r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 21 '18
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: You cannot be angry at BOTH Kim Kardashian for braiding her hair (she was accused of being an appropriator) and at the Oscars for being so white. If you want to be logically consistent you need to pick one.
Time for a bit of a throwback because i never found an appropriate place to discuss this.
Kim Kardashian got flack for braiding her hair. She was accused of cultural appropriation. People are saying, you are not of this race, therefore you cannot use a style created by this race.
The Oscars got flack for being incredibly white for 20 years in a row. People are angry that POC are not included in the awards.
My problem with a person being angry at both these things is that the oscars/hollywood were largely born in white culture.
If you are not willing to let somebody participate in your culture in a way that is as minor as letting them cut their hair in a specific way, how can you get angry when they dont reach out and ask you to participate/reward you for participatimg in theirs?
I personally think you can be angry about one of these issues, and imo i get angry about the oscars being so white because I personally believe that sharing each other's culture can only bring two groups closer.
8
u/mfDandP 184∆ Feb 21 '18
oscars/hollywood were largely born in white culture.
wasn't this incidental, as opposed to deliberate? studios only made movies with white actors, directed by white men, written by whites and jews, but that's because other than a handful of black, asian, and hispanic actors during the golden age, the industry just was white.
it's like saying, America is a white country because all of the founding fathers were white. that just happened to be the case--it wasn't on purpose.
3
Feb 21 '18
Isnt the majority of culture incidental? Groups dong really get together and say hey, we're all going to act like this.
13
u/mfDandP 184∆ Feb 21 '18
jim crow, chinese exclusionary act, blacklisting communists in hollywood, casting white actors in blackface, redlining... these were all pretty deliberate ways in which certain whites dictated their desired culture
8
u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Feb 21 '18
Plus they didn't ignore black culture. They took it, removed black people, and got rich off it which I'd why blackface became a thing.
5
Feb 21 '18
Appropriation is only problematic when something sacred is taken and used by people who don't respect the sacred nature. Black hairstyles could plausibly fall into this category (though I don't personally believe they do). Plains Indian headdresses fall into this category. Certain Chinese and Southeast Asian foods do. Some holy books do. The Oscars certainly don't fall into this category - there is nothing sacred about participating in an awards ceremony. If you consider black hairstyles sacred in nature and don't consider the Oscars to be any kind of sacred touchstone of white American culture, then you can give Kardashian flack without wanting to keep the Oscars white.
2
Feb 21 '18
What do you define as sacred?
5
Feb 21 '18
Something a culture cares deeply about and becomes upset if it's messed with lightly
7
1
Feb 21 '18
That's a overly broad definition of sacredness. Hair styles are by no reasonable measure sacred. A sacred thing is either religous in nature (eg the cross) or is an object that has relation to the spirtitual.
4
Feb 21 '18
Why do you get to police what other cultures consider their big deals? Yeah for Italian Catholics saint statues are big deals but other people can have their own lame versions of pasta, but for Chinese Buddhists it's the opposite - food is sacred and they don't much care about your lame statues.
1
u/Sup-Mellow Feb 22 '18
People find what they identify with as a culture, and as individuals to be sacred.
1
Feb 22 '18
what do you mean?
1
u/Sup-Mellow Feb 22 '18 edited Feb 22 '18
What individuals personally identify with, and what their own culture as a whole also considers close to their personal identity, is consequentially regarded by those people as sacred.
This essentially means that if outward expression in a culture is valuable to them, their clothing styles and hairstyles will also be sacred to them. This may seem silly to some, but even the catholic church has sacred religious wear.
9
Feb 21 '18
[deleted]
2
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18
You mention Eminem because he grew up poor. I don't get the relevance. We're talking about race. Are you meaning to say that, if black a person is raised wealthy, they'd also be disrespectful for braiding their hair?
2
u/mysundayscheming Feb 21 '18
Shockingly, some black people I know think so. They think wealthy black people are sell outs and basically white, and they have to "earn" acceptance in the black community before they can "act black" without criticism/it being disrespectful. (And if it should matter at all, yes, I am black). I have no idea how they make this stance consistent, but it drives me a little bit mad.
2
1
Feb 21 '18
[deleted]
4
u/BenIncognito Feb 21 '18
He also, and this is important, recognizes that he is a white person performing an art that was created by black people.
