Augustana College is a private liberal-arts school in Rock Island, Illinois, founded by Swedish-Americans as a Lutheran theological seminary. Now, according to Wikipedia, “Augustana ranks among the top 40 U.S. liberal arts colleges in the sciences, based on the number of graduates earning Ph.D.s. Students accepted to Augustana typically rank in the top 20% of their high school classes.” So it’s a good school.
But they seem to be deeply concerned with cultural appropriation, and not just for Halloween. Here’s an event they hosted last week, and notice the pledge. How can you pledge “not to appropriate any culture”? (Click on screenshots to go to links.)
If you’re wondering what Augustana means by “cultural appropriation” which you should pledge not to engage in, this is set out in a poster (below) from its Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity advertising the event. Yes,
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IS THE ADOPTION OF ELEMENTS OF A CULTURE THAT IS NOT THEIR OWN. IT REDUCES A CULTURE TO A STEREOTYPE
AND REMOVES THE CONTEXT THAT MAKES CULTURAL ELEMENTS MEANINGFUL.
That definition says nothing about “appropriating up or down”, so Asian students should pledge not to wear blue jeans, much less Western clothes. You can imagine many other verboten scenarios.
So, are drag queens verbotem?
(I am a big fan of them.)
According to some, they are http://instinctmagazine.com/post/will-wanting-be-politically-correct-lead-end-drag-queens. Several years ago, Heklina, who founded a drag show, Trannyshack, decided to bow to PC pressure and ‘re-brand’ the show http://sfist.com/2014/05/21/sf_institution_trannyshack_changing.php.
“As Heklina wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday[2014], “I generally loathe to be political, but whether I like it or not the very name of my legendary nightclub has become political.” She goes on to explain that when the club began back in 1996, the word “tranny” didn’t have nearly the charged weight that it now has, and in her view it arguably was not even as much of a slur word as “faggot” or “dyke” at the time but was more of an edgy, transgressive term thrown around frequently in the drag community. That political weight has largely come about as the trans rights movement has grown in visibility, and as trans activists have become increasingly vocal about the conflicting uses of the word — both as a means to degrade trans people by bigots, and as a casual moniker, some might even say term of endearment, among drag queens and certain gay men.” And just what does/did the shorthand word “tranny” mean to drag queens, because it could refer to a transvestite or a transgender or a transsexual? I wonder if drag queens can have any tranny* fun at all anymore?
*Tranny here meaning “transgressive.”
You know, another word for “cultural appropriation” is *trade*. Historically, when different cultures encountered each other, if they didn’t fight, they would *trade* — trade goods (including clothes), tools, skills, and bits of language — to the benefit of both cultures’ societies. If these fools really want to abolish trade, then they’ll have to go go naked (except for maybe a breechclout), eat nothing but what they can find in the local wilderness, and go live like cavemen out in that same wilderness, because everything else their respective cultures ever developed or gained was the result of trade!
Augustana College is made up of idiots.
I guess white supremacists now have the perfect excuse to stop other white people being tainted by black culture.
Instead of white supremacists calling them ‘n(word) lovers’, they just turn them over to Augustana College, who will punish them.
Augustana College is quite right. I will take their lesson to heart.
Henceforth, I will desist from eating haggis and urge my wife to avoid gefilte fish, although vice versa remains fully permissible.
Last week, I decided to make an Indian curry for dinner. Since I was feeling lazy and it was to hand, I used my Chinese wok. Was that double cultural appropriation?
Alan.
Much more than double. If you used tomatoes or chillies in the curry then you have also misappropriated from the Americas, and I guess your Wok is made of steel developed in Europe. And it goes on and on.
Wok made in China?
Last name night: Indian+Mexican
Tonight: Thai+French+Italian
Every night at my house is appropriation night. My kids wear whatever costumes they like. Last year it was ninja and crusader.
There is only one permissible use for a wok.
Hitting a bunny wabbit.
