Social Studies? 101?

September 28, 2015 11:36 AM

I'd like names (if they exist) for the following two ideas:

1. That a group of people can have an "historical debt" to some other group and should not just behave correctly towards that other group, but in some way "go further". For example, in the recent thread on dressing as a native Americans for Halloween some replies indicated that dressing respectfully was OK, while others felt that this was now a cultural taboo - that, given past history, you really should not do this, no matter how respectfully.
2. Given limited resources, the resulting competition between groups of people to be seen as having an "historical credit" (in the sense above). The best examples I can think of here are the discussion prompted by Peter Novick's The Holocaust In American Life (although I am not concerned with the moral criticism - I just want to see the arguments) and the way in which activism has become driven by single issue politics. "Victimization olympics" appears in the Wikipedia link above, but I am hoping there's a term that is way less loaded and more widely applied.

My aim is to read more about these issues, but I don't have the vocabulary to find the discussions I want.

posted by andrewcooke to Society & Culture (7 answers total)

Best answer: I don't know about point 1, but something very close to point 2 has been extensively discussed in activist circles under the name "oppression Olympics"; if you use that term as a starting point you'll find plenty of discussion there.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:43 AM on September 28, 2015

Best answer: Your first example is called "cultural appropriation." There is a lot of discussion out there about the power dynamics at play with cultural appropriation.
posted by erst at 11:54 AM on September 28, 2015

Best answer: #1 is not cultural appropriation - it is the opposite, more like "reparations" but on a moral/ethical level rather than a financial one. Sorry I don't the word for that either.
posted by metahawk at 12:14 PM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: One term you could try is "transitional justice" which has an academic literature mostly involving violation of international human rights laws and seeking redress for same.

(West) Germany post-WWII paid reparations to Jews and to the allied powers for the acts of the Nazi government. You might find some expanded literature on that by searching "wiedergutmachung" but that's really just a German term meaning reparations. I don't really have a specific term for you but Ta Nehisi Coates explicitly made the comparison to how significant (and controversial) the German reparations were for financing the young state of Israel in the 50s-60s in his big Atlantic article on reparations for black Americans last year.
posted by Wretch729 at 1:03 PM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I think what you're describing, at least in your first example, is the concept of privilege (white privilege, male privilege, etc.) and some of the work non-marginalized people do to take responsibility for it, a lot of which is about listening to the voices of marginalized people when they ask non-marginalized people not to appropriate bits and pieces of their cultures.
posted by jaguar at 1:23 PM on September 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: For point #1, I agree with jaguar that this revolves around issues of privilege. I think there's also a component similar to "Schrödinger's Rapist" in that any particular person may have pure motives and a broad and deep understanding of [X] historically-marginalized group, but an onlooker from [X] group has no way of knowing this unless they engage the person in conversation (and potentially open themselves up to hurtful and exhausting dialogue, not to mention actual violence). It is better to not make person from [X] group have to do the mental task of wondering is-this-person-legit-or-are-they-ignorant-or-are-they-an-asshole-wtf-why-can't-i-just-live-my-life - particularly when not doing the thing is trivially easy for the other party (e.g., just pick another halloween costume).

For point #2, you're looking at intersectionality and kyriarchy, which can lead to Oppression Olympics (other helpful phrases are "axis of oppression" and "punching up" vs "punching down").

Roxane Gay has a bunch of articles about these intersectional issues, many contained in her book Bad Feminist (while much of the book is about being a woman, it also deals with gender-neutral racism and cultural appropriation, particularly in the media/movies). Ta-Nehisi Coates is also a great person to read. On twitter, DeRay McKesson is great to follow.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:49 PM on September 28, 2015

Response by poster: thanks everyone. that gives me a pile of stuff to follow up on.
posted by andrewcooke at 3:21 PM on September 28, 2015