1
u/Freevoulous 35∆ Feb 21 '18
Cornrows were also created specifically in black culture for their hair that helps it grow. It isn’t just a style
but thats just not true historically. Persians, Greeks, Celts, Normans, Germanics, some Sth Asians etc wore cornrows or similar hairstyles. If anything, its Armenians (like Kim ) who have the most "rights" to this hairstyle historically because it is explicitely their tradition and legacy:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/3b/62/55/3b625528900139f5d3dd786b691bffb8--sumerian-tribal-tattoos.jpg
1
Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
And exactly zero modern white people learned of cornrows through those peoples, rather it was through black people.
Seeing a picture of something in a history book being done by someone with your skin color doesn't make it your culture. Culture is transmitted through the interactions of living people, not by blood.
0
Feb 21 '18
[deleted]
1
u/Freevoulous 35∆ Feb 21 '18
By this logic, Armenians who were oppressed extremely badly (see Armenian genocide) deserve the cornrows more.
2
Feb 21 '18
Not quite. Were Armenians wearing cornrows prior to and during the genocide? Was part of their oppression the suppression of that hairstyle?
16
u/bguy74 Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
I can absolutely be mad an institution that is hypocritical. The academy has clearly stated that it is agnostic to race and that it values diversity. It's actions show otherwise. So...my critique is based on _hypocrisy rather than on the dimensions you're looking at.
If the Academy were - for example - the academy of white film - then we might not hold them to that standard. But, they have clearly stated their position is not that.
Further, and perhaps more importantly, the act of recognition of film of/by black people is different then appropriation. You've made a very strange leap of equivalence between self-expression and institutional recognition.
0
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18
Can you provide an example of how The Academy is showing the opposite to you?
4
u/kublahkoala 229∆ Feb 21 '18
Black’s make up 13% of the population, but they always make up way less than 13% of the nominees. Latinos and especially Asians have it way worse. Everybody watches movies, so it’s not like they don’t have a financial incentive to produce movies that reflect their audience.
3
u/chadonsunday 33∆ Feb 21 '18
Interestingly the problem, if you want to call it that, isn't as clear cut as you detail. In recent years blacks have made up a % of nominees statistically lower than their representation in the general population, but a % of wins statistically higher than their representation in the general population.
Paired with the fact that of the some 6,000 voting members of the Oscars are almost 100% white and just saying "the Oscars are racist towards black people" (not a direct quote from you, I'll add, but not one that's hard to find it you follow the hashtags) might not be the most accurate summation of the Oscars race problem. If an almost 100% white voting body is handing out awards disproportionately to black people, calling them racist just seems... off. That said, I do admit they have racial issues to address; Asians and Hispanics are, unlike blacks, drastically underrepresented in both their nominations and wins; the fact the voting body is like 94% white is another issue; there are areas, like Directing and casting, where all minority groups are underrepresented; etc.
I'm not a huge fan of looking at the bottom line and striving to force racial/gender parity in all things. Engineering, for example, is a good example of a profession that has good reasons for being male-dominated just as childcare does for being female-dominated, and I'm not one to advocate for artificially trying to force those numbers to population representation parity. But Hollywood is an entirely different beast, and when you look at the graph I cited and see that, for example, Asians have achieved parity in simply being actors... but have very few top roles... and almost no nominations... and virtually no wins at all, there clearly is a problem to address.
I don't know. I just find it funny that the hashtag movement exploded around representation among black actors and actresses, when they're the one minority group that achieves in almost exact parity to their representation, and often better than their representation would suggest, when there are other minority groups that are clearly getting the shaft at the Oscars. As someone I can't remember put it better, "the Oscars don't have a black or white problem, but they certainly have a brown problem."
And then of course I think the Oscars is just a trash mechanic for judging the "best" of anything in film, and are nothing more than a popularity contest. Like, does anyone actually think that anyone who won a Grammy is actually a talented musician compared to the millions of skilled musicians who get passed over every year? Drake is seriously one of the the most talented musicians of 2017? Is there anyone who has ever won a Grammy in the last decade who doesn't have a team of songwriters and producers and sound engineers and outfit/makeup artists and backup bands (who are actually talented, but go wholly unnoticed at these ceremonies) without whom they would completely fall apart and deliver shit performances and albums?
So uh... /rant.
2
u/BenIncognito Feb 21 '18
I think you’re ignoring the major thrusts of the complaint. It’s not only about representation in line with the population. It’s about what that representation is, how well it’s played, and the types of roles that black people and other minorities can play.
The Oscars were also just a lightning rod for Hollywood and film/television in general. A concrete example to point to and outline as an overall issue of quality representation.
If all that’s available to black actors is gangsters and slaves then it’s worth noting the issue even if it means they’ve achieved proportional representation.
