Cultural Appropriation or Appreciation? | Ep.#040 JTH Show

1 (9s):

Good morning. Good afternoon. Or good evening, depending on when you’re tuning in. My name is Jonathan Torres Herrera and you are watching or listening to the JTH Show today. We’re going to talk about culture Appropriation or Appreciation wrote the intro. Alright. So a, you know, a couple of days ago I came across a tweet by Ernest Owen’s and it’s around.

1 (48s):

I’m not sure if he saw it already, either on Instagram or on Facebook. I haven’t to see this on Twitter in it’s about Adele, you know, ah, and artists, which by the way, in my opinion is really not promoting anything out there, like a new album or a book or something like that. Not that I know of yet, you know, we, we have yet again, seen her in a media because of something she did sometime back. It was because of that picture that she had lost all that weight.

1 (1m 19s):

And there was like a weeks long. It was all worth of content out there. I didn’t make anything about it. Cause I didn’t think anything of it. It was just a person that got in great shape, you know? And you had all these people bashing her at the time, whether you, you know, you thought it was great that she got in shape or, Oh my God. I wonder if her voice sounds the same. And in some to some extent bashing her almost we’re losing all that weight, but anyways, she’s here back in the news, right? Or, or back in the mounts of these journalists, one of them being earnest Owens because she went to a festival that happens every year.

1 (1m 59s):

She is a, if you remember a, from London and you, it sounds like this festival that happens right to celebrate Caribbean culture, you know, happens for every year. And she partakes now on our machine partakes regularly, but she definitely attended this year, even if it was a more virtual celebration in comparison to what happens every year with like huge crowds and stuff like that, obviously because of what’s happening with the pandemic. But the point of it is that there was a picture that was shared on Instagram.

1 (2m 32s):

And then obviously tweeted here by, by this journalist who here, I’ll just put it up here. Now it reads if 2020 couldn’t get any more bizarre. A Del is giving us bond two knots and Culture are pre Appropriation that nobody asked for him. This officially marks all of the top white woman in pop as problematic hate to see it. Right. And it’s a picture of a Dell, right? I’m wearing what appears to bother this journalist, a hairstyle called a bond to knots, I guess.

1 (3m 9s):

And you know, he, he he’s singling this out as culture Appropriation excuse me. Now, for some of you guys’ don’t know what that means essentially is when you take an, by the way, there are other people that, that have different definitions. So, you know, be aware of that. But what I’ve found at least on a Google search is, you know, the culture that is more dominant taking, you know, something away from a Culture, you know, that is maybe not as dominant, you know, that is a, you know, a minority culture you might say, and then taking maybe some other elements as theirs, which is what it’s not what’s happening here.

1 (3m 48s):

In my opinion, right now, there are, there is a whole bunch of other examples I’m going to bring up here in just a second. But along with this tweet, right, he got, I would say a lot more dislikes and people commenting saying, what are you talking about? That people that actually supported the, you know, his claim that, you know, nobody asked for this, you know, a Dell, you know, I don’t know, kinda, again, kind of putting her down for this ride for wearing a hairstyle. You know, some of the tweets that I was able to find, I’m going to show him up here or show him here for you now is an example of somebody that said there is a fine line of hypocrisy in the world of women’s hair.

1 (4m 28s):

Or, and it shows a picture of Beyonce with blonde hair. And of course, Adele next to her, here’s another one, Dominique Samuel’s says why our American soul dominoing, you know, that one stood out to me because by the way, earnest Owens is actually an American journalist. And then another one is also at earnest Owens. It’s not shacks. She writes, Americans need to understand every black Culture is not American black.

1 (5m 4s):

Culture stop trying to count on her. Right. And it’s, and again, there was a whole bunch of other tweets that I found out that I was like, okay, great. Or this is not something that, you know, it has a significance of agreeance when it comes to this Culture Appropriation that Ernest is, is claiming a Dell is doing now the video does it in here. Of course I’m like I said, I have other examples that I do want to bring up because I believe that to a certain extent, it’s not just happening with hairstyles.

1 (5m 35s):

Right. So let me roll a clip real quick of, of a tick tock video that I found of a, a young guy that does mainly on tick-tock. He mainly does the recipe videos. So let’s roll that clip now.

0 (5m 49s):

Okay. So have you ever had Chinese food? Have you ever enjoyed a slice of pizza? Give it back. You can have food from other cultures in all seriousness Cultural Appropriation is an actual problem in the food world, but that’s not what my video was. I would love to hear other perspectives, but this is how I understand cultural Appropriation in food. If I had said, I just invented these new corn pancakes, they’re delicious. And I invented them and then people are like, no, those are at EPA. So you did not event that we’ve been making that for thousands of years.

