Adventures in Cultural Appropriation, Part II

    (Part 1 is here.)

    Made in America: How four iconic dishes with roots in other lands tell a story of immigration and transformation

    by Tim Carmen & Shelly Tan @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 11

    Spaghetti and meatballs, chile con queso, gumbo and the California roll have become American icons. Their journey to that point is one of immigration and transformation.

    Comments


    They've wiped Gen X off the map - kinda like Queen Elizabeth hanging around too long and Charles never getting to become king. The 3 main Dem candidates are *early* Boomers along with the fuckwad GOP president. I thought it okay tharlt people don't have to retire at 65, but that didn't mean I wanted them *running* everything. "Eat the rich" => "Eat the old" - a shame really, but it's their own fault. And the damn spineless aimless millennials - "there's an app/platform for that" - oh really?




    As a white guy with the gene to digest lactose I only eat race appropriate foods, milk and cheese products.


    Okay you made me laugh

    But then the cynical me thought that saying that is probably just a practiced ruse you use to pick up leftie cisgender womyn on the internet


    In a way, yes. I tend to make a lot of jokes. Many of them weird that a lot of people don't get. But most of the women I've been with told me one reason they were with me was I made them laugh.


    And Brussels Sprouts aren't from Brussels. In fact one of our strangest culinary stories is a huge case of plant appropriation - a wild Col. Mustard whodunnit:

    Knockoffs also include collard greens and gai lan (Chinese broccoli).

               

    More detail for the curious:

    https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/8/6/5974989/kale-cauliflower-cabbage-bro...



    This artist/collector is pro-appropriation:

    Q: The time span between early African art and contemporary art is wide. Do artists today appreciate traditional African art?

    A: Certainly I believe a handful do care about, study and are somewhat influenced by African art, particularly masks. And I feel I’m following in the footsteps of artists like Gauguin, Picasso, Modigliani, Klee, Matisse and, more recently, Bacon and Basquiat, who were emotionally connected to and influenced by traditional African art.

    from

    Caption: Olusanya Ojikutu at his house in Bowie, Md., with, left,
    a detail of one of his own paintings, “Labyrinth of Imagination”
    (2015), and right, a painting on a wood pallet by Dapo Ojoade.
    Credit...Emma Howells for The New York Times

    ‘Love at First Sight’ Inspired This African Art Collection

    Olusanya Ojikutu, who has origins in Nigeria and education and experience in art, shares treasures of African culture and history.

    By Audrey Hofer @ NYTimes.com, Dec. 25, 2019

    BOWIE, Md. — The white living room in Olusanya Ojikutu’s home, with its soaring cathedral ceiling, is a temple to his traditional and contemporary African art. Sculptures bookend the sofa, paintings and prints decorate the walls and the overall atmosphere is one of beauty, historic grandeur and repose.

    Most of Ojikutu’s sculptures are at least a century old, created for performances or rituals. “They served as intermediaries between the local people and their ancestors’ spirits to make their lives better and protect them from evil forces in this world and beyond,” he said.

    Among the dozens of sculptures are a metal Kota reliquary guardian figure from Gabon, a wood Bamana Chi Wara headdress from Mali and a wood-fiber Bwa plank mask from Burkina Faso.

    “African art has long been seen as a monolith, but it really has many different origins,” said Mr. Ojikutu, who is also an artist. “It should be recognized as more nuanced and coming from the many countries on the continent. I try to show that expanse of art forms and visual cultures in my collection.”

    Mr. Ojikutu, 50, from Nigeria, emigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s. He and his wife, Yinka, both work in technology and live with their two teenage sons in a Washington suburb [....]



    Actually I went in skeptical, but when I heard the 2 songs together, the copying seems pretty obvious. No doubt Pharell thought the different vocal scheme would give him a pass, but it's a bit like a Weird Al level takeoff - if you know the original, you know what's working off. And this isn't an obscure work.

    https://youtu.be/ziz9HW2ZmmY



    jimin. jiMIN. JImmJIN? jimin? JIMMINNF? JIMINNFN? pic.twitter.com/DWrrsjW7ao

    — mimi ☾ (@vmkouk) January 27, 2020

     



    She's talking about this:

    which I copied from here.


    roxane gay

     

    @rgay

    ·

    Jun 8

    I am not sure what’s funnier, those ridiculous politicians wearing kente cloth or Cory Booker smartly opting out of that absurd performance

     

    https://twitter.com/rgay/status/1270011463097147393


    Formerly the garb only of royalty, kente cloth is worn today by many people who regard it as a symbol of African pride and dignity, Kusimba said.

    Hey yoozall having a conniption - this Is just some congressfolk trying to show a symbol o African pride for the neck rather than a knee across the jugular. Kinda goes along with #TakeAKnee, but has nuttin to do with flags And the troops, dig?



