Visiting Column #64 -- Who Can Do "Cultural Appropriation?"

I'm sure that many of you who are regular readers might recall this column, one of the most popular in the series, dealing with the topic of "cultural appropriation."  As you'll remember (but please read it if you haven't), the topic was a bunch of spoiled college students at the very leftist Oberlin College, who were complaining about the authenticity of ethnic foods the cafeteria was serving there.

Someone mentioned the column itself not too long ago, which got me thinking about the topic of cultural appropriation.  Now, mind you, I have a pretty fixed opinion on the subject.  "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", the saying goes, and when people from one culture enjoy the food, or attire, or other attributes of another culture, it is a good thing.

Unless, of course, you are white.

Now, I don't suppose there is an actual thing that is "white culture."  There certainly are characteristics of, say, Italians, that are very specific to Italians, who are white, but are foreign to Irishmen, who are also white.  Barbecue is an American southern thing, but lots of southerners are not white, of course.  

Country-western music?  Maybe that is (or was) a white southern thing, but Russians, who are white, don't get it at all.  I think you get the idea.

But there certainly is one thing that weirdly unites all those white folks, including those mentioned above, and all the Serbs and Croats, the Norwegians and Newfies, the Scots and Greeks and Turks as well.

We are, according to the leftists, not allowed to appropriate the attributes of other cultures.

Now, I have the issue that I'm starting from a position that what the woke left calls "cultural appropriation" is actually a good thing, not something used to make white people feel like we have committed a crime.  If an American girl like Keziah Daum chooses to wear a Chinese dress to her prom, that seems like a really good thing, not only because it is broadening her school's awareness of style, but because it just looked nice.  So I'm not sure what more needs to be said on that side.

But the point is that if the woke left thinks that cultural appropriation is bad, then it has to be a bad thing universally.

Do you want to explain hair straighteners to me then?

There is a reasonably-sized section in the toiletries section of my local supermarket stocked with hair straightening products.  Since all the pictures on them are of people who are black, one can fairly safely assume that the products are targeted for black people, right?  And since black people's hair is generally not straight, but Asian and most white people's hair is, is not fair to call that cultural appropriation?

I suppose that I could add all manner of examples of non-Caucasians habitually doing, saying or eating things that are characteristic of cultures that are of Caucasian.  As I said before, there really isn't a "white culture" but there are multiple cultures with specific attributes that are indeed each made up of white people.

What would a Russian think if a black person did a good job (or a bad job) on a kazatzki, that curious dance with all those kicks to the side that we all associate with partying Russians?  Should that be a no-no, or would the Russians joke with the dancer about there being maybe a little vodka in the dancer's ancestry, and everyone laughing heartily?

I imagine that you get the idea by now.

Cultural appropriation, done by anyone in the imitation of any other culture (i.e., sincerely and without mockery), is a good thing.  If I, a non-Pole, want to eat pierogies, or Mike Tyson wants to wear a lei, or David Ortiz, a native Dominican, dresses up one day like a Punjabi (though admittedly, a very large Punjabi), shouldn't we smile and enjoy what the other culture has to offer?

There is an answer to that.  The answer is "yes."

When I was 25, there was a presidential election, between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.  One of the candidates (Carter) was celebrating the charms of some community in some city somewhere where he was campaigning, and used the term (unfortunate even then) "ethnic purity", in an attempt to praise the community's attributes.  

He meant well, of course.  But he ended up having to apologize (well, he didn't have to, but the 1976 version of the woke elite forced him to).  Instead, he should have come up with a description of what it was about that community that he was celebrating, and then maybe imitating it, since no one was calling it "cultural appropriation" back then. 

But they are calling it that now.  My point is that we should, or at least call it something.  And then we should recognize that it is actually a good thing.

Even when applied to hair straighteners.

Copyright 2021 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Visiting Column #63 -- It Was Real, Tashi

Back in 2003, our old cat, Chester, passed away after contracting feline diabetes.  He had walked into our lives as a tiny kitten 14 years earlier, back when we lived in the hills on 13 acres of woods full of stray cats.  He had apparently separated from the rest of the litter, and saw our house as a refuge.

When he died, we had moved to the suburbs in Virginia, and had decided he mostly belonged to my mother-in-law, who lived with us at the time.  Because my wife was working at the time, my mother-in-law came with me when we took Chester to the vet that final time, received the diagnosis and the strong recommendation that he be allowed to go to sleep.  We went home without a cat but with many tears.