0 (6m 20s):

That is Cultural Appropriation cause I’m taking credit for something that’s already been done and probably doing it worse. Or like when magazine say like turmeric is this new ingredient and South Asian people, or like we’ve been using that for thousands of years, but making a Venezuelan dish that was taught to me by my vent as well. And friends is simply not Cultural Appropriation, it’s just making food that’s different than my own culture. And how boring would it be if we could only cook our own food?

1 (6m 46s):

Okay. So as you saw there on that video, you know, the, the, the guy, you know, is kind of like at the beginning showing, Hey, I did it, this, this dish. And then, you know, I quickly jumped through the, the video that actually concerned me, or at least the, the one that caught my eye, which is him responding to the comment of somebody saying Ken, and we have this back or whatever, or they’re Culture back, its one of those things that currently is happening that is mixed in to this whole council slash you know, defend whatever culture you are trying to get behind.

1 (7m 25s):

And it’s all because of people taking it, that in my opinion is, is ridiculous. Now it will be fair. A big incident in that happen again with Culture Appropriation happen back in 2018. If you remember, there was that story about the girl that had the prom dress, where it was an Asian that dress and you know, it went, it went viral, right? Because you know, she was, she went to prom with his, you know what this dress that appropriated the Asian culture I in my opinion, what’s happening here is people are one.

1 (8m 8s):

And I’m sure a lot of you will agree at this point, hopefully are getting defensive over anything in everything. I mean, as he saw some of the tweets that I should write, some people are saying, Hey, you know, if you’re going to take offense, don’t, don’t speak for everybody. First of all. And you know, people are outright calling us Americans, right? Annoying because that is happening, happening mainly hear in the U S right. Uhm, does it happen anywhere else where somebody in the UK and maybe China and I don’t know in Africa, in Australia is getting offended over some other Culture using something that belongs to them somehow belongs.

1 (8m 48s):

I use that term very loosely. Sure. Maybe I guess it could happen. Yes. But you commonly see it where hear in the U S specifically from those groups that in my opinion are either bored or simply just wanna cause some kind of viral tweet, two point something that offends them and it’s getting ridiculous. Then it has been ridiculous for some time, you know where you’re gonna, you’re gonna speak, first of all, you’re going to dare speak on behalf of an entire group of individuals.

1 (9m 22s):

Second of all, you’re going to say so, so person, it can use this because it belongs to us. Where does that ring a bell? Think about it. What are, what, what is specifically right now in the current landscape, right? Is being thrown around very loosely against white individuals and example Support Trump or what? Oh, that’s right. They’re these white supremacists write that they believe that third culture is better, that nobody should borrow or use anything from their culture.

1 (9m 54s):

And not before you tell me, well, JTH, Show white people that don’t have anything to see. Alright, get off that mentality. Okay. Get off that mentality because it’s exactly what this, this whole thing’s about, right. Is at the white supremacists. The, the, the, the group that believes that you are I they’re are not white. And I’m not sure if after that your is turn to you, but any on any of us are, or not white rather shouldn’t use or think about, or, or do anything to do with, with the white Culture that the white Culture is better.

1 (10m 30s):

So, you know, you know, keep your, your nonwhite hands or fingers out of our, out of our stuff. Isn’t that, to a certain extent, what we’re, we know some people, some people rather are doing right by saying you that are not of this Culture don’t use anything that belongs to us, you know? And for that matter, like that kid said, right. You know, when it, when it comes to anybody coming out and saying, Oh, look at this new ingredient.

1 (11m 2s):

I know he used Tamarack as one example, it’s brand new in, you know, obviously we have certain cultures that can say, Oh, actually we’ve been using that for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years or something or something like that. Right. For a long time. Yeah. It’s like, OK. You know, that’s just someone that probably its not educated in it, in what has been out there for some time in its not new. Same thing. If somebody came up with yeah, that one too, not and said, Oh look at, this is a new hairstyle, which by the way a Dell didn’t do, right.

1 (11m 33s):

Yeah. You can say, Hey, what are you doing? That’s that’s wrong. It’s that wrong for you to be able to, you know, go out there and claim that something is new or you came up with something. So yeah, at, at that point I would totally the side with maybe somebody yelling, Oh like this earnest guy, right. Not doing just by the way to his name, you know, saying, Hey, she’s appropriating and Adele it and come out and say, Oh, look at this new hairstyle I came up with now, you know, she came at, if anything were the whole wardrobe that goes, you know, almost hand in hand with the, with the celebrations she’s attending.

1 (12m 10s):

Right. And its really, in my opinion, what the point of this video is here, I would say a lot of the things, you know, that most people do, ah, when it comes to the food clothing, hairstyles, it’s either a, because they feel comfortable, you know, using it, wearing it, eating it. Or if anything, if you have to see it as either appropriating or appreciating it to appreciating, right.

