Quickies
Quickies: Women’s sports aren’t boring, whiteness goggles, and librarian saves LGBT kids books from being banned
- There’s nothing boring about women’s sports – “One of the most maddening effects of patriarchy and misogyny in sports is that many women athletes need a tireless, almost evangelical backing to get noticed and be celebrated.”
- Slip on these “whiteness goggles” and the violence of cultural appropriation disappears – “Whenever there’s a high-profile act of cultural appropriation, like Katy Perry at the AMAs, there’s often a strong backlash among white people who say, “This isn’t a big deal. It’s just a costume. They’re just having fun.” As many people of color have pointed out, white people often derail conversations about racism by saying, “But I’m not racist!””
- Siri corrects those who misgender Caitlyn Jenner – From Donna.
- Texas librarian saves LGBT children’s books from parents who want them banned – “The books under attack are This Day in June, a picture book about a pride parade, and My Princess Boy, the story of a boy who likes to wears dresses.”
Is there such a thing as “whitesplaining” because I’m pretty sure I saw a lot of it in the comments of the Whiteness Goggles story.
You certainly aren’t the first one to use the term.
But then again, cultural appropriation is one of those social justice things I’m not actually totally on board with.
Shallow, ignorant sharing of culture is a necessary first step for sincere cultural understanding. I can’t help but thinking the harm and insult of cultural appropriation is less than the cost of people never being exposed to cultures and ideas different than their own.
I can’t actually get angry about it, unless it takes something culturally sacred and makes it a joke. It’s an inevitable consequence of mixing multiculturalism and ignorant people, one of which I value, the other of which I see as inevitable.
Oh, any privileged group can ‘splain to a non-privileged group. Even a group with relative privilege (but still disadvantaged in some key ways) can ‘splain to an even-more-marginalized group. (I see a lot of this on Twitter and Tumblr.)
But sweet Raptor Jesus, ‘white woman in cornrows’ isn’t what we meant by cultural appropriation! The concept developed out of white people using indigenous religious iconography and unearned honors or heraldry, and people like Andrea Smith and Ward Churchill, and more recently groups like NAISA, completely erasing Indians from discussions on Indians.
You could say modern social media activists appropriated cultural appropriation.