Cultural appropriation

Saturday

Will Collins

Dune, an enduring monument to cultural appropriation

One of the Ukraine war’s minor celebrities is Ramzan Kadyrov, a Russian politician and Islamic hardliner who rules his native province of Chechnya as a personal fiefdom. Kadyrov and his combative underlings have been active on social media from the beginning of the conflict, posing with guns and trophies and boasting about their martial prowess.  Before they became villains in the Western press, tarred by their association with Russian aggression and Islamic fundamentalism, the Chechnyan mountain clans’ struggle for independence was a Victorian cause celebre, akin to Western support for Ukraine today.

dune

Wednesday

Amber Duke

What’s missing in America

I’m back! As I mentioned in my last newsletter, my husband and I recently set off on our ten-day honeymoon to Morocco. We went to Casablanca, Meknes, Fez, Marrakesh, the Agafay Desert and Essaouira. I didn’t travel much growing up and so this trip was really special for me. We toured one of the largest mosques in the world and a fifteenth-century synagogue that is still active today, visited the Roman ruins of Volubilis, trekked through the Medinas, haggled in the souk, watched artisans create their handmade crafts with techniques handed down for centuries, rode camels and enjoyed traditional Berber food and music. Before we left for our trip, we fielded a lot of safety concerns.

Sunday

Rich Cromwell

Beastie Boys were masters of cultural appropriation

In New York in the 1980s, anyone could be anything. That’s how a punk group comprised of three Jewish kids was able to socially transition into hip-hop, team up with super-producer Rick Rubin and go on to release the first rap album to crack the Billboard 200. Beastie Boys, as they were known, consisted of Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Adam “MCA” Yauch. The Billboard-cracking album Licensed to Ill was an instant classic that launched the group into superstardom. Full of swagger and juvenile nonsense, as well as jabs at swagger and juvenile nonsense, the record was merely the beginning of a long and influential career, one that only ended when, in 2012, MCA died of cancer.

Saturday

Cockburn

The non-scandal of Glenn Youngkin’s ‘Oriental’ prom night

Welcome to the grubby world of politics, Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin. A breathless report on the Democrat blog Blue Virginia on Friday claimed to have uncovered yet another racism scandal involving a Virginia politician, asserting that the new Republican governor hadn’t been “vetted.” But just how damning is what’s been unearthed? “A recently-obtained copy of Glenn Youngkin’s prep school yearbook (Norfolk Academy, 1985) shows that his senior prom, entitled ‘An Oriental Occasion,’ featured white students offensively dressed in ‘rice hats,’ sandals and geisha robes serving their tuxedoed, all-white peers. Youngkin is pictured right next to these racist stereotypes.

youngkin

Thursday

Jarvis Dupont

We need to cancel open-world video games

A video game with a multitude of problematic themes and mechanics has recently been released which has once and for all cemented my already unfavorable opinion on so-called ‘open world role-playing games’. Cyberpunk 2077 was launched on PC and gaming consoles this week, which generated tumultuous excitement and praise across all the major social media platforms. This unavoidable hubbub came from the majority of the gaming community who were applauding the title for its ‘beautiful graphics’ and ‘combat mechanics’ et cetera. However, there were also a small group of (decent) people who were quick to point out the darker and more problematic elements of this immersive video game.

video games

Friday

Nancy Rommelmann

Eye on the pies: food in the age of ‘cultural appropriation’

I walked into a party with a friend a few years ago and told her I felt uncharacteristically uncomfortable. ‘That’s because you’re not carrying a pie,’ she said. It’s true; I usually have a pie as my calling card. The offering of a homemade pie makes no one unhappy. It’s a nice presentation, sure, but the handoff is magical, a conjuring the baker does when deciding whether the recipient is a pumpkin or cherry pie kind of guy. People think you’re being generous when you show up with pie, but really it’s quite selfish. First, baking carries me away. Second, I love to see people’s faces when handing them pie.

cultural appropriation