1 (12m 42s):

I’ve known a lot of individuals within my own culture, within the Latino Mexican culture. That’s like, I don’t like walk. I don’t like big sombreros. I don’t like Mexican music. So what, so they don’t have to like it. Right. That’s perfectly fine. I have known a lot of people that are like, yeah, I actually I’m in love with the Italian culture. And it’s like, okay, who, you know, its fine. And they, you know, there are may be Mexican or something who cares is that there’s that mean that they’re appropriating the Italian culture or are there abandoning their own culture?

1 (13m 13s):

Now it doesn’t first of all, at the end of the day, if we’re going to get down to the nitty gritty man, a lot of us, some of you guys may know this because I did it with the, I posted it online. But many of us are a mixed bag of, of a lot of different backgrounds, right. Based on our DNA. Now it is strictly up with the Culture that you grew up with. I grew up in the U S, which is everybody, everybody or not everybody, but many people say it’s the back to the melting pot of the world.

1 (13m 44s):

Right? So I grew up with black culture around me, Indian culture, obviously the Latino culture. And I grew up with many people that were white around me. I now have, you know, grown up to work, move to areas where the Latino culture, the Mexican culture is not the dominating Culture and I’ve adopted a things that I feel work for me. Right.

1 (14m 13s):

I’m in my appropriating them. And know, and if somebody’s that I’ve met in the past as I can, I really liked the way you guys do this. You know, whatever it is, like use a, I dunno you use pine Sol or if I will also to clean the whole damn house, Oh they’re appropriating us. It’s getting ridiculous. I know you might say like going to do it to you. And I think now you you’re going to a, you know, to far to the laugh or whatever to the REIT. And you know, we are talking about are strictly clothing here and were talking about strictly hairstyle’s stop.

1 (14m 49s):

You want to talk about clothing? You know how many clothing out there wouldn’t be nowhere near what they are today. If it wasn’t for multi cultures accepting, embracing, and using their clothing. Here’s an example for those of you grew up along with me in the years of let’s just say the early two thousands in high school, do you remember all the little, you know, the Latino kids are using brands like FUBU and echo. Yeah. Do you know who the owners of those brands are?

1 (15m 20s):

Right. I remember that I wore it. It was cool. You know, everybody wanted to look like little John, you know, who, who cares. And I remember seeing why kids use them. I’m risking aging kids using th what does that matter? You know? And again, when it comes to like something as ridiculous socially, nowadays, by the way, something as ridiculous as earnest Owens, sane, you know, putting on a Dale or saying like, Oh, look at this purse, then taking things away. You know what really bugged me about that, that tweet him saying this officially marks all of the top white women in pop as problematic.

2 (16m 1s):

Oh,

1 (16m 2s):

All that all the white women are problematic. What are you doing? What, what, what if I had a division or are you trying too to instill on your viewers? They’re are maybe following you, I don’t follow this freaking nutcase. I don’t, I don’t care that he’s, you know, a successful journalist. I know I’m a strong opinion that people that sometimes get to high up on they’re on their pedestal, you know, start seeing down on people instead of seeing face to face and really hearing conversations that matter.

1 (16m 38s):

Right? So him from his pedestal, it’s like speaking what to his crowd of obviously nonwhite people, right. And bashing down on this white artists that all the white women in pop are problematic. So he didn’t effectively just target her what that he’s targeting everybody, you know, and this is a clear example of what people do when it comes to what’s happening now in society, which is immediately labeling an entire group.

1 (17m 16s):

Right. As a problem, its, it’s not going to get better until we have some kind of major reset. And I’m going to talk about that in a future video that is going to come up here, hopefully in the next few days of what is going to exactly happen with all these riots and protests power. Is that really going to end? I strongly believe that it will be some massive reset. What does that, what does it mean? I don’t know. I’ll explain it to you to watch that video, but anyways guys, that’s it for this one.

1 (17m 49s):

I just want to share my thoughts on, on, you know, on people saying, you know, Appropriation, you know, I don’t believe Appropriation is a thing, unless, like I said, someone’s like, Oh, I came up with this new thing and you know, clearly it’s something that has been around for a long time and other cultures or something. Right. But other than that, those examples, you know, per Appropriation is a joke to say that anybody again, especially if you are in any of the The heavily diverse areas in the United States, that Appropriation can be a thing it’s it makes no sense.

3 (18m 27s):

Alright cool.

1 (18m 29s):

Thank you for watching as always make sure you like and subscribe. And if you don’t mind wring that notification are really helps show the videos and until next time,

3 (18m 39s):

See, ya know,