The Best of Hidari Shoutarou being Half-Boiled
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(i am an asian male living in singapore)
people on here pretend that culture is something that ABOSLUTELY NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED AND KEPT BY THEIR RACIAL PROGENITORS BY ALL COSTS
but culture has always fucking been about sharing, even when people were screwed over
if you live in a western country, have never been outside it, and have never empirically experienced how other cultures share themselves with people then please stop talking about ‘appropriation’
cultures share each other. they don’t share everything about themselves, but things are shared. especially in asia, fuck dude, we are all about sharing.
the question most people ask my country when you meet with them is ‘have you eaten’. because we love food. we love sharing food. when westerners come we want to show them all we have because there is something magical about sharing who you and your people are with someonehistorically that has been taken advantage of but we’re at a point where if someone tries to exploit you it can be called out and taken down
no one gives a shit if you do yoga, subscribe to buddhism,
hell one of my monks lives here and he’s white from chicago? and he lives in the temple with everyone else and they all respect and love each otherwhat? you’ve never been to a buddhist temple? you’ve never even talked to a fucking monk? you haven’t eaten with them and laughed and understood that it’s about love, sharing, and togetherness rather than going ‘fuck off whitey’?
then shut the fuck up
I couldn’t have said it better. The common tumblr definition of cultural appropriation tends to leave a really awful taste in my mouth. I want people to love and share culture, to learn about people different from yourself, and to embrace awesome things. It shouldn’t be about being banned from being inspired by other cultures (though this is assuming the person isn’t being totally flippant and has done research on the basic trappings of whatever it is they’re drawing from aka enough with the white girls in bikinis and warbonnets). It’s also pretty ignorant of how culture develops in the first place which is by sharing and combining and evolving from older cultures mixing together. I don’t think people are aware of just how many things in their daily life could be considered appropriation from their clothes to their language, etc etc. My very EXISTENCE verges on so-called appropriation seeing as how I am the result of interracial AND intercultural marriage. Maybe I’m getting a little extreme, but half-and-halves like me seem oddly left out of equations like these and it makes me feel prickly.
