You Can't Steal a Culture, Stupid.

       Some of the greatest things I remember about being a kid are actually things that I don't remember at all. The world didn't have the PC police running around all the time trying to put us all in PC jail. People were just people and everyone pretty much got along. Even us kids were left alone to just be kids. Playing dress-up has been a childhood staple for generations. So like millions of other kids, my friends and I would play for hours as Pirates, Indian Princesses, cowboys in the old west, you name it. But as hard as I try, I can't seem to remember anyone ever telling us that we were stealing anyone's culture in the process. Which is a good thing, because I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have understood what the Hell they were talking about. How can you steal a culture?



        So fast forward to good old 2016, and I find myself hearing a phrase quite a bit that I don't remember hearing before. What's that you ask? Cultural Appropriation. It seems that a whole lot of whiney, cry baby, precious dew drops lose their collective minds over it. What is Cultural Appropriation anyway? If so many people are upset over it, it must be really bad! Right? It's the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture. Or so I'm told. What? Like if your kids want to dress up like Cowboys and Indians for Halloween (don't even get me started on Halloween), they are in fact stealing the culture of Native Americans. Not the Cowboys? No, no one cares about white people, silly. In fact, it looks like the only people who can be guilty of cultural appropriation are white people. In fact, if you ask these sniveling PC blobs they will tell you that the only culture white people have is a culture of oppression.



        So there you have it. The basic idea is that the evil whites are stealing all the cultures of the world and just being generally careless and insensitive with them. But here's the thing, that's total crap. You can't steal a culture. Culture is not a tangible thing. It can't be touched or held. If I own a television and someone brakes into my house and steals it, it's gone. I don't have it anymore. But if I am Mexican and some white family down the street decides to throw a Cinco De Mayo party, do I lose my Mexicanness? Of course not! What if a little white girl wants to get her hair in braids because she likes her black friend's hair and wants to be like her's? Does her friend somehow lose her blackness? I know, you think that's madness. But these things are really happening. Last year a young white girl had her hair braided and received an onslaught of hateful responses from people who wouldn't know something really offensive if it came up and ripped their chemically straightened weaves off . In the end, she issued an apology. An apology for her hair do! These idiots (mostly college students) have nothing better to do than be professional victims. When there is no real victimization going on, they make something up. Agreeing with them, or worse yet apologizing, only proves to them that they can get away with it. So don't do it!



        Long story short. If you want to throw a toga party, do it. If you want to host an Indian food night at your office, do it. And if you want to have braids or dreadlocks, don't let the black lady with straightened and dyed blond hair tell you, you can't! Imitation is the highest form of flattery. So the next time someone brings up cultural appropriation, look them in the eyes and say, you can't steal a culture, stupid.





VOH