So, I always keep a few live captive humans on my starship for research purposes and well, if I’m being honest, also because it can get pretty lonely in space. I might add that these Homo sapiens represent a pretty diverse array of humanity from various ethnocultural, socioeconomic and gender backgrounds as I’m an equal opportunity Predator. I only really mention this so I don’t come across as completely ignorant as I explain my story.

Anyways, more often than not during the daily probing of my humans, they passively-aggressively comment on the fact that despite me being an alien warrior hailing from the furthest reaches of space, I have human-like “dreadlocks”. One day after I violently forced them to play Space Bingo with me, I revealed to them that for most of my 5679 years, I did not have these dreadlocks and that only in the last few decades did I adopt the stylish dread-like extensions they now see protruding from my central brain sac.

They told me that what I was doing was cultural appropriation and that I was no better than the white humans, particularly the white human celebrities that sport dreadlocks purely for the “trend,” like the human youth monarch known as Kylie Jenner.

I began to wonder if I was truly just as bad.

I mean, I’m definitely worse. Don’t get me wrong. I hunt innocent, intelligent alien life purely for sport. But I meant more in terms of whether I was also guilty of this cultural appropriation.

After some introspection, I realized they were right. I grew out and fashioned my cranial tendrils into ‘dreads’ because I thought it made me look cool. Years prior, I saw that many notable humans including the human Reggae icon Bob Marley had them and I wanted to get in on the trend. This decision was only reinforced more recently after I watched Blank Panther and saw that the apex of human physiology known as Michael B. Jordan sported them as well. Oof Killonger.

Well, I now know that dreadlocks aren’t “just for fun” to quote the Instagram caption of the also physically impressive human known as Zac Efron, when he posted a picture of himself with dreadlocks. As my human prisoners later explained to me, dreadlocks are part of a cultural identity which I don’t have the right to adopt, as a member of a privileged, historically oppressive, violence-seeking, Xenomorph-slaying alien race.

On top of that, I learned that many African American humans are still discriminated against for employment opportunities because of their dreadlocks. And for me to sport them just because I think it adds an extra ‘wow’ factor for when I turn off my cloaking device and theatrically reveal myself to prey, is unacceptable. Furthermore, I’m sure the black human community doesn’t appreciate their dreadlocks being adopted by a maniacal alien with a sphincter for a mouth.

For my insensitive actions I feel much regret. Not the violent alien predation though. No regret there.

This realization led me to contemplate my society’s previous actions even further. I was told that cultural appropriation is when a dominant culture takes an element of a minority culture after having systematically disenfranchised those same people in the past. According to this definition then, I’ve realized that any culture we Predators try to adopt will be considered cultural appropriation as there isn’t a group in this galaxy we war-mongering alien Predators haven’t screwed over and persecuted.

Even the white humans.

One of my fellow Predators, Nadine-X12-Prime has recently started wearing Patagonia jackets, eating Nature Valley and standing still at concerts. Is she appropriating white culture? If Nadine-X12-Prime was a non-white human many would say that it is not cultural appropriation. But since Nadine-X12-Prime is a Predator, who historically preys on the humans that come out of Soul Cycle and Macklemore shows, one could argue that now, her cream-colored Patagonia zip-up is culturally appropriated.

And what about my beloved shoulder mounted plasma canon? Did I culturally appropriate that from the Gorlax people of Jupiter-7 after I pillaged their civilization? To them, that shoulder canon was a religious rite of passage. And I just used it to aimlessly shoot at that California governor. I’m deeply sorry Gorlaxes.

And even the practice itself of unfairly ruling over other groups without their consent? Did I culturally appropriate that from the British humans? My bad.

I think I have a lot of reparations to make. Which is why, as soon as the Earth Sun goes down tonight, I plan to stalk the closest Supercuts human fur cutting establishment and capture a human fur butcher. I will then make him remove my dreadlocks, as my first step towards being more culturally sensitive and aware of my alien privilege.

Then, I will of course add him to my collection.

Thousands of years ago, the intricate physical and spiritual pedagogy of yoga was codified in the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, but that book is outdated, and harder to understand than Shakespeare! As yoga has evolved into an international phenomenon no longer relegated to hot, dusty, far-flung countries, it’s become clear that yoga philosophy, too, is in dire need of an upgrade. Nourishing inner peace, and combining mind, body and all of creation still matter, of course, but the practice has shifted focus, and today’s yogis are all about building community—and self-esteem.

Enter Instagram, the digital ashram of the twenty-first century, where yogis gather to heighten their self-worth, celebrate their good health and fortune, and foster their flock of oh-so-flexible disciples. In case you’re keen to join the movement, we’ve rounded up the best advice from today’s hottest yogis on how to showcase your most supple, sinewy, ready-for-your-close-up self on the mat, on the ‘gram, and in the world.

