I don't know, if a huge amount of people misunderstand or now define something in the same way, does it really matter how nuanced the original intent of the terms was? What I see in public conversations and the media pretty much distills cultural appropriation down to "Did some non-white non-cis group do something first or value it first? Then white/cis people shouldn't do it or express thoughts about it." Maybe there's marginally more nuance shown here and there, but I don't usually see it. At best there's an attempt to hold individuals accountable for what are large scale dynamics within a social graph that expresses the segregation and biases within our culture and society.

I don't think the problem is so much a problem with all politically charged ideas. It seems like there's something specific about ideas with a sort of left-ish academic origin that makes them almost intentionally designed to be distorted or misunderstood by people who aren't deeply a part of the group already. I sometimes think they might even be intended to provoke that kind of reaction and misunderstanding as a form of validation.

I don't think politically charged idea are the issue at all! I just think the way people end up using them waters down the original concepts, then people use it incorrectly/creates a new concept that is divorced from its original meaning. Where it also allows bad actors to use them for authoritarian or selfish means to further their agenda whether it's a politician or someone trying to boost their ego

>distills cultural appropriation down to "Did some non-white non-cis group do something first or value it first? Then white/cis people shouldn't do it or express thoughts about it."

That's my ultimate problem is that news and media regardless of their biases are financially motivated to water down those concepts. Mostly because they can't survive otherwise, it's more about the entertaining version of the news/topic and not the accurate probably boring complicated hard to digest content.

> I don't think politically charged idea are the issue at all! I just think the way people end up using them waters down the original concepts, then people use it incorrectly/creates a new concept that is divorced from its original meaning

See, this just goes to prove that leftish Twitter slacktivists engage in cultural appropriation, too.

I don't think that is technically culture appropriation, but yes they also participate in regardless. I don't disagree that the self-proclaimed activists usually are doing more harm than good when it comes to the causes they're fighting for.

Like body positivity movement often leaves men behind, where just because it isn't as often tied to their value in society like women doesn't mean they should be shamed or feel shame for aspects of their body they can't change. Where looping back to the watered-down version of the main concept, where they are using it as an excuse to stay an unhealthy level of obese. When the goal was more about you shouldn't have to battle a deep shame for being obese as well as the extremely hard habit changes to get out of obesity. Where it should only be optionally brought on yourself it helps you move forward

> I don't think the problem is so much a problem with all politically charged ideas. It seems like there's something specific about ideas with a sort of left-ish academic origin that makes them almost intentionally designed to be distorted or misunderstood by people who aren't deeply a part of the group already. I sometimes think they might even be intended to provoke that kind of reaction and misunderstanding as a form of validation.

Another way of looking at this is that these ideas have little-to-no intellectual content (just some mumbling about "power structures"). They are pure resentment given an intellectual gloss. When the ideas come in contact with the real world, away from academia, that quickly becomes clear.

The irony there is that drag queens are appropriating womanhood for the purposes of mockery. They don't really have much ground to complain if women then appropriate a few make-up styles back.

Really happy to read this accurate comment.

Also, I appreciate how this scholar rebrands "cultural appropriation" to "racial plagiarism" so the term is more precise: https://twitter.com/minh81/status/950892912866406400

You can use anyone's ideas you want and not be plagiarizing, as long as you give proper credit. But with cultural appropriation, you're not allowed to use anything from other cultures at all: the Twitter mobs will cancel you for it even if you do give credit.

twitter mobs also cancel people for saying the wrong thing about a kpop star. Doesn't mean they are right or taken seriously, just means a large group of people can bully you.

If you're not doing anything actually racist or offensive, they will be seen as they are bullies. People cancled or have seen real life consequences have been people learning what is offensive/racist publicly when we should be way more forgiving since most of these concepts are snippets taken from university level courses than described again in 30s chunks. Those people deserve education of why people are upset and why what they said is a problem not cancellation

Thanks! That description and the excerpt with it also helps explain the huge part of why it's offensive. It's not about one's feelings, it's about dynamics of how that shame effects the market. The 'in group' have a much easier time to monetize their version and when they do, it is in ways that end up hurting or killing 'out groups' ability to do so.

> These leftist philosophies/ideas aren't the problem, it's the lack of education in what a subject actually means with lack of understanding of the nuance of the core subject and then applying it with an authoritarian lens is the problem. Which is the problem with all politically charged ideas regardless of their origins.

If the masses have taken a term and decided what it means, then fighting against by claiming they are wrong it is just pissing into the wind.

At this point cultural appropriation isn’t used the way you are trying to define it so you are just going to need to come up with another term for your nuanced take if you want it to succeed in the marketplace of ideas.

Don't get me wrong I understand the population at large have a rebranded version a lot of these terms, and it is futile to try and take them back. However, a lot of academics and people subscribing to that idea aren't going to change. So understanding how different groups use the term and what concept they're trying to describe, helps with they are actually trying to say.

Personally I have been digging into the 'why' behind people still argue something that to my understanding has no rational basis, found these disconnects between the use and what it was supposed to mean very interesting. Really just has shown me all news media regardless of bias has created a problem having to water down or modify a concept/story to be entertaining or click-able has distorted so much information

I don’t think it’s the masses. I think it’s a very small minority stuck in a feedback loop of always needing to be more woke than the other person. The social media in itself is an echo chamber: most people even in the US are unlikely to feel strongly about this and it’s a complete non-issue everywhere else. An average steel worker, truck driver or even software dev does not care and thus can’t be part of the masses actively distorting the meaning of popular terms.

Black drag queens are “ingroup”. There are not signs, advertisements, months, czars, rules, titles, regulations and funded bureaucracies urging their charges to respect “European men” but black drag queens have many of those and more.

Currently, that is what the default is though for a western perspective. Most products are designed to hit that market because that demographic has the most resources, for a lot of complicated socio-economic reasons that I'm not qualified to really describe in a way that they deserve.

Those structures were designed around that default demographic, where those extra products and incentives are attempts to take what is working for the default and allow others to enjoy the benefits that was only afforded to the default.

For example: I as a trans woman, even with those extra supports and incentives to help me, I find that when presented as man or now when I don't tell people I'm trans it is easier to operate in society/organizations in general. The incentives don't help or make things so much easier or a comparison to how much easier it was traversing as a default demographic.

The fact that people need to be told to respect a group is a sign that this group is not respected by default and is, in-fact, an out-group.

Would European men need it?

How would these signs, ... in favor of European men change society, in the best case?

I am not advocating for any signs or rules, simply reporting what I witness.

So you are saying all modern rock music from Elvis to Black Sabbath to Metallica should not exist as it is the “in” group taking the music of the “out” group, in this case the blues? People don’t work like that, culture doesn’t work like that. It’s constant borrowing, development, abandonment, rediscovery and remixing with very little regard as to what groups some people would consider “in” or “out” from their perspectives.

CA, like many concepts of analysis that have entered popular conciousness (structual racism, patriarchy, ...), have been vulgarized beyond making sense, yet people on both sides of the discussion act as though whatever these theories were reduced to are of actual interest.

It's so interesting to see how, in modern left-wing movements, concern on behalf of groups like "black drag queens" has supplanted concern for working class people. I suppose it's because the former group is much more glamorous.

No we do just our arguments for solving issues for working-class people involve unions, and adopting more democratic socialist approaches. Which over all hurt a corporation's owner's large profits usually based on surplus labour value, and be forced to have that go back to the people producing the corporation's value. So that is an uphill battle fighting 1%s advertising power. Convincing people that it is a system that works and can still be profitable to corporations just means they can't see the massive returns they do currently while contributing to healthy economic environment is extremely difficult. The fact you don't hear more about us advocating for it, is an example of the cultural hold the 1% has on the populous where the ideas aren't covered or are covered as a strawman pie in the sky ideology.

Which compared to social issues of bringing a group of people and their culture as part of a norm happens to also brings in more to the labour force. Corporations and the people that own them can immediately start using their labour value surplus for profits just as they do with other demographics.