I thought I'd ask about everyone's thoughts on this insane issue. Get a variety of perspectives and such.
As well as links to balanced, decent articles on the issue that don't just mindlessly say "whitey bad because they enjoy stuff from other cultures". It seems difficult to find articles or videos and whatnot that look at the subject from a neutral, balanced viewpoint. At best, I find a flood of stupid articles attacking white people and / or pushing the Neo-Liberal narrative about it.
Post on the old forum:
It's Horseshit.
Cultural Appropriation exists for Authoritarians to balkanize groups of people into political power-blocks, and to set them against each other as needed. That is why "cultural appropriation" is so popular among racialists. It allows a group of Racialist Intellectuals to assert their definition, conditions, culture, heritage, and history of a race, and then set boundary conditions on others.
Cultural Exchange happens in all forms. It happens through interaction between peoples, it happens through trade, it happens through communication, migration, interbreeding, and especially warfare.
No one really talks about it, but I can tell you right now that after having so many middle eastern wars in the past few decades, it is obvious to me to see the influence of military culture on the domestic population, and influence of middle eastern cultural items on the west, due to the cultural exchange of war. One of the most important utilities that we have adopted from our recent wars is the Shemagh, which is just a light piece of cloth worn around the neck/face/head that can do multiple things in inclement weather.
All cultural appropriation does is allow the Racialist Intellectual Elite to claim ownership on all items that they assert racial territory on, while dividing the population into easily controllable segments.
That's why progressives love it. Racialism has always been a Progressive Intellectual pursuit.
Erm, bandanas have been a thing in the West for a long time, but usually associated with western North America, in the days before the car. Just watch any old black and white horse opera, especially the original Lone Ranger serials, lots of bandanas there.
But masking the face had become synonymous with "bad guys/bank robbers", so the bandana kind of got demonized the same way the (equally useful, but for cold weather) balaclava and the hoodie did ... and mostly relegated to dogs, the same way out of date satire gets relegated to kids.
Yeah, it was just common sense amongst my older relatives and elderly church people I was raised around - many of whom had grown up during the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl era. Bandanas were functional, not a fashion statement.
You're missing the point here. I'm saying I'm seeing people with Shemaghs explicitly. Not Bandanas. The clothing was introduced to the west as a result of the wars.