Tashi's first days with us

My wife and I decided that her mother would be better off with a new kitten, so we found a breeder of Himalayan kittens in the next state and arranged to meet him one Saturday.  We told my mother-in-law to relax at home, that we were going out for a while to "look at mattresses", and came back hours later to an angry old lady, wondering where we had been so long ... until I reached into my jacket and took out a furry little kitten that looked like a tiny koala.

We named her "Tashi", having looked up names in the Nepalese language, and Tashi meant something positive that I can't remember.  I do remember that we knew even then that Himalayan cats are not native to the Himalayan area at all, but are a fairly recent cross between Persian and Siamese cats, blending the furriness of the Persian with the points of the Siamese.

Seven months and loving carpets

Tashi attached herself to us quite well; we never allowed her out of the house, and she learned to get around both upstairs and down as she grew into later kittenhood and got bigger and stronger.  By six months her coloration had developed, to where the little koala nose was now the dark face and the ears, feet and tail had all filled in their coloration.  She didn't have the full furriness of later years yet, but a very thick and healthy coat, and she loved having it petted, as long as you were the right person.

 She almost didn't see those "later years", though.  At about three years old, she developed an indeterminate illness characterized by total lethargy and lack of appetite.  We brought her to the vet, and they tried various remedies and diagnostic tests -- the bill was about $3,000 when we were done -- and still couldn't figure it out.  Finally, he said that they would give her a steroid treatment and send her home. "If it's going to work, you'll know it in 24 hours," he told us.

It worked.  The steroids quickly cleared up whatever was wrong, and a day later she was up and around, healthy and happy and sleeping most of the time like a normal cat.  Of course, there had been the time she ate a twist tie and required an operation to remove it (we stopped using twist ties from then on).  But she was a part of us all that time, a furry, sleeping part of the family.

"Christmas Cat", 2014

Tashi was "Christmas Cat."  Each year, the first night after we would put the tree up, you'd wake up to find her sleeping on the tree skirt under the branches, or looking up from that position as if to say "You got a problem with this?".

That was every Christmas, right through the last one.  You know, it seems odd to feel how connected a cat can be to a family, especially since they really don't do tricks, they sleep a lot, and they decide what they will and won't do, as if they are actually the rulers of the home, which we all know that they are.  We content ourselves with their idiosyncrasies and love them for those consistencies.

Rooting for the Sox over Seattle, 2011

She didn't work for a living, but she did have a knack for finding the nearest laptop keyboard, and God forbid you leave a computer unattended for very long.  You would be very likely to return to work only to find a large furball with a head, sitting on the keys and looking back at you, and wondering what you thought you were doing disturbing her like that.

It didn't have to be work, either.  For a few years, in the evenings I would put the Red Sox games on the laptop while my best girl and I watched TV, and while most of the time Tashi lay on her lap, occasionally she'd waltz over to my side of the couch and plunk herself down on the keyboard.  I'm not kidding, of course, as you can see by the picture at left.

Enjoying her couch bed in January

Tashi turned 17 last Fall, and had slowed her pace down tremendously in her old age, with an arthritic back controlled by glucosamine.  She found fairly reliable places to sleep, although she could still climb up on the couch as needed, including the one we'd normally find her in when we woke up.  

We bought her a bed and put it on the couch.  She typically hated beds, but this one seemed to comfort her more than the others, and she curled up frequently in feline bliss (right), having outlived the typical age for the Himalayan breed by a couple years already.

About a month ago, we started waking to find that Tashi had eaten nothing, or almost nothing, overnight, when she typically ate.  We changed up on the type, shape and flavor of the food, but it was pretty clear that she was no longer interested in eating, and was drinking less than usual.  You know what that means, but you don't want to let yourself think it, and you just can't talk about it.

We moved her water bowl (which she lapped at occasionally), her food (which she didn't touch) and her litter box (which she used as always) all into the sunroom that she now stayed in, laying on the floor.  In the last week, God was so kind; He gave Tashi plenty of sunny days to where she could move herself into the area of the floor where the sun was shining to warm herself.

Other parents might have chosen to bring her to a vet, but this was the seaside Carolina shore home we had brought her to four years ago, and as it didn't appear that she was in real pain as Chester had been, we felt like she should be allowed to go on her own terms, enjoying the sun that God was giving her in her last few days.  Despite her limited mobility, she was still able to use the litter box, still able to sip a little water, and lay in the sun the rest of the time.

