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An Unexpected Gift: A Culture of Appropriation
Years ago I was told about a family letter. In it, a relative had asked another who was into genealogy about the family history. The letter began:
When a man steals a loaf of bread, one calls him a thief. When a man steals a kingdom, one calls him “The Conqueror.”
My antecedents are English. In that mix of my ancestry is included William the Conqueror and many of his companions whose later descendants became the Magna Carta barons. I am also descended from Vikings who were not filtered through France, Anglo-Saxons, and probably Brittano-Romans and Brythonic Celts if one could precisely trace these things back far enough. The language of the English is a mishmash of Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, Viking-age Danish, and other languages from many cultures. Since the language started stabilizing into what we call Modern English at about the time my patrilineal ancestor left Warwickshire for Virginia, our language has added many words and roots from all over the world: Latin and Greek, German words like schadenfreude, French words, Portuguese words that the English found being used in India, such as “veranda.” We have stolen words from every culture where we found a useful word.
My family has lived in what is now the United States for more than four hundred years. We accepted foods from other cultures into our cuisines. We eat hominy grits, which was part of the cuisine of the Southeastern Indian tribes. More recently, we have taken in foods from other cultures: pemmican and jerky, tacos and enchiladas, spaghetti and other pastas, pizza, curries. We never turn down more food choices, and we make them our own. We’ve stolen cooking ideas from everywhere around the world.
I’m sitting here in jeans and a plaid shirt. England did have a weaving and cloth producing tradition, but jeans and denim came from what is now Italy and France. Plaid, or tartan, is usually associated with Scotland. Now, admittedly, another of my family lines did rule Scotland for several centuries, but they were a Norman or Breton family that had settled in England and then went north with King David. They were certainly not highlanders. In the other room, I have dress clothing, such as I shall be wearing on Sunday. All of my dress shirts have French cuffs. My ties, well over a hundred of them collected over the decades, are mostly made from silk, not a cloth native to English or American cultures. Some of those ties are in patterns that have come from far countries or have used techniques of production that originated in other than England or the United States. Others were made in foreign countries using English-developed techniques or American designs. For instance, one Frank Lloyd Wright tie was made in Italy of silk, probably using techniques developed in China and refined in Europe and the US. We have picked up types of cloth, raw textile materials, and processing techniques from every culture under the sun.
Other types of English culture? Well, there is Shakespeare. He stole from everywhere. The whole copyright thing didn’t really get seriously enforced until Queen Anne’s day in the Eighteenth Century; thus Shakespeare happily appropriated Greek and Roman plays, putting them into English and updating the stories here and there. While Shakespeare used the English form of the sonnet, the sonnet itself came from the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and was adapted by Henry Howard to be more easily written in English. Shakespeare also borrowed from English and Scottish history and myth, of course. But if there was a culture he ran across to steal from, he certainly took anything that wasn’t nailed down. We discussed the words above. He was one of the greatest word creators in our language. He used roots from Latin, Greek, French, and anywhere else he knew of to create words.
My forebears have left me an unexpected gift, a boon for the ages. Do you want to accuse me of cultural appropriation? You don’t understand. My culture is appropriation. If your culture is not English in origin, you cannot appropriate any other group’s culture. Not only will you be appropriating that group’s culture, but you will also be appropriating my culture of appropriation. Don’t appropriate my culture.
Published in Group Writing
I had to invent a fact, in order to create the needed illustrative example of cousin-numbering.
When I have to estimate a woman’s age, I always try to miss low.
Yes.
Now, THAT’s funny. Thx.
Obviously, Reparations according to the groundwork so thoroughly laid out by Ms Occasio Cortez is clearly the only viable solution to this problem that we “white caucasians ” have saddled this country with. But to start the process, we should barf up all the food we just ate because you know that food was surely appropriated away from some other culture somewhere, give away all our worldly goods because those goods were obviously taken away from other more deserving cultures a long time ago and move back to where we came from many millennia ago wherever that might be whether we will be welcomed back or not , because our indigenous peoples are the only ones that should rightly own and use this land. Of course, such efforts most likely may have the effect of destroying whatever value those reparations might have for our indigenous peoples and may kill billions of people in the process, but the really important thing is that our intent was so right and righteous in this effort so we can walk away likely into our oblivion with a clear conscience.
