Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

Mahatma Gandhi, African braids, Vikings, European winters, Scottish tartans, the swastika, colonialism, Aboriginal reconciliation week 2020 and George Floyd. What do all these things have in common? They are things that I have thought about this week as I planned this blog post. It was originally destined to be on cultural appropriation, as it is a hot topic in the world of fashion and seemed a fitting point of discussion for Aboriginal Reconciliation week.

The discussion around cultural appropriation is of course, to some degree, a discussion about racism and exploitation. The issue of racism is a huge topic of course and my article will not cover everything. I would like to start by acknowledging a few things and defining some terms.

As a white person living in comfort and safety I am privileged and have not had to fight particularly hard for my opportunities. As a university educated female, the access I have had to education and opportunity is far above what many women (and men) in the world receive.

The reduction of opportunity for people who look different to me is not always institutionalised, in Australia (these days) we do not ban Vietnamese, African, Torre Strait Islander etc people from universities or from well paying jobs, but in general terms they are more likely to experience more discrimination and racism than a white person does.

And our privileged wealthy culture is implicated in the exploitation of the people who make goods for us in bad conditions and whose countries are polluted in the manufacturing process. In Victorian England the manufacturing towns were right there, pumping out pollution and filled with people working in dangerous conditions. In our day a lot of our poor and pollution live off shore. But they are still our poor and it is definitely our pollution. Not only because we benefit from the labour and the goods produced but because we should all be taking care of each other. One planet and one people.

As a person who works in the fashion industry I am aware of the sometimes appalling conditions in which clothes are made. Sweat shops, child labour, early deaths, poisoning not just of the environment, but of people. Buildings that fall upon their workers, buildings full of fabric fibre and without adequate air filters so that people’s lungs fill up with particles leading to illness and death.

I am so glad that many companies are taking responsibility for their supply chain and will give you details of the working conditions in their manufacturing plants. I have heard the point made that the poor countries need this work, they need the manufacturing so that they can have an economy, and the good news is that it is possible for them to have the work, but in good conditions. The change has been largely driven by us. The every day, western, consumer who has decided that it is not fair and doesn’t have to continue. We have started to demand that clothes are made sustainably and fair wages and working conditions are given to the workers. Some designers such as Stella McCartney have been paying attention to the ethics of their clothes for years and were leaders in the field, but the industry as a whole has stood up and paid attention to us, the consumer, because we PAY them. If we won’t buy unethical goods, then you can bet they are going to get ethical pretty quickly. Because although ethical goods can cost more to produce, that is still better than having no customers.

And then it becomes the norm. Clothes are produced ethically. Women (in democratic countries) have the vote. Individuals who are united can change the world. With reference to women and the vote, it was a long hard fight in a lot of places. “Universal suffrage” had been fought for years earlier in countries like England and America, but it only meant ‘universal’ as in all men who were citizens, regardless of how much property they owned. Women were considered weak minded and generally incapable of voting intelligently. Women, campaigned, marched, went to prison and generally made a lot of fuss about it. And change came. It is within the last 200 years that women were allowed to set foot inside certain libraries at oxford, let alone attend classes.

Parallels can be drawn between the movements for women’s suffrage and ethical clothing manufacture. A whole lot of individuals all insisting on the same things can bring huge cultural change.

So we need to turn this attention to the issue of racism. It is a long running issue that just doesn’t seem to go away.

For thousands of years peoples from one culture have been enslaving, attacking, invading and generally exploiting people of another culture. It has happened in Europe and between tribes in Africa, in Asia, the Americas and other parts of the world. The racism that we see lingering today is the continuation of a pattern of European domination that has been going since at least the middle ages, if not earlier. That of sailing around the world and establishing relationships with other countries in which we are the superior ‘civilising’ force and they are savages. We are entitled to trade with them on our terms, swapping rubbish for gold if possible. It was all done with a view to bettering the situation of the European nations sponsoring the voyage. Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, England, Holland. Perhaps the vikings who were even earlier than that are a good example. In the summer when the ice melted the younger sons manned the long boats to pillage while the older brothers ran the farms. The Norse countries had limited land and long hard winters. They had a resource shortage and they solved it by raiding others. This ensured that they would have enough to survive the cold months. A lot of the exploitation around the world, including that done by us on an individual level is rooted in fear. Fear and selfishness. We fear that there won’t be enough and we worry that we will miss out. When we act selfishly what we are basically saying is that I am afraid that someone will miss out, and I would rather that it was you than me. This is a sad choice to make. It makes the world a poorer place and it makes us poorer people, spiritually and emotionally. Fear is a terrible place to make decisions from. When fear and the selfishness it breeds becomes the guiding emotion in our life then we will make bad choices.

So what does fear look like in our lives – we fear that we will be treated unfairly – paid unfairly, left to do all the work, not given the praise and acknowledgement that we deserve. We fear being lonely, being stressed, that our own failures and inadequacies will be discovered and betray us. We fear being laughed at, or not being funny enough. We fear that our families and loved ones will be treated unfairly.

If we could all stop being afraid and acting out of a selfish desire to protect ourselves at the expense of others, then the world would be a better place. A lot of the fears I listed in the above paragraph lose their power to damage us and society as soon as we refuse to be passive. If we refuse to be something that is just acted upon by circumstance and by other people, if we decide to be a good person regardless of circumstances and then find a way to do it. Nelson Mandela did it. Mahatma Gandhi did it. Hitler, famously, didn’t. But we can do it. In small ways we can choose not to be fearful angry victims. Work out what you want in your life and take responsibility for it. Then be realistic about it. And hopefully one of the things that we want in life is for it to be a fairer place for us all, where we strive to help each other and get rid of prejudice and racism.

Another primary emotion behind the years of exploitation and racism is greed. Those early merchants, traders and seamen needed and wanted to make a profit. To do this they wanted goods from the natives as cheaply as possible. Sometimes the trade was of genuine benefit to both sides, but often there was an element of robbery or exploitation. The Europeans came and took what they wanted if necessary. To justify this they typified the natives as lesser in some way. Culturally, intellectually, spiritually. This allowed them to both ‘help’ and use the cultures that they interacted with. The most famous example being the trade in slaves from Africa that continued right into the 19th Century.

One form of exploitation that continues today is cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is not the same as cultural exchange. Cultural exchange is where we adopt new skills, foods, art, fashion etc from an ethnic group from which we are not descended. Cultural exchange is a valid part of our world. It enriches all of our lives and cultural experiences. I am not planning to go back to eating just fish, barley bread and sour beer and giving up chocolate, tomato, pasta, potato, and beef rendang. Not to mention pizza. And I don’t want to just wear woollen clothes. I like cotton and silk, although neither originated in the UK which is where my ancestors predominantly came from.

And how many people around the world wear tartan who couldn’t tell you what clan they belong to? And how many people use chopsticks and forks whose ancestors only used a knife (my hand is up). So obviously cultural give and take is a part of life. We Anglo Saxons in times past have exported guns, and the Westminster system of parliament all around the world.

‘Cultural appropriation’ is a term that has no concrete definition, but it implies the use of cultural emblems, clothing, images, words from a minority culture by a majority culture. It often occurs where there is an unequal balance of power between the appropriating and originating cultures. The originating culture feels a degree of powerlessness and exploitation.

The term cultural appropriation is also used where the fear is the ‘kitscherisation’ (my word, use it if you like) of serious cultural symbols, that may have religious or spiritual symbolism. When they are used out of context it is offensive to the originating culture. For example, I doubt that people of Australia’s first nations would be happy if an Aboriginal corroboree was made light of in a cartoon or comic strip.

An extreme example of cultural appropriation that was completely offensive was the use of the swastika by the Nazi’s. The swastika was a centuries old symbol, originating in India. In Sanskrit swastika means ‘well-being’. Hitler appropriated it for his flag and pretty much changed its meaning within our culture. I would not wear it on a t shirt, for even though I might want it to mean well being, it just doesn’t mean that to us any more.

Some modern examples of cultural appropriation include the use of traditional artistic symbols by non indigenous artists, or the use of traditional beading, embroidery or other manufacturing techniques by clothing companies. When these practices are criticised it is partly because of the money involved. It is felt that these symbols should be used by those of the culture that originated it, to make money if they like, but that they should be left alone by members of the dominant culture who already have plenty of power and opportunity for financial gain. It is in fact viewed as cultural theft.

It is tempting to say that this is all very complicated and to either to ignore the issue of cultural appropriation, or to say it should be evaluated on a case by case basis, which has some merit. For me, the biggest issue is the underlying power imbalance, exploitation and sense of grievance that certain ethnic groups experience. It is the fact that their race or ethnicity has been subject to years of racism and exploitation that is the problem, and the cultural appropriation is the last straw. If they were treated well, with equal opportunities, not called rude names because of skin colour, religion or language, they may not mind if people of Anglo Saxon heritage wore African braids or used indigenous art techniques. After all, no one is going to tell me off for using Egyptian hieroglyphs or a Celtic cross in my art work or jewellery making. The problem is when the cultural appropriation happens in a setting of general exploitation. If we could stop racism and move on from this situation then cultural appropriation would probably also cease being an issue.