Cultural Appropriation Question: Does it strike anyone else as ironic that a bunch of U.S. citizens who have regular access to the Internet are talking about cultural appropriation, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation? Given the following information:
1. The average impoverished person in the U.S. is better off than the average middle class person in many African countries.
2. The predominate issue of globalization is the Western usurpation of more traditional societies, usually through technological means. This has often been called cultural colonialization.
3. The truly poor and citizens from other countries are shut out of the argument of RaceFail by a lack of access to technology, or a lack of the ability to speak English, which is rapidly becoming a common language and (alas! although there are movements to the contrary) privilege.
4. Those of us who have access to technology, regardless of where we come from or what we think, are actually privileged over those who have no access.
5. There are those that have no leisure and/or limited freedom, given their harsh day to day life, to answer these questions.
So, cultural appropriation is an issue. Agreed. It’s important to consider the plurality of all, and to consider the issue of cultural appropriation as it relates to globalization and a general stamp of Western or colonial culture in regard to the rest of the world. Agreed. For your consideration: everyone who is engaged in the conversation is more privileged than everyone who is not engaged in the conversation due to issues of lack of access, often due to geographical, political, and economic circumstances, as well as the linguistic challenges and stigmas of non-standard English, notwithstanding.
Did the RaceFail conversation address any of these concerns of global inequity? Does anyone know? Can you point me to places in the argument where that happened?
To clarify, I’m not saying that we should not address the conversation. It’s an important conversation that affects many people. However, let’s all take a moment to consider how lucky we are to be able to do it, and appreciate that for the privilege it is. Let’s all decide to do something else to listen to our brothers and sisters worldwide for whom it is impossible to enter the conversation as a sincere indication of how much we appreciate our privilege.
The English Language Acquisition teacher in the back of the room
