Culture Appropriate???

I know this blog check has a lot of discussion about Dear White People in it, but it’s just been so heavy in our discussion for the past few weeks and there is SO much to unpack there. I want to talk about a small something I noticed in an episode of DWP. It was the episode after all of Sam’s friends found out she had a “white bae,” and she was bringing him to some hangout. When she met up with him before they left to go meet her friends, it was obvious that she was uncomfortable with the way he was dressed. One of the things they said to each other really popped out at me. Sam asked “don’t you have any Js,” and his response was to jokingly ask her if she wanted him to appropriate her culture just to get her friends to like him. Now everyone else in class laughed at this point. But I thought this exchange was bigger than one of DWPs silly dialogues. I think it exposed a real issue that we have in society today! People don’t know how to interact inter-racially, without taking on some form of culture appropriation, and I think that’s a big issue! Like.. Why is the only way we know how to respect and show appreciation for another culture, especially for instance the culture of a romantic partner, is by trying it on? Why, in 2017, have we not learned how to respectfully and appropriately interact inter-racially in a casual and social environment??? And culture appropriate is NOT the respectful, appropriate way to do it.

#Tabatha