Our beloved kitten went to go warm the laps of the angels last Saturday, the 13th.  We buried her earthly remains in the back yard, under a marker that is a sleeping cat with angel wings, and we no longer will have a pet, we have both decided.  While there is no longer cat fur to vacuum up and litter boxes to empty, no food and water bowls to clean and fill, we would gladly trade all the care for a few more years with Tashi.  

But she had loving parents who cared for her her entire life.  She outlived all the targets and as we say, in the world of cat lives, she "won the battle."  

I'm so glad it was we who got to serve her, "La Reina Gattita" as a former cleaning lady called her.   

In coelo quies est.

Copyright 2021 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Visiting Column #62 -- Let Joe Talk, It Can't Hurt

Sorry it's been a while since the last column, but it's been a challenge to identify the stupidest, most hypocritical actions and statements by the left to pick one to expound on.  Suffice it to say that at this point, any concerns I have about my own life are alleviated when I realize that there are people out there concerned about the gender of a plastic potato.

So ... Joe Biden.

There is a bit of "emperor's new clothes" about this.  The con-man magicians are spinning a mystical tale about how this geriatric old fellow, whom we can see no longer can make coherent sentences reliably, is actually the president of the United States, and that he is making decisions behind the curtain and knows what he's doing.

We in the sane half of the country, of course, can see right through the nonsense and realize that the emperor is naked, or at least understand the fiction that Biden knows what he is doing when he signs anything.

So a lot of people were a bit surprised when on two different occasions in the past week, at the end of a short video-cast statement from the White House, Biden stumbled around verbally and said he'd take questions if he was "supposed to", as if someone else makes the rules (hint: his predecessor made the rules).  You could almost anticipate someone yelling "Cut the feed!", and we all saw the video screen changing to a "Thank you for watching" frame.

So clearly the puppet masters running things in the White House these days did not want the guy who is supposed to be the president of the United States taking questions.

But I'd be like, "Let him take questions, who cares?".

If that sounds insane, think about it.  Joe Biden essentially never campaigned.  he stayed in his basement, came out for a couple of debates where he mostly staggered through them, and then was declared to have gotten more votes than Donald Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, an amazing thing, given the effort that had to go into printing up all those curious absentee ballots that made it through the mails both ways with no creases and with machine-filled ovals.

He got sworn in, so I guess he is the president.  We'll let that slide.

All that happened, and not a single court has chosen to assign standing to anyone filing a challenge to any state to actually see evidence to the contrary, evidence of voting fraud.  The left won.

And if they won that, they can win anything.  So what is the harm in letting Uncle Joe take some questions?  They should be thinking about the worst thing that can happen, which aside from vomiting or passing out, would be saying something stupid, you know, like "I actually did grope that teenager."

Because, then would would happen?  Nothing!

Why?  Well, a few things.  First, the press is so far in the bag for Biden that even the worst thing he would say would be missing entirely from all the major networks' evening news except for maybe Fox, missing from CNN, missing from NBC, and on page 1,442 of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Whatever-they-print-there.

The press has zero to gain by embarrassing Biden, and there is simply no accountability or consequence for their ignoring what he said, however much it would suggest that he not be in the right job, or the right residence, or his right mind.  They can simply devote their front pages to more important topics, like what guy just broke the ladies' 100 freestyle record, or the gender of plastic potatoes.

The other thing is that the 2020 election literally showed that there is no downside to massive, multi-theater election fraud.  The left now controls the ballot box in much of the country, and as Josef Stalin said so accurately, "It's not who votes, but who counts the votes." Well, he said it in Russian, but you get the drift.

So if it really doesn't matter what Biden does in the course of a "press conference", or whatever rigid structure they'd come up with, then why worry?  He can do the whole thing in Pig Latin, and it still won't make the Evening News.  He can toss lunch on his script, and it wont affect the outcome of a single election next year, because of who is counting the ballots.

Just let him answer a few questions!  He won't even be held responsible for anything he says, even if it contradicts something he said five minutes earlier.  There is no one to hold him accountable.  Those who get their news from the leftist mainstream media won't even know it happened, because they won't be told.

They'll eventually assume it was a made-up story when they finally hear about it, and will discard it as Joe being Joe, and when the next year's elections come up, they'll forget about plastic potato genders and the dissolution of women's sports, and the voting fraud they've been told never happened, and vote for Democrats all over.  

And no, there won't be enough of those votes, but there will be more than enough machine-printed, deceased-voter and illegal-alien ballots to ensure they hold power.

Because, oh yeah, it is all about power.  So let Joe answer.  It won't make a difference.

Copyright 2021 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton