College Liberal

I worked at a Godiva chocolate store for 2 years (a Belgian-American company). The manager of the store was a Hispanic guy from El Salvador. He was very favoritistic toward the other Hispanic employees, including in hiring - all the other employees noticed this, even the ones who weren't there very long.

Now, if this had been a Hispanic restaurant or whatever, that would be more understandable.

So it's not ok for white people to have dreadlocks, but it's ok for managers to be preferential toward people of their ethnicity/culture at businesses that are not part of their culture?

I'm not passing any judgement on your dreadlocks. I would say that the power of cultural appropriation is in the power dynamic between the two groups and cultures in that time and place. When the group with more power and privilege is borrowing without credit given or without respect, that's a problem. Where there's more of a balance, it's not a problem . . . I used to go to a great crepes stand run by Eastern Europeans; I don't think you could say they had much power over French culture. But that's not the same as the unlamented name of the Football Team from Washington, where caricatured imagery of another group is being used without respect.

"I would say that the power of cultural appropriation is in the power dynamic between the two groups and cultures in that time and place. When the group with more power and privilege is borrowing without credit given or without respect, that's a problem."

So in other words, cultural appropriation is something that only da white man can be guilty of.

"Where there's more of a balance, it's not a problem . . . I used to go to a great crepes stand run by Eastern Europeans; I don't think you could say they had much power over French culture."

I cannot speak to this Eastern European crepes stand as I do not know how big it is. If it only has a handful of employees total (with a low turnover rate), I don't have a problem with it.

I do however have a problem with arbitrary favoritism toward people of a particular ethnicity or culture when that culture isn't relevant to the business. If a Chinese restaurant prefers to only hire Chinese employees, that's understandable. If however, the manager of a singular location of an Italian restaurant chain is Chinese and prefers to hire only other Chinese people, or is favoritistic toward other Chinese employees at his store, then I DO think that's inappropriate and unfair.

Of course it is, but I'd guess that represents a drop in the bucket of bias, with the majority coming from -- you guessed it! -- the more culturally powerful groups. And I'd feel bad for "da white man" getting blamed for stuff . . . if he didn't have most of the power in the first place. And, as with the cops who supported Derek Chauvin, (and the female cop who just shot another unarmed Black man) not all those power-holders are white men, and they are also being held accountable.

If you're white and feeling victimized, take a deep breath and do some more research on what it's like to be Black, or Native American, or Asian, or Latinx, or Arab-American. I'm not even talking about immigrants -- people who belong to all of those groups face discrimination and sometimes violence, despite their citizenship and many contributions to our society.