#and then he had all the models also have a keffiyeh

[freeasfishes]

Pakistani designer Emraan Rajput and models stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine at a fashion show.

🇵🇸

#palestine #pakistan #ahsan khan #emraan rajput #it was to showcase mens wedding attire #and then he had all the models also have a keffiyeh #cant really put it to words why this makes me so emotional #but something about the Palestinian men who had their dignity attacked and they were photographed without clothes #and then these men showcasing beautiful clothes standing for them

[mcleodharboe45]

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[theculturedmarxist]

A black and white portrait of Che Guevara casts a watchful eye over a room adorned with socialist memorabilia from all over the world. A sculpture of two giant marble fists bound by a broken metal chain inscribed with the name “Marinaleda” has pride of place on a grand wooden desk. Behind it sits a small, bearded man wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf and a multicoloured shirt. His name is Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, mayor of the last communist town in Spain.

“Capitalism is like King Midas,” he tells me, “everything it touches turns to gold, commodity, trade and death. I think the capitalist system is necrophilous.”

The 70-year-old has run Marinaleda, near Seville, for almost 40 years, having spent decades fighting the system to create his “utopian” village. Many are starting to question whether this “paradise” will last much longer, after the Socialist PSOE failed to gain an absolute majority in Andalusia’s regional elections in December – for the first time in history. For four decades, Marinaleda has been granted free rein under the Socialists but that would not be guaranteed under a right-wing coalition, which could soon be formed between the Partido Popular, Ciudadanos and far-right party Vox.

Perhaps surprisingly, some 44 people in the town voted for the extreme right party, which won its first ever seats in parliament. But it will probably take more than Vox’s 12 seats to topple Europe’s last communist outpost, which has been a unique success story for decades.

As unemployment stands at 22.9 per cent in Andalusia, only 4 per cent of Marinaleda’s 3,000 citizens are out of work and that is mostly “their choice”. Every civilian is offered a job with the same salary and a house with a mortgage of just €15 (£13.50) a month, while the total cost is deducted if the occupant helps towards building and upkeep.

The town’s success lies in a cooperative where villagers work in the fields or factory to earn €47 for a six-and-a-half-hour working day, bringing in €1,200 a month. Even the unemployed receive €400 from Andalusia’s regional government each month. Although large companies and chains are not permitted, the mayor insists he does not stand in the way of small businesses.

As well as 352 hectares of olive groves, Marinaleda also cultivates broccoli, artichokes, broad beans and peppers, which are jarred at the factory and distributed across the country, creating a year-round harvest.

“The more vegetables we cultivate, the more work we create,” says Sánchez Gordillo. “The money from sales is reinvested into the town to improve the community. It is never for anyone’s personal profit. The land is for anyone who wants it.“

Marinaleda’s journey to utopia began after years of deep repression under General Franco’s harsh fascist regime, when Sánchez Gordillo saw “hunger reach the stomachs of many labourer families” with an unemployment rate of 80 per cent.

Four decades later, El Sindicato de Obreros del Campo (The Union of Farm Workers) was born, leading to the first democratic elections held in Spain – in 1979 – since the collapse of the Republican government. The workers’ collective CUT (Colectivo de Unidad de los Trabajadores) gained an absolute majority in Marinaleda and at the age of 30, Sánchez Gordillo was elected mayor – a position he has upheld ever since. 

But “La Lucha” (the fight) would plague the town for another decade as the CUT attempted to take political control over Marinaleda, by staging a 700-strong “hunger strike against hunger”. For more than 90 days Marinaleda villagers occupied the Cortijo de los Humosos, a farmhouse owned by a wealthy duke who left its vast fields uncultivated while families starved. Daily, the Guardia Civil violently expelled them, and daily they returned.

Finally, seven years later, the Andalusian government granted them the land and Marinaleda has never looked back. Now the rustic farmhouse bears the proud words: “This land belongs to all the unemployed labourers of Marinaleda.”

