open minded vs. co-opting/appropration

[kimpossible]

As an APIA, Asian American or whatever you define yourself as, what's the difference between a non-Asian being open minded towards Asians and Asian culture(s) and co-opting or appropriating it? It's a fine line sometimes. Can you define it?

[hkRT]

I see open minded vs. co-opting/appropriation the same way I see acceptance vs. tolerance. Open minded to me means accepting and respecting other people from different cultures the same way they accept and respect people from their own culture. It means the type of acceptance that is not based on how similar people talk, act, behave and look like them. It means seeing different people as people, not some aliens or untouchables. It means to see beauty in differences--- i.e. the differences in cultures, languages, and appearances.

[nola]

Good answer. Coopting/appropriating has more of a negative connotation and goes beyond tolerance though. To a point of almost exploiting something.

[kimpossible]

My intent isn't for this to get flamey, though I realize it's a touchy subject and the potential is there. Just acknowledging that.

Where is the line in appreciating and learning about an Asian culture crossed to result in exploitation, exotification, and commodification?

[John0101]

I agree with hkRT, openned mindness is an unbaised observation of another culture. You would not use standards from your own culture and society to judge another.

[thaite]

I kind of view open-mindedness as passive acceptance, and appropriation as aggressive capitalization.

[pikachupacabra]

On a personal level, when a non-asian starts trying to tell an asian about their own culture is when I get peeved. Especially when "oh you're not a real X, because you don't engage in Y".

Open minded is having a friend you take to dim sum, they like it, bring their friends. Appropriation is when you have a friend who takes YOU to kabuki theater and gives you running commentary.

[kasia]

^ i agree with that, pikachu, but what if they like it so much that they choose to adopt it? would that be so wrong?

for example, my dad brought this chinese fruit salad to my tennis team get-together in high school and i was very embarassed (all-white high school). to my surprise, it was very popular, and everyone thought my dad was cool. that's open-mindedness, i suppose. but what if they like it so much that they start to bring it to their own gatherings and tell people about it, and what if that dish triggers them to want to learn more about Chinese food? i don't think that's really appropriation.

same with Chinese music. they like it, listen to it, introduce others to it - that's not appropriation. i really don't know if a single person or family can appropriate another culture.

appropriation is more like if chinese movie or food is accepted - but only if produced and sold by white people. no?

[SunWuKong]

appropriation is more like if chinese movie or food is accepted - but only if produced and sold by white people. no?

what about all those basketball stars with Chinese characters tattooed on their bodies?

[kasia]

^ that's true. i wasn't thinking about that. but it would take society to first turn that into a fad before they adopt it and it becomes labelled as appropriation, no?

[SunWuKong]

^ that's true. i wasn't thinking about that. but it would take society to first turn that into a fad before they adopt it and it becomes labelled as appropriation, no?

i have no idea.

what if the people from your tennis team started making Chinese fruit salad on their own? would that be appropriation? and why does society have to play a role in order for something to be considered appropriation?

[kpih]

Cooptation involves power to redefine and to actively distort.

Cooptation connotes the capturing of cultural artifacts of foreign origins (such as language, food, symbol, history, practice, customs, etc), distorting or compromising the authentic meanings and properties, and ultimately redefining the artifact out of original context.

It involves the power to symbolically redefine the artifacts and to impose equivocal meanings to the culture.

The difference is the interpretation process. Open-mindedness does not involve reinterpreting or reinventing the cultural artifacts. The cultural artifacts are observed and respected within the original cultural context.

In other words, in many cases when Chinese characters are coopted as tatoos, the meanings of the characters are literally hijacked. New meanings are falsely dictated to the characters. The tatoos are often gibberish or fragmented phrases. Literally the language is distorted and abused...

Or take Chinese food. Why is it that most of us resent (or do not appreciate) fake Chinese food? Yes it is inauthentic and white in its taste. But there is also a more symbolic and cultural problem. The problem is that people start to interpret and redefine Chinese food as egg rolls and fried rice, hence a coopted meaning is subjected onto "Chinese Food" and what "Chinese Food" means...

