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Title: Cultural Appropriation & Shaming Author: Rod Dubey Date: Winter 2017 Language: en Topics: culture, call outs, identity politics, Fifth Estate, Fifth Estate #397 Source: Scanned from original. Notes: From "Fifth Estate" Vol. 51, No. 2, #397 Winter 2017
On college campuses, in urban squats, at hip city venues, and at
anarchist events, one often sees young white people sporting dreadlocks
or Mohawk haircuts. However, there has been an increasingly aggressive
push- back by those who designate this as cultural appropriation and are
confronting and shaming those they deem guilty of the practice.
One famous shaming incident, captured in a viral video shot earlier this
year and viewed by over four million people, shows Cory Goldstein, a
white student at San Francisco Stare University, being berated for
wearing dreads by an African-American undergraduate, Bonita Tindle.
Tindle tells Goldstein that he cannot wear dreads because, “It’s my
culture.” In a separate interview, Goldstein responds that he shares the
criticism of cultural appropriation, but that dreadlocks have appeared
in many cultures and do not belong to any one group.
This is the irony of cultural appropriation shaming; that is often
directed at people sympathetic to those doing the confronting.
Anticipating potential confrontations, in one such example, some of the
organizers of this year's Montreal Anarchist Bookfair issued a statement
saying that while they do not condone bullying, that participants should
be self-policing of their "clothing and headgear... keeping in mind that
these choices can act as oppressive forces toward other people. Cultural
appropriation is harmful.” So, people shamed are presumably asking for
it.
Such appropriation occurs when elements of a minority culture are
adopted by members of the majority, often without an understanding or
appreciation for its traditions. It is argued this is an act of
colonialism that destroys unique cultures. The use of cultural elements,
outside of their usual context, is seen as disrespectful. Something with
spiritual significance or with reserved use (such as a Native headdress)
might be used by anyone for any purpose including merely fashion.
There are a number of problems with the arguments against cultural
appropriation. First, cultures are amalgams. Even African-American and
Native cultures are not pristine, but have been shaped by and include
elements from many cultures (and their members continue to appropriate
from other cultures).
The African-American musical form known as blues is a case in point.
While certain rhythms, and call and response aspects of the blues
primarily come from Africa, the pentatonic scale that is used - at least
how blues is played in America - comes from the tens of thousands of
indentured Celts shipped to the West Indies by Oliver Cromwells England
in the 17th century.
They lived on the same plantations and shared a culture with black
slaves. So-called cultural appropriation can only occur when culture is
conceived of as fixed, denying its obvious fluidity (current
African-American culture is not slave culture, for example).
Trying to declare ownership of a culture is to assume that there is
individual authorship of cultural practices. It is the same assumption
behind copyright and art as commodity, and fundamental to capitalism.
For opponents of cultural appropriation, all cultural elements come to
be seen as objects with value and subject to theft; even hairstyles. The
fact that cultural traditions undergo constant transformation belies the
notion of individual authorship.
The arguments against cultural appropriation imply that we are
inevitably separate, that there can be no rapprochement and that white,
in particular, must be artistically and socially censored because they
cannot comprehend or use things respectfully It suggests that white
people are bound to be oppressors by virtue of their birth. The
depressing implication here is that community is not possible.
Colonialism devastated traditional cultures. Native people were defined
in negative ways - as savages, ignorant, heathens - supporting ideas of
racial division, superiority, and hierarchy. With the notion of
development, Natives became poor in European terms, needing to consume
more schooling, religion, policing, and other aspects of white culture.
This is a common description of colonialism.
In The Revolution of Everyday Life, Situationist Raoul Vaneigem argued
that discourses about colonialism tied to race are no longer valid and
redefined colonialism as a form of humiliation. As such, we are all now
subject to colonial humiliation as consumers. We consume to avoid the
humiliation of not having the requisite commodities. We become
incomplete, in need, dependent, and infantilized. According to Vaneigem,
“The problems of race and colour become about as important as crossword
puzzles... Yesterdays anti-colonialists are trying to humanize today’s
generalized colonialism. They become its watchdogs in the cleverest way:
by barking at all the after-effects of past inhumanity.”
Shaming, by those lacking power, has a long history in reversing
authoritarian humiliation by turning it on its head and shaming the
shamers. In “Rough Music Reconsidered,” Historian E.P. Thompson
describes how communities came together in 19th century Britain to
humiliate scabs, blacklegs, sadistic judges, and those who violated
community morality by parading the offender through town to a serenade
of banging pots and pans.
These rough music events, known as charivari or casserole, were also
used in peasant revolts and to maintain local autonomy against the
expansion of class, wage labor, and state power associated with the
industrial revolution. These were new forms of humiliation that
destroyed communities and peasant autonomy. Charivaris are that period
of inversion, where communities use humiliation to rule themselves.
It must be noted that shaming is not necessarily done to foster
autonomy. It can be used by those in authority to enhance their rule
(think of the Nazi parades of Jews). It is only when charivari reflects
an entire community, insists on morality and does not insist a new
authority that it functions to protect personal and community autonomy.
Thompson recognized that charivaris worked because those shamed were
members of the same community, so felt the humiliation. It is difficult
to imagine humiliating someone sitting in an off-shore gated community,
but even without its ability to shame, charivari still matters as that
form of action where communities come together against imposed authority
and to challenge violators of their shared values. The usual
relationship of people to authority is stood on its head as they seize
the streets and refuse to install new leaders.
The 2011 Occupy movement was a moment of charivari. So were the 2012
Montreal casseroles. With the Quebec government’s passage of a bill to
limit protests amid widespread student strikes, huge casseroles occurred
to resist the curtailment of civil liberties. These drew a large number
of people from all parts of society who set aside typical divisions. The
banging of pots and pans was a signal of community power. Non-marchers,
including children and the elderly, went out on their steps and
balconies to hammer pots and pans in solidarity with the marchers.
Argentina’s massive pot-banging cacerolazos of 2001-2 belied the
seemingly ephemeral nature of charivari. The cacerolazos went beyond
being protests to initiate autonomous alternatives. Several successive
governments were disposed of, a barter network of millions was developed
and many businesses went on to become worker owned and managed. This
prolongation of inversion was the logical extension of communities
uniting without regard to race, gender, class, or religion, and began
with people occupying the streets and displaying that unity.
What overcomes colonial humiliation begins with the desire for close
relationships and personal autonomy. "I see in the historical experience
of workers’ councils... and in the pathetic search for friendship and
love, a single and inspiring reason not to despair over present
‘reality,’" writes Vaneigem.
The attempt to insist on racial divides, borders, sod separations,
identity politics, to claim cultural ownership and authority, and to
shame and police people for acts or styles which defy these confines,
runs counter to an anti-authoritarian project.
Rod Dubey writes on cultural theory. His latest work is the Introduction
to Donal McGraith's Leaving No Mark: Prolegomena to an Evanescent Art
(Charivari Press), an attack on the commodification of creativity.