it’s funny how when a white person decides to learn a foreign language and move to another country, he’s lauded for his sense of adventure, multiculturalism, appreciation of diversity and god knows what else
but when a person of colour does the same thing it’s all “fucking immigrants stop stealing our jobs go back to ur own country!111!!!”
Study finds that teaching multiculturalism makes kids HATE minorities
A Dutch study has found children who are given anti-racism lessons in school are more likely to be intolerant outside the classroom.
It said accusing white pupils of racism causes animosity, and discussing sensitive ethnic concerns such as honour killings paints minority group children in a bad light.
And as Moonbattery put it:
[W]hen you constantly rub children’s face in how awful they are for being European, unlike wonderful darling Mohammed, the kids react by not liking Mohammed very much.
Common sense, people.
“Those Americans and Europeans who love their lands more than any others, and who put their families and their neighborhoods before all others, are normal people. Those who tell them that their attachments should be global and that their lands and neighborhoods belong to the whole world are sick and evil.”
—Srdja TrifkovicI don’t understand why people complain about a lack of multiculturalism, or the presence of Euro-centrism in Tolkien. I really don’t understand it.
Let’s look at the facts:
- Aside from the creation of a world the history of which would provide linguistic verisimilitude for the languages he was inventing, one of Tolkien’s primary goals in writing his stories was to create a mythology that was specifically English. To criticize him for not being more multicultural, or for being too “Euro-centric” (Anglo-centric would be more accurate), is, as C.S. Lewis wrote in his Preface to Paradise Lost, to treat as faults “those very properties which the poet labored hardest to attain and which, rightly enjoyed, are essential to its specific delightfulness.” It would be like criticizing James Joyce for being too Gaelo-centric (if that’s an actual word).
- No work of art is under any obligation to be widely representative or inclusive, and least of all those which are set in a historical time period (or purport to be historical) and a very specific region. The more regional a work is, the less likely it is to be multicultural, and the more multiculturalism would be a flaw. Think of the Iliad. This is a poem about a war between the Greeks and Trojans. If we asked Homer to be more inclusive, say, to have an African character, a Chinese character, an Indian character, and a Germanic character, then we would not only be submitting him to requests that were unreasonable given the scope and nature of his work, but ones that would, if fulfilled, severely damage its quality by diluting its focus. The same can be said of other narrowly-focused works, such as Japan’s The Tale of Genji, or England’s Pride and Prejudice. One may not have a taste for such things, but that’s no defect of the authors of any of these works; nor of Tolkien’s.
- Tolkien’s work is, within its scope and nature, multicultural. You have Shire culture, Rohirric culture, Elven culture, Entish culture, and Dwarvish culture, and that list is not even exhaustive. Even if I were to list the culture of every race, even that would be a simplistic account of things. You don’t just have Hobbit culture. You have Harfoot culture, Stoor culture, and Fallowhide culture, each of which differs from the others, and in addition you have Bree culture and Shire culture. Even within Shire culture, you have the culture of Hobbiton, which differs significantly from the culture of more outlying locations like Buckland, enough so that members of one group would call members of the other “queer”. Similarly, the culture of Lossarnach is different enough to contrast with that of Minas Tirith, and likewise the culture of the Westemnet from that of the Eastemnet, all the while still belonging to one larger culture as a whole (Gondorian and Rohirric, respectively). Those who say Tolkien isn’t multicultural enough for them either aren’t paying close enough attention, or mean something other than the actual, literal meaning of the word. What they really seem to mean is that Tolkien’s fantasy world does not bear enough resemblance for their tastes to the actual world we live in — a complaint that I think has been answered enough times and by enough intelligent writers and thinkers that I needn’t do so here.
Edit: Also please read my amendment to the second point.
Say No to Saying No to Cultural Appropriation
My more “aware,” Leftist friends are circulating another one of those facebook memes with a photo of Dita von Teese in a ridiculous outfit. their caption:
“White woman Dita von Teese wears a sari and South Asian jewelry despite the fact that she has no other connection to South Asia…”
You know what? I don’t really care much about cultural appropriation. It happens in all directions, over thousands of years. Without cultural appropriation, you don’t get the Blues from West African singing. You don’t get Elvis from the blues. You don’t get rocksteady from motown, and you don’t get new wave from rocksteady. You don’t get Afrobeat from funk, or maybe that went the other way. Who knows or cares, really.
