“In an interesting example of cultural borrowing/appropriation sent in by Catherine H., the Korean all-girl pop band T-ara imitates stereotypes of American Indians in their music video for their (strangely catchy) song, YaYaYa.”
It’s difficult (for me) to know how these stereotypes of native North Americans “work” in Korea. It appears to mean something to Koreans, otherwise why use the imagery and narratives, but what? And how should Americans who oppose the stereotyping (and erasing of modern) Native Americans talk about this “borrowing.”
this video to me is a perfect example of why cultural appropriation and stereotyping are so dangerous. A band from the other side of the world is going off of the racist and inaccurate portrayals of natives that white america puts out there for everyone, and this is their interpretation of us and our culture because this is what they see coming from america about natives.
This.
Plastic shamans in Europe offering pay-pray sweatlodge services.
Those goofy ‘pow-wows’ in Russia.
This is how we’re seen all over the world. In South Africa, I had to explain who I was by using Dances With fucking Wolves as an example because there are literally no portrayals of us abroad that aren’t been packaged and sold by white capitalist consumer culture.
Germans still think of us in terms of Karl May and his stupid Shatterhand stories. I used to work on a guest ranch in Southern Alberta that catered to German tourists and I remember one of them loudly complaining about the distinct lack of ‘authentic Red Indians’ when plenty of the dudes working there were Indians.
I guess I should have been wearing feathers instead of a John Deere baseball hat.
ffs.
korean pop is catchy as fuq but so manufactured and micro-managed. the increasing examples of false racial representation in pop east asian culture (this, the weird blackface thing in japan and korea) is not such a surprise when you look at how capitalistic these nations are. its interesting because there are no indigenous people in korea and basically none in japan, so there is less of a consciousness about this level of colonialism.
First off-I don’t suggest watching the video, just know it’s really racist as hell.
Secondly, you already got a message about it, but yeah, there are indigenous folk in Japan.
To the point-I have been meaning to write about this over at the k-pop blog, actually. I’ve come to find that in their quest to become more Western and progressive, countries like Japan and Korea mimic the culture and ways of Western countries, which inevitably means internalizing and perpetuating some fucked up shit. White sumpremacy, colorism, and anti-black racism are pillars of white supremacist Western countries, so those systems themselves then become reflected in East Asian culture pop/modern culture. An example is Korean dramas-even though the protagonists are a Korean man and woman, given the portrayals and cultural, racial, & gender dynamics, you could pretty much easily exchange them for white people.
As for there not being a level of consciousness about colonialism-I would disagree and say rather there isn’t a level of consciousness of white imperialism, colonialism, and supremacy to the degree that formerly colonized countries and POC living in them will have. White imperialism and supremacy has affected Korea and Japan, but just in different, more subtle ways. They’ve also been impacted by how Western countries view them, which is less “Oh hey, these backwards savage people that need saving!” and is more “Oh look, how exotic and pure (so unlike those black folk!), teach me how to open my third eye and align my chakra and how to kung-fu” kind of shit. It can be confused for appreciation and easily bought into.
(Source: thesocietypages.org)
