Social injustices are a plague upon our society. Many of the social justice problems that we have talked about in the course Diversity and Multicultural Education, I have seen with my own eyes. From blatant racism to hidden bias, prejudices towards minority groups are not a thing of the past and are very much present in today’s society. Members of minority groups often fall victim to slurs from the ignorant. Cultural appropriation is also a major conflict facing the masses, which is caused by minority group members being underrepresented in media and the curriculum. This often leads to biases that are learned from society. Many individuals elect to stay quiet to avoid any conflict, but not speaking out to end the injustice is only adding …show more content…
I have witnessed cultural appropriation first hand from my peers. I have seen individuals dressed in Blackface in older pictures and others dressed up as Native Americans in more recent times. I have always known that this behavior was wrong and should not be considered acceptable in modern society. It is the twenty-first century and I felt that people should be more sensitive to those around them. While it is generally accepted that Blackface costumes are completely wrong, some individuals still tend to elect to have a costume using Blackface. Generally, these individuals suffer from a backlash from people in person and on social media, but what about the people who choose to dress up as American Indians? These instances of cultural appropriation are often just accepted by society, but it is not acceptable to dress up as a culture. Native Americans still exist today. They are not some caricature representation from the past and are real people and a real culture. We generally frown upon individuals dressing up in Blackface or Whiteface, so dressing up as Native Americans should not be accepted either. In the future, I will remind students and those around me of how dressing up as a culture is not acceptable in an aim to end the normalization of this practice in …show more content…
I have always like to believe that I had no bias towards any individuals of any group. My parents raised me to treat everyone equally and that everyone is equal and this is what I truly believe. Through studying the different ways bias occurs, I was forced to take a long hard look at myself and identify the hidden biases that I had that I had been denying throughout my life. I had never acted on my biases, but I am now aware that they are there. For instance, I found myself expecting students of a certain ethnicity to be less behaved and slack off more than others. These biases were formed by the stereotypes that society has popularized for various ethnicities, cultures, and other minority group members. I had allowed myself to subconsciously acknowledge these stereotypes for specific students. This bias is often the reason behind larger scale issues in schools such as the prison pipeline. Administrators view schools with large numbers of African American students in the inner city as having a high chance of behavior issues. In an effort to prevent any behavior issues, administrators create a very strict prison-like environment. Treating students as prisoners will cause them to think that they are and this in turn will lead to them acting out and causing problems in the future and eventually to becoming prisoners. This school to prison pipeline is just
This effort to stand out on Halloween comes at the expense of minorities, resulting in real harm and not just “offense”. As discussing appropriation of all minority cultures would be quite difficult, for my research paper, I am going to focus on culturally appropriative Native American themed Halloween costumes and the impact that it has indigenous people. A tentative thesis statement might be something similar to the following: The appropriation of Native American culture and identity in Halloween costumes trivializes the significance of cultural symbols and elements, perpetuates racist stereotypes, and contributes to the systemic oppression of indigenous people. With my paper, I intend to educate my audience about the harmful effects of cultural appropriation and why it is not the same as cultural appreciation. I want to persuade my audience to practice cultural sensitivity and take the time to properly learn about the culture they wish to
As people, like myself, who aren’t oppressed for their skin color, culture, or religion, it’s hard to sometimes understand what it feels like to have someone appropriate their livelihood, more specifically, someone who is appropriating someone else’s culture. I imagine it, on a much smaller scale, to be like doing a group project, but one is doing all the work and the others take all the credit. The result would be one not receiving any of the rewards. People would call them “creative” and “hard-working”, when in reality, they just showed up and didn’t contribute anything at all. Amy Stretten’s “Appropriating Native American Imagery Honors No One” provides a multitude of resources that go along with her main point of why appropriating the Native
Currently, in our society we can see an increase in inequality and discrimination towards different people. Unfortunately, the American ideology does not take into account the diversity that exists in the country. The lack of an educational perspective that includes all people regardless of gender, race, sex, religion and social class is vitally important to take into account not just those people who meet the “normal” perspectives imposed by society, but also take in consideration those who don’t necessarily meet the social expectations. It could be said that intersectionality is a tool which helps us to analyze and defend multiple discriminations and above all to understand how different factors influence the rights and opportunities that
Being a teacher for social justice is more than just making sure you include all of your students in your discussions. It is being aware of the injustices that your students may have faced, are already facing, or may face in the future. With this awareness, as teachers, we should be able to reflect on what we know, and respond by using our resources to apply it to the classroom.
1. What you are studying (which three works and the topic of your paper) Topic: I’m going to be writing my paper on Cultural Appropriation. I’m going to focus on cultural appropriation in music and hip hop. Then I’m going to use cultural appropriation in hair as a way of questioning whether cultural appropriation is actually cultural appreciation.