“After all this, we know there is nothing you can’t achieve. Even your wildest dream can become a reality,” says Sánchez Gordillo as we gaze up at a decaying wall painting reading “Tierra Utopia”.

And it is not just local Andalusians who have looked for paradise in this small corner of Spain. Christopher Burke is one of the six British residents living in Marinaleda. The 70-year-old Liverpudlian moved to the town eight years ago with his wife after falling in love with the community spirit during a holiday.

“This place grabs your heart, people are so kind and it’s not about money here,” he says. “It’s great to be part of something that has a different outlook on society and see whether this system is actually achievable. I would say it definitely is.”

He smiles as he tells me how locals regularly pop over with freshly baked bread and recounts stories of the town’s festivals, where even the mayor waits on tables. If it were not for Brexit, Burke says he would never go back to the UK. “If we lose healthcare in Spain I’m absolutely done for because I have glaucoma. It’s a big problem,” he says.

And it seems the town’s folk are also content. As the sweltering sun beats down on us in the lush green fields, young farmer, Alba Martin tells me she has no plans to leave after experiencing life in the outside world.

“The work here is fairer than in other places in Spain,” says the 24-year-old Marinaleda native, speaking from bad experience in Mallorca where she was crippled by her €600-a-month income. “Life is relaxing here, you live well, you’re paid well and above all, things are cheap. The workers are really looked after here.”

Picking broad beans beside her is 42-year-old Antonio Casares, who returned to his native town six years ago after working in construction in Barcelona, Ibiza and others parts of Andalusia. He too worked for a “miserable” salary of €600.

“You can’t live on that,” says Casares, whose wife and teenage daughter work alongside him in the fields. “I had to come back at the beginning of the economic crisis when everything became so expensive. The working days are a lot shorter and life is better here, you feel protected.”

Casares believes in Marinaleda’s model as it has provided almost everyone with a job and he says it’s all thanks to the mayor, who is voted in with an overwhelming majority every year. “If it weren’t for him, we would not have this,” he says gesturing towards Sánchez Gordillo, who is quietly eating freshly picked beans across the field.

It is clear the town’s folk greatly respect the mayor, who was allegedly the subject of multiple assassination attempts by the Guardia Civil for his political protests. He makes time for everyone he bumps into on the street, as they gossip and ask for advice like a close friend. Time, it seems, is not an issue in Marinaleda.

A history teacher until four years ago, Sánchez Gordillo lives on a modest street of small terraced houses. It is well known he has never taken a mayor’s salary and earns the same as everyone else.

“I don’t think anyone is more important than others,” he tells me after asking to be called by his first name as he finds it more “comfortable”.

During the throws of the recession, the revolutionary made international headlines after leading his union to raid supermarkets to provide food for the hungry. Many called him a “Robin Hood”, others a robbing troublemaker.

“The true thief is capitalism,” he insists. “It is a thief of human rights. Europe is the biggest food importer in the world, yet it is throwing its farmers and labourers into bankruptcy.”

And what would he say to people who call him a rebel? “Well I am a rebel,” he responds with a mischievous smile. “Rules are made to be broken.”

Yet when rules are broken in police-free Marinaleda, civilians face nothing more than a stern word from the mayor. “We do not punish anyone. Education is better than repression,” he insists.

However, Burke is concerned some take advantage of the lenient laws of the village.

“Sometimes there’s too much licence for people to do whatever they please,” he says. “Because it has a reputation of having no police, it can attract people buying and selling drugs from other places – like a mini drug market.” 

Although Marinaleda is dubbed communist, the mayor describes it as a melting pot of ideologies – socialism, communism and humanism. He draws inspiration from the likes of Gandhi, Lenin, Marx and, of course, Che Guevara. Unlike strict communist models, he believes this watered-down version can work anywhere in the modern world.

