Posted on 04/30/2018 6:27:16 PM PDT by Simon Green
A high school student's prom pictures have generated a furious debate online after some social media users accused the 18-year-old of "cultural appropriation".
Twitter user Keziah, who is not Chinese, posted pictures of herself wearing a cheongsam, or qipao - a traditional Chinese dress - for her prom in Utah, USA, last week.
In a widely-shared response to the pictures, one Twitter user, Jeremy Lam, tweeted: "My culture is not your... prom dress".
The original tweet, and Lam's criticism on Friday night, have attracted hundreds of thousands of likes, tens of thousands of retweets, and thousands more comments as supporters and critics clashed over the weekend over the concept of cultural appropriation - the adoption of minority cultures, typically by dominant cultures.
Mr Lam explained on Twitter why he found the photos troubling. He said the qipao began as a formless gown for house cleaning and was turned into a symbol of female empowerment.
"In a time where Asian women were silenced they were able to create not only a piece of art but a symbol of activism," he wrote.
"This piece of clothing embraced femininity, confidence and gender equality through its beautiful, eye-catching appearance.
"The style was then spread throughout Asia as a beautiful garment and sign of women's liberation.
"I'm proud of my culture, including the extreme barriers marginalised people within that culture have had to overcome those obstacles. For it to simply be subject to American consumerism and cater to a white audience is parallel to colonial ideology."
Mr Lam's post clearly struck a chord. By the time of writing it had been liked more than 167,000 times and retweeted close to 40,000 times.
However, after some commenters suggested Keziah should remove the pictures, she refused.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
In my culture, long long ago, people used to say “lighten up dude.”
Algore traded it for a lifetime of free Asian massages??
perhaps Jeremy should take a refresher course on Asian 'colonialism' over the centuries...and he might just fall to his knees and thank his gods that Western culture interceded and outlawed the barbaric cultural practices of his backwater country aimed at keeping the collective IQ below 80, and obedience absolute.
Yes, good grief!
I’m assuming Mr. Lam is of Chinese decent and if this is the game he wants to play, I say fine let’s play. So Mr. Lam may keep everything that originated in China, but I get to keep everything that originated in the USA as a result of the creativity and ingenuity of fellow white American males.
He gets to keep chopsticks, noodles, and traditional Chinese clothing. However I get to keep electricity, nuclear energy, the telephone/cellphone, television, radio, movies, computers, the internet, traines, planes, automobiles, satellites, microwave ovens, and just about everything else that turds like him depend upon for their life and survival.
All of the aforementioned items were created by White American Males. That is MY culture and I find it offensive that he is appropriating it.
Little punk-a$$, slope beatch!
P.S.: Chopsticks suck and are retarded.
WTF is the matter with people. If it was a stupid and ugly piece of clothing, people in other cultures wouldn’t be wearing it.
“Dumb ####ing descendant of a psych WWII monster, maybe stationed in Nan King.
Go the #### back and start worshiping the emperor again”
Huh? There were no Japanese mentioned in the article.
.
“Liberals are always looking for something to be offended by. Hell, they’ll even be offended for you if you aren’t.”
Works both ways. Liberals are starting to offend me merely by existing.
Fine ... I demand that anyone wearing blue jeans and t-shirts to stop immediately. Them’s white boy clothes only. Stop appropriating my culture!
Ha! We think alike. See my previous post.
I think we should help all chinese women living in the US get their feet bound.
After all; it’s their culture
This guy has a name like “Jeremy” and he is crying over cultural appropriation? Change your name and get out of America. This idiot is ridiculous.
Perhaps the Japanese need to give up playing baseball and wearing "WESTERN" clothes.
This whole "cultural appropriation" crap is patently ridiculous, in the extreme!
And good for YOU, for being such an accomplished seamstress!
Spoken like a true undersized Asian twit.
Maybe he should tell those Asian women to stop appropriating White European males.
We are not the least bit offended. The style looks very nice on her.
Redundant.
Mark
“In a time where Asian women were silenced they were able to create not only a piece of art but a symbol of activism,” he wrote.
“This piece of clothing embraced femininity, confidence and gender equality through its beautiful, eye-catching appearance.
“The style was then spread throughout Asia as a beautiful garment and sign of women’s liberation.
So a confident self assured woman of another age and
culture shouldn’t be able to wear it?
Sounds like this guy and all those who complain
are exhibiting “Cultural Oppression” to me.
This is a beautiful girl and the dress is stunning.
And since so many English words ( not to mention entire languages i.e. : FRENCH, SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, and of course Italian, to name but a few... are patois of Latin ) then just WHAT should all of these people now speak? LOL
But isn't the origin of spaghetti, really Chinese noodles? So I guess that Italians and everyone else has to give up eating Spaghetti. And whilst I'm going down that road...everyone who isn't South American must, of course, give up chocolate in all of its permutations, tomatoes/tomato infused products, and sweet potatoes! After all..."IT'S NOT THEIR CULTURE"! ;^)
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