So, I recently came across this article and it's follow up that perfectly exemplify a number of things I hate about progressives, feminists, and other constantly aggrieved groups, and thought I'd post it here and see if this kind of thing is actually representative, or if it's more isolated and simply seems more common because of the way it stands out on the internet. The article in question is from Salon and concerns belly dancing of all things, here's a sample:
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/why_i_c ... y_dancers/
Randa Jarrar wrote:
Women I have confronted about this have said, “But I have been dancing for 15 years! This is something I have built a huge community on.” These women are more interested in their investment in belly dancing than in questioning and examining how their appropriation of the art causes others harm. To them, I can only say, I’m sure there are people who have been unwittingly racist for 15 years. It’s not too late. Find another form of self-expression. Make sure you’re not appropriating someone else’s.
When I have argued, online and in person, with white women belly dancers, they have assured me that they learned to dance from Arab women and brown women. This is supposed to make the transaction OK. Instead, I point out that all this means is that it is perfectly all right with these teachers that their financial well-being is based on self-exploitation. As a follow-up, white belly dancers then focus on the sisterly and community aspect of belly dance. They claim that the true exploiter of belly dancing is Hollywood, and the Egyptian film industry, which helped take belly dancing out of women’s homes and placed it directly under the male gaze. Here, the argument white belly dancers try to make ignores the long history of white women’s appropriation of Eastern dancing and becomes that this, the learning and performance of belly dance, is not about race and appropriation, but about gender and resisting the patriarchy and how all of us belly dancing together is a giant middle finger to men and their male gaze-y ways.
But, here’s the thing. Arab women are not vessels for white women to pour themselves and lose themselves in; we are not bangles or eyeliner or tiny bells on hips. We are human beings. This dance form is originally ours, and does not exist so that white women can have a better sense of community; can gain a deeper sense of sisterhood with each other; can reclaim their bodies; can celebrate their sexualities; can perform for the female gaze. Just because a white woman doesn’t profit from her performance doesn’t mean she’s not appropriating a culture. And, ultimately, the question is this: Why does a white woman’s sisterhood, her self-reclamation, her celebration, have to happen on Arab women’s backs?
Here are some responses to it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volo ... beethoven/Eugene Volokh wrote:
Appropriation — the horror! People treating artistic genres as if they were great ideas that are part of the common stock of humanity, available for all humanity to use, rather than the exclusive property of some particular race or ethnic group. What atrocity will the culturally insensitive appropriators think of next? East Asian cellists? Swedish chess players? The Japanese putting on Shakespeare? Jews playing Christians’ Christian music, such as Mozart’s masses? Arriviste Jewish physicists using work done for centuries by Christians? Russian Jews writing about Anglo-American law? Indians writing computer programs, using languages and concepts pioneered by Americans and Europeans? Japanese companies selling the most delicious custard cream puffs? Shame, shame, shame.
But, wait: Maybe — and I know this is a radical thought — artists, whether high or low, should be able to work in whatever artistic fields they want to work in. Maybe they should even be able to work in those fields regardless of their skin color or the place from which their ancestors came.
Maybe telling people that they can’t work in some field because they have the wrong color or ancestry would be … rats, I don’t know what to call it. If only there were an adjective that could be used to mean “telling people that they mustn’t do something, because of their race or ethnic origin.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ng/284290/
And her response to the criticism:
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/18/i_still ... y_dancers/
So, is someone going to come forward and tell me that this is a straw progressive/feminist not representative of the majority, or will someone actually attempt to defend this morass of made up feminist words, self righteousness, and racism in progressive drag? I'd be particularly interested in LKL's take, as this is certainly in her wheelhouse and from a source I've criticized her for taking seriously before.
_________________
Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer.
- Rick Sanchez
18 Mar 2014, 11:15 pm
I was hoping that the whole "that's appropriation" meme was a relic of my generation and that young people were immunized against it by the internet's cultural mashup. Maybe in a couple more generations.
