Cultural appropriation is nearly visible everywhere; in fashion, in music, and even in hairstyles. The issue of cultural appropriation has always been pertinent, but arguably more prevalent today, as people are becoming more conscious of and vocal about their own particular cultures. Although bell hooks wrote “Eating the Other: Desire & Resistance” in 1992, her argument is still valid to this day.
Who is the Other? The Other is anyone who is not part of the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (IWSCP). The IWSCP is known as the hegemonic culture of the world. So, what does it mean when people who are part of the white patriarchy resist its own white beliefs and values by pursuing the Other? I assert that it does not spark significant change because, by pursuing the Other in the first place, white culture further validates itself as the dominating race. The actions of white patriarchy are grounded in imperialism and colonization, where desire and resistance contradict each other. Culture also determines restrictions, but it is those restrictions we desire the most.
Mass culture repeatedly illustrates the Other as a wild and curious thing. As said by bell hooks, “there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgement and enjoyment of racial difference” (366 CITE). Not only is the Other seen as an object of desire, but the Other is also seen as commodity. The Other offers new spices and presents a new and exciting way of living. Ultimately, the Other is any flavor except vanilla, and that in itself is a commodity. Further explained by bell hooks, “within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dole dish that is mainstream white culture” (366 CITE).
127 our experts are availableright now
The expression eating the other evokes cannibalism–which sounds cruel, appalling and even downright unimaginable but, I as well as bell hooks, can argue that imperialism and colonization invoke the same sentiment, cannibalism (i.e. imperialism + colonization = cannibalism). Cannibalism, such as primitivism, and the West, has a fascination with the primitive because of its own crises and identity with its own need to clearly demarcate subject and object even while flirting with other ways of experiencing the universe. When white patriarchy eats the other they are not eating for survival, they eat to expand their palette—the other is an indulgence. No longer are blondes the surest way to have fun because they are boring compared to the other
The other is seen as having primitive, raw, and animalistic tendencies especially when it comes to sex. Fucking is the other (CITE). But what does this say about white society if they view the other as a primitive animal? Does that mean humankind is only composed of the white race? Is pursuing the other the only way for whites to get in touch with their primitive roots? Or do they not consider themselves primitive to begin with because they’re ruling status permits them to appropriate the other?
Commodity culture markets these forbidden but not so forbidden desires that lie in the other. It’s marketing campaign suggests a transformative, life altering, and a pleasurable experience for white patriarchy. They believe they are challenging the status quo when pursuing the other, but in reality the status quo remains the same. Commodity culture exploits the other as a resource for new pleasure, but it is in this commodification that brings forth an alternative playground where whites can now assert their power and their intimate relationships with the other. It is perceived that non-white people have more life experience or are more worldly, sensual and sexual because they are different. Fucking the other becomes a ritual transcendence–a way to possess the other and be changed by the other.
The sexual desire that whites have for the other is because of their curiosity for the others body. The body of the colored other is unexplored terrain—a symbolic frontier that will be fertile ground for white patriarchy’s reconstruction of the masculine norm for asserting themselves as transgressive subjects. The others again are witnesses but also participants during this transformation. While white patriarchy believes they are transgressing racial boundaries, in reality they are simply seeking and desiring pleasure so powerful that it arouses a massive change—a change that can only be uncovered by the other. Renato Rosaldo coined the term imperialist nostalgia to convey when people miss what they have lost during their transformation during imperialism. When white males declared their desire to be with the other, they believe they are free from their white supremacist past and therefore they see themselves as non-racist. However, “in mass culture imperialist nostalgia takes the form re-enacting and reritualizing in different ways the imperialist, colonizing journey as narrative fantasy of power and desire of seduction by the other” (CITE). So regardless of white patriarchy’s open declaration to be with the other and regardless of labeling themselves as non-racist, their sexual fantasies about the other as well as their belief that the spirit of the primitive only resides in the other, they are still linked to their white supremacist races’ past.
Pining for the other (pining for the primitive) turns out to be a strategy to control social order and keep commodity culture alive. The focus on race is redirected. Today, Western civilization feels more at ease with their identity crisis when they focus on the other, or the primitive, emphasizes the others diversity and pluralism– that they too can have the same life-sustaining alternatives as the West. The other feels special in this acknowledgment, but really the other falls victim to false pretenses in believing value is weighted equally. Cultural appropriation surfaces especially in radical white youth, who reject white culture. When they adopt elements of the others’ culture into their own, the other sees it as a “good thing.” They are recognized and reconciled instead of being hated and repulsive. It is their otherness that is the commodity—an invitation to change but also an invitation to essentialist cultural nationalism. The other must take on recognizable forms and live up to white patriarchy stereotypes of the primitive in order to be accepted. In consumer culture, encounters with otherness are clearly marked as more exciting, more intense, and more threatening—the lure is the combination of pleasure and danger the experience is essential and the spirit is renewed.
The West continually chases this romantic and sexual fantasy of the primitive because of this burning desire for the pleasure, as discussed by Foucault. They are in love with the idea of the primitive–a real primitive paradise is white patriarchy’s dream, and like Foucault, they want to feel that kind of death inducing pleasure–to be reborn and to renew the spirit. “Within this fantasy of Otherness, the longing for pleasure is projected as a force that can disrupt and subvert the will to dominate. It acts to both mediate and challenge” (CITE).
