They Don’t Like Sharing Their Culture

An Australia lady by the name of Alex Marks recently opened a sushi restaurant, Sushi Counter, in New York City serving Aussie-style sushi. Some people took offence to an Australian person making sushi, specifically, Eric Rivera, a Seattle chef, who accused Ms Marks of cultural appropriation. “Give me a break coloniser. If you don't see why this is a problem you are part of the problem.” Rivera has since deleted this thread, but did not address his own plans announced last year to open a Puerto Rican/Japanese restaurant in North Carolina, despite him being of Puerto Rican descent, not Japanese.

Obviously, this isn’t the first case of accusations of cultural appropriation. Canadian artist, Amanda PL, who states she is of Italian descent, has used Canadian Indigenous paintings as inspiration for her artwork. Consequently, a Toronto gallery cancelled her show after complaints that her artwork ‘bastardises’ Indigenous art.

In the same vein, one of my son’s classmates, a young girl, started painting an Australian Aboriginal dot painting, but she was soon scolded by the teacher (a non-Indigenous lady) who took it upon herself to say that only Aboriginal children can do dot paintings, which my son thought was ridiculous, and she ended making the little girl cry.

Student union officials at the University of East Anglia banned a Mexican restaurant from handing out sombreros to students, because for anyone other than a Mexican, wearing a sombrero amounted to “cultural appropriation”.

In 2018, English girl group Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson posted a picture to Instagram of herself wearing her hair in dreadlocks. Nelson was accused of “cultural appropriation” and told to apologise.

For 30 years, Dr. Hibbert from The Simpsons was voiced by Harry Shearer, but in 2021, the producers decided that the voice actor’s real ancestry had to match Dr. Hibbert’s fictional ancestry, so they changed the voice actor to Kevin Michael Richardson.

Food, art, fashion, hairstyles, is it all off-limits now unless you can prove you match the correct ethnicity? This is bonkers! Yes, I get very angry now when I see Gordon Ramsay cooking a curry or a pasta dish. How dare he cook anything but porridge or haggis! All those white people learning Spanish or Chinese, or those who enjoy watching Bruce Lee movies? How dare they participate in something that’s not their own culture!

Let’s take this madness to its logical conclusion. Segregation. Only Japanese can eat at Japanese restaurants. Only Mexicans can eat at Mexican restaurants. The first modern-day automobile was invented in Germany by Karl Benz in 1886, so obviously, only Germans should be allowed to drive cars now. Learning a new language? That’s cultural appropriation! Only Koreans should be allowed to speak Korean, and only people from England can learn English. And now nobody can communicate with one another anymore. Let’s go back to the stone age.

This whole notion of cultural appropriation is just a fool’s errand, and a backwards step in my opinion. It’s the opposite of equality. Actually, it’s not even based in reality. It’s very much a modern, Western, liberal view of the world. I’ve travelled and lived in other countries, and every country I visited enjoyed foreigners participating in their cultural practices. Of course they did!

Personally I think participating in other people’s cultures is a great thing! We open up the world, instead of shutting it out. Sharing each other’s cultures brings us closer together. It promotes unity and togetherness. Unfortunately, these people who are constantly crying “racism” and accusing people of “cultural appropriation”, are probably the most racist people of all. All they constantly seem to do is categorise people into racial and ethnic groups. I think that probably they are very unhappy people. They’re certainly not interested in unity and togetherness, quite the opposite. They’re more interested in hatred and division.

UNCONVENTIONAL SEATTLE CHEF ERIC RIVERA PLANS A PUERTO RICAN IZAKAYA IN RALEIGH
https://carolinas.eater.com/2022/11/8/23446926/chef-eric-rivera-raleigh

TORONTO GALLERY CANCELS SHOW AFTER CONCERNS ARTIST 'BASTARDIZES' INDIGENOUS ART
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-gallery-indigenous-art-cancels-amandapl-1.4091529

STUDENT UNION BANS 'RACIST' SOMBREROS
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/29/uea-student-union-bans-racist-sombreros

LITTLE MIX SINGER CRITICISED FOR WEARING DREADS
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43126568

THE SIMPSONS SAYS IT WILL STOP USING WHITE ACTORS TO VOICE NON-WHITE CHARACTERS
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-27/the-simpsons-to-stop-using-white-voices-for-characters-of-colour/12399760

JAPANESE FANS REACT TO ‘GHOST IN THE SHELL’
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/japanese-fans-react-ghost-shell-992255/

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn