Thursday, May 31, 2007

Colonial Entitlement vs. Appreciation & Interest

This is the entire post I was going to put in at BA's excellent post but snipped down to the relevant bits.

You know, I really do want to think that this whole debate is about the absolutely relevant issue of how WOC (if not POC) cultures do indeed get transformed and mutated by the dominant White culture, and often at the expense of the original cultures. I really do want to stand with BfP and BA in total agreement that appropriating Black and Brown people's cultures without giving them the proper credit and working to maintain the originals is certainly wrong.

I really would...but it all seems to come right back to baiting middle class White women for their sexual liberalism, and dissing them as "appropriators" and "thieves" masturbating on the broken backs of women of color.


I disagree with this.

Saying "why is it ok when middle and upper class white women do it but not okay when poor women and women of color do it" is not baiting when that's the situation.

The question becomes whether that's the situation. The answer is that one loved by all liberals like me, "It depends."

But when you see people who are not of a cultural group using the clothing, activities, and suchlike of a cultural group, it should give you pause, in my opinion. I expect that when I go out in a Sari. I am perfectly open to being questioned on that and explaining about my Muslim Pakistani friend who introduced me to the best shops and told me how to wear it. I wear it in the summer because it's more comfortable and because having a built in sun-roof is a glorious thing. I am aware that by being pale and wearing clothing not a part of the historical culture of pale people that I open myself to censure and that the censure may be valid, and if it is valid I will change my behavior.

I consider expecting members of a culture I am interested in to NOT be defensive and somewhat hostile, given - you know - history, is an example of priviledge. I am a citizen of a nation founded on colonialism. I am privileged to have knowledge of many, many, many cultures that are not my own. There was a time I would have had the opinion that people should be "grateful" I'm interested in their culture, but I've realized it's the other way around. I'm blessed that so many people have told me their stories, shared their practices, and discussed their knowledge and feelings with me. I'm lucky that I can read other religions' holy books, study their history, admire their art, and then build off of it in my own creative expression. It's not "dissing" if someone labels me an appropriator or theif - from a certain perspective I could be seen as such; it's up to me to be sufficiently grateful and respectful that other people share their lives with me and to appologize and seek to make amends when I fail. It's not easy, it's frequently humbling, and I've failed spectacularly and memerably, but it's worth it.

In addition, one can be sexually liberated without taking cultural markers from other cultures. If the only reason one is interested in another culture is because one can "let your hair down," or "be more natural" or "be sexually liberated" by acting like them then, quite frankly, one is colonializing that culture. One is not interested in that culture from an authentic, curious, respectful stance but from a "what can I get out of that culture" stance, which is a colonial attitude and is, at it's most basic, racist; it is making culture a commodity for sale. If one has to leave one's own culture and racial identity in order to feel sexual, natural, or relaxed - something's wrong with one's culture. Projecting the bits of one's personality that one can't experience within one's culture doesn't free one in any major way, it just objectifies an entire other culture as "not us".

And that isn't healthy for either end. If women of color are the sensual, natural, sexual, erotic, warm examples of being female, that means my pasty ass can't be - and I don't buy that. If women of color are ONLY all of the previously stated, then they're denied their ability to be whole people outside of their sexual identity. It's a severing of the self at a profound level, a cutting off of a major part of being human, and as I said in a previous post, that's one thing I know I don't want.

15 comments:

Rootietoot said...

Well said. I, for one, feel horribly uncomfortable in a sari, and my Ethiopean friend looks ridiculous in cowboy boots. I will, however, appropriate the tar out of food. Give me recipes from other parts of the world and I will earn to make them. I see that as respect and curiosity, and often it leads to education about other aspects of the culture.

Feminist Review said...

I think the sticking point is that there is so much cultural co-optation and corruption by white people that it's hard not to be suspicious of one's motives, even if the white person is "well meaning." As you stated, it depends on the person, but generally white people have a sense of entitlement to take what they want from "other" cultures (many times without a real understanding of them) and leave what they see as not valuable. This part of white people's exploitative, violent, genocidal, colonial history, and I think that is what you represent when you're a "pale" (and I'm assuming your use of "pale" means "white") person taking on the cultural dress, customs, etc of people of color. Now, if that's something you're comfortable representing, so be it. But this post doesn't indicate that is the case.

