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Bank Robber’s Mask Is Soooo Problematic
UPDATE: News story based on bunk, as noted below by Midget Faded Rattlesnake. The general points about “cultural appropriation” stand, although not as related to this story. Fake but accurate!
In which California is fitted with a jet engine, loaded into a rail-gun launcher, and aimed so the trajectory takes it over the shark:
I used to say “not the Onion,” but let’s use “Not the Babylon Bee” going forward. From the story:
An armed robber wearing a “Day of the Dead”-type mask, who held up a Wells Fargo Bank, may be charged with cultural appropriation, in addition to bank robbery.
According to a press release by the Santa Monica Police Department, on Sept. 10, a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, gloves, and a skull mask similar to one that represents the Mexican holiday, entered a Wells Fargo location in the beachside Los Angeles suburb.
“Use of a Day of the Dead Mask during a robbery can be a separate offense or an enhancement, under the California Penal Code,” a police spokesperson said in a press release, per the Observer. “In this case, the suspect is sought for violating the rights of indigenous peoples, and for bank robbery.”
Interesting set of priorities in that last sentence.
A spokesperson from Wells Fargo tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “We are working with law enforcement and are unable to provide more details as this is an ongoing criminal investigation. Wells Fargo values and promotes diversity and inclusion in all aspects of business at all levels. We do not tolerate racism, cultural appropriation or discrimination of any kind.”
It is a good thing that Wells Fargo does not tolerate racism. One suspects they tolerate a great deal of discrimination when it comes to extending credit, but the term no longer means “make a distinction.” What’s new, at least to me, is this: Wells Fargo does not tolerate cultural appropriation of any kind, even if it’s not related to a robbery.
I’d love to see someone make them codify precisely what that means. They can’t, of course, and wouldn’t, of course. It’s a nonsense term, selectively applied, and profoundly illiberal. It suggests that every tribe should stay in its lane, as they love to say, with no culture polluting the folkways of another – as if the syncretic history of humanity hasn’t eventually enriched everyone whose culture picked up something from another. It doesn’t even define “culture,” except for superficial manifestations that reduce culture to kimonos or burritos, but never the ideas that arise from a civilization. Even then, it’s inconsistent: the high schooler wearing a kimono to a prom is culturally appropriating; the Japanese businessman in a suit is not. This has the odd effect of defining Western cultural signifiers as a global norm, which seems like cultural imperialism.
You could make the point that Western innovations arose from cultural differences unique to a time and place, a confluence of capital, societal endorsement of innovation, a post-Enlightenment elevation of reason and inquiry, and so on. But no one would make that case, because it would center the conversation around the history of Europe and the Anglosphere, which is inconvenient. Best to see that tale through the lens of colonialism, which prevented the occupied lands from developing the telephone and the three-piece suit.
More from the news story:
The Day of Dead, a holiday that lasts between October 31 and November 2, is a celebratory period for Mexican people to honor those who have passed on. Toy company Mattel is currently selling a “Barbie Día de Muertos” (retail price: $75) that some reportedly tweeted appropriated Mexican culture.
Somehow a news story about a bank robbery required the inclusion of a bad Barbie that resulted in some tweets, but okay. The designer of the doll is Mexican-American, according to a NYT story worrying about cultural appropriation. Doesn’t matter. LANES. STAY IN THEM. THAT INCLUDES COLLECTABLE PAINTED FIGURINES.
The Left: absolutely you should do extra prison time for appropriating a culture. Also the left: vote Elizabeth Warren. Also the Left: we find your use of the phrase “pow wow chow” offensive. Additional charges will be filed.
Published in Culture
If you go by this, every non-Celtic who participates in Halloween by wearing a costume next month is guilty of the same cultural appropriation violation.
Any word on whether the robber used the correct pronouns while addressing the bank hostages?
He may have taken the safe Buffalo Bob option, and just insisted “it puts the money in the bag.”
So maybe less time if you wear a regular old Antifa-style face covering, or even a reduced sentence for robbery-while-doing-social-justice. Added points for vandalism.
Of what ethnicity is the perpetrator? What form of illegal profiling makes the police certain that ze is not entitled to wear the mask?
If the perpetrator was an authorized user of the mask, does that mean all wearers of such masks are criminally liable for conspiracy?
I believe this now requires your resignation, 007.
1. So liberals finally want the police to get tough on something? The PC police turn out to be police–very South Park, like so much of America-in-the-media these days!
2. Isn’t stealing money always cultural appropriation, since there are president’s portraits on the money, plus Franklin & Hamilton? I mean, it’s Hamilton from Hamilton!
3. This is probably the most ridiculous woke capital story I’ve seen yet, but it can probably be improved upon. All woke capital should have minority staff on the receiving end of complaints, to accuse customers or, worse, plaintiffs of racism!
