If it makes you feel any better, my hairdresser told me that blonds (natural and bottle) are always coming to her melting down about the fact that that shit doesn't wash out.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I kind of feel bad for posting about this, but I have to. An acquaintance of mine who is fun and incredibly stylish and also a bit nuts posted an album of pictures of herself done up in full, to the ground, feathered headdress, Native American dress and, worst of all, darkened face. She was going to some cowboy themed barbecue, but everyone else in the pictures looked alright. Most of them were cowboys and the one other Native American just had a bit of jewelry and a headband with his regular clothes. I'm seriously disgusted, but I like her and her brother is a dear friend so I don't want to say anything.
Still, ugh.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Coachella Arabs made me wonder what Iraan, Texas's mascot was. It is Braves.
Well, the town is not really named after Iran anyway, it's pronounced Ira-Ann, because it is named for the ranchers who owned the land where the town was built, Ira and Ann Yates.
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Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
... but I like her and her brother is a dear friend so I don't want to say anything.
I don't see how liking someone comes to mean give them a free pass. If she and her brother are real friends then they will understand and respect your objections.
Yeah, but the town is named Bagdad, so there is that.
Disclaimer: I spent a summer living in Bagdad and didn't even know that the team was called the Sultans.
Also, that chubby little guy on the carpet is not very scary.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
I was watching a documentary about India and they were at a Holi festival with the colors. I had never even seen or heard of it before. It was...glorious.
I can understand why it has been appropriated, it's joyful. Hell I wanted to go to India just to join in. So, I don't know how I feel about Color Runs, which I had never heard of until this morning.
Yeah, but the town is named Bagdad, so there is that.
Disclaimer: I spent a summer living in Bagdad and didn't even know that the team was called the Sultans.
Also, that chubby little guy on the carpet is not very scary.
Looks more like a used carpet salesman to me.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
I now have this amusing picture in my head of a woman belly dancing while riding on anothers shoulders.
I don't know about Belly dancing specifically but I've seen it from the outside looking in around yoga, tantra and many new agey things where white people have co-opted and then diluted the culture which then heaps extra work onto those from that culture to constantly play 101 class baby sitters repeatedly answering the same misconceptions over and over or being pushed out of spaces because the white washed version has become the standard and the original is now the odd thing out. They then have to tip toe around the easily hurt feelings of the white folk being forced to do more and more hand holding and emotional labor just to be allowed to exist in the same environment. Turning the people it was learned from and that they are trying to mimic into second class citizens in their own practices.
In some cases though it's just outright colonial capitalist theft. White people go to their free classes or pay them pennies to learn and access their well of knowledge only to turn around, repackage it for a rich white audience and upsell it in neighborhoods that would close drapes and lock doors if they saw the brown people it was learned from walking around. Sometimes going so far as to make certain those brown people won't have access to their rich client base.
I folded a bunch of rainbow colored cranes for a little pride hanger and was folding some more and it got me thinking about cultural appropriation and why I often say cultural theft instead when talking about it online.
Is a white dude folding a bunch of Origami cranes famous for being a Japanese symbol cultural appropriation? Yes of course! I appropriated it from Japanese culture. However I would call it good cultural appropriation, a cultural sharing type of appropriation. Which is all why I often use cultural theft to describe bad types of appropriation instead. Cultural appropriation (god damn it’s so clear academics made the term up, it’s so long to type but every time I do I feel a little snootier) is just a thing that happens when cultures mix, mingle, share and steal. Cultural theft, or other bad or questionable types of appropriation are part of this umbrella and should certainly be side eyed and questioned. The difference is then much more of a case by case basis than all cultural appropriation is bad; but also that being heavily influenced by power dynamics, the cases where one culture had or has power over another should be scrutinized harder.
While I’m sure the fact that origami is a type of topology could be fedora hatted into some sort of, ‘and really white dudes thought of it first’ bullshit. I learned how to make flappy bird cranes the same way most others did, through Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. A short book about a little Japanese girl who survived the atomic bomb blast only to die later of Leukemia while trying to reach the goal of 1000 cranes which was said to grant the maker a wish. I’ve also heard the original tale as granting the user directly ‘a cure.’ Unlike in the book, in real life she completed the task and then some. Sadly, the dying part was not also fiction. Sadako’s surviving family as well as the many other scarred bomb survivors have called the paper crane a symbol of peace and hope for all. In this way I see it as a shared symbol and culture, especially used as a hopeful symbol. I a white American am connected to the bombing of her country but also to being shared this culture to be allowed to appropriate it, so long as I don’t decide to call my next Hydrogen bomb tipped cobalt enhance ICBM “Sadako’s one thousand cranes” for the one thousand individual warheads contained within.
Having folded more than a few thousand paper cranes I can see the kernel the myth comes from. A thousand cranes is both a significant amount of time and not so significant that it’s undoable. At what amounts to a few months if done a few hours a day (At around 5 min a crane it’s about 84 hours of work), as a health cure it means you’re body is resting and stationary but active, as a good fortune granter it’s also a decent amount of mental meditation time.