1. Elevate your vibration. All the hype—all of it—is real. No more gluten, no more sugar, no more carbs. We assume you’ve already cleansed your karma of animal product. The more foods you eliminate, the higher you will hum, and the lighter you will feel #livingyourbestlife.
2. #Speakyourtruth. Once you’ve whittled your daily consumption down to the barest of leafy necessities, let the world know. Spread the good word on kale! It’s our collective duty to inspire the overfed masses to give hunger a try. You—yes you—can turn starvation into a social media movement! A little yogi birdie told us that Instagram ‘friends’ are buyable in bulk—and oh so cheap!—from Russian wholesalers. Simply get your new drove of followers to donate one dollar for every meal you renounce, and when they don’t respond, publicly denounce their spirituality void. #notsoblessed
3. Make your #soulsweat. Find a Power Vinyasa class that costs at least $25 per hour (it’s way easier than it sounds), and promises at least 25 chaturangas. You know, the yoga push ups? Otherwise you won’t bang nearly enough calories for your buck.
4. See yourself as you really are. Sometimes self-care is stretchy! Take a deep breath, steady your gaze, straighten your spine, and reward yourself with a pair of leggings that cost more than your weekly paycheck. You’ll feel so good about yourself, you’ll be bound to pop a handstand in the middle of rush hour traffic. Post that and #theywillcome. (To your Instagram page, that is).

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   A little yogi birdie told us that Instagram ‘friends’ are buyable in bulk —and oh so cheap!—from Russian wholesalers.
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5. Expand your practice beyond the mat. Yoga isn’t just about pushing through painful micro-tears in your hamstrings until you can finally extend your leg 170 degrees. A beautiful way to expand your practice is to become an essential oils advocate #wellnesswarrior. With the right brand of oily aromas, you’re not just enhancing your wellness, you’re curing and preventing chronic diseases that have stumped Western science for decades. Build your business by pushing shockingly expensive — but very worth it — oils on friends, family, and unsuspecting strangers. (And no, we know what you’re thinking you naughty thing — those organic, discount Whole Foods oils just won’t do!)
6. Don’t be afraid to #shineyourlight. Go ahead: sign up for that 200-hour teacher training. It’s an inundated, but growing field, and the best part is you don’t have to learn the Sanskrit names for poses anymore! (Why waste precious breath on fumbling through adho mukha svanasana when you can just say D-Dog?) You’re never too young or inexperienced to teach yoga.
7. Manifest your spirituality. Don a bhindi and hop on a flight to the Motherland. Take a handstand pic in front of the Taj Mahal. Find rebirth by bathing in the Ganges, or any of India’s multitude of holy rivers. Pay no mind to naysayers, the laughing locals or human feces floating by. Experience the magic of kirtan and chant to bloodthirsty Bronze Age deities alongside other soul-seeking Westerners. Just don’t forget to bring your own mat, as many rolls of toilet paper as can fit in your suitcase, and plenty of hand sanitizer. This is India, after all, not Equinox!
8. #Yogainfluencer. Yes, you too can change the world by posting daily photos of yourself nailing inversions, breathtaking backbends, and strenuous arm balances against idyllic backgrounds. Don’t forget to round out your page with inspirational sayings (preferably by the Buddha, or people with Indian-sounding names), luscious pics of bright green smoothies, and simple silhouettes of yourself meditating in the pink glow of a sunset.

In this wild and wooly world, we all need the occasional reminder to look inward. #yogaeverydamnday. Now hurry up and hit that handstand. The Taj Mahal awaits!

The debate around cultural appropriation, especially when it involves Asian culture, almost always follows a specific pattern. Let’s take the recent qipao debacle as an example.

1. White American high school student Keziah is called out by Asians in the West for wearing a qipao to prom.
2. Articles are written quoting some Asians in Asia who do not see this as cultural appropriation.
3. Westerners, Asians and non-Asians alike, use articles like these to claim that Asians in Asia live “within a nearly monolithic society where [they] are represented in media” so of course they won’t care.
4. Rinse and repeat.

Every round of this pattern deeply infuriates me, as an “Asian in Asia” (more specifically, a Malaysian of Bangladeshi parentage, though I now live overseas as an adult migrant). These thinkpieces and counter-thinkpieces homogenize a massive continent of about 40-something countries, cherry-picking segments of opinions to remove any possibility of nuance around how Asians in Asia view cultural appropriation.

I grew up as part of a highly vilified racial minority in an Asian country. My first experiences of institutional and interpersonal racism were not in Australia or the United States, but as a child in Malaysia, where the only “media representation” I had of my race was in front-page news articles about how we’re supposedly robbing houses and stealing women. In Malaysia I was, and still am, barred from services, opportunities, and even jobs due to my race. I was refused on-screen time while working in the media in Malaysia for being too “dark-skinned” and yet nailed a TV hosting gig in Australia. Claims that Asians live in some sort of racially homogenous paradise impose a Western Orientalist view of the “Homelands,” ignore the existence of diaspora, and assume that none of us ever suffer and thus our opinions on the use of our culture are irrelevant.

Of course, I am just one Asian, I can’t possibly speak for the whole continent. So I’ve reached out to other Asians, either in Asia or who’ve lived overseas as adults, about the issue of appropriation. And our opinions are much more complex than Western media wants to admit.

