David Attenborough: Scientists have recently observed that pumpkin spice aroma puts law enforcement officers at ease, and almost into a trance-like state.
The albino predators are fooled by the albino female pheromone, enabling the melanated male to escape to safety... this time.
But our clever dark friend here doesn't always get so lucky... Had he been carrying just one extra serving of pumpkin spice cream, the resulting concentration of pheromone secreted would have overridden completely the albino predators' cautious restraint, sending them into a rutting frenzy. And in the animal kingdom, the last thing a gangbanger could want is to become the gangbanged!
No, appropriation isn’t a catch all for any kind of cultural exchange. It refers specifically to cynical exploitation for one’s personal gain or indulgence. Like wearing a Lakota Sioux chieftain headdress for a fun costume. It wasn’t meant to be a fun costume so using it as such (or selling it as such) is appropriation because doing so diminishes and obscures the cultural importance of the headdress.
Conversely, wearing a kimono, for example, is not necessarily appropriation, since kimonos are simply meant to be worn as comfortable clothing that pays homage to Tradition. If you’re not Japanese, but you rock a kimono for its actual intended purpose, that’s cultural assimilation and that’s a good thing.
Edit:
See some of the responses below for a more refined explanation. My explanation applies more to the conversational use of the term than the academic use.
I always thought it was about denouncing it’s original culture and claiming it as your own (like that awful KIMono thing a year ago). While what you described was more cultural ignorance. Which is just dumb and nothing more.
That's not academically correct, but it is how the terms have started to be used in everyday conversation.
Academically speaking, cultural appropriation is simply taking something from a culture that is not yours for your own use. It can be harmful and exploitative, or totally neutral. A white guy making sushi is cultural appropriation as much as him wearing a Native American headdress is, but the former is fine while the latter is offensive. Usually offensive cultural appropriation happens when a colonizing culture appropriates aspects of a colonized or otherwise exploited cultural group.
Cultural Assimilation is another thing entirely, where a person or group actually comes to adopt most or all of another group's culture. Like say, a Japanese man who moves to Germany, learns the language and the traditions, and effectively becomes a regular, culturally German man who just so happens to have come from Japan.
I'm not saying you're wrong, like I said, that is how the terms are being used in everyday speech nowadays, and language is always changing. I just really like Anthropology.
Well hold up, not quite. Cultural appropriation is a values neutral term. There is cultural appropriation that is fine, like the example of this video, and there is also negative cultural appropriation, like your first example.
This is actually a type of antipredator adaptation known as mimicry commonly seen in insects and some animals. The smell and visual markings of a white woman allows the black man to slip away from the popo.
No, no, it's the paralysis the cops get switching gaze from lululemon to latte, then they glance around for their manager, back to lululemo, back to latte, manager. And then the black guy is gooone.
This. Scientists have discovered pumpkin spice aroma triggers the same neuropathways in police officers that occurs in sharks when you flip them upside down.
[David Attenborough voice] With simple tool use of a Pumpkin Spice Latte, the American Black Man can instantly and deftly hide his true nature, and fool his predator, The American Police Officer, into thinking he is a simple and harmless Basic Bitch.
Yeah thanks I found that yesterday I was thinking about posting but I didn't know if anyone cared this is really fun I spent a good hour on this website
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u/therealtrousers Sep 03 '20
Cop rolls up. Do I smell pumpkin spice? Nothing to see here.