“The main objective should be to conserve public property, such as land, housing and energy,” he explains. “There needs to be a direct exchange between the producer and the consumer, with no private business in the middle. If we continue to be ruled by money and by the selfishness and criminality of the global market, we will be on our way to the Third World War.

“The global system right now is just a new type of fascism,” he adds, while admitting that his “utopian” model is difficult to achieve as many don’t like sharing their wealth or possessions.

As the threat of the right looms like a dark cloud over Marinaleda and with elderly Sánchez Gordillo facing recent severe health problems, there is one question many do not want to confront: what will happen when he is no longer there?

“It’s the $64,000 question,” says Burke. “People want it to carry on but he is the central pillar. There’s no obvious successor.”

And it is too early to know if the mayor’s only son, aged seven, will continue his legacy.

Only Sánchez Gordillo is not worried.

“This is a collective effort,” he says simply. “I’m not sure what will happen but I would like the project to be continued for a future of solidarity. And I have faith it will.”

#long reads #marinaleda #spain #communism #anarchism #capitalist realism #fascism #reaction #reactionaries

[njawaidofficial]

Gigi And Zayn Were The Power Couple I Needed To See When I Was Growing Up

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/15/gigi-and-zayn-were-the-power-couple-i-needed-to-see-when-i-was-growing-up/

Gigi And Zayn Were The Power Couple I Needed To See When I Was Growing Up

Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid attend the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2016, in New York City.

Mike Coppola / Getty Images

I was a little too excited when Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid first began dating, way, way back in 2015. That was the year Gigi’s modeling career exploded, as she showed up in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video. Zayn was in the process of launching his solo career after a dramatic break with One Direction. A romance between two beautiful, successful celebrities isn’t exactly earth-shaking news, and Zayn and Gigi didn’t do anything especially interesting together: They posed in fashion shoots, walked the red carpet together, wore a couples costume for Halloween, and, of course, documented all of it on Instagram.

But what did matter to me is what also fascinated me about them separately: They both have Muslim heritage and are outspoken about how their backgrounds have shaped them. And seeing this desi-Arab-Muslim power couple together, in the pages of the same magazines I had flipped through as a celebrity-obsessed, boy band–loving, Palestinian, Muslim, American teen — looking for Muslim and Arab faces, and finding none — felt like something I had been waiting a long time for.

This week, the couple announced their split after more than two years together, and the breakup was as relatively drama-free as their relationship appeared to be. Zayn described Gigi as an “incredible soul”; in her own statement, Gigi said she was “forever grateful for the love, time, and life lessons.” There was some minor drama over Zayn unfollowing Gigi and her mother, Yolanda Hadid, on Instagram — and the matter of a months-old tattoo of Gigi’s eyes across Zayn’s chest — but as far as celebrity breakups go, this seemed, at least publicly, to be pretty unremarkable.

I wasn’t really heartbroken over the breakup of Gigi and Zayn, the actual people, as much as I was at the end of the idea of their relationship.

I had been so wrapped up in Tuesday morning news that I was genuinely stunned when another editor at work asked if we’d be covering the story, which I’d heard nothing about. And then I was suddenly sad, and then I was mostly embarrassed about being a 31-year-old woman who was this sad about the end of a relationship I wasn’t even in. But I wasn’t really heartbroken over the breakup of Gigi and Zayn, the actual people, as much as I was at the end of the idea of their relationship, and what it had represented to me. They had been so unusual as a fantasy canvas to project the real Muslim romances I’d grown up watching onto: Zayn and Gigi were the couple that sat too close at Muslim Student Association meetings; they were the desi and Arab pair kept apart by cultural differences; the teenagers ducking into cars together when they’ve told their parents they’ve gone to the mosque. Their celebrity realities were miles away from any of ours, but they had backgrounds that made them blank slates for our versions of sweet, unremarkable, all-American stories.

