"Everything the World Has Culturally Appropriated from the West"

"In my research on cultural appropriation, I’ve uncovered a shocking truth, a great, unspoken crime against humanity, hidden in plain sight. It is the greatest, longest-running, and most heinous act of appropriation in global history."

The appropriation of Western Civilisation. 

Half-Pakistani in descent, I feel a personal sense of guilt at how non-western countries have unapologetically oppressed their fellow nations. I’ve therefore taken it upon myself to compile a list of all the things the world has culturally appropriated from the west, in hope that this injustice might one day be corrected. 

Philosophy 

Alfred North Whitehead described philosophy as “a series of footnotes to Plato.”

Architecture 

Look out at the skyline of any modern, non-western city, and you will find it looks strangely similar to a modern, western city.

Free Speech 

People are so obsessed by free speech that they’ll actually fight their own countries just to appropriate it. 

Due Process 

This is another western cultural creation that causes non-westerners to go into rabid fits of appropriation-addled hunger. Entire wars have been waged and governments deposed for the chance to appropriate these.

Political Ideologies 

Aside from Islamic countries, some of which are making a commendable effort to restrain themselves, most countries around the world have adopted a western political ideology of some kind.

Vaccines 

Country doctor Edward Jenner invented the vaccine in England, 1776. 

The Scientific Method 

Yes, science can be appropriated. As postmodern feminists tell us, science is just another cultural/social construct. And it’s one that’s been stolen from the west.

The Automobile 

Asian drivers might not have the greatest reputation, but the fact that they’re driving at all is down to the western invention of the car.

Video Games 

Have you ever been beaten by a Korean person at Starcraft? Now you can feel personally racially victimised. 

The Computer 

Every time an Indian worker answers a tech support call, they are stealing another piece of western culture. 

The Internet 

“This is for everyone,” said the British inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. A traitor to his own culture if there ever was one. 

Campus social justice warriors insist that the greatest victims of cultural appropriation are non-western cultures, like the Native Americans, Japan, and Mexico. No doubt, they would use some sort of intellectual contortion to claim that western culture can’t be appropriated. Something about “punching up,” or “culture plus power” no doubt. 

But looking through history, a neutral observer can’t fail to see that western culture is the most appropriated of them all. Other countries have been borrowing, imitating, and remixing western culture for centuries. 

And that, unquestionably, is a good thing. Look at what the Japanese have done with video games, computers, and animation. Look at the brilliance of Korean composers, trained in classical European music. Look at the industriousness of China. Western culture has enriched the world, just as non-western cultures have. It’s certainly possible to condemn it. But then, as demonstrated above, your arguments would look ridiculous.

Via Instapundit.

"Free Ottawa yoga class scrapped over 'cultural issues'"

And then they came for the yoga instructors?

Student leaders have pulled the mat out from 60 University of Ottawa students, ending a free on-campus yoga class over fears the teachings could be seen as a form of "cultural appropriation."

Staff at the Centre for Students with Disabilities believe that "while yoga is a really great idea and accessible and great for students ... there are cultural issues of implication involved in the practice," according to an email from the centre.

The centre is operated by the university's Student Federation, which first approached Scharf seven years ago about offering yoga instruction to students both with and without disabilities.

The centre goes on to say, "Yoga has been under a lot of controversy lately due to how it is being practiced," and which cultures those practices "are being taken from."

The centre official argues since many of those cultures "have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy ... we need to be mindful of this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga."

The concept of cultural appropriation is normally applied when a dominant culture borrows symbols of a marginalized culture for dubious reasons -- such as the fad of hipsters donning indigenous headdresses as a fashion statement, without any regard to cultural significance or stereotype.

But Scharf, a yoga teacher with the downtown Rama Lotus Centre, said the concept does not apply in this case, arguing the complaint that killed the program came instead from a "social justice warrior" with "fainting heart ideologies" in search of a cause celebre.

"People are just looking for a reason to be offended by anything they can find," said Scharf.

"There's a real divide between reasonable people and those people just looking to jump on a bandwagon. And unfortunately, it ends up with good people getting punished for doing good things."

There were about 60 students who participated in the free program.

"Clemson University apologizes for serving Mexican food"

When cultural sensitivity misfires...

Everything was going great. Students were loving the food and festivities. Except for two students, who took to Twitter to voice their displeasure with the school's decision to host such a "#CUlturallyInsensitive" event.

While a few on Twitter were offended, the overwhelming preponderance of students registered absolutely no reaction at all. The one student who did respond to the Twitter complaints wrote, "I'm offended that you're offended. #CUfiestafiasco."

Clemson senior Austin Pendergist told Campus Reformhe felt the post-event uproar was “ridiculous.”

“This is something that Clemson Dining has done for years without any sort of backlash. People love the cultural nights in the dining halls,” Pendergist said. “What's next? Are they going to take away all potato based food as to not offend students from Irish decent? Remove the stir fry station so Asian-American students don't feel as if they are being misrepresented? When does it end?”

The university, however, took a different position. Dr. Doug Hallenbeck, Clemson University’s Senior Associate Vice President of Student Affairs apologized for the event’s “flattened cultural view of Mexican culture.”

It looks like the original tweeterer that took offence at the Mexican food festival has taken down the account or renamed it.