[kasia]

^ i change my answer to what he said. it depends on the power one holds to redefine and, as inferred by my previous post, it is not often that individuals hold that power - it must be done collectively.

[SunWuKong]

Or take Chinese food. Why is it that most of us resent (or do not appreciate) fake Chinese food? Yes it is inauthentic and white in its taste. But there is also a more symbolic and cultural problem. The problem is that people start to interpret and redefine Chinese food as egg rolls and fried rice, hence a coopted meaning is subjected onto "Chinese Food" and what "Chinese Food" means...

actually i like some Americanised Chinese food. like General Tso's chicken and Crab Rangoon.

[kpih]

actually i like some Americanised Chinese food. like General Tso's chicken and Crab Rangoon.

Yeah I know, I love egg foo young. O feeling so guilty about it...

[SunWuKong]

but is Americanised Chinese food a form of cooptation? it's mostly made by Chinese Americans.

[kpih]

but is Americanised Chinese food a form of cooptation? it's mostly made by Chinese Americans.

Well if you ask the chefs, they will always tell you they do it for the market. It is the reinterpretation and redefinition of Chinese food and Chinese culture according to Americans that becomes cooptation.

[pikachupacabra]

Sheesh. It's hard to say where to really draw the line on this. The obvious examples, like the white guy wandering around in a ji and pretending he's kenshin, are easy to point out, but where does one end and the other stop? that's a hard question to answer! I think it just comes down to a case-by-case analysis. Maybe it's when there's a personal stake in it; like i teach my friend kung fu, he gets into kung fu, takes kung fu classes, goes to kung fu tournements. Is that open minded? probably. But if someone came by and saw how kung fu obsessesd he was, they'd probably assume he was just crazed and coopting.

[kpih]

I think it just comes down to a case-by-case analysis.

Yes of course there is individual behavior and action. But it also occurs on a collective/general level. For instance, when Chinese characters are commodified as products and marketed for consumption, then the cooptation is beyond individual action.

When one walks into any Kmart/Walmart, one can probably spot pictures/clothing items/accessories with Chinese characters with poor or wrong calligraphy...

[kimpossible]

I feel it's an important issue to explore because it's so hard to pinpoint and it's something that causes distress for Asian Americans. Not every last Asian American obviously, because we all have our personal filters and threshold for what constitutes co-opting, but more on macro-level.

I see it as a Cylla and Charybdis situation: on one hand it's desirable to have the mainstream or dominant culture open to your ancestry and ancestral culture but not at the cost of having it appropriated.

The power of having a cultural identity represented with dignity amongst and accepted by the mainstream while maintaining the right of self-determination for that cultural identity.

Some of the specifics I had in mind when I started this thread is the popularity of cheong sams (sp?) amongst non-Chinese women, IR dating issues where the term open-minded has been used as a requisite characteristic, and the idea of being open to a culture and language versus having the dreaded '-philia.'

Not meant to be a complete list, but those are some of the things I had in mind when I started the topic. I also put myself in the shoes of someone completely non-Asian, which I don't think is that hard to do considering I'm majority non-Asian. I can see how it might be hard to negotiate the line if you hadn't really thought it out.

[damashii]

I feel it's an important issue to explore because it's so hard to pinpoint and it's something that causes distress for Asian Americans. Not every last Asian American obviously, because we all have our personal filters and threshold for what constitutes co-opting, but more on macro-level.

I see it as a Cylla and Charybdis situation: on one hand it's desirable to have the mainstream or dominant culture open to your ancestry and ancestral culture but not at the cost of having it appropriated.

The power of having a cultural identity represented with dignity amongst and accepted by the mainstream while maintaining the right of self-determination for that cultural identity.


To be open minded in my opinion goes beyond self identity in which there are multiple levels of being a part of other identities. The term APIA, African-American, Mexican-American, etc. are tools to understanding humanity, and life. The ultimate goal being, to find peace of mind through knowledge, and understanding as a key to the defenition of being open minded. To me at least.

APIA is just another layer that we have to overcome in our conciousness to that goal, a layer some other groups may not have go through.

Co-opting and appropriating I think are just phases that we go through. Although identifying in this concrete way seems to be an effective means to organize