What happened is people just advocating for cultural appropriation by removing all responsibility from the indvidual. Yes the company and creators have a major hand but the consumer isnt excused from the balantant participation in the system not to mention advocating for potentially ignoring the people of the culture because its "a dress"
yall mad weird fr
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Exactly. I’m still to blame here. That’s why I created the thread in the first place. I wanted to educate myself.
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There is a lot of truth to the fact that all of the blame for things like this lie with the manufacturer. After all, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Plus, there is no way that one person’s decision to wear something appropriative is going to change the system.
However, it’s about your own moral beliefs. If you are asking someone if it’s ok to wear something, clearly you are personally uncomfortable with contributing your tiny 0.00000001% to appropriation. Yeah, if you choose to wear this, you may end up feeling uncomfortable. People might look at you funny or call you out for appropriation. Just because the blame falls with the company, it doesn’t mean you are free morally if you buy a piece and contribute to normalising appropriation.
Individualism as Americans see it is a myth. Individual responsibility is a lie when you look at the history that led us to where we are now. That’s why saying anything about “individual responsibility” in the face of systemic injustice is a joke.
HOWEVER, if more people ask questions like “would this be appropriation”, maybe we can make it a norm to buy from reputable (enough. No ethical consumption, just less unethical) manufacturers who actually know and understand the cultures you’re working with.
Loving, adopting and embracing other cultures isn’t always appropriation. In fact, we need some more of that. The difference is simple: are you acting like a coloniser when you do it? Or are you allowing people from the culture to lead the way?
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I want to just add: this outfit would exist whether you chose to buy it or not. They are going to make 100,000 if they want to make 100,000 and there will always be other people who love the way it looks and buy it anyway without thinking about the appropriation, because they don’t know, don’t understand or don’t care. There are billions of us on this planet. We can’t police how they all dress.
What we can do, though, is make our own choices about which systems we choose to buy into and which we don’t.
If we just throw our hands up in the air and say “well there’s nothing I can do about these systems, so whatever”, that’s extremely close to nihilism.
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Yes, exactly.
Thank God I didn’t say that
My point was aim at the system not at the people
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Right, there is something we can do. Educate. Teach about other cultures and what is ok to Weald and what isn’t.
Personally, I’m more of a collectivist. You all know that I’m a through-and-through socialist. I believe that change comes from building strong social groups that make change: unions, guilds, etc. If we can all have these conversations frankly and decide what we think is right, one person might not make a difference, but 1 million can. We just need to collectivise. Nihilism is bad IMO because it means we can throw our hands up and accept that nothing is going to change.
I don’t accept that. I’ll go down kicking and screaming if I have to. I’ll make my tiny little change. I’m not going to try to influence the politics of my students at school (that’s illegal lol), but I am making my change through the education system. Through my blogs. Through the volunteer work I do. Not by preaching, but by making sure that disadvantaged kids get the education they deserve. We’re dangerous to the status quo if we’re educated
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Ah yes how dare people take part in an inescapable system.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism so fight against capitalism. Fight against the system, but be aware that you are currently in that system.
Absolutely. I just feel like this debate is a little… off here? I mean, since the Episode days, I’ve been someone who simultaneously challenges creators who feed into stereotypes but also attacks people who join the cultural appropriation bandwagon.
I personally don’t think it’s aiming at people if someone asks a question about whether it’s morally good to wear this particular piece of clothing. When I responded (not sure about others), I was focusing on the fact that Ouija in particular seems to want to know what the moral is behind this.
If someone had jumped into a conversation where Ouija was like “look at this lovely outfit” and started attacking her, I would see that it’s aiming at people. This is more of a discussion IMO though
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Individuals are only responsible for cultural appropriation if they claim to have came up with or coined something from another culture, that isn’t what happened here. Using terms wrong doesn’t make you a progressive, it makes the argument stupid
No ethical consumption under capitalism, using this argumentation we are all complicit in the system and have to come to terms with that. I have. Have you? Because it doesn’t seem like it
Ad hominem, your arguments are weak and your position is cringe
And this is bad and cringe
Wrongly
Great, I guess a bunch of white teenagers are gonna get real up in arms over flannel jacket sales next because that’s appropriating my culture /s
This is still extreme touch, eat and sleep with grass levels of terminally online
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Like… is it ok to wear this? I dunno, ask a Japanese person. Seems a bit disrespectful to me, but you weren’t the one who made it so I’m not angry at you or anyone who buys it.
What can we do about it? Well, not wearing it isn’t going to change anything. The solution is to aim at the manufacturers, if that makes sense?
We’ve had this discussion before and we both laughed about it, but a lot of the people who brought those jackets over to the US were actually Scottish. If a Japanese person made that brand, fair enough, you know?
People wearing clothes and being complimented where a PoC wouldn’t be for the same clothes is a symptom of institutional racism, not cultural appropriation
Doesn’t matter, I’m not a segregationist so I don’t care if the designer is Japanese
As I did. She says it’s ok, and her family does too. What I’m understanding is that it’s ok, as long as I understand the cultural impact and don’t be disrespectful.
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Its not a necesity to buy off a knockoff kimono dress you can find authentic retailers pretty easily yall act like not appropriating is impossible or sum
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I’m terminally online? Lol, I’ve been working at a school, barely touched the forums, working 2-3 jobs offline. I do more grassroots activism than most of the people on here. Educating students, setting up societies at schools, joining the green party. Don’t you think this is a generalisation?
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Not you, you can actually discuss this.
The “get rid of it” mentality is what I have an issue with
It’s not about segregation. It’s about understanding and respecting the history behind a piece of culture. If the person studied the old fashion designers of Japan, my bad. 
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