If you decide to resent cultural appropriation, you choose to live in an increasingly stale and monotonous cultural ghetto. You don’t even get to make fun of “others” for appropriating the wrong bits of your culture, or using it in unintentionally hilarious ways. You sit around, decrying cultural imperialism or some other shit instead of getting out on the dance floor, or on stage, or in the gallery, or whatever.
One of these days maybe you’ll look past the hashish-clouded haze of your graduate critical theory seminar and decide to live in the real world, with real, imperfect, culturally complex people.
I doubt it, though. You might have to repay those student loans. Those may be words, but you can’t deconstruct those debts, sucker.
“I´m sorry. I wish I was there. People here don´t understand that you can just drink red wine all the time and not be an alcoholic. I´m like, trust me, you´ll feel better.”
—My best friend, back in the motherland, Bolivia.
Come back to the fatherland! San Francisco is extremely bearable this time of year and we’ll probably go to go to the park later!
“the rationale behind neoliberal multiculturalism is less about changing racial hierarchies than it is about creating self-governing indigenous subjects that will not challenge the political-economic goals of the state.”
—Patricia Richards [“Of Indians and Terrorists: How the State and Local Elites Construct the Mapuche in Neoliberal Multicultural Chile;” 2010]
best one-sentence critique of multiculturalism I’ve seen in a long time. (for context: Richards is referring to Charles Hale’s concept of neoliberal multiculturalism, which is his term for the recent focus on multiculturalism on behalf of state-corporate entities, centered on multiculturalism as a promise of racial equality and “cultural appreciation” while simultaneously wiping the metaphoric slate clean (this is the logic that gives way to ideas of reverse racism—because we’re all already equal, right?)).
Someone actually said to me that white women don’t get raped because of their skin color. This person is truly fucking delusional. White women have been getting raped for being white ever since white people started to interact with poc (specifically black people, because the girl in talking about is black, and thinks that makes her an innocent special little snow flake)Same thing if you reverse the colors. Black women are not the only victims of racist sexism. You’re seriously not that special.
Multiculturalism-what it ain't, what it is.
It’s comical to me when I get accused of being this embittered racial purist who doesn’t want anyone to engage in other cultures IN ANY CAPACITY AT ALL. (You know, after eating all those white children I go around in the streets on my broom screeching “YOU ARE A RACIST IF YOU AREN’T MEXICAN AND HAD A BURRITO LAST NIGHT!”, white women tears flow, etc).
For one, I am 100 times more comfortable with POC interactions with other cultures than white people, so it isn’t everybody!
No but seriously, usually I don’t engage in such points because I know it’s just petty oversimplified derailing and I don’t believe in “dressing in my Sunday best” to get my rights and to be heard, but I have to address the message behind such a misguided attempt to dismiss my point.
I’m all for multiculturalism. I think that is one of the major ways in which we can meliorate fucked-up race relations. I’m always encouraging my friends to learn Spanish, to listen to Dominican music, to eat our food, to become knowledgeable about my people, my culture, my history. The more you actually know about me, the more chances I get at becoming a full, complex human being and not a stereotype or a statistic.
But that’s the thing. Multiculturalism should be on POC’s terms, not on white people’s. Multiculturalism isn’t cultural appropriation or exploitation. Multiculturalism isn’t “white people doing some pathetically racist fucking bullshit then shrugging their shoulders and saying ‘what, you should be happy I am respecting and acknowledging your culture!’ “
Multiculturalism is not having our culture made and commodified by outsiders, specifically the West, and sold to benefit these governments, corporations, and industries that are often anathema to our interests and livelihood. Multiculturalism isn’t New Age bullshit where white people view POC culture as “EXOTIC” and “SPIRITUAL” and exotify us to a comical, absolutely outrageous and false point.
Multiculturalism doesn’t mean white people who engage it suddenly don’t have privilege or aren’t racist anymore. It is just a step in the right direction. They can often misstep and must be always, always OK with being called out or told to back off.
Multiculturalism doesn’t mean everything that is part of POC culture is suddenly up for grabs or free game.
So yeah, I’m all for talking about multiculturalism and progressing forward with healthy interactive race relations (for the sake of POC, mind, not for whitey’s pleasure), but let’s not let “Multiculturalism” become the new “COLOR-BLINDNESS*, thinly veiled racism repackaged and shoved down POC’s throats to shut them up.
*ableist term, btw