These thinkpieces and counter-thinkpieces homogenize a massive continent of about 40-something countries.
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Sabina Giado, a Sri Lankan writer who grew up in Dubai and is currently based in Sydney, defines cultural appropriation as “taking someone’s cultural artifacts without their consent and profiting from it, whether that is in actual money or fame or some other intangible benefit. Communication, much like any conversation, happens with the consent of both parties….Appropriation usually flows from up to down — as in a more powerful culture takes on the trappings of a less powerful one.”

There seemed to be an overall consensus that cultural appropriation was bad; the differences were in what they felt constituted cultural appropriation. Sylvie, a Malaysian student based in the United Kingdom, argued that people are too quick to name things appropriative. “I think we are in an interconnected world where cultures naturally intertwine with another, giving us the opportunity to diversify our understanding of various cultures. So I think cultural appropriation is an unnecessary label that the people of the West have created to further complicate cultural diversification.”

Jo, a South Indian Christian development professional and “perpetual immigrant,” also has major qualms with the definition of cultural appropriation. “There definitely needs to be more framing of it in terms of power relations between communities and defining why those power relations exist in material terms,” she says, “as well as a conversation about where cultural appropriation is actually about something else (bog standard racism, imperialism and the capitalist commodification of exotic cultures for consumption).”

When We Talk About Cultural Appropriation, We’re Missing The Point
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One common assumption fueling the idea that Asians in Asia can’t understand cultural appropriation is that Asian countries are monocultures — that everyone in China is Chinese, everyone in the Philippines is Filipino, and nobody understands what it’s like to live as a racial minority. “Give me a second to stop laughing my ass off at the idea that Asians (and Indians, specifically) aren’t racist as fuck,” says Tamanna, who grew up in India and recently moved to France. “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, and they fail to take into account the effect of colonization and the pervasive effect of white supremacy outside the Western world. And if I’m being cynical I’d say they’re an attempt at twisting the facts to make White people feel better about themselves.”

One anonymous Malaysian writer of Chinese descent said she twitched at the suggestion. “Anyone who calls any Asian country a monoculture really, really needs to go hang out in Asia for a while? Because every country’s built of a multiplicity of ethnic groups, even if they’re not immediately obvious to outsiders.”

Indeed, for countries like Malaysia or Singapore, multiculturalism is baked into the cultural consciousness to the point that it becomes a marketing slogan — “Malaysia Truly Asia.” Many respondents from those areas recounted their experiences of cultural exchange: joining in on cultural holidays, eating each other’s food and wearing each other’s clothes — in ways that they are now reluctant to embrace in the West, lest they be accused of being appropriators themselves.

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“I have [a qipao] that I wore to an International Day when I was in high school — ’cause as Malaysians, we are so multicultural I figured I could, as well as having Chinese family members,” said Shamita S., an artist and “third culture kid Malaysian” based in Australia. “I would love to crack it out again cause it’s beautiful, but alas I’m scared to offend, haha!”

Shamita was salty about the prospect of being called out by White Australians for potential appropriation: “I think it comes from the classic white saviour complex. I know intentions are good but…stay out of it unless you actually know what you’re talking about.” When it comes to the possibility of offending Chinese people in Australia, however, her feelings were more complex.

“I don’t think it’d offend newer Chinese Australians. I think it may offend ‘Australians with Chinese descent’ who have been very much Australianized for several generations. It seems to be a pattern with us POCs — that the less connected to our culture we are, the more defensive we get if someone seemingly appropriates an element of it,” she says. “When I’ve spoken to first-gen migrants, or, for example, ‘Chinese people living in China,’ they’ve always been so like ‘YES GO FOR IT.’ Which makes me wonder — why is it people who are further removed from their culture are so much more defensive? Is it because they want to protect something that they too are still learning about and it perhaps comes from some form of self-judgement or questioning of their own identity?”

The qipao debacle itself was a polarising item of discussion. “I would say the qipao girl was wrong, and I agree with the people calling her out for it — wearing it as a costume is denigrating,” says Robert Liow, a Malaysian-Chinese with Singaporean permanent residency, residing in the UK. “I can see why some Asians in Asia think any acknowledgement of their culture is positive; we don’t often get to see ourselves in Western media or interact with the West in a contributory way, and don’t immediately experience racism in the way that Asians living in the West do.”

Multiculturalism doesn’t mean full racial equity, or that issues like cultural appropriation and racism don’t exist in Asian countries. Growing up amidst immense anti-Bangladeshi racism in Malaysia, whose constitution is based on Ketuanan Melayu or Malay Supremacy, meant being surrounded by messaging about how Bangladeshis were “destroying our culture” and “doing Islam wrong” because we wore henna or salwhar khameez, when Malay people could do the same without question. And yet when minorities like myself speak up, “multiculturalism” gets used as a cudgel to shut us down.

Multiculturalism doesn’t mean that issues like cultural appropriation don’t exist in Asian countries.
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“I have faced racist Malays growing up and I think that’s made me somewhat protective of Desi culture, and I can’t help feel a bit uncomfortable when Malay people take and take without crediting where it came from,” says an anonymous Malaysian student of Filipino, Indian, and Pakistani background, citing the controversy surrounding Malay fashion designer Rizalman Ibrahim’s Indian-based fashion line, which didn’t feature any Indian models. “Many local Desis weren’t too happy about our culture being used like that, especially due to the xenophobia that many have faced from Malays. These complaints were invalidated by a lot of people though on the basis that Malaysia is multicultural and we ‘borrow’ from each others culture anyway. On one hand I agree, but where do we draw the line?”

