Is wearing a native american costume in the carnival racism?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

(but I think people worry way too much about protecting culture, or worse, other people's culture....if the culture is that freaking important, it will stick around.  If not, it will die like all the other cultures that have died.  I have the same issue with language.  Why should we care if a language dies (assuming we have a fairly full knowledge of the language for etymology reasons), nobody is hurt by this.)

My answer to this would be that to have a world that is fertile and bountiful and teeming with a multiplicity of concepts and things is an intrinsic and important good, and that keeping 'minor' cultures and languages around is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm as liberal and PC as they come but have a tough time caring about "cultural appropriation" when some people on Tumblr condemn whites eating at ethnic restaurants as an example of this.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

(but I think people worry way too much about protecting culture, or worse, other people's culture....if the culture is that freaking important, it will stick around.  If not, it will die like all the other cultures that have died.  I have the same issue with language.  Why should we care if a language dies (assuming we have a fairly full knowledge of the language for etymology reasons), nobody is hurt by this.)

My answer to this would be that to have a world that is fertile and bountiful and teeming with a multiplicity of concepts and things is an intrinsic and important good, and that keeping 'minor' cultures and languages around is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

This would undoubtedly lead to either A) marked hostility followed by immense bloodshed, or B) societal atomization at a socially dangerous level. We would, naturally, deserve the results.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

(but I think people worry way too much about protecting culture, or worse, other people's culture....if the culture is that freaking important, it will stick around.  If not, it will die like all the other cultures that have died.  I have the same issue with language.  Why should we care if a language dies (assuming we have a fairly full knowledge of the language for etymology reasons), nobody is hurt by this.)

My answer to this would be that to have a world that is fertile and bountiful and teeming with a multiplicity of concepts and things is an intrinsic and important good, and that keeping 'minor' cultures and languages around is one of the best ways to accomplish this.

This would undoubtedly lead to either A) marked hostility followed by immense bloodshed, or B) societal atomization at a socially dangerous level. We would, naturally, deserve the results.

I mean, it's the classic 'would you rather live in a world that's violent or a world that's stultifying?' question. In any case though I have to believe that there's some way of avoiding rendering the world culturally flat that doesn't cause those things to happen (at least not significantly more than they already do)--or failing that that there's some sort of happy medium, but I'd rather not be a moderate hero about this if it's possible not to be.

[Famous Mortimer]

All ethnic based culture is ridiculous. If people only like your food, clothing, language, etc because they were born into it, then obviously your food, clothing, language, etc suck. Ideally everyone would be free to appropriate whatever individual things they like from any given culture.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Treating those as the sorts of things that can 'suck' or 'not suck' on any sort of 'objective' basis strikes me as...peculiar, and so does what we might call the 'Lego brick' model of culture that you're advocating. The case could also be that your food, clothing, language, etc. are experiencing domination or subjugation of some description. I understand the desire to react against some of the extremes of the weird Herderianism that this particular segment of the cultural left often descends into, but it does no good to deny that these kinds of relationships are relevant or important in our desire to disclaim those extremes.

[Famous Mortimer]

I believe in the free market when it comes to things which aren't required to stay alive, culture being one of them. If a culture fails in the free market, clearly it sucked.

As to subjugation, well, it depends on what you mean by that. Some would call people wearing Native American clothing because it looks cool is a form of subjugation. I would say just that opposite, that proves its merit. It actually makes it more prominent in the global community.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I believe in the free market when it comes to things which aren't required to stay alive, culture being one of them. If a culture fails in the free market, clearly it sucked.

That's ludicrous.

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That isn't what I was talking about.

[DavidB.]

I believe in the free market when it comes to things which aren't required to stay alive, culture being one of them. If a culture fails in the free market, clearly it sucked.

As to subjugation, well, it depends on what you mean by that. Some would call people wearing Native American clothing because it looks cool is a form of subjugation. I would say just that opposite, that proves its merit. It actually makes it more prominent in the global community.

Using that line of reasoning, "blackface" would prove the "merit" of being black by making it more prominent in the global community. Uhm... I don't think so.

Regardless of the question if this is racist, it might be an insensitive thing to do, especially if people still derive cultural and/or religious meaning from the costume. And no, I don't think there is a true "market" with a level playing field when minority cultures are used just for mockery, nor do I think that it's appropriate.

[Famous Mortimer]

I believe in the free market when it comes to things which aren't required to stay alive, culture being one of them. If a culture fails in the free market, clearly it sucked.

As to subjugation, well, it depends on what you mean by that. Some would call people wearing Native American clothing because it looks cool is a form of subjugation. I would say just that opposite, that proves its merit. It actually makes it more prominent in the global community.

Using that line of reasoning, "blackface" would prove the "merit" of being black by making it more prominent in the global community. Uhm... I don't think so.

Regardless of the question if this is racist, it might be an insensitive thing to do, especially if people still derive cultural and/or religious meaning from the costume. And no, I don't think there is a true "market" with a level playing field when minority cultures are used just for mockery, nor do I think that it's appropriate.

It's wrong to equate all appropriation with mockery. I don't think, for the most part, White kids who listen to hip hop are mocking Black people, I think they probably legitimately enjoy it.

[DavidB.]

I believe in the free market when it comes to things which aren't required to stay alive, culture being one of them. If a culture fails in the free market, clearly it sucked.

As to subjugation, well, it depends on what you mean by that. Some would call people wearing Native American clothing because it looks cool is a form of subjugation. I would say just that opposite, that proves its merit. It actually makes it more prominent in the global community.

Using that line of reasoning, "blackface" would prove the "merit" of being black by making it more prominent in the global community. Uhm... I don't think so.

Regardless of the question if this is racist, it might be an insensitive thing to do, especially if people still derive cultural and/or religious meaning from the costume. And no, I don't think there is a true "market" with a level playing field when minority cultures are used just for mockery, nor do I think that it's appropriate.

It's wrong to equate all appropriation with mockery. I don't think, for the most part, White kids who listen to hip hop are mocking Black people, I think they probably legitimately enjoy it.

I wouldn't call listening to hip hop appropriation in the first place, but indeed, not all appropriation is mockery. However, I can't think of a way people would dress up in Native American costumes on Carnival without mocking it. This might be because I have never been at a Carnival celebration, but still...

[WVdemocrat]

Yes, it very clearly is racist. You would be dressing up as a race. It's like dressing up as black, which everyone would agree is racist.