I hope that those who pledge not to appropriate anything from another culture will immediately cease to eat potatoes. After all, potatoes come from Peru.
Also, tomatoes and corn from the so-cslled Americas.
cslled = called
The Americas themselves were appropriated by the Europeans.
Uh-oh! Marco Polo appropriated noodles from the Chinese, so I’m told, and brought them back to Italy. The Italians created spaghetti and tomato sauce. So if I eat spaghetti I’m appropriating from both the Italians and the Chinese.
That’s a myth. Pasta like we know it was described in 1154 by Arab geographer, Idrisi, as being common in Sicily – before Marco Polo’s time. Arabs from the Libya area brought pasta, spinach, aubergine [eggplant] and sugar cane, to the Mediterranean basin maybe in the 5th century AD & it arrived in Italy via the Arab conquests of Sicily in the 9th century AD.
Tomatoes of course are from the New World & are appropriated from the Aztec. They didn’t hit Italy until 16th century AD & were used as table decoration at first [many varieties are inedible or poisonous] – maybe not common in the diet until 18th century.
I’m gonna miss bananas. I’m gonna miss olive oil. I’m gonna miss wine!
I’ll miss chocolate and coffee and tea, and peppers and tomatoes and potatoes and mais and bananas and wheat, and sheep and goats and chicken. But I’m not into fancy food so I’ll not miss quinoa.
Ha! I’m with you there.
Since the Norwegians invented olive oil (according to my grandfather), I’m ok with it.
Ooh, good to know. My father was half Norwegian, half Danish…
I hope they ban the Beatles and Stones from their music playlists too. (Unfortunately, no one has albums to burn anymore.)
Of course. Also Mozart, who wrote a Rondo alla Turca, and Beethoven for his Schottische.
And I fear there may be some people lecturing about Plato at Augustana who are *not even Greek*. And Gentiles reading Genesis. The horror!
You forgot Karl Maria Von Weber who used a transcription of a Chinese tune in his music for Turandot and all the Japanese composers, Yamada, Hashimoto, Ozawa who went to Europe and America and studied Western Music to bring back to Japan.
Nitpick: Mendelssohn wrote the Schottische Symphonie 🙂
I suppose I shouldn’t wear denim jeans, I’m not French (de Nîmes) ,can’t eat my packet of Ryvita as I’m not English (and as we know from certain politicians and DNA testing, historical genetic origins don’t count) and I can’t drink my bottles of dunkel as I’m not German, my “American as…” apples originated in/around Kazakhstan, my Ethiopian coffee, my Indian and Chinese tea, my South American rubber for my shoes, f@ck, I’m going to be naked and starving while not appropriating cultures! At least I can drink water…for now.
I will sign a pledge to respectfully appropriate from any culture its best elements so my life will be enriched by what it offers the world.
The slogan on the sign is “let’s appreciate, not appropriate.” Does this mean I can buy a taco from someone of Mexican origin, but can’t make one myself?
Oh dear. That’s the end of Taco Night at Aunty Heather’s place.
My brother has had his Japanese parents-in-law staying for the last month, so literally every meal, including breakfast, has been of Japanese origin and included rice. Should he have been making himself separate meals from the rest of his family?
Sharing cuisine is one of the great things humans have done. I, for one, am not keen on restricting my diet to the food of my ancestors. I’m making a pumpkin curry later today, and I’m going to enjoy it.
I should mention I also made machaca style breakfast burritos from my left-over roast (with zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, potatoes, cheese and eggs). Then I make a breakfast-style casserole of baguette, egg, sausage, peppers, onions, garlic, eggs & some turmeric. It will pair well the the salsa in the fridge. These are my violations as of noonish today. Who knows what other trouble I’ll be getting up to!
At this rate, you’ll be up before a firing squad with so many violations tempting others to lose their claims to be woke!
