Eh… I’m more Italian than anything else, but there’s a sizeable Welsh portion of my heritage too. It feels weird to me to cry about cultural appropriation as white people in a world where white people are the dominant class.
And yes, I’m aware that historically Wales faced a lot of oppression as a small country tacked onto a big one, and there was such an ongoing stigma of being Welsh that many of my ancestors left Wales to identify as English instead, or they were forcibly Englishized after Welsh areas were conquered and then considered English. I’m not arguing that the Welsh haven’t faced subjgation and oppression.
What I’m arguing is that this article is in a global context, and when very real cultural thefts under the aegis of systemic racism continue to do massive damage every day, it feels weird to me as a white person to complain about writers using Welsh lightly. As white people we’re getting upset about writers taking some terms from a different white language, while we continue to be at the top of the heap of everyone else? If we’re going to get upset about cultural appropriation, is this mild lateral misuse really where our efforts should be spent, when we’re still doing so much real downward violence over those we’ve collectively harmed?
To use a cliche popularized by The Sopranos, this feels to me like the woman with a Virginia ham under her arm crying because she can’t afford bread.
That said, I count very much as a white woman but one with Romani ancestry and who as a quarter Roma would be called Didaki by Romani folks- part Roma. The 'g' word so bugs me when used by Gauji (non Roma people) It's one of those words you need to own to use, like the 'n' word otherwise it's best steered clear of.
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malionette
no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 04:04 pm (UTC)And yes, I’m aware that historically Wales faced a lot of oppression as a small country tacked onto a big one, and there was such an ongoing stigma of being Welsh that many of my ancestors left Wales to identify as English instead, or they were forcibly Englishized after Welsh areas were conquered and then considered English. I’m not arguing that the Welsh haven’t faced subjgation and oppression.
What I’m arguing is that this article is in a global context, and when very real cultural thefts under the aegis of systemic racism continue to do massive damage every day, it feels weird to me as a white person to complain about writers using Welsh lightly. As white people we’re getting upset about writers taking some terms from a different white language, while we continue to be at the top of the heap of everyone else? If we’re going to get upset about cultural appropriation, is this mild lateral misuse really where our efforts should be spent, when we’re still doing so much real downward violence over those we’ve collectively harmed?
To use a cliche popularized by The Sopranos, this feels to me like the woman with a Virginia ham under her arm crying because she can’t afford bread.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-09 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-09 03:15 pm (UTC)