The non-obvious multiplicity of ethnic groups exists even in countries that don’t necessarily have multiculturalism baked into their cultural consciousness (the way Malaysia and Singapore do) — and, just like Asian Diaspora in the West, these ethnic groups face structural discrimination and appropriation.

Michael, a Taiwanese stay-at-home dad who’s lived in New Zealand and the United States, spoke about the “more or less four ethnicities” in Taiwan and the way they’re (mis)treated — such as the neglect and abuse of Aboriginal Taiwanese or the purges of the Hakka, “gypsies from China” that retreated to the mountains after disenfranchisement from local Taiwanese. “Hakkas being a minority tend to serve central government,” he says.“Whenever there’s rebellions or strife, they get purged by local government and rebels. Sort of like Jewish people in Poland.” (The other two groups are the majority Minan Taiwanese and “mainlanders” that escaped China after communist control.)

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“So all the racial issues in the US — not new. At all. Our societies are even older than US,” says Michael. “Chinese history is filled with genocide and mass killing.”

A country that gets called out often as being monocultural is Japan. Controversy over incidents such as “Kimono Wednesdays” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston’s “Looking East” exhibition tends to paint Japanese people in Japan as being oblivious or uncaring to cultural appropriation. Asuma, who’s half Japanese half Bangladeshi and works in marketing in New Zealand, says the truth is more complicated.

“I think ‘people don’t care about cultural appropriation’ because most Japanese people hold the idea that Japanese culture isn’t comprehensible to most ‘foreigners.’ There’s an unfounded sense of pride in being Japanese, and when people from other cultures don’t understand it, they don’t really care,” she says. “I see cultural appropriation as lack of effort to understand and respect a culture, and because Japanese people already so strongly believe that people just won’t understand anyway, and are okay with it, they don’t recognize what cultural appropriation is.”

The concerns of Asians in the West often overtake those of Asians back in or from Asia, due to cultural dominance of the West overall, even though Asians in the West claim that the voices of the other side are supposedly “overtaking” discourse over cultural appropriation — such as this Tumblr post from Kaagaz Kalam saying “Honestly folks back home in South Asia need to stop with the whole ‘cultural appropriation doesn’t bother me.’” This becomes a weird kind of neo-imperialism: enforcing the Western view of our home cultures, while claiming that we shouldn’t have a voice in how our culture is being used, because supposedly we don’t know what it’s like to be a minority or not be represented.

The concerns of Asians in the West often overtake those of Asians back in or from Asia.
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There’s also the issue of where cultural appropriation ranks as a problem. According to Kristina, cultural appropriation takes a backseat to other problems in the Philippines, particularly amongst those who are poorer. “People [in the Philippines] can’t see [cultural appropriation], they really can’t, they’re too busy trying to get out of poverty to take a step back and look at the social issues,” she says.

“To be honest, everyone already has their own problems to deal with, especially with government corruption in the Philippines and stuff, but would Western Diaspora Asians care about Our problem in the Old Country — that’s the question I want to ask,” says an anonymous Indonesian artist in Jakarta. “I can’t say for certain whether or not people should care, but before Western Diaspora can say that, they should actually individually look at their home country and see what issues they are facing. Not to guilt them or anything, but for perspective. Myself, since I am educated in the West I understand their problem and how they feel. But since I AM living here I am also seeing shit like arts education getting zero funding… Not to mention Islam extremism rising in Indonesia, unfair imprisonment of Basuki Tjahja Purnama, and so on. So [the problem of cultural appropriation] IS the last thing on my mind.”

Sangeetha Thanapal, anti-racism activist based in Melbourne, says that power relations between the Global North and South cause this divide. In contrast to Kristina and the Indonesian artist, she does feel like those in the Global South, at least those who are tuned in to social justice discourse in the West, end up caring about cultural appropriation a lot, because it’s what the West prioritizes. “I think if we truly are looking for liberation, we need to start seeing these issues as interconnected. The power structures that hurt us in Singapore also hurt people in Australia and also hurt people in America. Everyone’s got our own problems yes, but we also have similar problems. Or sometimes we have different problems from the same source (colonialism). I think saying we’ve all got to deal with our shit first is going to perpetuate that. I just don’t think that’s realistic.”

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Sangeetha recently wrote about the culturally monolithic and unrepresentative portrayal of Singapore in Crazy Rich Asians — a fairly common complaint amongst other Singaporeans. (I too found the trailer frustrating as someone who grew up next door to Singapore: Where’s the Singlish? The accent? The NON-CHINESE?) This contrasts the responses of those in the West, including Asian diaspora, who are calling the movie a “gamechanger” for Asian representation — “the Asian Black Panther.” This is what Michael calls “snapshotting” — overseas diaspora seeing a static view of the “Homelands,” while those within experience the country’s “permanent state of flux.”

Ultimately, Asians in or from Asia wished Asians want the West to understand about our experiences with cultural appropriation: our reactions are based on cultural context, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t experienced colonialism, racism, or oppression.

