also falsely claimed that he never said he wanted to profile Muslims, just “people that maybe look suspicious.” Trump also approvingly cites Israeli policies, which allows for the profiling of Arabs and also Ethiopian Jews, but Israel, a much smaller country, has a serious problem with Palestinian terrorism. So he’s being inconsistent, as he’s either for profiling of Muslims (the Israeli model) or not.

[...]

As usual, Trump’s actual policy position is a bit of fog. He denies he wants to profile Muslims, while at the same time says the model for the United States should be Israel, which profiles Arabs. (Wink, wink.)

But Trump also wrongly claims that that the United States does not allow profiling. In fact, profiling is permitted to screen airline passengers and immigrants – and law enforcement can use it to combat terrorist threats. From the context of his remarks, those are the situations that he is describing when he says profiling is not permitted. We wavered between Three Pinocchio and Four Pinocchios, but ultimately tipped to Four, given the inability of his staff to explain what he has in mind.

On September 22 2016 23:45 farvacola wrote:

Anyone who belongs to a group that may be implicated by the dynamics of cultural appropriation we've described above.

All I'm saying is that the push by some vis a vie prohibiting expressions they find offensive does not delegitimize the concerns of others who merely want to make their distaste known in the public sphere.

On September 22 2016 23:51 xDaunt wrote:


Yes, but the unfortunate reality is that the prohibitionists are so out of control that we're going to have to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start over.

On September 22 2016 23:53 farvacola wrote:
Naturally, I'm pretty sure we can save the baby, but I'm glad we've honed in on the disagreement

On September 22 2016 23:58 Rebs wrote:


He's throwing the baby out because he never wanted to save it in the first place. Its basically a classic case of the kind of legitimacy "the assholes/' get to claim because PC culture went to far.

On September 23 2016 00:01 xDaunt wrote:

No, that's not the case. I do believe that a certain level of decency is appropriate and culturally required, which is why there are certain things that I won't say or do. The problem, however, is that the PC crowd has so polarized the debate and the discussion that everyone is now forced to choose a side. And I'm not siding with them.

On September 23 2016 00:01 xDaunt wrote:

No, that's not the case. I do believe that a certain level of decency is appropriate and culturally required, which is why there are certain things that I won't say or do. The problem, however, is that the PC crowd has so polarized the debate and the discussion that everyone is now forced to choose a side. And I'm not siding with them.