We can see this in Lorraine Hansberry play Les Blancs. White American journalist Charles desires to experience closeness and experience, in which he attempts to do so by trying to befriend Tshembe, a black revolutionary. Although he struggles to defy his white supremacist privilege, he cannot help it and assumes his privileged naturally by one-sidedly defining his relationship with Tshembe. Charles calls out Tshembe as someone who hates white people, when Charles feels Tshembe is not giving him attention. But Tshembe responds and deconstructs race.
When there is a mutual acknowledgement that racism exists, it is then when the possibility of an equal relationship can happen. Black and white must come to the middle fully knowing the reality of racism. A white person desiring contact from a black person is not enough because racism will still occur in their personal interactions. It is the idea of the other that alludes to fantasy—a fantasy based on the denial of racism. But we do not see these honest and equal relationships between white people and people different races, because they are represented to us in a way that favors mass culture and commodity culture. Advertising plays a large role in which exploitation of the other brings in the most money. A modern example in which racism is still illustrated in advertising is the ongoing trend in Native American fashion. At one point it was flashed all over on the covers of fashion magazines and afterwards it trickled down to department stores or mainstream consumers. It is important to note that not one model in these advertisements, etc. is actually Native American, the models are predominantly white. This is imperialist nostalgia, adding lively colors to an otherwise blank white canvas.
Music festivals such as Bonnaroo and Coachella are saturated with cultural appropriation. There is this fiery desire to be different in a strong urge to resist white culture; however, are they really resisting white culture, especially when everyone else shows up wearing the same outfit that was seen on a Vogue cover? This is how mass culture and commodity culture manipulate the others’ diversity. The main goal is not to empower the other, but rather the other empowers the white. From the whites’ perspective the other is the essentialist. The other encompasses traits that are essential and special only to the other. Therefore, whites are compelled to consume or appropriate the others’ traits as their own. However, as the survival strategy, black nationalism surfaces most strongly…
“…when white cultural appropriation of black culture threatens to decontextualize and thereby erase knowledge of the specific historical and social context of black experience from which cultural productions and distinct black styles emerge” (CITE).
The commodification of difference is ultimately consumption. White consumers eat and digest the others difference as a result of consumer cannibalism and decontextualization. But consequently, the other’s existence fades into the background. As an exchange, white consumers take on the voice of the other, who otherwise cannot be heard, to expand cultural productions. To white consumers, absorbing the primitive is more or less “okay” when they realize the affinities shared between them and the other. A crossover is sanctioned. A contemporary example is the movie Hitch. A white man named Albert enlists help in a smooth-talking, dating professional named Hitch, who happens to be black. The movie epitomizes the black men stereotypes. Black men are better boyfriends, better lovers, better dancers, better womanizers. A coarse Albert appropriates these traits himself and marries the woman he loves by the end. The film offers a version of racial pluralism that challenges racism by suggesting that the white males life will be richer or more pleasurable if he accepts diversity.
When commodification is involved, it is easier for consumers to ignore political messages. Nowadays, rock music is a common commodity. While the narratives of rap music emerge from critical and political issues, rap music accordingly exploits stereotypes and essentialism notions of blackness, such as, “black people have more rhythm” and “black people are better at sex.” Rappers who use pain as writing material are unable to fully articulate their pain and, combined with not being able to voice their pain to a large audience, resorts to a provocation of racist rhetoric. When rappers call themselves as animals or as primitives, they gain more recognition as does their suffering because it is that kind of rhetoric that mass culture is familiar with.
Today, white youth desires contact with the others. For some, that contact is based on imperialism and affirmation of white power. For others, they want to move beyond whiteness and transgress boundaries. In the musical Hairspray, white, working-class girl Tracy and her middle-class boyfriend, transgress class and race boundaries to dance with black folks. Tracy and her boyfriend recognize black folks as pleasures as well as the suffering they go through, and rather appropriating their culture, they appreciate it. Tracy publicly supports racial integration, she longs for contact with black culture, and she recognizes their value. She transgresses with boundaries to be in solidarity with black people, not to usurp white power. When Tracy says she “wants to be black,” blackness becomes a metaphor for freedom to end boundaries. Blackness is vital not because it represents the primitive but because it invites engagement in a revolutionary ethos that dares challenge and disrupt the status quo.
Black culture today, as well as any other’s culture, is considered cool, transgressive, and trendy. There are people who recognize and appreciate otherness, but is there a fine line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange? Certainly today, more than ever, we have become less fearful when calling out cultural appropriation. Yet, is this the only solution to eliminating cultural appropriation? Can cultural appropriation ever be eliminated? Can desire for the other ever be innocent, without the insinuation of race? Nevertheless, the looming fear will always be a commodification of the other, that the other is viewed as a meal to be eaten, consumed, and forgotten. When we clarify what is real and what is fantasy, it is that common ground that enables an honest discourse about pleasure, racism, the other, and cultural appropriation. Acknowledging ways to desire for pleasure, and that includes erotic longings, informs our politics, or our understanding of difference. We may know better how desire disrupts, subverts, and makes resistance possible. We cannot, however, accept these new images uncritically.