“Asians in Western countries experience the difficulties that come with white supremacy, whereas Asians back in Asia live in different and often quite complex societies with centuries old histories of negotiating race between Asian groups,” says Spoon, a Chinese-English Malaysian historian in Melbourne. “I’m not even sure the category Asian is meaningful when discussing Asia.”

For Nana, a Malay writer in Kuala Lumpur, her wishes are simple. “I wish that they would look at us with a kinder, non-condescending lens. To know that we are dealing with our issues that may not be similar to theirs in our own way. We’re learning a lot from them, but we are also capable of teaching them a thing or two.”

In a bizarre, straight-from-Hannah-Montana twist, Miley Cyrus has resurfaced with a new, squeaky clean image. Gracing the cover of Billboard to promote her forthcoming record Malibu, she appeared almost barefaced. The picture reveals a more subdued Cyrus dressed in a delicate vintage pink Gunne Sax dress, posing in the middle of a country meadow. Gone are those raggedy dreadlocks she insisted on wearing for the past few years, along with her signature crusted glittery-party-monster-makeup aesthetic.

With this new cover story and accompanying photo spread, Miley has softened her gaze for the camera and morphed back into the basic white innocence that made her a household name in the first place. But the interview she gave to Billboard left a lot of people asking what happened to the girl who twerked her way into appropriating black culture not too long ago. Before turning over this new leaf, Cyrus was more than happy to wear her hair in cornrows, pop a gold grill into her mouth as she promoted the beat-heavy album Bangerz, and objectify black women as props in her first video, “We Can’t Stop.”

So it’s curious that Cyrus has seemingly completely changed her tune, distancing herself entirely from the culture she once appropriated. When asked about her musical influences, Cyrus told the Billboard interviewer:

“I also love that Kendrick [Lamar] song [‘Humble’]: ‘Show me somethin’ natural like ass with some stretch marks,’ . . . I love that because it’s not, ‘Come sit on my dick, suck on my cock.’ I can’t listen to that anymore. That’s what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much ‘Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock’ — I am so not that.”

This kind of thinking is exactly why Nicki Minaj almost snatched Cyrus’ ass off the MTV stage in 2015. Back then, she asked the infamous question, “Miley, what’s good?” Now I want to know the same thing.

In 2013, also in Billboard, Cyrus appeared to have reinvented herself with a hip-hop persona almost overnight. Earlier that year, she uploaded a video of herself twerking to a dirty south rapper J.Dash’s song, “Wop.” This was our first official introduction to the new “ratchet” Miley, and with this transformation, she was convinced that she had abandoned her pop-star image, enough so that she started being referred to in mainstream media as as “The White Nicki Minaj.”

It’s curious that Cyrus has seemingly completely changed her tune, distancing herself entirely from the culture she once appropriated.
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But any slight chance of that comparison being valid disintegrated when Miley explained to the New York Times, “If you know Nicki Minaj is not too kind.” Cyrus even admitted to understanding why people, including Minaj, were possibly upset with her, because she’s a “white pop star,” but still she doubled down on the misunderstanding. When Minaj called out MTV for rewarding Cyrus for appropriating black culture and mocking the bodies of black women everywhere, rather than nominating Minaj, a black woman, Cyrus took an #allbodiesmatter stance. “There’s girls everywhere with this body type,” Cyrus told the New York Times, right before calling Nicki’s grievance just another “catfight.” It was Cyrus’s frightened response to the “angry black girl” trope, which included Minaj’s now-infamous question that some believe put an end to Miley’s “thug life.”

In the most recent Billboard interview, Cyrus is really trying to put that image to bed — but she comes off as the typical colorblind white woman who still doesn’t seem to get how she’s been appropriating black culture over the last several years. She calls the fact that she was called out for using black women’s bodies as props “mind-boggling” and denies any wrongdoing in “taking advantage of black culture.”

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But her comments about Kendrick Lamar highlight the real issue with Cyrus wearing blackness like a costume. She has reduced rap culture to nothing more than Lambos, dicks, and Lamar. Her comments reek of respectability politics and seem heavily coded in racism, with her cherry-picking negative stereotypes from the genre she poached the first time she felt it was time to re-create herself.

Throughout the entire article, she goes to great lengths to disassociate herself from behaviors that can be coded as “urban,” and her repeated usage of the word “roots” seems synonymous with “white.” She even boasts about how she was inspired to reach beyond what she calls “outspoken liberals” to “cultivate country fans and red staters” (a phrase that could also be read to mean Trump supporters).

I know I shouldn’t be as mad as I am. But seeing Miley categorize all of her “hoodrat” shenanigans of the past few years as a “phase” is exactly why people of color constantly fight to protect their culture. Cyrus has been waiting for the perfect moment to retreat back to her country facade and the white privilege that comes with it. And it is black women who will suffer from this, who will be ridiculed for the aspects of their identity Cyrus borrowed for a profit, long after she’s shed the faux-extensions and taken out the gold grills to get back into the good graces of her white fan base.

