Way to make generalisations. The UK has quite a different immigration landscape than most of western continental Europe. There is certainly racism everywhere, and trouble integrating immigrants, however if you compare the citizenship policy of the UK to that of, say, Germany and Italy, it's totally different.

Perfectly put. There's definitely not a lot of writing or commenting on this site that relates to the long slog of social change. It's pithy, current, makes for good happy hour conversation, but doesn't really relate to what a lot of us are actually doing out in the world.

Completely agree. Every single time I read a piece about cultural appropriation I find myself struck by the number, variety, and nuance of the 'things' people are directly associating with a supposed racial identity: many of which I often find myself disagreeing with. It seems phenomenally racist and negatively…

First, thanks for a really thoughtful reply. What (admittedly) started out as a gut reaction very personal to my own identity has evolved into a broader question of what's strategic in the grander scheme of things (I advocate on gender issues for an org that brings a lot of stakeholders to the table, including the…

I still think that you're rationalization of why it's ok to lump all white people into once oppressive category is completely unproductive.

Are we?

I read something about positive politeness and negative politeness. In the UK, we use negative politeness - it is rude to intrude on somebody else and it is polite to keep yourself to yourself and to respect everyone else's right to do the same. In the USA, it is the opposite -they use positive politeness where it is…

You say to a person who you don't know but who (a) purposefully moved from a lily-white suburb to a melting pot city to escape the casual racism of the burbs, (b) married someone who is an ethnic minority, (c) works on research about racial health care and outcomes disparities, (d) advocates for (1) the end of stop…

If I'm sore about anything it's the realization that Miley Cyrus went to all the trouble of appropriating twerking and ratcheting on behalf of our people and all we got was this lousy... twerking and ratcheting. Our master plan appears to be flawed somehow...

"If Miley is inspired by gold teeth and bounce music and has friends who are rappers, that's not a problem. But when she uses these things to re-style her own image, she veers into dangerous territory. If she didn't have the grill, if the black women were integrated throughout the video instead of being segregated to…

Because the gay kid in the school band isn't taking away the rights of others like him due to his self loathing. If you are going to allow yourself a certain type of lifestyle, but deny it to others, voters need to know about that.

It's Aaron Schock. Have we already forgotten the teal belt?

Kickstarter has apologized, and it seems to be a decent apology, but commentors point out that some of their excuses might not hold water. So, we'll see.

If any of these things start happening to you, grab the man by the shirt, pull him an inch from your face and scream "YOU ARE GIVE ME BABY TONIGHT YES?" Then start to recite the "Twilight" script and stick your tongue up his nostril

100% guaranteed to fend off ANY man.

Yeah though it seems to be used to mean "American" rather than even as broad as "North American." I saw on another thread on this post someone referring to "Canadian" dismissively as if all Canadians are white. So...clueless *and* offensive all in one.

My super-duper-cutesy and fantastically polite US friend always poses like that in pictures thinking it means "peace" and when I told her that to me it means "fuck off" she was half-mortified/half-delighted and now always poses with her hands the other way. It makes me gleeful!

This is Jez. There is little awareness of culture outside of the US, we both know that.

No but the jezeconsensus seems to be that you cannot culturally appropriate from white people because buzzwords. So she's in the clear on that one, even if she is hurling abuse at everyone.

I think we can agree that Miley made some egregious choices with this video (GAWD). But I take paladjinn's point. Is my Guyanese friend who grew up in a single parent household in the Bronx not allowed to identify with the culture(s) she grew up in? She got a scholarship to a Manhattan prep school where she sure as…

Human beings are not accessories.