Pumpkin curry sounds delicious; I don’t suppose you’d mind sharing the recipe? Don’t worry, I may be American but several of my cousins are Indian 😉.
Ha! If he did share the meal, wouldn’t he have been enabling cultural appropriation?
That’s the part I never understood about the anti-cultural-appropriation crowd. If I do something that originated in some other culture, it means that I thought it was a good idea–good enough to overcome my own cultural inertia and act in a way that is, by definition, NOT part of my own culture. It’s even more true with characters from stories from different cultures–you’ve found something in what is by definition an alien culture that still resonates within you, strongly enough that you’re willing to break your own cultural norms to express your appreciation for it! If anything, I’d say that 99% of cultural appropriation is a de facto acceptance that the other culture is, in at least this instance, superior to your own.
To lump that in with the 1% that is legitimately offensive (blackface, for example) is asinine and a complete failure of one’s critical faculties.
+1, especially the last bit.
You can shove your trews & cutlery
Where’s my woad?
Sigh. There are so many ways to Not Be an Asshole™ that don’t involve banning whole sets of costuming. Kiddo is going as a viking this year, after being inspired by the Viking Fest we attended earlier this year. I have no viking ancestry. Would they forbid his (very cute) costume?
They will have to ban everyone except direct descendants of Amerigo Vespucci from eating pizza.
What a load of BS! A complete Blivet.
Can we ban all Augustana graduates from wearing my national dress(*) to their job interviews? Really I’m tired of how this is being used by all sorts of people to falsely claim the rightful privileges of my ethnic group. Don’t they have their own cultures?
(* namely, the suit & tie)
Except the suit-and-tie culture has a sordid history of *imposing* its culture on others, rather than waiting around for it to be appropriated.
Since it’s of Jewish origin, the Old Testament surely must be banned. The good news is that Lutheran students can dress as Martin Luther at Halloween, and they can have a lighted christmas tree. Sorry, non-Lutherans.
Most of the New Testament is also of Jewish origin. And Christianity itself can be seen as a sort of cultural appropriation by gentiles who found appealing large parts of ethical monotheism, but didn’t want circumcision or the dietary restrictions.
This is a joke, right?
no
Other considerations aside for the moment, it’s sad that an American liberal arts institution of (supposedly) higher education cannot formulate a coherent English sentence. In “CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IS THE ADOPTION OF ELEMENTS OF A CULTURE THAT IS NOT THEIR OWN”, to whom or to what is “THEIR” supposed to refer?
Elements. In my younger days, I wanted to appropriate some Einsteinium. However, the best laid plans…
I wish to apologise for thinking that my lunch yesterday – a combination of tofu and vegetables with an avocado concoction on toast – eaten at a European style cafe was the most delicious tofu I’ve ever eaten, superior to any tofu dish I’ve eaten in Chinese restaurants.
Incidentally, when Xi Jinping, paramount leader of China (5000 years of culture), wears a suit (‘xifu’ in Chinese, literally, ‘Western clothes’)is he appropriating up or down?
No, no. Your true crime here is appropriating the Millennial food of choice- avocado toast.
I’ve also heard that tofu may, in fact, be Korean …
My dad went to Augustana College (in the late 1930’s – early 1940’s).
He was the most liberal conservative I’ve ever known.
This would have him rolling over in his grave (or whatever you say for someone whose ashes are in the Pacific Ocean)
https://youtu.be/IT2UH74ksJ4
A very useful clip. Now some Mexicans will claim offense, but it still illustrates how this whole offense thing is based on virtue signalling.
Great clip that should be must-viewing for the silly students at this and all silly schools.
They seem to be overly focused on race. There are all kinds of subcultures that obviously should not be appropriated either. No dressing up as an old person, or a cowboy, or a fire fighter, or a soldier, or a farmer, or a nun, or any kind of sports player. The list could go on. One could make the case that all of these are important to the identity of someone who belongs to that group.