On Saturday, after being dragged up and down on social media and Black Twitter, Cyrus released an additional statement on Instagram: “I have always and will continue to love and celebrate hip hop as I’ve collaborated with some of the very best!” She continued:

“At this point in my life I am expanding personally/musically and gravitating more towards uplifting, conscious rap! As I get older I understand the effect music has on the world & Seeing where we are today I feel the younger generation needs to hear positive powerful lyrics! I am proud to be an artist with out [sic] borders and thankful for the opportunity to explore so many different styles/sounds! I hope my words (sung or spoken) always encourage others to LOVE…. Laugh…. Live fully…. to be there for one another… to unify, and to fight for what’s right (human, animal, or environmental) Sending peace to all! Look forward to sharing my new tunes with you soon!”

Though this statement may seem innocuous, asserting herself as more “evolved” for listening to “conscious” rap still alludes to parts of hip-hop culture being inferior if they do not follow respectability politics. It also doesn’t address her complete overhaul from cultural appropriation to country girl.

Miley’s temporary gentrification of hip-hop music is nothing new.
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Miley’s temporary gentrification of hip-hop music is, of course, nothing new. She is not the first talent to toss their “urban” persona as soon as they reached new heights of popularity. I still remember when P!nk actually had fuchsia pink hair and spoke with a “blaccent” before she successfully transitioned into a more mainstream aesthetic. And not long after P!nk came Justin Timberlake, who transformed from a B-Boy grabbing on Janet Jackson’s titty to singing jingles for the Troll movie. Today we have Justin Bieber going through his rap renaissance, before likely abandoning that as well.

Some — including Cyrus — may argue that this is all a part of artistic growth, but I wish these pop stars would skip the part of their career when they decide to exploit the genres that are already hard for aspiring black artists to break into. We know the only remedy is to keep on creating.

To quote Miley Cyrus, in a time where authenticity matters, black artists know this: “We Can’t Stop.”

We Can’t Talk About Standing Rock Without Talking About Cultural Appropriation

The Standing Rock fight isn’t just about the Dakota Access Pipeline. It’s also about cultural theft, colonialism, and white supremacy.

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Despite the bitter cold, thousands of First Nations people, environmentalists and others gathered in D.C. on Friday, March 10, to fight for native sovereignty, and protect the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who own the land the Dakota Access Pipeline would cut across. The #NativeNationsRise march and rally come roughly a month after the Standing Rock camp in North Dakota was forcibly removed, and they prove that although the protest stronghold is not longer there, the resistance is far from over. Four days after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, he signed executive orders that nullified Obama’s temporary construction halt last fall. Now, indigenous Water Protectors and their accomplices have brought the fight to him.

The environmental concerns regarding the pipeline are obvious: Part of the Dakota Access Pipeline would be built beneath the Missouri River reservoir, threatening the drinking water supply of the entire Standing Rock Indian Reservation. In the last year alone, there have been reports of multiple oil leaks from pipelines located in cities across the country. One leak, spilling more than 176,000 gallons of crude oil into a hillside and a river tributary, happened a mere 150 miles away from the Standing Rock protests. But taking an environmentalist approach to the conflict is a cop-out, and considering the urgency of this moment, we cannot afford to settle for a surface-level analysis of the powers at play. The water protectors and allied protesters at Standing Rock aren’t just fighting against the DAPL. They’re fighting against white supremacy, resisting its centuries-old colonialist and capitalist impulses.

The water protectors and allied protesters at Standing Rock aren’t just fighting against the DAPL. They’re fighting against white supremacy.

At the core of the injustice is the same white supremacist nationalist arrogance that prompted early American colonialists to rationalize the displacement and genocide of millions of indigenous people. To be clear, as Kelly Hayes perfectly laid out in an essay re-printed by Truth-Out.org, “This moment is, first and foremost, about Native liberation, Native self-determination and Native survival.”

In order to develop stronger, more effective tactics to combat state-sanctioned white supremacist violence, we have to be willing to deconstruct the sources of its power, beginning with even the seemingly mundane. In the case of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and indigenous liberation more broadly, the question I wrestle with is this: How does cultural appropriation empower white supremacy?

It may seem off-topic, or even superfluous, to discuss cultural appropriation in this politically violent moment. I wince to even mention it; the media space has definitely been saturated with the topic in the past. But cultural appropriation — which I prefer to call cultural theft — is the exact kind of drawn-out cultural violence that makes room for the literal violence we’ve witnessed against the indigenous people at Standing Rock.

Midwives At Standing Rock Aren’t Going Anywhere

Using the more accurate word “theft” helps to highlight the way that cultural colonialism enables physical harm. In the mainstream American imagination, the term “appropriation” has been dulled, often placed alongside less threatening words like “borrowing” or “adopting” or “appreciating.” Cultural theft, however, is a more active term. More importantly, it also implies that the act involves a renegotiation of power, visibility, and more, which is why cultural theft is so harmful to marginalized communities of color in the first place.

If we don’t understand cultural theft as a derivative of white supremacy, then calling out some carefree, trendy lifestyle brand for selling dreamcatchers and Native-inspired accessories on its website quickly becomes an oversimplified argument about cultural ownership. Without a proper analysis, challenging a “bohemian” white girl for wearing a misappropriated native headdress at a music festival will always turn into a reductive, patronizing playground back-and-forth about sharing. But cultural theft is an extension of white supremacist power specifically, not just power in general. It is, at a base level, a white supremacist project.

