Cultural appropriation

[eirias]

Pursuant to a conversation elsewhere, a poll!

NOTE! For the purpose of this poll, "foreigner" refers to someone who is foreign in several ways:

1. he has no familial claim to the culture (no relation by blood or marriage);
2. he does not and has not lived in the culture;
3. he has no deep knowledge or understanding of the culture, and/or does not speak the language.

Use the comments to clarify anything you like.

(Note: I submitted blank answers but that's only so I can easily see poll results without changing them; one should not infer from that that I think all the options are inappropriate.)

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[Poll #1267976]

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I think my problem is I don't see how having a shallow tie makes any of it better. I have a blood ties to Russia, Poland, and Spain... that makes me an expert in - none of them. I only have basic knowledge of their histories and cultures, but it's somehow okay for me to grab from any of them. (Although still a really bad idea to get something tattooed on me in Polish if I don't know what it means).

I suppose the poll does not assume that having a shallow tie makes it all okay. It's just sometimes I find the whole if you're part of the group it's okay attitude a bit weird. And this is one of those issues where it seems like having had ancestors whom I never knew who were part of the group just doesn't seem to endow me with any special right that someone else with equal knowledge and respect shouldn't have.