Not gonna happen, @unsk2, and that’s my point. My culture is appropriation. I’m just going to find a way to appropriate away those reparations, too.
Sometimes I see the colorful patterned shirts worn by African-American men and wish I could culturally appropriate those. Alas, they wouldn’t look nearly so good against my pale skin as they do against dark skin, so I refrain. I’ve also thought it would be nice to culturally appropriate a Ukrainian embroidered rubashka, but maybe I should put some more weight back on before doing that one. Somehow I associate it with the Khrushchev physique. I’d also like to culturally appropriate a Russian ushanka, although I would omit the little hammer and sickle. My father had one that he never wore for dress but would wear when putting chains on the car before heading out into a North Dakota blizzard. Maybe I should be satisfied with culturally appropriating the thinner version assigned to Gulag prisoners rather than the thick, furry one worn by their guards.
Fine for you, but it wouldn’t be legal for all of us. Could be misthiocrappropration of funds.
Are you okay with me not facing you when I bow? And perhaps loosening my pants?
Fun post Ara! Over the past few months I’ve been wandering down the whole family tree journey and can compete on the Murican roots – earliest ancestor I’ve found born in the US of A was 1630, so closing in on the 4 century mark. I’ve identified 13 ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War.
Even more bragging on my part is that 5 of my 8 Great Grandparents (including all 4 on my Mom’s side) were born in Oregon – their families came over on the Oregon Trail. This makes my kids 5th generation born in the State. Pioneer stock, hard working, entrepreneurs – building the state from the ground up – lumber mills, flour mills, foundries, rail lines, the list goes on.
And now the entire state has been appropriated by the pedophiles, pimps, progressives, politicians, and various and sundry other perverts.
Any recipes for taking back what is mine?
Ari,
Obviously, you don’t understand the idea of a completely legitimate claim.
As plain as day.
Regards,
Jim
Well, asking gave me a good laugh. Just understand that when a target is presented, I may give into temptation with a good swift kick.
Gather your men at arms and conquer.
Mold ways are the best ways.
EDIT: Old ways are the best ways.
Stinkin’ spellcheck. Who’s culture is that mess from, eh?
I don’t have a problem about age, I will be 81 years old in a few more days.
Which day?
So do you also look like Captain Kirk?
As well as the rest of the known world.
I take a tiny pleasure in knowing that the Japanese word for whiskey is the same as the English one. I wonder if ESL types feel similarly when they encounter one of their words nestled into our lexicon, a familiar face in a bewildering crowd.
And I from Malcolm Wallace, Sir William’s elder brother. En garde!
@ejhill has demonstrated the pressing need for an “ugg” button instead just a “like” button. “Like” is clearly not appropriate.
The pervs always come in by rail, so it’s best not to build those.
NOW you tell me!
More like Grizzly Adams with darker hair and gone to seed.
I look just like Denzel Washington. Except I’m not black. And I’m not good looking. And my hair only has a little curl to it. And it’s about 60% grey. And my facial features are different than his. And I’m heavier than he is. And I’m a couple of inches taller than he is.
Other than that? Spitting image!
I wonder the same. It got me to thinking, as usual.
I feel it when I read “OK” in French or German. It’s the universal linguistic export of my people. Free trade. #SoProud. “Bon weekend”, same. In general I don’t feel it. Reading another language is a challenge, like a crossword puzzle. Reading “le computer” feels like cheating. (Go ahead, punk. Correct the gender of that article.)
I heard someone once say that the English language has a habit of inviting other languages into dark alleys, mugging them, and then rifling their pockets for loose bits of grammar.
Part of that is that we have no governing authority for English to tell us we can’t mug other languages and rifle through their pockets. Countries like France have governing bodies over their languages to tell them they cannot use le e-mail, but must use le courriel. There’s nobody to tell us that we have to use “damage joy” instead of schadenfreude, and we would flip anyone the bird who said we had to.
The Web has greatly increased the speed with which languages are invaded by foreign words. Within fifteen minutes of your posting, I read not one but two articles in Der Spiegel where the writer chose “damage joy” instead of the proper German word “schadenfreude.” In neither case were you given credit–so typical of foreigners stealing American innovations.
I’ve learned to never trust the Mirror.
I was thinking a Hoka.
I thought that meant the catalog.
Too tall: