What Cultural Appropriation is NOT

Cultural appropriation is real and can be very harmful, but Tumblr en masse has grossly misdefined it. Here are some examples of what isn’t cultural appropriation:

- Eating food from another culture - Properly practicing a religion from another culture. - Listening to music from another culture - Reading literature from another culture - Learning a new language - Respectfully wearing clothing from another culture in an appropriate setting, such as overseas, at a cultural event, wedding, etc. - Buying crafts from local craftsman. - Respectfully participating in cultural activities such as yoga, dreidel, and belly dancing - Respectfully wearing or using non-sacred icons or art from another culture, such as Chinese pottery or in some cases, henna. - Trying out instruments and tools from another culture, such as chopsticks or traditional writing instruments

Many people from other cultures are actually offended when Americans try to fight “cultural appropriation”. For example, many Japanese people thought that criticism of Avril Lavigne’s video was laughably ignorant at best and racist at worst. Also, in many countries, Americans who refuse to partake in cultural activities or traditional dress out of fear of appropriation are seen as snobbish and entitled. Additionally, many religions actively encourage evangelization. Saying that religions traditionally practiced by non-white people cannot freely spread has some very racist implications.

Being culturally literate actively fights racial prejudice or ignorance. Taking the time to learn another culture’s history, values, perspective, and traditions makes people better citizens. For example, understanding how various cultures and religions view illness will help me be a better nurse. Cultural competence can only help society, and it prevents genuine, offensive cultural appropriation.

There are definitely some gray areas when it comes to cultural appropriation. Some Christians find non-Christians using crosses in fashion offensive, while some do not, for example. Intent can also carry some significance. For example, someone may fully understand the sacred meaning of the ankh and feel a strong spiritual connection to it. Another person may just think it looks cool. Both wear an ankh ring, but one would definitely not be appropriating while the other has entered a gray area.

Some cultural practices overlap as well. Tattooing has been practiced around the world by many cultures that didn’t come into contact with each other, for example. Meditation has also been practiced around the world. Buddhist mediation is arguably the best known, but nearly every culture and religion has one or more varieties of it. (I personally like the method practiced in Ancient Ireland best, because it’s the only one I personally know that allows one to think exclusively in words. It’s not physically possible for an NLDer to “turn off” verbal thinking, so most other forms of meditation are inaccessible.)

Historically, separating cultures often leads to cultural incompetence, xenophobia, discrimination, stereotyping, and racism. Cultural appropriation is bad, but that doesn’t make cultural segregation good.

Creepface

Online image search tool and Chrome extension that claims to locate US sex offenders in it’s database with facial recognition analysis:

The Creepface online search engine can be found here

REBLOOOG

reblooogggggg!!!!!

Keep all the girls safe! And stay safe girlies.

Reblog constantly!

Keep all the GUYS safe too! Not just females get sexually assaulted.

keEP THE HUMANS SAFE

it’s not your job to entertain him by sending him nudes

it’s not your job to satisfy him sexually because he’s horny

you are not required to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable or that you don’t want to do

don’t be scared of “losing him”

he most likely wasn’t anything worth keeping

Girls need to be taught this from such an early age.

a boner is not a medical condition. you are under no obligation to do anything.

The only time a boner is a medical condition is if the person with a boner has had one for four hours or more and they should really talk to their doctor about that.

@ the anon who just asked me if they should stop talking to a boy who kept asking them for nudes

French Friend: well, the total cost of me going to Med school is about 406 a year - American Friend: THOUSAND? French Friend: Um, no. 406 Euro. It sounds a little high but it covers the cost of my textbooks, extra classes and most of my housing. How much is it for you?

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

what the fucking fuck though

it takes 460 hours of training to become a cop. it takes 1600 hours of training to cut hair. 

Something ain’t right

in the 2011-2012 school year, 90% OF ALL EXPELLED GIRLS IN NEW YORK CITY WERE BLACK. ABSOLUTELY NONE WERE WHITE.

data from the Department of Education reports that “black children make up just 18 percent of preschool enrollment, but 48 percent of preschool children suspended more than once.” preschool. PRESCHOOL. i don’t know if you have much experience with preschoolers, but i worked with them at a charter school and a private school in providence and let me tell you—THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. (aka too fucking much) if someone’s suspending a preschool child more than once it’s usually not because the child is really acting worse than every other student—it’s because the teacher doesn’t have as much patience for that student as they do for everyone else. of fucking course that’s going to reflect racist bias.

it’s really important to think about institutional racism against the black community as life-threatening from birth to death BECAUSE IT IS. forced sterilization, school to prison pipeline, unequal access to medical resources, extrajudicial punishment and killing, overt employment discrimination, clear erasure of voices and history.. where does it end?

EVERY Target shopper NEEDS to know this:

If the price ends in 8, it will be marked down again.

If it ends in a 4, it’s the lowest it will be.

Target’s mark down schedule:

MONDAY: Kids’ Clothing, Stationery (office supplies, gift wrap), Electronics.

TUESDAY: Women’s Clothing and Domestics.

WEDNESDAY: Men’s Clothing, Toys, Health and Beauty.

THURSDAY: Lingerie, Shoes, Housewares.

FRIDAY: cosmetics

WHOOOOA. Will keep in mind!

THIS IS THE GREATEST INFORMATION I HAVE EVER LEARNED FROM TUMBLR.

filed under: important information that everyone needs to know

While no one was looking, Congress passed a bill addressing police killings

Wait. Congress did something right?

NB4R this is wonderful news.