Deoridhe said...

Rootie:

I will, however, appropriate the tar out of food. Give me recipes from other parts of the world and I will earn to make them.

Gods, yes. Half of my love of Japanese culture is the food, I swear. Sushi and yaki soba and donburi oh my!!! And onigiri. Yum, yum, yum. Good way to make me eat my vegetables, too.

Deoridhe said...

FR (can I call you FR, or is there something else you prefer?):

I think that is what you represent when you're a "pale" (and I'm assuming your use of "pale" means "white") person

I have an earlier post about me, skin tone, and names for it. I currently consider myself Living While White, but I hate the cultural/socio-economic term "white" for myself and have rejected it for over a decade, since I was nicknamed rather unpleasant things based on my skin tone. My friends didn't mean to hurt my feelings, so I don't blame them, but I've never liked being "white". Pale is one of the ways I use to indicate my privileges, though. Straight is another. I'm more comfortable calling myself straight than white, though there are ...issues there, too; issues that, due to the issuee, I will never get into in public, but they exist.

It's complicated. That post is better than this one for that particular nuance, I think.

I both represent myself and those who came before me, both good and bad. I act in the context of all of that, not just one or the other, and I don't get to pick how people react to me. I do get to pick what I chose to do, however, and I chose to connect to other people and their cultures in what ways I am invited to do so.

I think the sticking point is that there is so much cultural co-optation and corruption by white people that it's hard not to be suspicious of one's motives, even if the white person is "well meaning."

Yes. And at the same time, I adore both my own and other cultures. Anthropology was and is a hobby of mine, in lock step with my interest in psychology. I find aspects of cultures fascinating, love learning cultural terms (particularly ones not found in English or US culture) and so on. I'm also part of a diasporic European religion that I'm sweating over a post on (the diasporic part, something not addressed by many Asatruar, but which is central to my understanding of myself in relation to my ancestors, the landvaettir, and the gods). I approach my own culture and the cultures of other people in much the same way, in fact; re-inventing a religion tends to do that to one.

And I like the intersection of my life where I can tease a male friend by calling him "Ry-chan" because he said I could while explaining why that was a really bad idea and distracting/amusing the Korean BBQ guy in the process (and look at the multiple layers of Korean BBQ, given it's origin and the historical relations between Japan and Korea) which has an added layer of texture given my feminist leanings and his gaity. THERE is where I like to live; not either Japan or Korea, not as straight or gay or queer, but in the intersections and tensions between different things.

A Mara'kami from the Huichol tribe who was interviewed for the book Peyote Hunt spoke a while of what it was to be Mara'kami. He said it took balance; that Mara'kami moved between worlds and for that you need balance, and then he hopped from stone to stone in a river and confused the anthropologist he was speaking too.

I'm not Huichol and have no ties to his people, his worlds, or the land he lives on, but I recognized some of myself in that. I live between worlds. The worlds of science and the world of religion; the worlds of different cultures; the worlds of now and then; the worlds of Midgard and Ginungigap and Nifleheim and Muspellheim.

And sometimes the only way to find your balance is to act and see if people push you over. I'm guessing this is a push; did I fall? Sometimes, when I'm not sure which way is up, I can't tell if I did or not.

Dw3t-Hthr said...

It's interesting to me to come across this post in the context I did -- which was, someone linked to a post from January in which someone wrote about her child's "What I want for Christmas" essay, and that degenerated into a theism/atheism flamewar, and I said, "Hey, I think I recognise the Asatru who's saying much of what I would have said if I were saying something here from Little Light's place" and wandered over here to read before blogrolling you at my place.


Given that sense of context, my thoughts:

I'm Kemetic. (The blogger handle may be a tipoff.)

As far as I know, none of my ancestors are North African this side of the paleolithic diaspora; all my documented ancestry is northern European of various flavors.

Questions of appropriation of ancient Egyptian culture are still a going matter, a real concern, even though it's a "dead culture". There are threads of who is entitled to it and an interest in it. Appropriation in Egypt dates to the Greeks, and that influence in Western European civilisation is not minor. And there are the fetishisations of the exotic on ethnic, spiritual, mystical levels that play a part in things, with some people apparently considering it a bonus that there are no native Middle Egyptian speakers alive to correct them on their constructions.

