Brandon Hull
Dr. Wims
Survey to World History II
Research Paper
September 11, 2015
Cultural Appropriation Society today, has adopted a plethora of different concepts from different cultures, but with this evolution in civilization there has been some negative connotations. That is where cultural appropriation comes in because some people are abusing one another’s beliefs. Culture is arts, achievements, customs, and social institutions of a particular group of people or nation. Culture is also the behavior and attitudes of a social group. Cultural exchange is when two or more people or groups intentionally share information about his or her differing backgrounds in hopes to understand each other better. Cultural appropriation is a sociological …show more content…
Why is Iggy Azalea’s impersonation of the “black” sound okay? Although rap music is a brown and black talent system, one does not need to impersonate blackness to be respectable at that craft. Eminem, or Beastie Boys, or Macklemore are a couple of the non-black men who have been successful in the rap industry for the last 30 years and generally they do not have to appropriate blackness to do it. In the case of Southern rappers like Bubba Sparxx or Paul Wall, who happen to be white but “sounds Black” as it were, at least it was clear that they also have the accents of the places and communities in which they grew up versus ones they created. Iggy Azalea displays this excellently refined soundscape of Southern Blackness to tell us “how fancy” she is, and ask “how we love dat.” Her thoughtlessness makes it clear that she does not comprehend the dissimilarity between code switching and appropriation. She may get the basics of it, but not the originality. Appropriation is taking something that does not belong to that person and was not made for that person. That something is not widespread to his or her experience, that is not essential for his or her existence and using it to sound popular and make profit. “Code-switching is a tool for navigating a world hostile to Blackness and all things non-white. It allows one to move at will through all kinds of communities with as minimal damage as possible” (Cooper …show more content…
People of all cultures wear business suits and collared shirts to survive. But when one is of the dominant culture, adopting the clothing, food, or slang of other cultures has nothing to do with survival. So as free as people should be to wear whatever hair and clothing they enjoy, using someone else’s cultural symbols to satisfy a personal need for self-expression is an exercise in privilege. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is consistently treated as lesser than Standard English, but people whitewash black slang and use expressions they barely understand as punch lines, or to make themselves seem cool. People shirk “ethnic” clothes in corporate culture, but wear bastardized versions of them on Halloween. There is no exchange, understanding, or respect in such cases – only taking. That doesn’t mean that cultural exchange never happens, or that we can never partake in one another’s cultures. But there needs to be some element of mutual understanding, equality, and respect for it to be a true
Dr. Wims
Survey to World History II
Research Paper
September 11, 2015
Cultural Appropriation Society today, has adopted a plethora of different concepts from different cultures, but with this evolution in civilization there has been some negative connotations. That is where cultural appropriation comes in because some people are abusing one another’s beliefs. Culture is arts, achievements, customs, and social institutions of a particular group of people or nation. Culture is also the behavior and attitudes of a social group. Cultural exchange is when two or more people or groups intentionally share information about his or her differing backgrounds in hopes to understand each other better. Cultural appropriation is a sociological …show more content…
Why is Iggy Azalea’s impersonation of the “black” sound okay? Although rap music is a brown and black talent system, one does not need to impersonate blackness to be respectable at that craft. Eminem, or Beastie Boys, or Macklemore are a couple of the non-black men who have been successful in the rap industry for the last 30 years and generally they do not have to appropriate blackness to do it. In the case of Southern rappers like Bubba Sparxx or Paul Wall, who happen to be white but “sounds Black” as it were, at least it was clear that they also have the accents of the places and communities in which they grew up versus ones they created. Iggy Azalea displays this excellently refined soundscape of Southern Blackness to tell us “how fancy” she is, and ask “how we love dat.” Her thoughtlessness makes it clear that she does not comprehend the dissimilarity between code switching and appropriation. She may get the basics of it, but not the originality. Appropriation is taking something that does not belong to that person and was not made for that person. That something is not widespread to his or her experience, that is not essential for his or her existence and using it to sound popular and make profit. “Code-switching is a tool for navigating a world hostile to Blackness and all things non-white. It allows one to move at will through all kinds of communities with as minimal damage as possible” (Cooper …show more content…
People of all cultures wear business suits and collared shirts to survive. But when one is of the dominant culture, adopting the clothing, food, or slang of other cultures has nothing to do with survival. So as free as people should be to wear whatever hair and clothing they enjoy, using someone else’s cultural symbols to satisfy a personal need for self-expression is an exercise in privilege. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is consistently treated as lesser than Standard English, but people whitewash black slang and use expressions they barely understand as punch lines, or to make themselves seem cool. People shirk “ethnic” clothes in corporate culture, but wear bastardized versions of them on Halloween. There is no exchange, understanding, or respect in such cases – only taking. That doesn’t mean that cultural exchange never happens, or that we can never partake in one another’s cultures. But there needs to be some element of mutual understanding, equality, and respect for it to be a true