We live in a culturally diverse society where there are many differences among various racial and ethnic groups. When these different groups come into contact with one another they interact in many different ways. Prejudice and discrimination are key factors in understanding intergroup relationships. Competition, religious ideas, fear of strangers and nationalism are elements that contribute to prejudice. Many expressions of negative prejudicial attitudes, stereotyping and discriminatory behavior can have negative impact on the social relationships between dominant and minority groups. Many prejudices are passed along from child to parent and the influence of television and movies perpetuate demeaning portrayals about specific groups. Although prejudice continues to flourish, education plays an import role in combating prejudice and racism by providing courses and programs that help to recognize the distinction between various ethnic groups and develop an appreciation of these cultural differences.
Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards, authors of Anti-Bias Education: for Young Children and Ourselves, provide a great example of an internal bias that results in unfair judgments. “One example is if you were raised to believe that being prompt is a sign of responsibility, and your family always had a car, then it might be hard for you to comprehend the experience of low-income families who chronically drop their children off late due to unreliable buses (pg. 21).” It is little anecdotes like those that make you evaluate your pure un-bias tendencies against certain social identities.
For many years, black culture has been something that has repeatedly been looked down upon then mimicked. Cultural appropriation is defined as the act of a minority 's culture being paraded as someone else 's own without knowledge of the culture. This is not to be confused with culture appreciation, in which an individual chooses to obtain knowledge of a culture before they wear or become a part of it. The problem in this generation is that people see something they like, and simply copy it without knowing where it originated from and why. There is no attempt to learn more about it and that is the problem that most people have. Although cultural appropriation is something that can cause confusion as to why it 's offensive, most people blatantly
Have you ever taken offense when you saw someone dressed in traditional garments from your culture? In America, this happens quite often. Some people may not recognize it and some refuse to acknowledge that it even exists. Cultural appropriation is a situation in which a dominant culture steals aspects of a minority culture’s, such as hair, clothing styles, and music.
Culture Appropriation is the idea of taking one’s culture and adjusting it to another culture, and has brought about many debates for years. One specific ongoing debate is if writers have the right to write about other cultures without being classified as culturally appropriating their culture. Five articles have argued their standpoint and what they believe is the correct way to interpret culture appropriation: “Who Gets to Write What” by Kaitlyn Greenidge, “Dangerous Ideas” by Kenzie Allen, “Commentary: Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible” by K. Tempest Bradford, “In Defense of Cultural Appropriation” by Kenan Malik, and “You can’t steal a culture: In defense of Culture Appropriation” by John McWhorter. While all the participants
Cultural appropriation can be defined as the process of borrowing and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images and elements of fashion. In todays society we see more and more of this, especially in the celebrity world. This essay will give insight as to what cultural appropriation is and it will examine the reasons and consequences of celebrities that “borrow” from other cultures.
This also brings up the questions of: Can cultural appropriation be defined and can it be avoided? With the new fads of Chinese character tattoo's, Hindu god t-shirts, and the selling of such things as Native sweat lodge kits and ceremonies, does this not show that North Americans can appreciate other cultures and that western culture has become a product of a multicultural society.1 Through examples of film and art, sports, and religion, I will answer the following questions and specifically how cultural appropriation has affected North American First Nation peoples. There is much confusion when it comes to the meaning of cultural appropriation. The literal meaning begins with Culture-Anthropological: the sum total of the attainments and learned behaviour patterns of any specific period, race or people; Appropriation's meaning is to take for one's own use.[2] Most people today then know cultural appropriation then as "to take someone else's culture to use for your own purpose".2 I believe that the argument is not that appropriation is "stealing", as some people claim, but that it does matter how a person goes about putting to use the knowledge
I was aware of these oppressions and have often times struggled with what I can do individually to work towards alleviating these oppressions. The Next Steps portion of the chapter on racism really outlined methods of actions that could be applied to all forms of oppression. One method entitled “FLEXing Cross- cultural Communications,” outlines productive communication, depersonalization, and open- mindedness when it comes to understanding and practicing competency. This model serves as a tool to motivate action to those form other cultures in ways that in the end everyone can
I believe this is a very relevant topic today since prejudice and discrimination has become the leading issue of violence. The goal of this type of education is to teach the students that they have worth and can learn. It is a very positive subject matter when considering the benefits of implementing this type of education into a school system. This type of education encourages students of a diverse background to have a positive self-identity, pride in their heritage, accept others with diverse backgrounds, and promote social justice against prejudice and discrimination. Teachers can change the conversation in their classrooms by adding spontaneous and relevant content to their curriculum that both promotes multiculturalism and connects with the students. I believe a big part of making a change in our society today is by ‘changing the conversation’ whether that is about discrimination or another important issue. Teachers can step in at a very early age and promote feelings of self-worth and encourage the students to accept each other aside from cultural
In today’s modern world, fiction writers can write about anything from stories in space to stories in a small town in the middle of nowhere and who is stopping them? Well there maybe one thing: cultural appropriation. According to Maisha Z. Johnson, cultural appropriation is a “power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group”. Since it is a complex issue and has lots of dimensions to it, it is hard to point out if something is appropriation or appreciation. In their U Student Affairs Diversity Council newsletter, Amerique Phillips defines appreciation as “honoring and respecting another culture and its practices, as a way to gain knowledge