Cultural theft is an extension of white supremacist power specifically, not just power in general.

Over the last few years, the constant gaslighting by opponents has somehow managed to turn the mainstream narrative about “cultural appropriation” into its own isolated battleground. For those invested in maintaining the status quo, having drawn-out arguments about whether or not something counts as cultural theft is much less threatening than talking about how their team mascot or Halloween costume relates to the genocide of an entire population. People who deliberately debate the significance of cultural theft effectively minimize the issue, forcing the rest of us to expend a ridiculous amount of time and energy on each instance.

Understandably, the whole thing can be emotionally and mentally draining, but the debate about cultural theft takes up more space than it should. In reality, white supremacy is the battleground; cultural theft is the fallout. It’s one very visible and particularly painful symptom of a power imbalance that is both systematic and directional. The minute a people’s attributes are reduced to fodder, substance, material to be culled and used at the whim of a dominant group, power shifts. When we normalize the cultural theft of indigenous traditions, decorations, images, histories, language — the very details that facilitate identity — indigenous people are reinforced as the playthings of white supremacy.

For the Lakota Water Protectors at the Oceti Sakowin resistance camp at Standing Rock, the threat of theft was real and imminent, just as it had been countless other times before across history. After holding the camp for more than 9 months, the Governor of North Dakota and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued an evacuation order, stating that the camp would be forcible removed, and any remaining protesters arrested. But the land that the resistance camps stood on belongs to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, according to the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868. It is literally, legally, their property — making the evacuation order in violation of the treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation.

When we normalize the cultural theft of indigenous traditions, decorations, images, histories, and language , indigenous people are reinforced as the playthings of white supremacy.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, whose construction has continued steadily since Donald Trump’s January order, will travel beneath Lake Oahe, putting the entire Tribe’s water supply at risk. And according to a U.S. Internal Department memo written by Hilary C. Tompkins, the Interior Department’s top lawyer, the pipeline’s route also infringes on the Sioux Tribe’s federally protected hunting and fishing rights. “The Corps’ reasons for rejecting the Bismarck route also largely apply to concerns regarding tribal treaty rights associated with the Lake Oahe route. As such, if the Bismarck route is impermissible, the Lake Oahe route should be equally impermissible,” Tomkins writes.

The actual land that the pipeline would cut across belonged to the Sioux Tribe as of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, but was supposedly ceded in the 1868 Treaty. The legitimacy of that Treaty, though, should be called into question, considering several Sioux chiefs didn’t sign the document, and at least one chief who did sign claimed he was misled, according to the Huffington Post. Since the United States has a long history of misleading, manipulating, and deceiving indigenous leadership into signing Treaties and documents, this should come to no surprise.

We’re witnessing the contemporary iteration of American colonialism — now armed with rubber bullets and tear gas, but perpetuating the same anti-indigenous aggression as before. The forced removal and displacement of indigenous peoples is both a historical and contemporary violence. The violation of the Treaty rights of indigenous people is an occurrence of both the past and the present. The restriction of resources and the violent theft of land first belonging to the First Nations people is a horror that has continued for centuries. If cultural theft is a child, then domestic colonization — this country’s history of indigenous erasure and genocide — is its proud mother.

If cultural theft is a child, then domestic colonization — this country’s history of indigenous erasure and genocide — is its proud mother.

White supremacy is not a simple thing. Its multiple branches and varied faces all serve to bolster its power, strengthen its reach, and ensure its survival. Cultural theft is a deceptively normalized, sinister part of that. If we develop the narrative that cultural theft is a symptom of white supremacy, then perhaps a sense of urgency will alter the mainstream conversation around “cultural appropriation,” revealing just how far-reaching and many-sided white supremacy actually is. And of course, the better we can understand white supremacy — its shape, its habits, its strategies and derivatives — the more effectively we can challenge it and threaten its stability.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/white-men-dont-own-nerd-culture-and-i-m-not-stealing-it-c48aaf5e5354/ Mon, 02 May 2016 16:23:05 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=8505 Read more]]> “When someone’s behavior is labeled culturally appropriative, it’s usually not about that specific person being horrible and evil. It’s about a centuries-old pattern of taking, stealing, exploiting, and misunderstanding the history and symbols that are meaningful to people of marginalized cultures.”

In a recent interview, X-Men: Apocalypse actress Olivia Munn caused a stir when she claimed that she did all her own stunts for the upcoming film. This didn’t sit well with the stunt community, since it is their job to physically test a stunt for safety reasons before allowing the actor to do it; even if Munn performed her own stunts, she should have given the stunt person credit for testing them out first. Somehow, though, this ended up as a storm of outrage on Twitter, not from stunt professionals, but from nerds complaining that Munn was a “fake geek girl” and “appropriating nerd culture.” When I read this, I couldn’t help but groan inwardly. I’ve heard this argument before, and it’s wrong on a lot of levels.

