Do you ever watch a movie and think, "Hey, that person looks just me"? Unfortunately, that rarely happens for this woman.

http://www.upworthy.com/after-being-frustrated-by-hollywoods-portrayal-of-asians-one-woman-took-action?c=ufb1

For as long as she can remember, Villemaire has wanted to be a television personality.  But for most of her life, she figured she didn't have a shot because there was hardly anyone on the big (or small) screen that resembled her.

Throughout history, and even today, many Asian characters are played by nonAsians. Villemaire calls it yellowface, and she doesn't mince words when it comes to how she feels about it.

Check out four stunning examples of Villemaire depicting Asian characters. She appears on the right in all of the photo sets:
1. Luise Rainer playing the Chinese wife of a Chinese farmer in the 1937 movie "The Good Earth."
2. Myrna Loy as the Chinese daughter of Fu Manchu in the 1932 movie "The Mask of Fu Manchu."
3. Katharine Hepburn playing (you guessed it) a Chinese woman in the 1944 movie "Dragon Seed." 4. Yep, it happens in present day movies, too. Emma Stone played a half-Asian woman in the 2015 movie "Aloha."

11 of the Most Culturally Appropriated South Asian Accessories – And What They Really Mean

These are only "headlines."  If you are interested in details, please link to the whole article.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/south-asian-accessories-mean/

While it looked cool to my friends when they sported a bindi, I could not help but feel strange about it, like an invasion of space.

When is it acceptable to wear a Bindi?

• If you are getting married to a South Asian
• If you attend an Indian festival/ritual and have a vermillion dot placed on you as a sign of welcoming one’s guest

Which was why I was defiant in school when I was told to remove my nose ring after piercing my nose at fifteen. I did it to commemorate my very first trip to the homeland.

When is it acceptable to wear a Nath?

• When it is not a bridal nose ring being worn as a fashion accessory (the other styles are just fine)
• If it is a part of your own culture

These hefty accessories are meant to accentuate the rhythm of dance and to appreciate the complex footwork for the forms of Indian dance.

When is it acceptable to wear a Paayal?

• If your culture wears them as an accessory like us
• If you are an Indian dancer or a South Asian bride

When is it acceptable to wear Chudiyaan?

• If you are in attendance of a Hindu friend’s matrimonial functions and the dress code is Indian ethnic – but be sure to check with your host first

South Asian women across the world and from all walks of life wear them at home, during an occasion, while in attendance of prayer, or at the workplace.

When is it acceptable to wear a saree?

• If you are in attendance of an Indian function that stipulates Indian ethnic attire. It would be advisable to get a hand with how to wear one properly since it takes some effort.
• Please do not wear this for Halloween.

When is it acceptable to wear a Bichiya toe ring?

• If you are married to a South Asian.

The Aum is used everywhere now – and not as it should be.

When is it acceptable to wear the Aum?

• If you sport one as a pendant, bangle, bracelet, or a tattoo (be mindful of its placement) and are a practicing Hindu

When is it acceptable to get a tattoo of a Hindu God?

• While I am deeply appreciative of tattoo culture, it would be advisable to get these tattoos only if they hold a deep significance to you
• Please mind where you place them on your body. The legs are considered the dirtiest part of one’s body, and getting one on your back is frowned upon.

Henna
The issue here is not the use of the plant; it is the convenient fashioning that inadvertently erases the cultural significance of this ritual that is a bother.
So if you are not a person of color, I would caution you against wearing this for an “Indianized” look – I don’t even know what that term is supposed to mean. It is offensive, but I have read it one too many times. Here’s looking at you, Madonna.








 

Rachel Dolezal

Perspectives:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/6/17/watch_four_perspectives_on_race_and

Why Rachel Dolezal's story is one of deception, and trans folks, coming out as trans is about truth.
http://www.upworthy.com/a-black-trans-woman-explains-changing-gender-vs-changing-race?c=ufb1

When the story of Rachel Dolezal (the white NAACP chapter president who has been masquerading as a black woman) went viral, the Internet exploded with countless memes and even more think pieces.

Rachel Dolezal and the surprisingly common practice of ‘racial shifting’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/15/what-rachel-dolezal-has-in-common-with-half-a-million-americans/  (watch both videos in succession)

In fact, between 2000 and 2010 (the nation’s two most recent Census counts) the share of people who identified themselves as part Native American grew by a whopping 39 percent in a single decade, nearly four times faster than the nation's population as a whole. That’s nearly 650,000 people who were multi-racial in 2012 who did not consider themselves thus in 2000. Racial shifting is real.

And just to be clear, we aren't talking about a Native American baby boom or surge in people who identified as being of multiracial heritage because of changes made to Census forms. The latter happened for the first time in 2000, not 2010.

The vast majority of this change – according to U.S. Census staff and population experts around the country – happened as a result of shifting racial identification among adults. We're talking about 644,986 people who, for the most part, described themselves as white on the 2000 Census and then described themselves as white and Native American in 2010.

Rachel Dolezal a lesson in how racism works
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/06/13/rachel-dolezal-story-lesson-how-racism-works/J8R27qgq2YfDRUuOVhpYGI/story.html?event=event25

But that’s not how racial identity and racism work. The racial categories inherent to institutional racism are the product of law and social custom, but they are not randomly generated or freely chosen. They are informed by and inscribed in our legislative history, and they are violently policed by civilians and stewards of the state such that white people benefit at nonwhites’ expense.

These benefits are manifold. White households have far more wealth than black and Hispanic households, as economic class privilege has been generated, passed down, and protected through slavery, Jim Crow, and continued discrimination in housing, banking, and the labor market. Whites are presumed innocent and nonthreatening, and are allowed to assemble freely and move through all sorts of public spaces without being labeled deviants or “thugs.” Racial identity is always linked to privilege.

So the problem is not simply that Dolezal lied. Her choice to give up whiteness was a privilege enabled by a racial logic that allows for the possibility of a light-skinned black person, as centuries of racist legislation mandated that “one drop” of nonwhite blood resulted in racial categorization in the lower status group. This same enduring racial logic categorically denies the possibility of a brown-skinned white person, and it does so in order to restrict and protect whiteness as exclusive, “pure,” and the basis for full citizenship and respect.

About Rachel Dolezal the Undercover Sista and Performing Blackness 
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2015/06/about-rachel-dolezal-blackness.html

I was more amused than anything until I kept finding out about all the lies that Rachel has piled up over the years to make this fantasy work. She’s told people her father is a Black man, even taking Fake Black Daddy to some event. She’s reported that she’s been a victim of several hate crimes, even going as far as placing this in her bio. She says she has a Black son but he is actually her adopted brother from her real WHITE parents. At best, she’s a pathological liar and at worst, she might be suffering from delusions of grandeur, which means she might need to be on meds because isn’t that one of many symptoms of schizophrenia? Except she actually isn’t because her brother Ezra said she told him not to blow her cover. Rachel ain’t curling all the way over, like many of her weaves.

What's Wrong with Cultural Appropriation?
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/

In short: Cultural appropriation is when somebody adopts aspects of a culture that’s not their own.

But that’s only the most basic definition.

A deeper understanding of cultural appropriation also refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.

That’s why cultural appropriation is not the same as cultural exchange, when people share mutually with each other – because cultural exchange lacks that systemic power dynamic.

It’s also not the same as assimilation, when marginalized people adopt elements of the dominant culture in order to survive conditions that make life more of a struggle if they don’t.

Some say, for instance, that non-Western people who wear jeans and Indigenous people who speak English are taking from dominant cultures, too.

But marginalized groups don’t have the power to decide if they’d prefer to stick with their customs or try on the dominant culture’s traditions just for fun. 

When the last living survivors of massacred Indigenous tribes are fighting to save their language before it dies when they do, and Native students are suspended for speaking in their own Indigenous languages, mirroring the abusive US boarding schools that tried to wipe out Native American cultures up until the 1980s, it’s clear that not every person who speaks English does so by choice.

In other words, context matters.

Which means it’s not about saying that you, as an individual, are a bad person if you appropriate someone else’s culture.

It’s a complicated issue that includes our histories, our current state of affairs, and our future, as we act to eliminate oppression, instead of perpetuating it.

So if you’re still baffled about why people would get upset about this issue, consider the following contexts.

1. It Trivializes Violent Historical Oppression
2. It Lets People Show Love for the Culture, But Remain Prejudiced Against Its People
3. It Makes Things ‘Cool’ for White People – But ‘Too Ethnic’ for People of Color
4. It Lets Privileged People Profit from Oppressed People’s Labor
5. It Lets Some People Get Rewarded for Things the Creators Never Got Credit For
6. It Spreads Mass Lies About Marginalized Cultures
7. It Perpetuates Racist Stereotypes
8. White People Can Freely Do What People of Color Were Actively Punished for Doing
9. It Prioritizes the Feelings of Privileged People Over Justice for Marginalized People

The Truth About Rachel Dolezal That You Won't See on T.V.
http://mic.com/articles/120784/rachel-dolezal-interview-matt-lauer

While Dolezal said her story raises the question of what it means to be "human," her philosophical statement misses the point that not all human beings are treated equally in a society that privileges some because of the color of their skin. Dolezal is fighting to humanize her journey so that the public can better understand her move from whiteness to aspirational blackness, but her notion of what it means to strive towards a shared humanity just obscures the particularities of black peoples' lived experiences in this country as they continue to fight to be seen as worthy of being alive in the first place.  

For all of the discourse on race and "transracialism" seemingly spurred by Dolezal, there is comparatively little focus on the material effects of racism in actual black people's lives right now. Dolezal might receive attention because she is a white woman identifying as a black woman fighting for black issues, but that won't prevent black people from being twice as likely as white people to be killed by police when unarmed, disproportionately imprisoned, overwhelmingly impacted by income equality, affected by health disparities and beset by unemployment.

Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Exchange

 

More examples of cultural appropriation:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/cultural-appropriating-outfits/?utm_content=bufferdd75c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Halloween Costumes

Yesterday, I went with kids to get costumes.  I saw the stereotypical "Indian," among other things.  It's a problem that these exist and that folks choose to dress up as another culture, in a stereotypical way, particularly an oppressed group with very few positive, accurate images.  Here is a great "open letter" by someone who makes important points on the topic - it's a long read, but well worth the effort to gain understanding: http://nativeappropriations.com/2013/10/open-letter-to-the-pocahotties-the-annotated-version.html