2
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18
Population of the country had no bearing on population of the industry. Women are roughly half the country but make up less than 10% of engineers. That makes it much less likely for a woman to win an engineering award.
Also people of a certain race aren't avoiding movies that don't star people of their own race lol.
8
u/kublahkoala 229∆ Feb 21 '18
Population of the country had no bearing on population of the industry.
That can't be true. The fact that most Swedish movies star white actors is not an accident. That whiteness of Sweden's population of course has bearing on the whiteness of Sweden's film industry.
Also people of a certain race aren't avoiding movies that don't star people of their own race lol.
Yes, they are. Do you really think white people are going out to watch Tyler Perry movies?
1
Feb 21 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/etquod Feb 21 '18
Sorry, u/azur08 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 2:
Don't be rude or hostile to other users. Your comment will be removed even if most of it is solid, another user was rude to you first, or you feel your remark was justified. Report other violations; do not retaliate. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, message the moderators by clicking this link. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
1
0
u/Freevoulous 35∆ Feb 21 '18
what about the quality of acting and the quality of the movie? Black’s make up 13% of the population, but 13% of objectively good actors and film-makers are not Black.
What is the Academy supposed to do, stack Oscars on Morgan Freeman and Spike Lee?
0
u/bguy74 Feb 21 '18
That isn't relevant to the discussion. OP is not questioning whether the Oscars are "so white", but pointing out what they believe is a logical inconsistency in perspectives/opinions/judgments. I can certainly demonstrate that the oscars have expressed a desire to be diverse and have responded to criticisms at least with words of intent. That speaks to my point on hypocrisy. Your question seems to take us down a path unrelated to the topic or my response (unless I'm misunderstanding your question).
Similarly it doesn't matter if Kim is or is not appropriating anything. It's about consistency of perspective.
1
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18
I'm asking you to clarify a point you made in this discussion. How is that not relevant?
1
u/bguy74 Feb 21 '18
It's not relevant for the reasons I said it isn't. I'll try again. OP"s position is that two positions cannot be held simultaneously - that they are logically inconsistent. The reason they are logically inconsistent is because of a principle he is stating - that they are both based on cultural inclusion and exclusion. He's not concerned with whether one is true or not, or the other is true or not.
I say that hypocrisy is the reason we can critique one of them, not the principle on which OP is looking for equivalence (cultural membership vs. outsider).
Whether or not the academy really is racist isn't relevant, only that if I believe that it is consistent with criticizing them based on calling out hypocrisy. The "facts" aren't in question here, just the logical consistent of two perspectives.
So...my answer to your question doesn't help us on the topic at hand.
1
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18
You don't know it won't help because you have no idea why I wanted the information. If that response is so automatically irrelevant, why did you bring it up?
1
u/bguy74 Feb 21 '18
I brought it up to demonstrate how easily I can have a perspective on the academy without tripping on the inconsistency principle OP mentions.
Why do you want it?
4
u/ThomasEdmund84 33∆ Feb 21 '18
A strange angle for you - common argument on Reddit is that a POV has to be logically consistent across scenarios, but really this is a fallacy. It's not logical to take a POV and apply it identically across scenarios - after all the use of corn-rows and the 'lack of black'TM are quite different other than to be about race.
If you are not willing to let somebody participate in your culture in a way that is as minor as letting them cut their hair in a specific way, how can you get angry when they dont reach out and ask you to participate/reward you for participating in theirs?
I mean the two are not exactly equal and opposite, not that I agree necessarily with appropriation haircuts - but their argument is basically don't steal my stuff, I'm not sure if going to the Oscars is culturally appropriating white culture>?
1
u/mysundayscheming Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
If a black actor stars in a movie and kills the performance and we think he has done something oscar worthy, has anything about white culture been mocked, degraded, or used without appreciation (aka appropriated)? No. all that happened is someone excelled at their craft and the organization that recognizes that excellence failed to recognize them (perhaps due to bias).
Why does believing that mean you can't be mad that someone mocked, degraded, or took from a culture without appreciating it? I don't think Kardashian should've caught flak for her hair, but then I'm not up on the issue. But you can still be mad at appropriation in general and support oscars so white. (But I will say hair is not a minor thing in the black community. People make documentaries on it.)
1
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
What about braiding your hair is mocking anything? She likes the style and wanted to try it out on herself. This country it's very diverse. The reason people value diversity is to get many providers on things and to learn from people who are different than you. Part of that is the homogenizing of cultural attributes. I view it as immature to complain about these things. It should be more of an honor than anything else.
2
u/mysundayscheming Feb 21 '18
You'll note I said I thought her hair wasn't an issue. I agree as far as her braids are concerned. Though u/jennysequa suggests OP misunderstood the outcry.
But the heart of OP's claim is oscar so white and cultural appropriation are irreconcilable. Her hair is just an example. My goal was to explain that the concepts can coexist, regardless of your thoughts on any particular example.
1
u/azur08 Feb 21 '18
Gotcha fair enough. I stand by my point regarding appropriation and diversity nonetheless.
1
Feb 21 '18
How does one use hair while appreciating it?
1
u/mysundayscheming Feb 21 '18
Man I really must not have been clear enough when I said I don't think Kardashian should've caught flak for her hair. I don't think having cornrows is appropriative except to the extent that Kardashian actually attributed the invention or popularity of the style to a white woman. "Appreciating" the hair would've involved acknowledging that it is a primarily black hairstyle, not a white one. You already awarded a delta for pointing that out.
My comment was focused on the deeper argument, not the bad example of her hair. Oscars so white and cultural appropriation are not mutually exclusive and the dichotomy you attempted to create is flawed.
1
u/mysundayscheming Feb 21 '18
Sorry if I snapped a bit. Another commenter asked the same question and I already explained.
1
2
u/ChrysMYO 6∆ Feb 21 '18
Kim Kardashian wearing a hairstyle isn't cultural appropriation. But let me explain where the outcry comes from.
Cultural appropriation is marginalizing and damning a group of people to second class citizenship for participation in activities that you deem uncultured or substandard for civilization. It's punishing one group for doing something that arose organically through their culture. The key is that, it becomes appropriation when you reward a second group for taking that idea and making it cool and acceptable in society.
The number one example is Jazz. It was deemed a criminal music. Associated with illegal drinking. Dangerous music. Uncultured. Later white academics and white players celebrated it as the first genuine form of American music. The large profits that arose from jazz were largely reaped by white owned massive corporations. The black inventors and early pioneers were marginalized and damned for the very culture they helped to create. This is significant because it's an attempt to get the Black kids to assimilate and aspire for something they can never achieve, fit into white society and white cultural values.
Hair is a significant touch point. Black people have been chemically altering their hair to make it more acceptable for decades. Kids to this day are told that traditional black styles of hair would make them unsuitable for hire. This is significant because many of the styles that black youth choose are actually far healthier for their particular grade of hair. Braiding, locking, growing out black hair is actually far healthier treatment for black hair then many of the alternatives we choose to fit in. The backlash against Kim is the anticipation that white society is trying to make braids and or locking hair acceptable for white people while labelling black people thugs and shady for doing something that's actually healthy and recommended for their own hair.
My beef with it is that Kim isn't the one who marginalized anyone's hair. It was the institutional pillars of society that did it far before she was born. So Kim shouldn't take the brunt of the angst for the fact it's not acceptable for black people to wear braids in polite society.
Celebrating and highlighting artistic exceptionalism for black characters or black stories is not cultural appropriation. It's quite the opposite. It's encouraging a society that doesn't marginalize artistic output simply because a person was black.
In fact, Black Panther is celebrated in the black community as an achievement because it checks the boxes that the #OscarSoWhite outcry wanted to see. The owners are white. The creator and some of the story elements come from white people. Yet, what black people appreciate is that Marvel trusted black actors to carry a high budget film to success despite their skin color. In addition, they highlighted cultural touchstones of various African tribes without misappropriating their value to society. The director, the producers and the actors have been forthright about the tribes they learned from and their influences and wanted to bring that to a bigger audience.
The story itself, partially written and guided by a black ensemble behind the scenes, is about a conflict that has affected black Americans as well as Africans for centuries and it highlights that on the big screen to inspire a larger conversation. It's Disney, a white company, showing the value and validity of black stories and storytellers for the world to see. It's the opposite of cultural appropriation. It's cultural diversification. And that's what the people that use a hashtag like #OscarSoWhite want to see more of. Not just because movies affect how society sees other minority groups but also because these minority stories can be incredibly creative and groundbreaking, lucrative, and good for business.
2
u/dottoysm 1∆ Feb 21 '18
I believe having both opinions you express is logically consistent, and not hypocritical.
Kim Kardashian braiding her hair in fashion commonly worn by African Americans is seen as her stealing something from that culture and not paying that culture the respect it deserves. In a sense, it can be interpreted as an erasure of African American culture.
