BAD BETI

Feeling Rebloggy [Surprisingly enough to some,] this isn't sugar skull make-up. It's generic skeleton make-up. There is a particular design and aesthetic to sugar skull painting, and it usually involves simple flower designs and bright colors."

~Siboney Ornelas

This is not cultural appropriation. This is Bad Beti

"The concept around being a "Bad Beti" means bad girl/daughter, because there are so many expectations women have to follow under south asian culture that are actually really harmful and restrictive. So the point of this is to make her look really bad / evil / scary and not your [girl] next door future wife. The point is to represent yourself as a Desi but bring out that "badness" that is often condemned. So essentially it is depicted by a skeleton drawing on the face... I can see why it looks similar to sugar skull...

~Hira Kalyal

* * * * * * * * 

This more like Sugar Skull Make Up To Me

A CULTURAL APPROPRIATION QUICKIE

Watch the video first.
It's a little more than 15 seconds.

Sometimes I think the young folk think that this is all there is to standing against Cultural Appropriation. They get so instantly angry without thinking much about cultural sharing etc.

BUT THEN

I accidentally watch a piece of something like Justin Bieber's "Sorry" video. And it's like I'm Petty Crocker's and Daffy Duck's first born child. I find myself screaming just like "Dad"

"MINE! MINE! MINE! 

MOFOS,  IT'S MINE!!!"

Just a screen shot.
No Justin Bieber videos allowed here

If you decide to go find the Bieber video and watch white girls mock/mimicking black girls for yourself, please do tell me what music they are dancing to. I promise you they can't possibly be dancing to the music Beiber is singing along with.

Can't be.


A REAL LESSON 
ON CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AT THIS LINK

AMANDLA STENBERG'S
"DON'T CASH CROP ON MY CORNROWS"
http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2015/06/dont-cash-crop-on-my-cornrows-cultural.html

COLDPLAY'S COLORBLIND HYMN FOR THE WEEKEND

Cultural Appropriation in white music videos is not new. Beyonce' participating is not new either. Nobody is going to accuse Bey of being a brain surgeon, not even of the Ben Carson variety.  

Sooo... Let's see what we've got.

1) I see cultural appropriation event #25 for Beyonce.

2) I see Beyoncé appearing very nearly white in some shots...again.

3) I see Indian children break dancing like black kids.  

4) I see Cold Play with another light-skinned black woman made even more acceptable by being otherized via Asian culture put on like a costume. The black woman in their video can be anything but a straight-up black woman.

In my opinion there's some cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation and cultural sharing (maybe) some exotic fetishizing of light-skinned black woman with a Asian twist. More importantly though, I think there's some colorblind race theory here too. But let's stop looking at Beyonce. It is Cold Play that has the pattern to worry about here.

COLD PLAY COVERED IN COLORS
AND GUEST SINGERS BEYONCE AND RHIANNA

Beyonce is using Indian Culture like a costume in this Coldplay video. Rhianna just played a "China Princess" in another one of their videos. Nicki Minaj oughta be dancing through a Coldplay video in Japanese garb any day now. Then again, Minaj may not be the lead singer's taste. Maybe if Halle Berry could sing, she'd be the one to slink her way through one of their next music videos in a Japanese get up. 

The white men of Cold Play and the Indian children in "Hymn For The Weekend" are all painted in different colors. And it seems to me that all these pieces together are sending the same old message: 'I don't care if your red, blue, or purple because I love everybody. I don't need to respect differences because i don't see any. Color blind race theory reigns supreme AND cultural appropriation doesn't exist. Racism is entirely about hate and nothing else.' 

This ignorant, predominantly white, interpretation of race, ethnicity, and racism is at least 50 years old.

In 2016, we need to look at the message maker NOT the deliverer.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
AND
COLORBLIND RACE THEORY
TOGETHER
WHEREVER
THEY
GO
?

When the I-don't-see-race folk stop insisting on being on the same page as KKK members, maybe the anti-racism movement will increase in size. I like Coldplay's music. But I'm going to continue to take a pass on their videos. And I'm going to join "woke" people of color in raking them over the coals until they get it. (You can keep trying to get Beyonce and Rhianna to think if you wanna. I"m kinda done.)

Changing how Beyonce' presents herself in this video is the key to fixing it. If she had been a straight-up black woman learning from a woman that's from the area, dressed in traditional clothing, and that woman was either showing Beyonce different things about her culture or teaching Beyonce a dance etc, that would have fit into the "cultural sharing" and "cultural appreciation" zone for 75% of people that are conscious and respectful of other cultures.

If they could have gotten a real Bollywood actress, Priyanka Chopra of the television show "Quantico" to perform in the video along with Beyonce, as described above, That could have been a kind of advertisement of/support for the television series, which has Priyanka as a lead actress and another black actress, Aunjanue Ellis as a supporting actress.

This music video could have been win, win, win and win for Coldplay, Beyonce, Priyanka's Quantico, and reaching and teaching on cultural appropriation.

And oh yeah, I would keep the little Indian kids break dancing like little black kids. They were way cute.




VIDEOS

RACE IS JUST A LABEL /WELL-MEANING IDIOCY. (Makes me mad so many brown-skinned people participated in this mess)

THE NEARLY SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE-MUSIC VIDEO IN QUESTION COLDPLAY"S "HYMN FOR THE WEEKEND"
****************************************

GOOD, BAD, and BEST NEWS on Amandla Stenberg Teaching Cultural Appropriation

Amandla Stenberg, right. Maybe Mommy on Left.
HER ORIGINAL VIDEO ON CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IS AT THE END OF THIS POST

The GOOD NEWS 
Amandla Stenberg is teaching white girls in cornrows about Cultural Appropriation

http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2015/07/hunger_games_star_amandla_stenberg_is_spending_summer_vacation_teaching.html


BAD NEWS 
Andy Cohen, of the television station Bravo, saw fit to call the Stenberg the 'Jackhole of the Day' for her comments on cultural appropriation. And the two people who were sitting there and should have defended her didn't think to do so (Not familiar with two websites below. Use caution)

It takes very little for some people, especially dominant culture white people, to spew pettiness if not out-right hatred. All you have to do is say "Please don't do use my stuff in this way. Please don't use my stuff as a fun costume. Please learn the difference between culture exchange and cultural appropriation."

If there's a more polite video or person talking about cultural appropriation in the main stream news right now, I don't know how that person is.  (See video below)

It seems clear to me that the real reason Cohen called her 'Jackhole of the Day" was because she dared talk back to massa. How dare you tell me what I can not take and use of yours? 


http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/96857555.html
http://www.gumbumper.com/say-what-bravos-andy-cohen-calls-teen-star-amandla-stenberg-jackhole-of-the-day-on-wwhl-with-laverne-cox-andre-leon-talley-tyga-kylie-do-da/

BEST NEWS
We have a voice. Black Twitter is all of Andy Cohen's @$$.  
Boycott Bravo!!
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2015/07/bravo_s_andy_cohen_calls_amandla_stenberg_a_jackhole_for_calling_out_appropriation.html

DON'T CASH CROP ON MY CORNROWS by Amandla Stenberg

Cultural Appropriation 

vs 

Cultural Exchange

Amandla's only 16 and well on her way to being a bad ass black chick.  She talks about black women, black hair, and black style in a predominantly white country called the United States of America. Then breaks down the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange

WHAT WOULD AMERICA BE LIKE IF IT LOVED BLACK PEOPLE AS MUCH AS IT LOVES BLACK CULTURE?

IS THAT A QUESTION OR WHAT?