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 ...
Oh good grief!
I wore a Japanese Kimono to class once in college and all the Japanese kids stopped and stared but they were not upset! They just wondered where I got it! I made it because I could sew. Get over it people.
Liberals are always looking for something to be offended by. Hell, they’ll even be offended for you if you aren’t.
With apologies to Sgt. Hulka: Lighten up, Jeremy.
Beautiful. Is the vast majority of the world is guilty of cultural approbation for wearing blue jeans? I’m just sayin ‘.
If Mr Lam ever wears a coat & tie, isn’t he, by his own logic, culturally appropriating White Euro culture?
My country is not your crying closet.
STFU or GET THE HELL OUT!!
Go #### yourself and if Asia is so great why don’t all of your Asians and whites and blacks who loved the post go the #### to Asia. Preferably NK. Or Vietnam. Or even Japan with their 200 percent GDP and SERIOUS marriage problems.
I’m of Italian descent.
NO ONE should have an italian painting in their house, ONLY Italians should eat at Italian restaurants, NO Italian art should be shown in this capitalist country, NO ONE can eat pasta sauce, Cannoli or Calamari, NO ONE can watch The Godfather or Goodfellas.
NO ONE can LEARN Italian.
No less SPEAK IT in America, except those of Italian descent!!
In fact, ONLY ITALIANS should be able to take Italian classes.
Dumb ####ing descendant of a psych WWII monster, maybe stationed in Nan King.
Go the #### back and start worshiping the emperor again.
I love Italy.
I LIVE IN AND LOVE and PUT FIRST the United States of America.
I won't wear your traditional dress - but you have to give up indoor plumbing, automobiles, higher mathematics, the rule of law, and all the other culture and technology you appropriated and copied from Western Europe and the USA.
See how you like honey pots and ox carts and working an abacus.
But if you wear it wrong, we will make merciless fun of you!
Amen. Half of our nation is laboring under a form of collective lunacy when articles like this are passed off with a straight face.
Jeremy just needs to get laid and get out of mom’s basement.
There is no such thing as cultural appropriation. It is made-up liberal bullshit. America is a melting pot of many cultures. Mr. Lam can shove his chopsticks up his backside.
“parallel to colonial ideology.”
Ok, how about you stop appropriating my culture and stop speaking english?
as an American of ginney’ descent, I permit you to eat all the Italian food you can take. Capisce?
Asian man named JEREMY complains about cultural appropriation.
And my technology is not your platform.
Go carve pictogram's on bamboo you twit.
SJW STFU. We don’t care. Repeat as often as necessary.
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