this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Enjoying other cultures isn't appropriation. I think the line where it becomes appropriation is profiteering. If you are commodifying and profiting off someone else's culture that's pretty shitty. Obviously that's not a perfectly clear cut line (who 'owns' culture?), but it's a good place to start.
I think thatβs still tricky. For instance, most parts of the world have few Japanese migrants, yet Japanese restaurants are almost everywhere. Usually these are owned by other Asian migrants. This is clearly profiteering, but I donβt see it as particularly problematic.
I think you can apply the socioeconomic and derogation lenses here. Socioeconomically, Japan has been ahead of nearly every other Asian country for a long while, with only places like China and Singapore recently catching up to them. So, I think that makes it feel okay. And derogatively, I don't think these restaurants are successful because they specifically aren't being run by Japanese people. So that's good on the front as well. So I'd say, yeah, overall it feels fine. However, I'm not Japanese and don't have a wealth of additional context that might provide counter arguments.
So is every company making and marketing tortilla chips and salsa appropriating culture if they are from New York City? Is every pizzeria that isn't in Italy profiteering off of Italian culture? Is a French Bistro in Kansas City wrong? Is it wrong to wear a Scottish Kilt made in Viet Nam?
I think each of the described situations has a different specific answer because the topic is nuanced. As stated above, it can sometimes to be messy to say who owns some piece of culture. But beyond that, the most useful tool is an examination of socioeconomic power dynamics.
If there is a cultural group that is poor, and an outsider from a rich/wealthy group commodifies and sells their culture, while giving nothing to those people, you'd probably agree that that's a shitty thing to do. Their culture obviously had some kind of material wealth value that they received none of.
However, if you take a situation where both parties are well off it seems a lot less shitty. Especially if the cultural group in question is already commodifying and profiting off the same piece of culture.
If you can't unravel the knot of cultural ownership, then does anyone really own it? It would appear to me that "everyone" owns it at that point and can partake in it freely and adapt it to their wants an needs. And no matter the culture, there is always socioeconomic disparities within that group. No matter how small or downtrodden they may appear to you. Someone is always going to be a little bit better off than you and someone else is always going to have a little more power than you.
So is Tostitos racist for not mailing checks to every Mexican person everywhere? Because they sure as hell are making bank selling those chips and Salsa to you. OMG! are YOU part of the problem?
Sorry for the double reply, but another useful perspective in this is derogation. I often forget this idea because I'm very class minded, but it's also very important. This is the idea that a culture can be profited off of while simultaneously despising the people that practice it. In practice, this exists as a business around a specific cultural item succeeding specifically because the business is NOT owned/operated by the original cultural group. Some of the best examples of this are around Black American culture in the US. Some cultural products were only valuable AFTER they were owned, operated, and proliferated by White Americans. Which is kinda just Racism Classicβ’ but allowing certain useful things to cross the cultural line for profits sake.
The know of cultural ownership is absolutely unravel-able in many situations, just not all. In some situations it's exceedingly clear and in others, not. I think you're trying very hard to find hard-and-fast, absolute rules for these situations, but they don't exist. The keyword is nuance, nuance, nuance. Each situation is different and each situation deserves scrutiny as to whether or not it crosses the line. This is a judgement call made by each and every person.
If you really want me to engage on the specific situation of Tostitos/chips and salsa I will, so you can see the process of my scrutiny.
First, I think that as any item of culture becomes more and more diffused (ethically or not), it's original ownership becomes diluted. Things that were once appropriation in the distant past, if done today, would not be considered as such as the context around them changes (in a myriad of ways).
So, if Tostitos started as a company today, I'd say making chips and salsa is not appropriation. But, if Tostitos was founded a long time ago, before chips and salsa were a foodstuff ubiquitous across the US and Tostitos was created by one outside of that cultural ownership, then I'd say it likely was appropriation. It also might be fair to argue that in the modern day for Tostitos specifically, "the damage has been done" and there really isn't much fixing it, so consuming their products isn't necessarily problematic. But this would be a point as to why identifying appropriation early on and stopping it is especially important.
As to whether I'm part the problem - for Tostitos no, but for other things almost certainly yes. I'm human and I don't know everything, and I've certainly made mistakes in this area, but that's okay. What's important is that once I've learned something is in fact a mistake, I own up to it and stop making that mistake.
also when it becomes an issue is influenced by how accurate it is, how overused it feels, and (obviously) if it was made with the intent to insult
I think academically, derogation is often considered as a component. Like profiting off a culture while simultaneously despising the culture and the people who own it.
It's a tough line to draw, because even if they aren't the main profitees, the culture where the thing originated often still profited. e.g. AFAIK rock'n'roll getting popular with white americans was pretty good for black americans, even though many of the best selling artists (e.g. Elvis Presley) were white.
The popularization of Black American music is indeed a complex topic in this arena. Like, obviously a lot of cultural outsiders made a lot of money off of the situation, but there were at least some benefits to the arrangement, although whether or not they outweighed the cons is perhaps difficult to say. For example, if outsiders had abstained entirely from profiting, what would have changed? Obviously more of the money made percentage-wise would've gone to the owning culture, but would there have been less money overall? Would it have reached the same levels of popularity? If so, it almost certainly wouldn't've happened as quickly, right? These are difficult questions to answer and I'm not educated enough in this area to really offer any. So, while not worth a damn, my gut feelings is that there are at least some strong arguments as to why overall the absence of outsider profiting would've been better for the owning culture.
With rock'n'roll, it was not even just about money, it also did a pretty good job of bridging the gap between black and white people - I don't think it's realistic to say that this would have worked equally well if all the bands had been black.