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Sep. 27th, 2016 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariIn response to: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/white-people-please-dont-paint-sugar-skull-on-your-face-this-halloween ...
As a Mexican, and someone who celebrates Halloween, Dia Del Los Santos and Dia de Los Muertos (they're multiple days), I'm going to say this to White People: I WANT YOU TO PAINT A SUGAR SKULL ON YOUR FACE.
But I want you to do something FIRST. Before you paint on the sugar skull, I want you to educate yourself on the day. Learn about what it is, what it means, and why the day is sacred to the Native World. And I mean it - learn about it, don't just watch Book of Life, even though that's a GREAT movie.
Once you know who Catarina is, who Santa Muerte is, what Mictlan is? You can wear that sugar skull all you want.
And this isn't a thing where once you learn about these things, you won't want to wear them. It's just straight up education.
Cultural Appropriation is kind of an issue for me. But not in the way most people have issues with it. As I see it, there are usually three reasons people appropriate cultural clothing/manners/traditions: Ignorance, Parody, Invitation/Assimiliation/Education.
If you're wearing/doing something cause it's cool, it's fun, or just cause everyone else is, it's ignorance and it's wrong. If you're doing it to make fun of it (for good or for evil), it's parody. I consider Invitation/Assimilation/Education to be the only real reason you can culturally appropriate something.
If someone from that culture invites you to learn about their culture, you can take part in it. You may even, with that culture's permission, BECOME part of it.
If you've lived in that culture long enough, you may end up assimilating into it. You may even, with that culture's inclusiveness, BECOME part of it.
IT all boils down to the third word in that three-word-chain: Education. Invitation allows you to educate yourself in that culture. Assimilation allows you to educate yourself in that culture. And in my view, education, the study of said culture, can allow you to take part in it, if you truly (truly) understand it. This includes (along with Assimilation and Invitation), whether you CAN participate as a non-member of that culture.
If you can speak of the meanings, the culture, the history, and the people of that culture, you SHOULD be able to participate. If you genuinely KNOW what Day of the Dead is, and means, then you can genuinely WEAR that sugar skull. And I WANT you to.
As a Mexican, and someone who celebrates Halloween, Dia Del Los Santos and Dia de Los Muertos (they're multiple days), I'm going to say this to White People: I WANT YOU TO PAINT A SUGAR SKULL ON YOUR FACE.
But I want you to do something FIRST. Before you paint on the sugar skull, I want you to educate yourself on the day. Learn about what it is, what it means, and why the day is sacred to the Native World. And I mean it - learn about it, don't just watch Book of Life, even though that's a GREAT movie.
Once you know who Catarina is, who Santa Muerte is, what Mictlan is? You can wear that sugar skull all you want.
And this isn't a thing where once you learn about these things, you won't want to wear them. It's just straight up education.
Cultural Appropriation is kind of an issue for me. But not in the way most people have issues with it. As I see it, there are usually three reasons people appropriate cultural clothing/manners/traditions: Ignorance, Parody, Invitation/Assimiliation/Education.
If you're wearing/doing something cause it's cool, it's fun, or just cause everyone else is, it's ignorance and it's wrong. If you're doing it to make fun of it (for good or for evil), it's parody. I consider Invitation/Assimilation/Education to be the only real reason you can culturally appropriate something.
If someone from that culture invites you to learn about their culture, you can take part in it. You may even, with that culture's permission, BECOME part of it.
If you've lived in that culture long enough, you may end up assimilating into it. You may even, with that culture's inclusiveness, BECOME part of it.
IT all boils down to the third word in that three-word-chain: Education. Invitation allows you to educate yourself in that culture. Assimilation allows you to educate yourself in that culture. And in my view, education, the study of said culture, can allow you to take part in it, if you truly (truly) understand it. This includes (along with Assimilation and Invitation), whether you CAN participate as a non-member of that culture.
If you can speak of the meanings, the culture, the history, and the people of that culture, you SHOULD be able to participate. If you genuinely KNOW what Day of the Dead is, and means, then you can genuinely WEAR that sugar skull. And I WANT you to.
