hellnogaycism:Thanks to an anonymous tip (I’m not trying to sound cool, this was a legit anonymous a
hellnogaycism:Thanks to an anonymous tip (I’m not trying to sound cool, this was a legit anonymous ask sent in) we’ve decided to talk about these screen shots of Tyler Oakley on LiveJournal, back in 2011, declaring that American Apparel selling a “Conical Asian Hat” is in fact NOT racist. In his words, “calling it racist is racist within itself.” We live in a society where POC are constantly mocked. We live in a society where stereotypes about POC are perpetuated on the regular. And even those more “noble” stereotypes or “cool” aspects of our culture become a commodity to be fetishized by white bodies. (See: commodity fetishism and Tyler Oakley’s Appropriation of Black Women’s Speech). Simply, white America is the great cultural appropriator. White Americans take without asking or even giving credit. White America sterilizes and gentrifies other folks’ culture in an effort to seem cool, hip, and, above all things, cultured.This incident with Oakley is a great example of how white individuals try to justify their actions when they are called out for agreeing with or perpetuating certain aspects of cultural appropriation. Oakley’s lack of understanding of his position of power in this conversation is laughable. Here a white man is essentially telling Asian folks that taking aspects of their culture for American consumption isn’t racist. No, no, it’s capitalism and the American way. Not only that, he’s also telling people that they only see the hats as bad because they believe there’s something wrong with being Asian.Dude is so far out of his depth here, and it never even occurs to him, because the idea that there’s a conversation on oppression where he’s not the most knowledgeable one in the room just doesn’t make sense to him. Sorry for all the Tyler Oakley posts, but if he just wouldn’t do so much problematic stuff, we wouldn’t have so much to write about. -- source link