Coverage of Gigi and Zayn, together or separately, meant seeing things like Eid al-Adha — a major Muslim holiday — casually mentioned in publications like People and E! Online after they marked it by taking a selfie with their mothers. Eid al-Adha was a regular part of the United States I grew up in, a day when my family spent time together, exchanged presents, bought new clothes, and ate way too much, and now, it’s also when we post smiling selfies to social media. To see these celebrities doing the same, and to see a note about the holiday in the media coverage of them — free of any offensive, hand-wringing debate over whether or not there are too many Muslims in the US — still feels remarkable.

Instagram: @yolanda

As a child and throughout my teens, I struggled to find myself reflected in the pop culture around me. Even though I was in elementary school, my dad would turn off my cartoons and watch coverage of the Gulf War with me, and the news seemed to be the only place where I would see Arabs and Muslims. Most of my favorite TV shows, like Full House, Rugrats, and later Dawson’s Creek and Friends, featured mainly white characters — which helped form the idea that uncomplicated lives were not written for people like me. I was so hungry for representation that when Aladdin came out in 1992, the movie — even as a racist mashup of generally Eastern cultures — was revolutionary for me. It was my first time seeing fun, popular characters even remotely representative of my family’s culture; I became so obsessed that I tried to convince my parents to rename me Yasmine.

But after Aladdin, it was a long, empty road for Muslim representation in the mainstream, especially after 9/11. And I just accepted that I would never fully relate to the white heroines in my favorite books — Little Women, the Sweet Valley High series, the Baby-Sitters Club series, The Princess Diaries. A few years ago, I spoke to one of my high school’s librarians and asked him why we never had many books by Arab or Muslim authors. He told me that we never asked for them. It was strange to think that the weight would have been placed on me — a child — to ask for stories that would speak to me. After all, how many white, Christian teenagers have to actually ask librarians for books written about characters who look like them? But everything around me taught me that stories about girls like me simply did not exist. An awkward, opinionated Muslim girl would not roam Bayside High’s halls, nor would she ever serve as Dawson Leary’s out-of-reach love interest.

Me dressed up for Eid, with my Jasmine doll on the table.

courtesy of Sara Yasin

That applied to the heartthrobs I fantasized about, too: I was obsessed with boy bands as a teen. While I was mostly loyal to NSYNC, I was easily wooed by any group of young men with coordinated outfits and dance moves. These young men I dreamed about were carefully constructed to cater to my desires as a teenage girl — and most of them were white. I fantasized about the Justin Timberlakes and Brian Littrells of the world, and would always attempt to stamp out the tiny voice that wondered how they might feel about a fan who was Muslim.

By the time One Direction had become the biggest boy band in the world, I felt too old to be obsessed with them in the same way. But I still found joy in listening to their songs, and it had a lot to do with Zayn. He wasn’t necessarily vocal about his Muslim and Pakistani roots while he was in One Direction, but I didn’t love the real Zayn so much as I loved what he could have been to me, back when I was a teenager: the halal crush that I could dream of introducing to my parents, that would have made me feel like my heritage and my world were as commonplace as anyone else’s. There was something incredible about seeing a Muslim man not only become famous but become a sex symbol — seeing a Muslim name like “Zayn Malik” on a thirsty, hot-pink poster sold to teenage girls, rather than on a terror alert.

While Gigi also has a Muslim father, what drew me to her is the fact that she’s Palestinian — and vocal about how proud she is of her background. I first came across her in 2014, when I noticed a photo shoot she did paying tribute to Anna Wintour’s first Vogue cover as editor-in-chief, in 1988, which featured Israeli model Michaela Bercu. Some wondered if Vogue was making a (quiet) political statement about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by featuring Gigi years later, especially since the photos came soon after the last deadly war in Gaza.

