A blog mostly about my family. Though I also rant about other things, work, music, films etc.
Tuesday, 1 September 2020
Isolation, again
We are in isolation again. This morning my wife woke with a persistent cough and so we went for testing in Ipswich again. She has rested for a lot of the day, but her cough improved once she had her swab. She loved me having mine!
I had locked myself out of my work laptop last week and did not have time to correct this matter then, so I had to have that fixed before I was able to work from home. And that took time. Using my mobile to make calls, and my headphones to preserve patient anonymity I was able to see my call lengths easier, and many take longer than ten minutes now. When I started in quarantine many months ago, the issues we had to deal with her so much easier. Now they are back to the usual complexity along with additional diagnostic uncertainty due to COVID meaning we are not assessing all face to face.
Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Segregation
Can anyone tell me if the following are examples of cultural appropriation?
Chicken Tikka Masala.
The Hello Kitty video by Avril Lavigne.
Stuffed crust pizza’s.
People who appear not to be black wearing dreadlocks & Bantu knots.
The use of henna by those with no visible ancestry from the Arabian Peninsula, Indian subcontinent.
Near and Middle East, Carthage, other parts of North Africa or the Horn of Africa.
The Jai Ho music video by The Pussycat dolls.
Eating Haggis on Burns night if you have no Scottish heritage.
Wearing a Kimono if you have no Japanese heritage.
Eminem, Vanilla Ice, Iggy Azalea, UB40 & Madness.
The use of Tartan by those without significant Scottish ancestry.
The video for Romeo by Basement Jaxx.
Dressing as another ethnicity for a fancy dress party.
Drinking Guinness if you have no Irish heritage.
Someone with no South Asian heritage wearing a bindi (or anything like it).
Having an opinion on liking a dish if you are not from the ethnic group it is from.
I do think that trying to trademark certain names, such as Kimono is unacceptable. Issues like Jamie Oliver using a name for food that has been inspired by dishes like paella are a grey area along with food inspired by a nation. But he is not wrong to use such foods in the creation of new dishes.
It may be best to prevent offence if we segregate different communities to prevent cultures mixing. But that is what people like the BNP want, and I like how the society I live in has been, and continues to be influenced it’s multicultural history.
But, I would like to know what is and what is not cultural appropriation and I welcome comments about what people think on this matter.