4. Deleted for offensiveness
5. Something seems wrong about a day of the dead Barbie, though! Is it for creepy children who want to lean into that? Or is it supposed to lend anthropological authenticity to the bearer?
This can’t be real. It has to be satire. It certainly isn’t constitutional.
I don’t think the “it’s five o’clock somewhere” rule works, when it comes to April 1. I think it’s real.
I regret that I only have one like . . .
Given that this is the great socialist state of California, when caught and convicted, he/she/it will get more time for the stupid PC crap than the bank robbery. On a positive note, we’ve found something the libs are more afraid of than the shotgun he used. “The mask! How dare you!”
My first reaction was, “No . . . No . . . Come on, No!”
It turns out that he could be charged with “violating the rights of indigenous peoples.” Unless these “indigenous people” had their money in that bank, I don’t see how their rights were violated. Also, the Day of the Dead tradition comes from the Aztecs and I do not know if Aztecs were indigenous to Santa Monica or not. Does that matter or has “indigenous peoples” taken on a broader “anyone but white people” meaning?
Yahoo News has long had a well earned reputation for tripe (which is probably being deeply unfair to tripe).
http://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2019/September-2019/09_17_2019_Santa_Monica_Bank_Robber_Wanted_for_Cultural_Appropriation_%20News_Site_Reports.html
Those were the questions that came immediately to my mind when I saw that an unnamed suspect is being sought.
The Lookout reports Yahoo News got this bogus rumor from the Santa Monica Observer reporter Stan Greene:
So Greene reported on a bogus police press release.
This is not the first time Greene has reported bogus news for the Observer, the Lookout notes,
California has a law against cultural appropriation? Seriously?
It appears unseriously, fortunately.
Next time someone brings up “cultural appropriation” in casual conversation, ask them why they hate little girls in Japan. Because this sure aint her culture. And she CRUSHES it. :)
Reading Catch-22 at the same time that I’m reading articles like this is causing me fact / fiction problems.
Ahem, like, that’s not cultural appropriation. That’s not problematic at all. ‘Cause, like, cultural appropriation is when a privileged culture steals something from a non-privileged one. She’s a Person of Color. She’s oppressed. So, like, she isn’t appropriating anything. Duh!
Clearly we are living in the easiest of times. When tripe of this level of minutia reaches the level of serious consideration, it is time for a great conflagration in which our intellectual betters are unwillingly forced to man the front lines (are we overdue for another world war???) …… for a better understanding of what is important in life.
I just wish they would stop dragging the rest of us along into their insanity.
I think Stan Greene should get some kind of award. He certainly gets California’s zeitgeist right, if not the facts. And, besides, do we care about facts anymore? I don’t think so.
But it was a Wells Fargo office, a company specifically founded to exploit the Anglo seizure of Mexican territory (California). If the robber is not himself of Mexican descent, couldn’t his lawyer argue that the robbery was a statement in support of legitimate grievances and thus the mask was an affirmative statement of solidarity which would take it outside the scope and intent of the statutory ban on cultural appropriation.?
And isn’t the robbery itself the result of economic disparities in Santa Monica? In California? An indictment of our educational system? I put it to you, your honor and persons of the jury, isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you could do as you choose with my poor client but do you really want to sit here and badmouth the United States of America and all it should stand for?
Free the man behind the mask, I say! Thank you.
Apparently not, at least if you’re on the Left:
OldB,
Masks, we don’t got no masks. We don’t need no stinkin masks.
The customer service desk at your local Wells Fargo branch.
Regards,
Jim
Heartbreaking to watch hero of the white patriarchy Humphrey Bogart shoot indigenous freedom fighters…
Joe! He was always a champion of those who sought the overthrow the tyranny of factual integrity but he has recently reached out to the innumerate as another cognitively deformed constituency to be added to his following. All those years working in British coal mines as a youth may have cost him more than a few grey cells.
OldB,
I understand your concern. Here he is sexually assaulting a young innocent woman.
Hopefully, the NY Times will do an expose on this right away.
Regards,
Jim
LAUREN BACALL!! She was only 20 when that flick was made. Hell of a debut.
I knew it was a fake the second I heard about it, because I live here. It’s like seeing a quote from the HuffPo that gun owners literally worship their weapons; if you’re an actual gun owner, you’re probably less inclined to believe the story. If you’re an actual HuffPo reader, you bought it on sight. “Yes! It’s just sooo true of those people!!”
EDIT: BTW, in case it’s not already obvious, the Observer and the Lookout are competitors who never have anything good to say about each other. It’s a frequent source of entertainment when they tangle.
As always, Remy should be referenced.
This is a real headline, Parents are Divided on Whether It’s Okay to Let Their Kids Dress as Moana for Halloween. There is a similar controversy if white kids want to dress up as Black Panther.