Vogue breezily referenced Gigi’s heritage, and in many ways, that’s Gigi’s approach too: She doesn’t explain or justify the fact that she’s Palestinian; it’s just a part of who she is. When she won Glamour’s “Woman of the Year” award last year, she referred to her father as a “refugee from Palestine” in her acceptance speech. Mohamed Hadid is vocal about the conflict, as well as his heritage. Both Gigi and her sister, Bella, also a model, have spoken about how their father’s background has shaped them, and last year, the sisters joined a protest against Trump’s controversial travel ban.

Gigi Hadid wears a keffiyeh-patterned jacket at a 2014 Chanel event in New York City.

Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images

You could argue that Gigi’s outspokenness is made much easier by the fact that, for the most part, she gets to decide when she wants to remind you that she’s a Palestinian — a luxury that her ex does not have. Zayn faced racism even in the days when he wasn’t as vocal about being Muslim or Pakistani, whether that was from anti-Muslim pundits like Debbie Schlussel warning that he was “pimping” Islam to young girls, or Bill Maher making a joke comparing him to one of the Boston marathon bombers.

Hadid has slammed anti-Muslim bigotry, but she has also made some big stumbles herself, like a video from 2017 showing her mocking Asians on her sister’s Instagram story. But even that is part of what’s so familiar about her to me; missteps like this were commonplace in my own Muslim community, where people had blinders on when it came to addressing inequalities that weren’t their own.

Of course, Gigi and Zayn’s ability to move with an ease that isn’t afforded to others with similar heritage is mostly a testament to the privilege that comes with fame, beauty, and wealth, rather than any huge symbol of progress. Desi-Arab-Muslim power couples aren’t going to unravel the prejudices that these groups have faced in the US — that will probably have a lot more to do with accepting that what it means to be an American is a diverse, ever-changing thing. Not long ago, I was waxing poetic about the Hadids while visiting a relative, and the significance of their visibility as Palestinian-Americans, and she sighed and asked when she would be accepted as an American as she is: a devout, hijab-wearing Muslim immigrant.

Gigi Hadid (center) with, from left, her sister Bella, mother Yolanda, father Mohamed, and his fiancé, Shiva Safai, at a party in Paris in 2016.

Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images

I always say that I grew up in Disneyland Palestine: a suburban, North Carolina street dotted with relatives and other Palestinian immigrant families who came together to re-create a version of their homeland for their American children. Being Palestinian was about having way too many cousins, an infuriating surveillance network of nosy aunties, dancing to corny music videos that came on our Arabic satellite television stations, and, of course, eating typically Palestinian meals like musakhan — huge, soft wheels of bread doused in olive oil, topped with sumac, roasted pine nuts, fried onions, and chicken. For me, particularly as a child, my parents’ Palestinian heritage was about all of these things, just as much as it was about knowing our histories and, of course, understanding the conflict with Israel.

But in the US, being Palestinian is rarely viewed outside of the lense of that conflict. And while it is deeply intertwined with being a Palestinian, particularly in a situation that is ongoing and ever-deteriorating, viewing us through that alone has helped dehumanize us entirely. We can never just live, and that’s what the Hadids do: They’re public, Palestinian figures who lead splashy, “ordinary” Hollywood lives. And seeing a family with roots similar to my own become the fodder for ordinary, superficial celebrity gossip coverage — seeing their daughter, who just happens to be a supermodel, date a British and Pakistani boy, who just happens to be a pop star — was remarkable in its own completely unremarkable way. In a country where it’s a reasonable thing for a politician to suggest that Palestinians don’t even exist, that visibility matters.

While Gigi and Zayn’s split doesn’t make them less meaningful, in terms of what they represent, it does mean an end to a Hollywood romance that seemed to be written just for me. More than two years is a long time for celebrities, and of course, Just Like Us: They Grow Apart! I am still a little sad, but I’m realizing that there was a kind of joy in watching a romance — that just happened to involve two Muslim celebrities — blossom, and then fade out, like any other. ●

[meetiulfata-blog1]

Cultural appropriation

"Cultural appropriation" is a term you may have heard in the last couple of years by critics discussing musical performances, pop culture, and fashion. Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Iggy Azalea, model Cara Delavigne, the Kardashian/Jenner/West clan, the authors of the Thug Kitchen blog and cookbook, and white gay men who speak and gesticulate in ways associated with certain black women have all recently been accused of this misdeed. But, what exactly is cultural appropriation? And why is it considered bad and wrong?

To understand the term, we first have to understand what culture is. Culture, in a sociological sense, is quite broad, and refers to the practices, beliefs, ideas, values, traditions, rituals, language, speech, modes of communications, material objects, and performances that are central to the social life of any given group of people. To whittle it down, you can think of culture as all the things a group of people think, do, and make.

**Appropriation is defined as the illegal, unfair, or unjust usage or taking of something that belongs to someone else. So, when someone is accused of cultural appropriation, they are accused of taking or using elements of a culture to which they do not belong. In the context of the US, cultural appropriation most often happens across racial lines, and features white people taking and using elements of a culture from people of color. **

In the examples listed above, Katy Perry performed as a Geisha at the American Music Awards in 2013; Miley Cyrus has become known for twerking at her performances--a style of dance with roots in West Africa and more recently associated with southern hip-hop music; Kourtney Kardashian threw a birthday party for her niece North West that was dubbed "Kidchella" and featured North in a suede fringe dress and moccasins, while Khloé Kardashian wore a feathered headdress and tipis adorned the property; and, the white man and woman behind Thug Kitchen write in a profanity-laced black street dialect in describing their healthy, new-wave cuisine recipes.

**"But, wait," you might be thinking, "the US is a melting pot of cultures. We all use and enjoy aspects of others' cultures all the time. Why are you picking on white people?" **

This is an important question, because it gives us the opportunity to breakdown the difference between assimilation and appropriation. Throughout the history of the US, because whites and their ways have been, and still are, perceived as normal--as the default of what an "American" is--those framed as other (people of color and newly arrived immigrants) were and are socialized, pressured, and in some cases even forced to adopt the dominant culture of the US, a culture defined by whites. Social institutions, like media, education, politics, the judicial system and the police, and peer groups and community leaders incentivize assimilation into the dominant culture by punishing and ostracizing those who do not assimilate. The adoption of the dominant culture by racially and ethnically marginalized groups is forced and required, in the sense that it is necessary for inclusion in society, and in some cases historically and today, physically forced.

Cultural appropriation, by contrast, is not required or forced. It is a choice, and as such, it is an expression of privilege. While people of color are forced to adopt mainstream white culture, white people can sample at the buffet of other cultures at their leisure, picking and choosing what they wish to consume. This is an important distinction, but it doesn't adequately explain why so many people are angered by cultural appropriation. To grasp this, we have to use the sociological perspective to put it into historical context, critically analyze the practice, and probe its implications.

Critics of cultural appropriation point out that it is not a new phenomenon, but actually a modern day continuance of centuries of theft of land and resources by white people from people of color. The colonial era was defined by these practices, which were justified by the racist belief that people of color were less than human, and imperial powers and the wealth of nations today were built on them. Troublingly, the act of reducing a culture to a wearable or performative trend today serves to obscure the racial injustices and atrocities members of that culture have suffered, and continue to suffer.

This is readily apparent in the fashion industry, where styles of dress or patterns from Native American cultures, for example, are appropriated, mass produced, and sold for profit. This is especially upsetting to the groups from which items or practices are appropriated when they have special significance. An unnamed author eloquently explains in a must-read essay, "...'appropriation' often occurs without any real understanding of why the original culture took part in these activities or the meanings behind these activities, often converting culturally significant artifacts, practices, and beliefs into 'meaningless' pop-culture or giving them a significance that is completely different/less nuanced than they would originally have had."

