• 0 Posts
  • 7 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 11th, 2023
  • ricecake@sh.itjust.workstoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Vicariously Offended
    1·
    6 days ago

    Alright. It’s entirely incidental to the point I was making so I don’t feel particularly invested in defending his actions being the way he said they were.
    Replace it with one of the news stories about a politician wearing blackface if it makes you feel better, or fill in what you think would work better as a racist caricature outfit depicting someone from Puerto Rico.
    I stand by my original statement that if you think to yourself “I’m going to go to this Halloween party as a Puerto Rican (or any race)” you honestly shouldn’t do that, regardless of what comes into your mind when you picture that race, since races aren’t costumes.

    I’m not sure why you would think Boricua is related to food. It means a person from Puerto Rico. It’s like arguing that “#new-yorkers” is about food. If it was about food, or his costume wasn’t what it was, why would the picture just randomly be labeled with either this unknown food term despite no food being in the picture, or why would you go to a costume party not wearing a costume or as a generic baseball fan and post a picture of yourself labeled “Puerto Rican”? And then resign, referencing the Halloween costume amongst the list of racial insensitivities behind that choice?

    The person in the article who used the term brownface is a person who actually worked with him and would presumably be able to tell if he had put on makeup to change his skin tone.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.workstoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Vicariously Offended
    1·
    7 days ago

    In reality? Like anyone else.

    As a costume?

    The not-puerto-rican editor of the magazine bon appetit went to a Halloween costume dressed as a caricature of a Puerto Rican with his also not Puerto Rican wife.
    It came into my head as an example of something less obviously problematic than blackface, but more obviously problematic than dressing as a Disney character that’s a depiction of a different race.

    Feel free to substitute any other ethnicity or race into my example as it makes sense to you.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.workstoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Vicariously Offended
    32·
    7 days ago

    Incredibly generally: gender is the expression of gender identity and is a social construct while gender identity seems to be largely influenced by biological factors. Sex is the biological differentiation, and while the delineation between the sexes is culturally defined (if someone has xxy sex chromosomes, high testosterone, a penis, and a vagina it’s a cultural decision if we say they’re male, female or intersex), it’s a classification based much more on observable factors.

    Race and ethnicity are more akin to sex than to gender identity, which would be better compared to cultural identity.
    What distinguishes races is a social construct, but within a context racial classifications are relatively consistent. Racial markers that mean nothing in the US might be quite significant in Rawanda.
    Similarly ethnicity, being a blend of race, language, culture and heritage is socially constructed but relatively objective within a context.
    Culture on the other hand is, like gender identity, more to do with subjective feelings, opinions, and choices on the part of the individual, with the distinctions between them being cultural.

    The woman in question mislead people about her race and ethnicity by misidentifying her relatives and heritage. Her cultural affiliation is harder to dispute, although being a chapter president for the NAACP shows at least a degree of acceptance by the African American culture in the area.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.workstoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Vicariously Offended
    62·
    8 days ago

    What “idiots complaining about cultural appropriation”? It’s not exactly a common thing, despite what caricatures of them might make you think. No one is getting upset that anyone eats food from another culture.

    The only actual examples I can think of that I’ve actually heard discussed are “please don’t dress as my race as a costume, it’s basically blackface” and “my religion was systematically driven to the brink of extinction, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use it as a fun activity to express your creativity”.

    These things always seem chock full of getting defensive about something that doesn’t really happen, or acting like the smallest pushback to the dominant culture doing whatever they want is incredibly terrible.
    Appropriation isn’t an issue when it’s just cultures sharing. It’s an issue when people reduce the culture to the things in question, forget that there’s actually people involved who deserve respect, or outright claim ownership of the thing in question.

    Don’t go to a Halloween party dressed as a Puerto Rican. Don’t grab a random assortment of native American religious practices, mix them with crystals and use it to showcase your creativity.