Monica Sjoo, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth  (via thewaking)

Literally the most important thing you will read today.

(via darvll)

"Cat Call" by Ursa Eyer (Source)

"Here’s a short comic about my personal experiences with Cat Calling. Keep in mind, this is a very VERY vanilla version. I kept out all the super horrible and gross stuff because, I’m hoping this gets my point across. This comic is only meant to illustrate my history with this upsetting part of our culture."

A comic on cat calling through the years. So to speak.

Honestly the “hey sexy” “look at those tits” started at 12 for me, so yeah I’d say the ages are a bit out, otherwise v good.

New reports from Harvard researcher Dr. David Reich: ALL non-African people share Neanderthal DNA. The implications of these findings are ENORMOUS! This means Darwinian evolutionary theory ( ‘Origin of Species’) DOES NOT apply to black people. Africans are the ONLY homogeneous human species. Europeans and Asians, on the other hand, evolved from inter-breeding with Neanderthals that left Africa 600’000 years ago. Point being, indigenous Africans are the ONLY pure human race. White people LITERALLY came from cavemen. #knowthyself #melanin #biology #evolution

it’s the god in me

k now this is HILARIOUS!!!!!

here’s more!

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/01/neanderthals-dna-legacy-linked-to-modern-ailments/

10.15.14

Jon teaches Bill about white privilege.

adoredelano

Anybody in the food-services industry who does this to their customers is a cunt who deserves to lose their jobs. Not only is it just down right wrong, but it could be dangerous to somebody who has particular dietary requirements.

Having had the unfortunate experience of living with somebody who works at Starbucks, I have no doubt that this shit happens.

i’m lucky enough to have encountered a barista malicious enough to do this to me - i ordered a decaf latte with soy milk and they gave me fully caffeinated with cow’s milk. cue hours of panic attacks and feeling sick. ugh

Why do some baristas think its adorable and clever to dick around with people’s specifications?  They can kill someone with allergies with this shit. 

I get the dirtiest looks when I order anything with soy there. I’m Lactose Intolerant, and this bitch decided to give me whole milk in my macchiato. I took one taste and handed it back to her. She looked at me like I was crazy and said “What? Something wrong?” I looked her dead in the eye and said “Well yes actually, I ordered and was charged for soy milk. This has whole milk, I want you to re make it and get me a manager so I can discuss how your company thinks it’s funny to hand out purposefully wrong drinks when the person they’re handing them to gets sick when those requirements aren’t met.” She stood there for a second looking at me confused and I sighed and said “I’m lactose intolerant bitch, fix my fucking drink before I get you fired on health code violation.”

As a lactose intolerant too, I know how you feel. Such a pity I ordered a soy capuccino and didn’t noticed this bitch added whole cow milk instead because my nose was all stuffy, I just couldn’t taste. And I guess it wasn’t an accident since she gave it to me with a full smile on her face.

I drank the whole thing.  My face instantly became red and itchy, my stomach ached, it got hard to breathe and I couldn’t feel a thing because of how swollen my fingers were. Plus, I suffered an asthma attack in front of everyone. My boyfriend called an ambulance while crying like crazy, mom literally ran to the nearest pharmacy to get me an inhaler and my best friend was about to punch someone.

I slept in the hospital, with an oxygen mascara on my face and continuous medication. When I was finally able to leave the place, we took the whore to court, showing off proofs and more than enough witnesses to beat the shit out of her.

How all this ended, you might be wondering. Well, I tell you; we obviously won the case. She was instantly fired and had to pay over 1,500$. Plus, Starbucks rewarded me with endless coupons, discounts, free breakfasts… yeah, it all went smoothly.

ps: Not everyone is a skinny bitch. And well, if they were, it would be none of your douchebaggy bussinesses.

Every time this post appears on my dashboard, it has another horror story attached to it. I’m so fucking mad this thing even happens, like WTF? Fucking with the customer’s order is wrong on every level possible: it’s rude, it’s DIRECTLY against the food server’s job, it’s immoral, it’s potentially deadly.

Dear douchabag baristas, if you want to do prank on unsuspecting customers, how about you just fucking spell their name wrong instead of, you know, RISKING THEIR LIFES?!

Even if people aren’t allergic, it’s not your job to decide what’s best for other people, or to exact “justice” on people you don’t know. 

This is the same sort of attitude that people have that make them think they can misgender people on the job, or decide who can go into what washroom.  Or people who think that fat people should have diet soda instead of what they order.  You don’t have to personally like fries to serve them, you don’t have to like somebody to be polite to them on the job, and you don’t have to agree with somebody’s lifestyle or appearance or whatever, to treat them like a customer. 

And yes, as pointed out above over and over, you can really hurt people by not honoring their specific food requests too.  Or you can upset them.  An anorexic would be really upset by something like this too, and it could cause them to skip any meals they would normally manage to eat.  I know some people don’t have much pity for anorexics and think that it’s good to mess with them, but they’re human beings too, who are struggling with a serious mental illness which has the highest mortality rate.

And ultimately, as I always say when I present trans inclusion (and this applies to all groups of people), even if you aren’t convinced to like us, care about us, or believe what we say about ourselves & what we need, you don’t have to, you just have to do your job.  And as a barista, your job is to serve the drinks your customers order, not to prank them, bully them, or decide what’s best for them.

**UPDATED**

if you, like me, get so angry when discussing or debating current issues with ignorant/bigoted people that you can’t articulate your thoughts, here is a list of arguments i’ve seen so far defending darren wilson or going against the ferguson protests, with...