Critics also point out that often what is appropriated is acceptable for white people to do or wear, but when practiced or displayed in its home culture, is marginalized, ridiculed, or even viewed as a threat. For example, several years ago scarves in the style of the keffiyeh, a popular headdress in some Middle Eastern countries, became a fashion trend and was suddenly wrapped around the necks of the young and trendy across the US. Yet, this happened at a time of heightened xenophobia and hate crimes against Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim people (and those thought to be so) within the US. While the keffiyeh is trendy in the dominant culture, if a man to whom it is culturally native had worn it as a headdress in the US, as it is meant to be worn, he would be marked as different and threatening, perhaps even a "terrorist."

Similarly, writer Sierra Mannie recently called out white gay men for appropriating the dialect and mannerisms of (some) black women, while those very same black women are often ridiculed and marginalized for those practices by members of the dominant culture. In many cases they are even barred from accessing jobs and education because of how they speak and interact. For some white gay men this is a fun and funny thing to do; for some black women, it is a cross to bear in a systemically racist society. Same goes for noted twerker Miley Cyrus.

The unfair and unjust nature of cultural appropriation today often boils down to the disconnect between cultural symbols and their politics. White people can appropriate cultural elements and enjoy them simply as style, fashion, aesthetic, or as a performance made humorous by the disjuncture between the performer's race and that implied by the performance (see white gay men speaking like black women, the duo behind Thug Kitchen, and white teens throwing up "gang signs" and mean mugging for the cameras).

People of color do not have this luxury. For them, culture is always, already political. It was political during the colonial era when it was used as evidence of the "white man's burden" to "civilize" them. It was political when indigenous American children were stolen from their families and shipped to boarding schools, stripped of their culture, and forcefully assimilated. It's political when children of recent immigrants are ridiculed for eating "stinky" and "weird" food in the school cafeteria. It's political when little black girls are sent home from school because their hair "is a distraction," or when Blue Ivy, daughter of Jay-Z and Beyoncé, is described as "unkempt" because her hair is in its natural state. It's political when school boards ban ethnic studies courses, books by non-white authors, and the speaking of languages other than English in classrooms.

Despite this, some argue that they appropriate cultural elements in order to express their admiration for the culture, or to honor it. In response to that, our anonymous writer offers this:

"Cultural appropriation is not an acceptable way to honor, respect, or appreciate People of Color. If you wish to honor, respect, or appreciate Black people or Black culture, then you should learn how to recognize, confront, and dismantle systematic racism instead of appropriating dreadlocks, a symbol of the wearer’s commitment to Jah Rastafari and Black resistance to racism. If you wish to honor, respect, or appreciate Native people or Native culture, learn how to listen to Native people when they identify very real problems (and how to confront them) faced by Native people today, such as astronomical suicide and alcoholism rates on reservations or the continued theft of Native lands by resource extraction companies."

There are, however, acceptable ways to "honor, respect, or appreciate" people of color and their cultures. They all begin with, as Jarune Uwujaren puts it, "engaging with a culture as a respectful and humble guest, invitation only." This is the difference between sharing and appropriating--being offered to partake (and doing so respectfully), as opposed to simply taking. Brownturage and Mojuicy write that they are willing to give a pass to those who appropriate in order to educate others meaningfully and passionately about the culture from which the item or practice comes, or for those who are participating in a religious or cultural event. So, there are some instances in which cultural appropriation is not deeply problematic, but they are few and far between in today's cultural landscape.

So, before buying that cool "ethnic" or "unique" piece, or adopting someone else's dialect or cultural practices, ask yourself these questions, courtesy of Brownturage and Mojuicy: 

What culture does this style reference, and what is my relation to that culture?

Why am I wearing it?

Who made the product, and who's selling it?

How accurate/respectful is it to the source?

If you don't know the answer to these questions, or if when answered honestly they reveal some heavy historical, racial, political, or economic implications, it's best to move on living your life without that item or practice.

By Nicki Lisa Cole

Sociology Expert

#culturalappropriation #research #culture #respectforculture