    I was just imagining that most congresspersons probably get their "kente cloth" when they have need of a piece, at a little African import shop in DC, a shop which actually gets most of their stuff from a Nigerian huckster who has it made in Bangladesh....but that's just me imagining...



    not unlikely. Plus nowadays that little import shop in DC would be closed,never to reopen, going out of business, so you order direct from Alibaba and the Nigerian huckster has to find another way to make a living.

    All roads lead to China for the foreseeable future cause both workers and slaves they are used to wearing masks and following social distancing?


    Yeah, how have 1.4 billion people achieved no Corona deaths? It's a Miracle.


    Heh. I follow RalpieRozay just because he often comes up with stuff like this:


    Indonesian artist blends the medieval and the modern in digital art inspired by Hieronymus Bosch

    • Anindya Anugrah creates whimsical digital images that mix medieval and Renaissance themes with pop culture
    • A self-taught artist, she graduated with a law degree and left a job at a fintech company to work on her illustrations full time

    @ South China Morning Post, July 12


    I should say I am cynical about the narrative here, I suspect Riverdance is pushing the persecution meme for p.r. purposes...but whatever, it's all interesting


    And when does appropriation turn into appreciation or acceptable stamped appropriation. I can imagine some icky appropriation, but i doubt that covers all



    'They use our culture’: the Black creatives and fans holding K-pop accountable

    As K-pop grows, international fans and those writing and producing songs want the industry to to develop a more sensitive understanding of race

    by Elizabeth de Luna @ TheGuardian.com, July 20

    I have no words...


    2 very different issues -
    1) compensation for musicians sucks in general, and that a Korean label will steal a song & even the dance moves without acknowledgement and pay is pretty horrible. That it then gets sold back to America as well doubles the offense. $66 for a song for a major group is chump change. Even freelance writers get paid more than that, and written copy can be churned out much faster & easier than a song. (and we expect journalists to write stories every day. We don't expect the Beatles to write 360 songs a year, and they were exceptionally prolific compared to modern songwriters)

    2) asking a corporation to feel you? I mean, licensing is a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am transaction. Companies license for commercials, for political ads, sometimes when responsible for new bands that would normally not pay royalties.


    Apparently a Woke Rule is that it's encouraged to "appropriate" from white western European culture?

    Art-Historical References

    Throughout Black Is King, there are images of Beyoncé pictured as a Madonna figure. She cradles children on beaches, and she appears to exude a graceful intensity, as though she herself has been ordained by a higher deity. Sometimes, she even appears as the Madonna in paintings where she’s seen with a halo. Such representation has its roots in Renaissance paintings by the likes of Italian painters like Duccio, Giotto, and Raphael, who emphasized the Madonna’s motherhood and equanimity through triangular compositions privileging balance and beauty.

    Yet this is not the first time Beyoncé has pictured herself as the Madonna. She previously employed the photographer Awol Erizku to shoot a pregnancy announcement in which she’s shown garbed in a flowy veil amid a wreath bursting with flowers. When she gave birth, the photographer Mason Poole reprised that Madonna imagery, shooting her in a cascading fuchsia-colored gown.

    Beyoncé’s reliance on the Madonna trope can be seen as part of a larger project to recontextualize these art-historical tropes—typically reserved for white women—for a new audience. Such a goal finds a corollary in something Erizku once said: “I am trying to create a new vernacular, in terms of how you see my work and black art as being universal.”

    from The Art of ‘Black Is King’: Beyoncé’s New Visual Album Involves Today’s Best Artists and Curators by Alex Greenberger @ Artnews.com, Aug. 3

    (I think the whole article is moronic, BTW. White guy given "woke" assignment, doing it rather poorly. Chris Offli did the contemporary "culture wars outrage" version of this decades ago. But the Roman Catholic church has been doing Madonnas in all skin colors and cultural attire for millennia now, on purpose, to sell their religion across the globe.)


    All people have different sense of humor, you know? There was a time when only Jewish people could tell Jewish jokes. When I was in Florida, some Jews came up to me afterwards and told me two wonderfully funny Jewish jokes, which I then incorporated in my act. Never had a complaint, because it’s obviously done because the Jews have such wonderful jokes.

    That is true. We do.

    And you can’t say it’s racial—what do you call it? When you wear a bandanna hat or something and people say, “Oh, it’s cultural appropriation.” I’ve never heard anything as fucking stupid in my life. It’s wonderful to learn from other cultures. It doesn’t devalue the real thing. It’s just a kind of purity. Purity always goes wrong. You know when there was the worst witch-hunting? When the Puritans were in charge. It doesn’t work to be too pure, because people deny their own negative stuff and then they start projecting it onto other people. The main thing is to be tolerant, try and listen, and try and be kind. And everything else is just waste of fucking energy!

    excerpt from John Cleese Discusses Creativity, Political Correctness, Monty Python, and Artichokes

    A conversation with the English comedian about artistic inspiration, cultural appropriation, and tabloid journalism.

    By Michael Schulman @ NewYorker.com, September 20, 2020


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