I think my dog would be ok if you went dressed as a canine, so we don’t have to completely cancel halloween.
Nobody mention the Village People.
(Or do they get a pass because they were gay?)
cr
Hell yeah ! Western medicine is for western people only !
I see the event was held at the Gerber Center for Student Life. I wonder if that’s the baby food Gerber? If so, it seems appropriate that they treat their students like babies.
So… It’s appropriation too ?
I notice their event page allows anyone to submit an event to their event calendar. I thought about adding a “Cultural Appropriation Night” but thought better of it. Perhaps someone with more chutzpah than I might give it a try.
I can’t have chutzpah because I’m a gentile.
Same here, which introduces a question. Is it cultural appropriation to use “chutzpah” in a sentence or do you actually have to demonstrate the characteristic? I think it is the former as the behavior isn’t culturally specific, just the word.
So technically a martial artist wearing his uniform would not be allowed.
Funny how you never see these kids act hostile toward people who appropriate martial arts.
For that matter, you’d only be allowed to learn the martial art of your ancestral homeland. No Europeans learning Japanese or Chinese fighting, thankyouverymuch!
It’s really hard to parody any drive towards racial purity, as the notion is so ridiculous in and of itself.
I remember an article in _Dragon_ years ago that expanded the list of martial arts available to characters in the AD&D _Oriental Adventures_ setting. One was savate, which of course is French. I still find that vaguely amusing.
Yeah….there’s a pervasive view among those who think they know it all in martial arts that Europe never produced any martial arts, that Europeans spent thousands of years doing no more than flailing about with sharp sticks. It’s mildly amusing to disillusion them when they start at swordplay. The Germans, French, Italians, Spanish, they all had their ways of disabling and killing folks.
I personally like the German methods: take ’em down, get ’em out of your way, as quickly as possible, and let the guys behind you deal with ’em. Brutal, unfair, and effective–plus a few hundred VERY good reminders to wear a cup! Armored knees hurt. A LOT.
I don’t blame D&D for misattributing the French system; it’s the players who are too ignorant to believe the truth.
It wasn’t misattributed, but at the time only the “Oriental Adventures” rules had that level of unarmed combat rules.
Exactly. But actually the term “martial arts” came from dueling knights in Europe.
Halloween is a cultural appropriation. It should be cancelled.
If a foreign student goes to his university coming from a place that is not anglophone… That student cannot speak English ?
Nobody has the right to learn a foreign language!
I really wish kids in the UK would stop appropriating ‘trick or treat’. Grumble, grumble…
What are you talking about?
The ‘trick or treat’ custom is an appropriation of the gaelic Irish/Scottish custom of ‘penny for the Pouca (ghost)’
To be fair, however, the modern Halloween is the perfect example of a tradition that depends on the mixture of various cultural elements – in particular the Celtic Samhain traditions with traditions specific to North America and Mexico.
Many of the things that are so enriching in our lives depend on this kind of cross cultural fertilization (for example, think of how Jazz and Cinema came about).
I find it ironic that a poster against cultural appropriation uses plainly ethnically stereotyped images of people at the bottom.
Let us not forget that dreadlocks are a cultural appropriation of ancient Jewish practices.
Also vampires are an appropriation of Slavic myths.
Appropriation is pervasive.
Slavs are not white now ?
I plan to dress as a unicorn this Halloween.
Originally believed falsely by the Greeks to inhabit India, they became a major element of Scottish culture, but I am Scotch-Irish, so I guess I’m safe. 🙂
Let me take a guess…
You were born neither in Scotland nor in Ireland.
You did not grow up in either place.
You do not speak Gaelic.
Am I right ?
Non-native English speakers should stop publishing their research in English (or Globish). And everybofy should stop learning foreign languages.
Won’t be doing much of anything, then, will they?
cr
“CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IS THE ADOPTION OF ELEMENTS OF A CULTURE THAT IS NOT THEIR OWN.”
