![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
How I learned to stop worrying and not love tumblr's version of social justice
There are people on tumblr getting furious because a little girl wore a fauxhawk while being white. According to the folks who keep their oppression radars on too sensitive a setting, her parents are teaching her to steal and commit genocide because they let her get a haircut she likes.
For crying out loud, tumblr.
Why is it wrong to like something because it’s good? Why should people only be allowed to wear or like or do something if they happened to be born into the culture that originated it?
I make burritos all the damn time because they’re delicious, and because I’m in Mexico right now so the ingredients are easy to come by. But wait, I’m white, so should I not be allowed to do that? And should I start getting pissed off and offended whenever someone from the USA writes about Jack the Giant Killer and other British myths and legends, or eats fish and chips, or drinks tea, or — but wait, tea wasn’t originally English, so I should stop drinking that as well I guess.
Obviously people will have different ideas about where the limit of good taste is: for instance, I find it strange to romanticise and long after a whole culture based on liking one part of it (the way some people do with Japan). And I know I’m kinda privileged in the sense that nobody’s come into my country recently and carried off all the nicest stuff. But I have serious trouble understanding why some people think there should be these rigidly drawn lines between cultures that can never ever be crossed or else you’re being horrible and racist.
If cultures were never allowed to mix, there would be no Elvis, no TexMex, no pre-packed sushi in Tesco or tortillas in WalMart, and a hell of a lot more people who see other cultures as weird and alien because they've never been allowed to see them as familiar.
If something is good, I don’t think someone should be insulted and ridiculed for liking it because they have the wrong parents or the wrong colour skin.
And that’s my effortpost on the whole thing, I guess.
For crying out loud, tumblr.
Why is it wrong to like something because it’s good? Why should people only be allowed to wear or like or do something if they happened to be born into the culture that originated it?
I make burritos all the damn time because they’re delicious, and because I’m in Mexico right now so the ingredients are easy to come by. But wait, I’m white, so should I not be allowed to do that? And should I start getting pissed off and offended whenever someone from the USA writes about Jack the Giant Killer and other British myths and legends, or eats fish and chips, or drinks tea, or — but wait, tea wasn’t originally English, so I should stop drinking that as well I guess.
Obviously people will have different ideas about where the limit of good taste is: for instance, I find it strange to romanticise and long after a whole culture based on liking one part of it (the way some people do with Japan). And I know I’m kinda privileged in the sense that nobody’s come into my country recently and carried off all the nicest stuff. But I have serious trouble understanding why some people think there should be these rigidly drawn lines between cultures that can never ever be crossed or else you’re being horrible and racist.
If cultures were never allowed to mix, there would be no Elvis, no TexMex, no pre-packed sushi in Tesco or tortillas in WalMart, and a hell of a lot more people who see other cultures as weird and alien because they've never been allowed to see them as familiar.
If something is good, I don’t think someone should be insulted and ridiculed for liking it because they have the wrong parents or the wrong colour skin.
And that’s my effortpost on the whole thing, I guess.