Leaving aside the question of whether Munn is a “real nerd,” this isn’t “real appropriation.” Appropriation means a dominant culture profiting from and taking credit for something that originally came from a marginalized group. The white straight cisgender men who were complaining about Munn may not consider themselves popular, but within nerd culture they’re far from marginalized. Despite the progress we have made, white straight cisgender male nerds are still the dominant group.

Like Munn, I’ve been made to feel like my nerdy interests aren’t sincere or valid. But as a queer black woman who has been, yes, a nerd since childhood, I can tell you: I’m not appropriating anything. This culture belongs to me as much as it belongs to any man.

I have been a nerd since I became obsessed with Sailor Moon at the age of 6 and Harry Potter at age 10. Since then, my nerdy interests have gone through some significant changes. For instance, I don’t enjoy Japanese anime as much as I used to and I’ve mostly outgrown Harry Potter. Yet the biggest change comes from knowing that I’m not the only black female queer nerd out there. Thanks to websites like Black Girl Nerds and Geeks Out!, I can hoist my blerd flag high. (It’s short for “black nerd,” duh.)

But even though I now know there are lots of black nerds and female nerds, it took me until my early twenties to find them. That’s because the most visible and loudest nerds are still cis white men, and they often try to shout down anyone who’s different.

I’ve found that the moment I try to critique or participate in nerd culture, I get attacked online. The first time this happened, I was participating in a discussion thread on an article about female anime characters. The site that published the article was mostly read by men, but I thought my gender wouldn’t matter.

When I tried to engage in conversation with a male commenter about the article, he insulted my looks (I had a photo of myself as my avatar) and said he couldn’t take me seriously. As I wished him a safe trip to hell, I looked at the names of the other commenters and realized I was probably the only woman in the discussion thread. These men felt like I was an interloper, and they wanted me out.

How could I be “appropriating” when I was just trying to exist in the culture I loved? I don’t have the power to steal nerd culture from cis white men, but they have the power to chase me away — and they also have the power to shape and maintain nerdy movies, books, and TV so that people like me are marginalized or invisible.

Perhaps the most glaring evidence of this is in superhero films, where women either have little agency or none at all. If a woman is in a film with other superheroes, then she is usually the only female superhero in the group. Black Widow, Storm, and even Wonder Woman have fallen victim to this. In addition, female superheroes and villains such Elektra, Catwoman, Emma Frost, and Mystique have gotten costumes that cater to male viewers.

For superheroes and villains of color, things are even more problematic. If they exist at all, then they are either covered up, marginalized, or killed off. In their respective films, Black Panther and War Machine have their faces completely covered in costume, so you can’t even tell that they’re black men. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, all of the mutants of color (including Bishop, Warpath, Blink, Sunspot, and Storm) died horrible deaths. Since people of color aren’t seen too often in superhero films, having our tiny amount of representation watered down and erased is a travesty.

Besides superhero films, white cisgender men are also dominant in other areas of nerd culture such as fantasy and sci-fi. Last year, controversy arose during the Hugo Awards season when a group of these men formed a squad they called the Sad Puppies in an attempt to manipulate the award nominations in their favor. They couldn’t stand the idea that non-white and non-male fantasy and sci-fi authors existed, so they tried to put a “No girls or people of color allowed” sign on the nominations.

Even though I’ve been reading fantasy fiction since 2001, I only started reading fantasy fiction and sci-fi featuring people of color and LGBTQ people a couple of years ago, and only because I went looking for them. Diverse fantasy and sci-fi books are under-promoted by the media and by the white-man-dominated nerd establishment.

When I first started reading diverse SFF books, I had to Google them using search terms like “fantasy books with Asian mythology” and “fantasy books with a black female lead”. The first time I saw diverse SFF books was on a Goodreads list titled “YA Books Inspired by Non-Western/Eastern Mythology.” Lists like this are rarely seen outside Goodreads, and the lists that find their way into mainstream media are much more white. Recently, Paste magazine did a list of the 30 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, which included no authors of color, five women, and only book featuring a non-white protagonist. Last year, Buzzfeed did a similar list with 50 books. While there were more women on this list than Paste’s, there was only one author of color.

So tell me again: whose culture is being stolen?

Cultural appropriation is not a phrase to use lightly, because it’s one of the ways marginalized cultures are kept down. As Jarune Uwajaren writes on Everyday Feminism:

White male nerds are not a marginalized culture; they are the dominant force among nerds, and they work hard to keep it that way. Indeed, they are the ones stealing credit, power, and representation from women and people of color.

If marginalized groups, real and fictional, are forced to stay on the margins, then not many people are going to realize that they exist. For instance, there is a whole history of women superhero creators, women gamers, and women SFF authors, who are rarely given appropriate credit or even acknowledged. As a result, female nerds think there’s no place in nerd culture for them. Some avoid participating because they feel unwelcome, and others who try to participate are treated like newbies when they’ve actually been here the entire time. Thus, white men get to keep nerd culture for themselves.

There has always been more to nerd culture than white straight cisgender males and you can find them if you bother to look or just ask. Yet we shouldn’t have to look so hard because nerdiness can exist in anyone. If nerd culture is supposedly a haven for the marginalized, then it shouldn’t be the one doing the marginalizing.

Lead image: flickr/Dave Mathis