Everyone should stay strictly between the bounds of their culture.
We call it “cultural house arrest”.
People of a culture will quickly become a stereotype of it.
Things will be much simpler for feeble minds.
Being in the US, Augustana College should not have a Gävle room, appropriating the name of a Swedish town.
“Cultural” comes from the Latin “cultura”.
“Appropriation” comes from the Latin “appropriatio”.
If you’re not from a Latin culture… Stop using it !
Screw it. If you’re not a Roman, stop using these words.
Wikipedia :
“According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the earliest universities were founded in Asia and Africa (…)”
If you’re not African or Asian, you should not found, run not attend a university.
I’d give the Roman Catholics leeway here–Western universities arose independently from Eastern, as I understand it, with Western universities being associated with the Church.
Richard Dawkins is CERTAINLY guilty of cultural appropriation, regardless of how you look at it!
I fail to see what you mean about Dawkins…
My point was that universities in Europe originated as Catholic institutions. Ergo Dawkins, who is emphatically an atheist, should, by the logic of those screaming “Cultural appropriation!”, be excluded from association with these institutions.
Since most of my ancestors came from Nottingham, can I please have my fish ‘n chips and some nice Yorkshire ale?
Sure. Not to mention the wearing of tights and stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
The sign says “a conversation about culture appropriation” and the student group hosting calls it ‘a discussion.’
Okay, surprise us Augustana students; have a real conversation about it. Here’s your opportunity to show the world you’re not one-sided.
So white kids should never have started listening to rap music and I shouldn’t have listened to any blues or soul either growing up or now. Now you tell me! Motown should never have been successful and black artists shouldn’t make any money. And Rock n Roll evolved from the blues, didn’t it? I need a ruling on derivatives.
Derivatives were invented by Newton, an English, and Leibniz, a … hm, that’s tricky. Modern or then-contemporary classification? 😉
Modern, I guess. Normally I would say contemporary, but I think you mean contemporary with Newton and Leibniz. Were they with The Temptations or The Four Tops?
The racists who demand these sorts of things (there is no other term for it) are shallow thinkers. The assumption is that culture as it is now is culture as it must be. If they look into it, though, they’d find that “culture” isn’t a set thing. American culture is a hodge-podge of other cultures–and more damning, so are all other modern cultures. There are NO “native” cultures outside of the African rift valleys. So they need to draw an arbitrary line saying “Anything that was the case on this date is that culture’s culture”. Can you think of a more arrogant thing to say?
The fact that Augustana College is not a bottom-of-the-barrel fraud in academic terms, yet promotes the transparent idiocy under discussion, is discouraging. But it should be noted where, in the ivied halls of Augustana, the idiocy comes from: the Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity. Uh huh.
It might be interesting to the “conversation” to make a distinction between appropriation for financial gain and costume for caricature, stereotype and ridicule. As I understand the anti-appropriation argument, it’s that culture shouldn’t be used or borrowed without proper attribution and compensation, which seems like an absurd standard.* I can better understand an institution seeking to create a polite culture that doesn’t gratuitously give offense to its members. I lean toward the side of liberty and non-coddling, and reading The Onion.
*US copyright law on music is something like 70 years after death on music, which also seems absurd to me.
And the winner is:
https://www.pnp.de/lokales/landkreis_dingolfing_landau/3069576_Landauerin-siegt-bei-Fotowettbewerb.html
Double appropriation – and both seem to enjoy it…
Very nice. 🙂
To quote author Caitlin R. Keirnan (Who happens to be Transgendered.)
“And, in the end, no one ever said anything ever again that could possibly offend anyone, so great was the fear of retribution. It was safer not to speak. No one felt oppressed or triggered ever again. Outrage and offense became a thing of the past, along with comedy and art, literature and casual conversation, film and, for that matter, sex. And there was peace and bland silence and a smothering grey stillness where once there had been a vibrant culture.”
https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1398856.html