And there's a lot of tension tangled up with it with the whole question of why someone like me would wind up somewhere so removed from bloodline and family-origin, why I would go one place rather than the other.

And how can one tell whether the Kemetic convert who speaks of a childhood obsession with the pretty shinies in the Egyptian wing of the museum is engaging in that exotic fetishism, or whether this is how they first smelled and recognised the presence of the gods?

My feelings about this subject are all tangly, as is probably obvious. I'm damn sure that a white chick in Chicago calling herself the sacred king of Egypt is engaging in some form of appropriation. I'm sure that honoring the gods and doing ma'at is not -- but I think that "doing ma'at" properly precludes appropriation, which makes that a begging the question sort of circularity.

Sigh.

Deoridhe said...

Heee, I'd wondered if you were Kemetic when I wandered across you. I have an Egyptian Witch friend and know a few Kemetics.

And there's a lot of tension tangled up with it with the whole question of why someone like me would wind up somewhere so removed from bloodline and family-origin, why I would go one place rather than the other.

This comes up a lot with Asatru, since some asshole, racist fucks have tried to turn it into Nazi-lite. Metagenetics. There are some people who honestly believe you must have ancestors from a certain area after a certain time in order to have the right to certain gods (leaving out the cultural stuff, focusing on the gods; cutural and colonialist stuff brings in a whole other set of issues). Oddly, they don't seem to like it when I point out most US blacks have northern European blood, and thus qualify, while many French and Italian people don't, and thus don't apply. At some point, southern Europe became northern when I wasn't looking. *eyeroll*

I've been told that my being a third generation American (grandma immigrated from Denmark), I've lost all right to worship the gods and I should give up and be Christian... or something. For all I know, they were right. For all I know, all my interactions with the gods have been an elaborate fantasy. But I can't walk away. I just can't. I have been changed too much. If I found out I was deluded, I'd grieve as ardently as I have for humans I have loved and lost.

Lines are drawn in different places, and sometimes redrawn so much that they're all but intelligible.

I've hashed my way across them with a Roma friend and with an Irish friend, both of which belong to metagenetic/adoption only traditions that suffer heavily from appropriation. I haven't had the honor of doing the same with Egyptian Kemetics, though the person I mentioned before was a Prussian member of something worshipping the same gods as I do in Asatru (he claimed a family trad and didn't specify an approach, so I can't even say he was Forn Sed). I told him I'd stop when the gods told me to, and not a second before.

Can't help you with your own hashing, though. I don't know the Egyptian gods at all (though if you run into Thoth, give him my regards; I've always liked him). Maybe, if at all possible, see if you can find Egyptian reconstructional groups? I mean actual, living Egyptians. I don't know if they exist, or if they will care or even give you word one, but the only harm in trying is failing, and even in failing you'll learn from how and why they reject you. There's good in that, I think.

Dw3t-Hthr said...

I know (or knew, we've lost touch) an Icelandic Asatru (born and raised), who was for a long time my first informational source about your faith. Slightly different perspective on a few things.

The folkishness thing infests all the reconstructions, alas, to varying levels. The Slavic resource I follow in part as a matter of ancestor-honor is perpetually coming out with commentary along the lines of, "We are all here to honor the ways of our ancestors!" which leaves me feeling, well, like never saying a word there. And suspecting mostly that they don't run into non-Slavs dealing with the gods of the Slavs because the gods of the Slavs are obscure, and thus someone is much less likely to come up with, "Oh, that's Perun!" than, say, "Oh, that's Thor!" People have heard of Thor, even if they don't know a thing about Him. So they can be smug in their certainty that they're only talking to Slavs ....

Some Hellenics I know are irritated by the fact that the Hellenics in actual Greece are all hardcore nationalists with, I think, racist overtones. There are folkish Celts, and I have no idea how they manage to reconcile that with the historical record at all.

(And speaking of cross-culturality, a few years ago on a pan-pagan board I read we had a Chinese poster who wanted to know why Odin was interested in him .... Apparently the Old Wolf was mostly amused at being called a white devil, though, if I'm remembering the ethnic slur correctly.)

