Larping for Palestine

This season, I'll be mostly wearing ...

Photo (detail) by Spencer Platt

 

 

Those on the woke-left are usually very sensitive about the idea of cultural appropriation - i.e., the borrowing (or theft) of elements belonging to a minority culture by members of a majority culture and the parading of these elements in a manner that is both inauthentic and disrespectful in that it disregards any context of meaning. 

 

It is, say those who speak out against it, another form of colonialism in which marginalised and oppressed peoples are robbed of their identity and intellectual property rights, or reduced to the humiliated status of exotic other [1]. 

 

However, many of these same people are happy to wear a keffiyeh in order to show their support of the Palestinians. For this, they say, is not cultural appropriation, it is rather an act of cultural celebration and political solidarity. 

 

I have to admit, I'm not entirely convinced by this ... 

 

For one suspects there's a certain hypocrisy at work here and the creation of a double standard based on the (questionable) belief that it's okay to don Arab headgear when one is on a protest march, but not when one is attending a fancy dress party. 

 

In other words, if one is (posing as) an angry militant, fighting for social justice and to preserve the dream of Revolution - or if one acts in the sincere belief that one's ideology is grounded in Truth - then, apparently, all your actions can be justified.

 

But for those of us who recall Tom Wolfe's essay on radical chic [2], what we are witnessing now on university campuses in the West is just another form of posturing and performance on behalf of privileged young people searching for a fashionable cause via which they can signal their virtue; be that BLM or freeing Gaza.

 

As Kat Rosenfield writes, it's almost a parody of the student activism of the 1960s; more live action role playing in front of the TV cameras than real protest [3]. 

 

But it's also, of course, the chance to feel powerful and to pretend your life has some purpose; the opportunity for comraderie and community. But when this bonding exercise involves the bullying and intimidation of Jewish students, then maybe its time to remove the keffiyehs and stop larping for Palestine.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Cultural appropriation is something I have discussed and written in defence of elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark. See, for example, the post published on 5 August 2016: click here.  

 

[2] See the post 'Radical Chic: On Puncturing the Fourth Wall of Excess and Spectacle with AOC' (15 Sept 2021), in which I refer to Wolfe's essay from 1970: click here.

 

[3] Kat Rosenfield, 'Columbia is a parody of radical activism: LARPing students care more about partying than Palestine', UnHeard, (26 April 2024): click here.

 

 

For a related post to this one, click here.  

 

 

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Strategy (Notes on Blackfishing with Reference to the Case of Rita Ora)

If you're thinkin' of being my baby 

It don't matter if you're black or white

Albanian pop sensation Rita Ora is the latest star to be accused of blackfishing - i.e., adopting - or, if you prefer, appropriating - a look that is perceived to be African; braided hair, dark skin, full lips, curvaceous body shape, etc.

Why would she want to do this?

Well, presumably, in order to widen her fan base, increase her record sales, and raise her cultural status; for is there anything cooler today (certainly in the minds of advertisers and those who set or follow trends on social media) than being black, or, at the very least, bi-racial?

Blackfishing, then, is simply a contemporary form of what sociologists call passing - i.e., the ability of an individual to be regarded as a member of an identity group (or community) different from their own. Sometimes, this is a matter not merely of social acceptance, but survival; expressing one's true identity can be dangerous for all kinds of people, not just masked superheroes.

At other times, however, it's all about manipulating appearances in order to achieve fame and fortune. This may be cynical and show a lack of concern for others, but, to be honest, I don't have a problem with it. In fact, one might suggest that we're all just passing at some level; that all identities are styles and games of artifice - isn't that what the trans movement teaches us?

In other words, none of us are what we seem to be, or believe ourselves to be. And so, when I hear people getting upset about this issue, I don't doubt the sincerity of their outrage or the strength of their feeling. But I do think they're indulging in old-fashioned moralism and a naive form of essentialism.

