Last week I had the opportunity to go to a special dinner to commemorate World Food Day. The objective was to come together for a meal and discuss issues related to food: food from a cultural standpoint, religious traditions with food, hunger and scarcity, and so on. In my group, two people cooked food to share with the 12 of us and… well, it was an “interesting” experience.
Photo by Emily Carlin.
We ate food from one African country and one Slavic country. The preparers were not from these countries but they had lived there doing missionary or social justice work. As I listened to them explain the food and their understandings of the cultural significance, I felt strangely and overwhelmingly uncomfortable.
Of the 12 people at the table, only two of us strongly identified as members of ethnic groups – I identify as bi-cultural Liberian and American and the other person was Italian American. Neither of us brought a dish to explain from our own cultures. Every time I would start to tell a story about food culture in Liberia, the others would nod politely and move on to their own stories and experiences with what one person termed as “third world” cultures. Occasionally, it felt like they were speaking as “experts” about the country that they had (briefly) lived in and were outsiders to. At one point someone said, “I don’t know why, but [ethnic group] just loves to eat [type of food] with their meal.”
While I was there, feeling completely awkward and kind of isolated, I started to reflect on the blogging that I do here. Or rather, as is my personality, I reflected on what it means for an outsider to talk about (elements of) someone else’s culture.
Outsider Boundaries
At the extremes there’s wholesale cultural appropriation [stealing/ being a poser/ etc.]. One example that you may have seen was this year’s Halloween campaign (We’re a culture, not a costume). There’s also ignorant cultural bashing that usually starts with the words “these people” and ends with some ridiculous stereotype. Both of these things are clearly bad.
Then there’s nostalgia: I used to live in Taiwan (or some other place), let me just talk about my memories. Etc. This is probably neutral.
Then there are the tricky could-go-either-way blog posts depending on the content:
It’s okay for an outsider to advocate for the rights of others. For example, there are tons of blogs advocating for Taiwan to be recognized as an independent nation written by non-Taiwanese people. A lot of what I’ve read seems okay and often like a very interesting and helpful perspective. But every once in a while, I’ll read something that makes me think, “Whoa! You don’t think that’s a bit too far of a position for you to be taking?”
It’s also okay for an outsider to process their experiences with someone else’s culture. People can share things that they learn. They can take and post pictures. They can communicate information and facts. They can promote positive events or broadcast information about unsettling things either current or historical. They can offer different perspectives on a wide range of things.
I say all of this thinking specifically about how I would feel to see someone writing about Liberian culture.
But I would feel extremely uncomfortable if I saw someone pretending to be a cultural expert after very little experience with Liberia. I’d probably also be at least somewhat offended if someone claimed (again from superficial knowledge) to know what it was like to be Liberian. Empathy is one thing. But there is a moment when people can cross a line.
Mental Readjustment / Self Awareness
This is what I truly believe and sometimes it paralyzes me, making me unable to write a post that I think is meaningful. I sometimes get so scared that I’m going to cross a line that I completely hold back and over think some posts about culture and identity–probably unnecessary so. Blogging as an outsider is particularly awkward. And I take my role as an outsider pretty seriously.
In the US, being Taiwanese very often comes wrapped within identity politics related to the Asian or Asian American community. Because I’m not Asian, I can only be empathetic. There are places where African (immigrant) culture/ stereotypes and Asian culture/ stereotypes overlap. There are also places where being non-white means sharing some experiences in common. But there is enough difference that I have to acknowledge that I am very much outside of some important parts of “the conversation” as it pertains to Taiwanese culture in America. There are things that I just do not get (nor will I ever get). And that’s okay.
I can still reflect on certain aspects of culture and community. I can also confidently speak about my real experiences of being an outsider relating to Taiwanese culture. And that’s a rather special experience.
I love blogging. So, I have to get over the paralysis. Certainly, I’m not trying to serve up my thoughts or experiences as an expert. But I hope these reflections are useful to others.
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- Cultural misappropriation « Asian-Caucasian Issues - [...] really enjoyed this post by Jade on Wai-Taiwan: “Someone Else’s Stew.” It’s a nice piece about the cultural appropriation ...
I find outsider perspectives of my own culture very interesting. Outsiders often offer insights which would have never occurred to me on my own or which would have come up in conversations with other people from within the culture. So I am certainly happy that outsiders comment about my culture, even if I don’t agree with or like everything they say.
That said, I realise that I come from a privileged position as a white person from the United States (Israeli-American on my mother’s side, old-immigration-white on my father’s side). My culture is currently not threatened with being wiped out, nor are people from my culture generally oppressed by outsiders (there is still some oppression on the basis of Jewishness – I knew someone who received threats of violence within my lifetime in the United States because of her Jewishness – but I know that it is not nearly on the scale as what happens to non-white people). Thus, it is much harder for outsiders to hurt me by discussing my culture than if my culture were not so privileged.
Interesting point of view. It’s not often that I think about how the idea of “privilege” can influence how someone would perceive an outsider interacting with their culture.
I used to think that being an outsider as a very awkward thing, but I think I’m slowly approaching your view in which outsiders play their own very special role in group culture.
Most importantly, you raise one issue of “boundaries” that I didn’t think of when I was writing this post — hate speech or certain types of “repressive commentary” from outsiders. And there’s a huge range (from personal threats of violence for being a certain ethnicity to op eds throwing an entire people under the bus). Yikes.