I will try to look and see if there are any Kemetic groups (or similar concept with different name) actually in Egypt; that's a good thought. Given the religious attitudes in Egypt these days I suspect that any such groups are fairly quiet, though. There was an African-nationalistic type group in the sixties or something that referred to its stuff as "Kemeticism", but I don't know if that has any religious content at all.

And of course, Egypt was both, for much of its history, intensely isolationistic and reasonably cosmopolitan, an interesting combination, and one that kind of complicates the question in sideways angles.

In my experience (though I haven't dealt with Him much), Djehuty (Thoth) really likes a formally served cuppa tea. ;)

Deoridhe said...

(And speaking of cross-culturality, a few years ago on a pan-pagan board I read we had a Chinese poster who wanted to know why Odin was interested in him .... Apparently the Old Wolf was mostly amused at being called a white devil, though, if I'm remembering the ethnic slur correctly.)

Oooo, white devil. I kinda like that. He is definately an asshole. I usually call him my old man.

In my experience (though I haven't dealt with Him much), Djehuty (Thoth) really likes a formally served cuppa tea. ;)

Djehuty. I have to try to remember that; I suck with names (even of gods; I think I avoided Ceremonial Magick simply because I was sure I'd flub a name somewhere and end up with a Demon Lord, or something). I'll put a cup out for him the next time I have tea, though I'm a bit strapped for formal service. Does he/the gods prefer it's final repose to be poured on the ground, drunk, or something else?

And I kinda know a folkish Irishman, though I hesitate to call it folkish since he excludes the vast majority of Europe as well. My understanding of the rational is that the worship of the Tuatha de Dannan is more along the lines of appeasement for Amergin (gods, I love him) kicking the Sidhe and the Tuatha de Dannan out of Ireland proper and into the shadow realms/faery/whathaveyou. So only the descendants of those involved in that deal, and their adoptees (the Irish were liberal about adopting those they found worthy) should worship the Tuatha de Dannan in his opinion. Keep in mind, this perspective excludes all non-Irish Celts as well as non-Celts.

Like I said, not QUITE the folkish we know and can't force to eat a grenade. Much more similar to the Roma approach, I think.



Now, regarding the central point, here's my issue with ancestor worship.

Most of my ancestors, and all of the ancestors I know of, are Christian. I have geneologies back to the 1400s or so before my family disappears into the mists of No Beaurocracies Here, and they're nominally Christian all the way down.

Last time I checked, Christians weren't all that cool with their descendants not being Christian. In fact, I could see a whole bunch of my ancestors trying to boot my ass back into the religion I "belong" in. Some of my ancestors may have even been on the fire weilding side of a witch hunt or too. I don't know, and most of them aren't talking.

So personally, I'm really careful about ancestor worship, even in general. The recent ones don't share my faith, and the older ones don't share my culture, and it's highly likely the entire lot think I'm a bit deranged and very lazy. Heh. How much would it suck to raise some great, great, great grandfather Priest who wants to take out his perferdity of the flesh on me and Won't Leave Me Alone?

Major suckage.

So I tend to specify "want to be welcome here and come in love" if I don't know who I'm dealing with and most of the time I focus on the two Disir of mine who, although Christian, would have some sympathy with me and want to be included in my Heathen rites to keep me as close to The Right Path as they can. That would be Grandma W~ and Great Aunt Christina. *waves*

An awful lot of people want to handwave the whole ancestor thing, though. It's sort of like the phrase "nature based religion." I'm part of a nature based religion, so when I litter it's GOOD for the environment. I worship the ancestors, so even if they think I'm a prat, I'm important and special. You know, fluffy logic. Sometimes with a side order of racism.

I think it's a reflection of actually being out of touch with the past. It's another view on the whole "I will make the idealized present into the past" that informs a lot of the Religious Right, imo. I'm always struck by how abstract it is; when I honor the Disir, I name two of them. I wouldn't feel comfortable honoring my Disir without either names or some kind of specification that just because you're a female ancestor DOESN'T mean I'm exhorting you to show up. And some kind of mention or awareness that just because I'm honoring you doesn't mean you agree with me.

