As I said, the european/my german perspective does not see this - at least what I have learned. An essential motive of colonialism was the missionization and education of the "primitive, uncivilized race". The Germans saw it as their task to civilize the colonial population by introducing them to German culture and the Christian religion. Other colonial powers, such as Great Britain or France, also followed this ideological motive and tried to educate the "inferior race" in their sense.
Even if it would have been as you described: it would have nothing to do with me cooking african food because I love the taste. It's admiration, not theft.
For the food context, it'd be you opening an African food restaurant, that all the white people go to instead of an African food restaurant run by somebody from Africa. Meanwhile, Africans would be looked down on for making and eating said African food when they're supposed to be "integrating" to the local German food.
You're stripping the value of African food from African people, the same as colonialism stripped their resources from their land.
While it's certainly not an exclusively American phenomenon, cultural appropriation is vastly more likely to occur here than nearly anywhere else, both because we live on (recently-)colonized land, with the remnants of the people we stole it from still living among us, and because we are such a cultural melting pot, so people can much more easily come into contact with the cultural practices of marginalized cultures.
In most cases, Europeans don't live close to the people their countries colonized (though there are some exceptions, like the Basque and Catalonia regions), so there's less of a likelihood for people to want to appropriate them.
And no; cooking African food, no matter whether you belong to a culture that colonized that particular African culture, is not appropriation (unless, as I mentioned in another post, the food is part of a closed religious/ritual practice).
What's so special about food? Why is it cultural appropriation to wear African clothes, but not appropriation to cook African food? Both are important parts of their culture.
Well, for one thing, food is, for the most part, something you're doing purely for yourself, in the privacy of your own home.
Clothing is a much more visible identity marker: if you're dressed in clothing from particular African cultures, that's a strong signal that you belong to that culture—so if you do not, in fact, belong to it, that can cause a number of kinds of problems in the right (or wrong) circumstances.
Furthermore, for many cultures, the clothing that most recognizably signals membership is related to some form of cultural or religious ritual, and wearing it outside of that context can be very disrespectful.
Imagine if, for instance, you were in Nairobi (or Tokyo, or Mumbai) and saw someone wearing the traditional robes and cap of a Catholic cardinal—and you saw them partying, being vulgar, doing drugs, that sort of thing. Obviously, the connotations are not the same, because of the overall dominance of the Catholic Church and Western culture generally, but I hope that it gets across the general idea of why clothing can be more prone to appropriation, and why that's a problem.
So if I brought African food to work with me, and ate it during lunch with my co-workers, that would be cultural appropriation?
> Furthermore, for many cultures, the clothing that most recognizably signals membership is related to some form of cultural or religious ritual, and wearing it outside of that context can be very disrespectful
Fair enough; it would be wrong for me to wear a soldier's uniform if I've never served in the army.
Still, I can't help but feel that complaining about cultural appropriation is just a way to maintain USA's cultural dominance. The message seems to be: It's fine for Americans to spread their culture, but it's wrong for other countries to do the same.
It’s more cultural appropriation if you bring something in to the office and everyone is like “oh, that’s interesting, what is that, can I try it?” - while your coworker brings the same thing in and everyone’s reaction is different, “um, what is that, what is it, why don’t you just bring normal food” - followed by a passive aggressive note on the microwave not to reheat particular foods. You know?
It’s not just whether you’re ‘allowed’ to eat certain foods - it’s more whether your allowance for foods is different than someone else’s, because of your level of cultural status versus theirs. It’s about double standards.
well I mean that's cool that you have a different opinion of the meaning of the term, but the term was created as a critique of the effects of colonialism / post-colonialism and first use of the term comes here AFAIK https://www.archivesdelacritiquedart.org/wp-content/uploads/...
I guess I'm sort of old fashioned, when a concept is coined by some person I go with their definition and not what my feelings on it as a Dane might be.
cooking African food because you like the taste would probably not be cultural appropriation as the concept was originally defined, although I guess people may feel that is what it means now.
The food thing - and a lot of the other cultural appropriation touchstones - is more about double standards than anything else.
So if you’d be worried about hiring a black man with dreads, but you wouldn’t have the same hangups about a white woman with dreads, that’s an example. Or if when you make Foul Madras it’s very cultured and experimental and basically laudable of you - but if someone from Egypt brings it in, it’s more like a “oh isn’t your culture quaint” kind of situation, if not flat out “why did you make food that smells so bad.”
Like the enduring nonsensical racist gripe that people from indo/pak background smell like curry… while the UK had simultaneously made tika masala into a national dish. It’s brave and adventurous when white people do it, it’s separatist and foreign when brown people do it, even though it’s what brown people grew up with. That’s the angle.
It is exploitation of culture in the same way that natural resources of other countries were exploited: they were seen as something they could take and do what they wanted with it regardless of what the people that were already using it though.
Food is more of an edge case. I know there have been situations where someone who is white opened up a restaurant that sold food of a particular ethnicity. I'm not familiar with the specifics however. I would imagine that people debated whether or not that was cultural appropriation. Again, I don't know any specifics in that case.
I would say that cultural appropriation is less about individuals and more about the overall taking of something that means something to one culture and removing all that meaning. An example that comes to mind are things like turning Native American clothes into fashion or kids dressing as indians for Halloween.
Even if it would have been as you described: it would have nothing to do with me cooking african food because I love the taste. It's admiration, not theft.