And I would ask them: who really wants to be Doris Day when you can pretend to be Rihanna? 

Notes

For a related post to this one in defence of cultural appropriation, click here.

For a related post to this one on the case of Rachel Dolezal, click here. 

In Defence of Cultural Appropriation

Karlie Kloss on the catwalk for Victoria's Secret in 2012: 
So wrong, its right ...?

Cultural appropriation refers to the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another culture. These elements range from fashions, hairstyles and dance moves, to spiritual beliefs and religious practices.

It is seen by its opponents as almost always illegitimate, particularly when elements of a minority, marginalised, or subordinate culture are appropriated by members of a dominant mainstream society outside of their original context of meaning in an inauthentic and insensitive manner.

When this occurs, say the critics, then cultural appropriation reveals itself as a disrespectful and aggressive form of colonialism - often inherently racist in character - in which native peoples are robbed of their essential self-hood and intellectual property rights, or reduced to the humiliated status of exotic other.

Now, it just so happens that I'm not entirely unsympathetic to these arguments. Indeed, as a youthful reader of Nietzsche, I used to subscribe to a form of cultural puritanism (and cultural pessimism) myself.

Having said that, such views increasingly strike me as not only untenable philosophically, but politically pernicious. Push comes to shove, I think I prefer modern barbarism with its chaos of styles and superficial artifice; I like the ironic use of symbols and a sacrilegious refusal to take anything too seriously.    

For unlike those who fetishize the notion of culture as something that has to be revered and preserved in its pure form - particularly if it happens to be ancient and non-Western in origin - I don't regard it as a sacred quality possessed by a people which developed organically from within the conditions of their existence and shaped their unique identity. Rather, I think it's basically a form of masquerade.

Members of the culture cult regard modern civilization as the coldest of all cold monsters; something fundamentally antagonistic to genuine cultures rooted in blood and soil; something that sucks the very soul out of indigenous peoples the world over and transforms Geist into that which can be commodified and made kitsch. They desire a world in which everybody keeps it real.

But I'm quite happy for people to fake it and cheerfully borrow or steal ideas and looks. Quite frankly, I'd rather live in a world of fashion models wearing feathered headdresses on the catwalk than Indian braves solemnly preparing for war. 


Note: those interested in reading another couple of perspectives on this topic might like to see:

'In Praise of Cultural Appropriation', by the sociologist and cultural commentator Frank Furedi (Spiked, 15 Feb 2016)

'Victoria's Secret's Racist Garbage Is Just Asking for a Boycott', by the writer and columnist for Indian Country Today Media Network Ruth Hopkins (Jezebel, 11/12/12)

Baewatch

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKpo0v0wIbE

There invariably comes a point in the development of slang wherein it crosses the threshold that divides urban cool from the mainstream. When suddenly, terms used between a small number of linguistically creative and innovative hipsters are appropriated by unimaginative individuals who can only imitate and follow trends rather than set them - including those dullards in the corporate media and commercial world who try so desperately to be down with it. By way of an example of this, we might consider the brief evolutionary history of the term bae.     

As a term of endearment, bae is simply an abbreviated form of babe or baby and not - as some commentators rather ridiculously suggest - an acronym for before anyone else. It seems to have originated amongst young English speakers in the African-American community sometime in the middle of the last decade. From there, it quickly spread via social media and popular music into general urban usage before, finally, being seized upon by the big brands such as Pizza Hut and Burger King. Bae also found itself nominated in 2014 by the OED as one of the so-called words of the year.

If this marks a sign of its success, so too does it pretty much spell the end of the line for bae; it begins to bleach, as linguists say. In other words, whilst it persists as a term, it is increasingly drained of its colour and its vibrancy is appreciably diminished thanks to widespread usage as a marketing device and the unasked for granting of legitimacy.   

Still, we needn't spend too long mourning the death of bae; there'll always be new slang terms as the young, marginalised and stylish develop their own ways of speaking so as to confuse and confound old ears.