If you were in touch with the past, you wouldn't need to be abstract about it, in other words. If you are abstract, chances are you're either getting out of touch, or never were in touch.

Dw3t-Hthr said...

Standard procedure for the gods of Egypt is similar to the Hindu: the god consumes the unseen portion of the food; the human consumes the material portion (which, as its spiritual layer is now coextensive with the god, is much spiffier than normal food).


I know a woman who was Asatru for a while, and then returned to Christianity, specifically because of the ancestor worship. She got the impression that if she chased the line back to before she even had the memories of names, a bunch of folks approved a great deal, and everyone since then was annoyed at her. So to be a good Asatru on the ancestor-worship end, she converted back to Christianity.

I think one of the things that ancestor venerators can keep in mind is their own family lore, from which can be judged some of what their ancestors would consider honoring them. I have a pledge to my great-great-grandparents to learn Polish, because they were among the subversives during a Russian occupation who taught the language even though they knew they'd be shot if they were caught. The language is something they were willing to die for, the language and what it meant; by comparison, it is a small thing to learn it.

Which is, I suspect, the same thing you're saying about being in touch with the past in different words -- knowing this thing matters and holding to it.

Deoridhe said...

Standard procedure for the gods of Egypt is similar to the Hindu: the god consumes the unseen portion of the food; the human consumes the material portion (which, as its spiritual layer is now coextensive with the god, is much spiffier than normal food).

Excellent. The Asatru standard is to pour. My housewights took it upon themselves to pour when they took half of my homebrew mead. I'd be mad, but I've SEEN my room. They need the drink. I'm just glad they evaporated it instead of leaving me with a sticky spot on the floor.

A friend of mine wakes up food when she uses it ritually. I'm not quite sure what it means. I've been tyring to fumble toward doing it, frequently forgetting as I am wont to do.

So to be a good Asatru on the ancestor-worship end, she converted back to Christianity.

Now that - that is beautiful. Glorious, even. I highly approve. I won't follow, but gods the logic is solid. Lovely, lovely. I hope she and her ancestors hold peace and happiness.

Which is, I suspect, the same thing you're saying about being in touch with the past in different words -- knowing this thing matters and holding to it.

Exactly. And knowing this thing matters in particular. It's not a general "all Norsewomen would do this", but a specific "so-and-so would do this".

I am much more god centered, though. My guess is, had I lived then, I would have been a gythia (priest). Or someone who did Seidhr. Or both, if that could happen. I'm just as glad I live now, though, because the cultural prohibitions against women using the runes have been weakened by time and so I can merrily march into where I belong, sharing spaces and shifting balances with the men drawn to Seidhr.

I appreciate the past and my ancestors, but I'm glad I live now. It's a delicate balance.

Dw3t-Hthr said...

I actually petitioned the aid of a seidhkona this past February to seek my grandfather's blessing (as he went West when I was eight, so we never had a chance to know each other as living adults).

I think one of the glorious things about nowness is the being able to reach to faiths with other knowledges and strengths and build community with them.

Hrr. Should make a religion rambling post over on my place in the next day or two, I think.

Deoridhe said...

I think one of the glorious things about nowness is the being able to reach to faiths with other knowledges and strengths and build community with them.

Totally agree. Which Seidhkona did you contact? I'm always curious if I know them; Asatru tends to be a small community.

Dw3t-Hthr said...

It was Diana Paxson in the chair when we actually managed to get through; the previous seidhkona, whose name I do not know, appeared to be operating under a "Our lines to Helheim are all busy at the moment, please hold and another operator will handle your call" restriction -- I wasn't the only person whose Mighty Dead she couldn't reach.

(This was at the public seidh at PantheaCon.)

Deoridhe said...

Yeah, kinda hard to be Asatru and NOT know about Paxton these days. I met her a few Trothmoots ago. She sat with Laurel and ...I'm blanking on the other woman's name; I think she was associated with Frigga's web?

I have mixed feelings about their Seidhr; a dog & pony show is good psychodrama, but... I dunno.

Dw3t-Hthr said...

I have to admit I get a kick out of their thqanks to the dwarves at the end, but that's arguably because I have a warped sense of humor. I certainly don't have the knowledge-base to judge the theology of the ritual structure.