"cancel culture", just like "SJWs" or "idpol" or whatever the outrage-of-the-month is, has been around for centuries.
it only acquires a name when it's directed towards the benefit of non-white (or other types) of minorities.
Similar to how someone who likes Japanese/Korean culture is called a weaboo/koreaboo, while someone who guzzles down American/British culture is just "normal"
Was with you until the last line. Everyone (at least in the United States) who's obsessed with a culture they aren't native to, to the point of making it a key feature of their identity, is looked at as a weirdo. If some 15-year-old kid from Milwaukee has a Union Jack plastered on everything they own, talks non-stop about Dr. Who, and makes shitty food because they think British "cuisine" is fit for human consumption, no one is looking at that kid as "normal." It's probably rooted in some feeling along the lines of "oh, you can't fit in to your own culture/reject your own culture, so you're trying to be someone you're not, fuck you."
It's a tricky thing to put your finger on. I think "native" is a bit essentializing -- no one is native to anywhere in the deep time of the earth. Concepts rooted in historical materialism like social situation/habitus really get to the root of it, and even common sense terms like "heritage" or "indigenous" are a bit better. It's like the difference between Eminem and Chet Haze. Rap and black culture isn't "native" to Eminem, but it's the habitus that he grew up within living in Detroit. He has an intimate relationship to it. Chet Haze is at best a goofy punchline because his rap persona/rap culture is not connected at all to his lived experience.
There is also definitely a social component to this. Appropriating from black culture is and has always been cool in American culture -- the concept of cool itself has diasporic origins in western Africa and was appropriated through jazz. But appropriating from Asian culture has generally been done by intellectuals, new-agey types, eccentrics and so on. It's been seen as an effete affectation for about a hundred years now, while black appropriation is supposedly masculine, virile, primal, and so on. And what is the one exception? Martial arts, when you are literally punching and kicking someone in the face.
"cancel culture", just like "SJWs" or "idpol" or whatever the outrage-of-the-month is, has been around for centuries.
it only acquires a name when it's directed towards the benefit of non-white (or other types) of minorities.
Similar to how someone who likes Japanese/Korean culture is called a weaboo/koreaboo, while someone who guzzles down American/British culture is just "normal"
Was with you until the last line. Everyone (at least in the United States) who's obsessed with a culture they aren't native to, to the point of making it a key feature of their identity, is looked at as a weirdo. If some 15-year-old kid from Milwaukee has a Union Jack plastered on everything they own, talks non-stop about Dr. Who, and makes shitty food because they think British "cuisine" is fit for human consumption, no one is looking at that kid as "normal." It's probably rooted in some feeling along the lines of "oh, you can't fit in to your own culture/reject your own culture, so you're trying to be someone you're not, fuck you."
It's a tricky thing to put your finger on. I think "native" is a bit essentializing -- no one is native to anywhere in the deep time of the earth. Concepts rooted in historical materialism like social situation/habitus really get to the root of it, and even common sense terms like "heritage" or "indigenous" are a bit better. It's like the difference between Eminem and Chet Haze. Rap and black culture isn't "native" to Eminem, but it's the habitus that he grew up within living in Detroit. He has an intimate relationship to it. Chet Haze is at best a goofy punchline because his rap persona/rap culture is not connected at all to his lived experience.
There is also definitely a social component to this. Appropriating from black culture is and has always been cool in American culture -- the concept of cool itself has diasporic origins in western Africa and was appropriated through jazz. But appropriating from Asian culture has generally been done by intellectuals, new-agey types, eccentrics and so on. It's been seen as an effete affectation for about a hundred years now, while black appropriation is supposedly masculine, virile, primal, and so on. And what is the one exception? Martial arts, when you are literally punching and kicking someone in the face.