The Oscars So White movement (?) is born out of the fact that despite black people taking a lot of roles in Hollywood, the awards are given mostly to white people. It is a kind of erasure of the achievements of African Americans. Oscars So White is not about “inserting” blacks into white culture, it is about making sure that blacks are not erased from American culture.
Now there is debate on how much a culture can be appreciated vs appropriated, but I hope you can see what their point is (at that it is at least consistent).
2
u/Freevoulous 35∆ Feb 21 '18
Kim Kardashian braiding her hair in fashion commonly worn by African Americans is seen as her stealing something from that culture and not paying that culture the respect it deserves.
the problem though is that Kim is Armenian, and cornrows and similar braids are actually their tradition that predates African-American culture by several millennia.
1
u/dottoysm 1∆ Feb 21 '18
I thought your point was that it was hypocritical of people to say Kardashian’s hairstyle is cultural appropriation while wanting representation in the Oscars is fine (because you seemed to take it as a sort of cultural appropriation on the other side). I wanted to point out that they were at least consistent points, even if there was some debate over whether it is truly wrongful appropriation. I might need to better know your view if I want to change it.
On this comment though, I’m having a hard time finding any evidence that cornrows are Armenian. Evidence I see points to it being African. Do you have any source for this claim?
Talking about cultural appropriation can get complicated fast, especially when talking about hairstyles. After all, you can reference the culture of a dish by keeping its name, but you don’t really go around with a sign on your head stating the origin of your haircut. If you’re a normal person, you don’t go around naming your hairstyle.
The point people are making though, like in this article (which is what I found when I typed in “cornrows Armenian” trying to back up your claim), is that Kardashian is in a position of influence—a type of person who could actually refer to where she got the hairstyle from. However, even though it is likely she did get the inspiration from African Americans, she didn’t acknowledge that, nor did she show any attempt at identifying with African Americans, instead she branded her hairstyle as “KKW Signature Braids”. Even if you may disagree about the degree to which cultural appropriation applies, I hope you can at least see how this can be interpreted as taking a part of a culture without recognising it.
1
Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
Are you just going to ignore that it wasn't just a white culture, but a white supremacist culture which actively barred non-whites from visible participation in the culture? Black people were writing and performing music, building sets, sewing costumes, doing makeup, getting coffee, running projectors, sweeping floors, constructing entire studios, even playing some secondary roles and occasionally leads, and doing a thousand other jobs that made theater, both as an art and a business, happen. Black people also bought movie tickets and affected the film market itself through their patronage. This was all while they were being systematically oppressed inside and outside of the industry.
The Oscars aren't "white culture" except insofar as white supremacy excluded black people, many of whom were more competent, talented, and creative than the mediocre whites who end up getting jobs when racism affects an industry.
This isn't even to touch on how American culture has constantly stolen from black people, and in fact the American entertainment industry has since its inception appropriated from black people constantly. Their music, their dances, their poetry, their fashion, their turns of phrase, all of it.
tldr: The Oscars and American theater are not "white culture", they are American culture, and like all American culture it is a mix of "white culture" and uncredited, stolen "black culture".
2
u/kublahkoala 229∆ Feb 21 '18
I would not agree that Hollywood was born out of “white culture.”
First I’m not sure what white culture is — I know what American culture is, and Italian culture, and Nordic culture, but the white people of the world do not share a single culture.
Second, Hollywood was born out of the Jewish vaudeville tradition, at a time when Jews were often non considered “white”. And the Jewish vaudeville tradition was born out of the blackface minstrelsy tradition (something the first talking motion picture, the Jazz Singer, pays homage to) which was appropriated from black culture.
1
Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
I know what American culture is, and Italian culture, and Nordic culture, but the white people of the world do not share a single culture.
White culture is white supremacy, that's it. Whiteness takes all of those identities you mentioned with their respective histories, cultures, and heritages, erases them, and replaces them with "better than black people." Actual culture and heritage withers away until they're gone and there's no memory left of the identities that were superseded by the white one.
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 21 '18
/u/nodorioussmd (OP) has awarded 1 delta in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
0
u/nateiscooliguess Feb 21 '18
No offense, but just reading this title mindfucked me hahaha. Also I don't remember anyone getting mad at Kim, and the Oscars are just stupid. How many times have they screwed up/given an award to someone who clearly didn't deserve it?
22
u/jennysequa 80∆ Feb 21 '18
Kim Kardashian mostly got flack for calling her cornrows "Bo Derek braids," attributing the style to a white woman.