Disagreement can be good

Today we discuss a complex and contentious issue, but we should be able to do so:

• civilly (without attacking or insulting others) and
• productively, by:
  • prioritizing why and how we come to beliefs over what we believe.
  • assessing our confidence in beliefs (e.g., ~80%),
  • modifying beliefs when appropriate, and
  • appreciating beliefs are based on valid differences in values, experiences, and positions.

“Asian Fishing”

Appropriation

The Cambridge Dictionary definition implies:

1. “appropriator” is not part of the culture
2. “taking or using” is done in context of an imbalance of power
3. “does not credit its origins or is disrespectful to its meaning” (Cherid 2021, p. 359)

Harms

1. infringes legal property rights
2. attacks the viability or identity of a culture
3. negates indigenous meaning in favor of appropriator (Young and Brunk (2009) in Cherid 2021, p. 360)

How is it different from code switching?

Are they appropriation??

Rachel Doleza’s Blackness; BMFA’s Kimono; Candice Reese’s mnemonic

What other questions arise? Can definitions be improved?

Commodification

The integration of Black culture in contemporary capitalist frameworks has served to “domesticate” the stereotype of the dangerous African American, but only insofar as it can be consumed… Black culture is intentionally being made palatable to a White audience, with the goal of making a profit. (Cherid 2021, p. 360)

Commodity fetishism

Much of cultural/media studies is based on Karl Marx.

He observed that in capitalism, “the fantastic form of a relation between things” obscures the “social relation between men themselves” (Marx 1867/2005).

That is, “commodity fetishism” is how the market obscures human/social relationships in favor of the transactional value of things.

Commodification examples?

gender and race are commodified in:

• Nicki Minaj, Anaconda
• Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, WAP
• Christina Aguilera Can’t Hold Us Down (Cherid 2021, p. 362)

Blackfishing

Appropriation + Commodification

white women who wish to capitalize off of impersonating racially ambiguous/Black women for monetary and social gain… white women wear Black women’s features like a costume.

the same features that, once derided by mainstream white culture, are now coveted … with Black women’s contributions being erased all the while. (Thompson 2018)

Examples?

Appropriation

the historical logic of appropriation: take the culture, the aesthetics, and erase the race. (Kim 2021)

as bell hooks wrote, this desire to “eat the Other” is intrinsically tied up with a desire to be transformed by an encounter with the Other. It is through this transformation that white Americans seek to validate themselves as individuals

The digital

The “I” is composed not just of a physical body, but the technology we rely on, all those instantiations that live online, all the filtered images that exist in cyberspace — an “extended” self. (Kim 2021)

Lil Miquela

Aitana earns “up to €10,000 per month”

Fetish?

Mainstream culture now celebrates artificially rendered influencers like Miquela, or figures like Poppy who fashion their personas as robo-entertainers… The uncanny becomes normalized, fetishized. (Kim 2021)

“Real souls”

Bodies that are mediated, composite, extended, but cannot function without a pulse; that are subject to violence digitally because of violence done to them physically, and vice versa; that deserve to be treated with dignity precisely because they are bodies, inhabited by real souls, living real lives. (Kim 2021)

Coconut Kitty

Using our terms, what might we say of Deets?

Oli London’s transition

Can race/gender be fluid/appropriated?

https://strawpoll.com/fluid

https://strawpoll.com/appropriated

Facetuning video

How deepfakes work

Which is worse?

if you scroll far enough back on her Coconut Kitty Instagram, you can see the slow transformation of an unmistakable adult into a rather uncanny-looking teen, despite most of the content — boobs, butts, a cascade of red hair — remaining the same. (Jennings 2021)

Is Jennings right: influencer tuning is more dangerous than deepfakes?

Wrap up

• Write a “3-minute paper” (bullets are fine) on
  • what concerns you about this topic,
  • what are you (not) okay with,
  • and where’s the line?

1. What concerns you about this topic?
2. What are you (not) okay with?
3. Where’s the line?