Things that annoy me

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Things that annoy me

Cultural appropriation. This, even if this can mean o many different things to so many people, is one of my major pet peeves - I find it incredibly upsetting when people who have no right to wear e.g. a feather bonnet and still dons one in order to make a fashion statement. It may seem like a minor thing, and nothing to be annoyed about, but it shows a lack of respect towards another culture, and, especially when it comes to clothes, feather bonnets and the like from different Native American tribes, it continues a colonisation of a people who have already suffered too much. I don’t mind people who understand the cultural value behind a thing (as well as the proper codes of conduct with regards to what they’re wearing) or people who have been given a thing by someone from the culture in question wearing these things, but I would personally never, ever wear a feather bonnet no matter how many years I have worked with different tribes. It’s just wrong and incredibly disrespectful.

People who refer to tribal and indigenous peoples as either primitive, Palaeolithic, from the Stone Age or the like upset me a lot. Using these terms reinforces the colonial belief that people who aren’t white and of European descent aren’t good enough and thus uncivilised barbarians. This is harmful in many ways, not only because it shows that racism still is a major force in the world, but because it makes it easier for people who violate indigenous people’s human rights to get away with their crimes. Many companies claim that they move indigenous peoples from their homelands in order to help them ‘develop’, but what they’re in fact doing is destroying these peoples cultures and traditions by forcing them to adapt to a world completely alien to them. I am not saying that one should keep what westerners deem society away from tribal peoples, I am simply stating that it should be up to these tribes to decide themselves how, when and if they want to adapt a Western lifestyle.

Gay rights. Seriously, it’s 2010 - shouldn’t we be way past this by now? Why should I as a straight person object against another human being’s love, and deny him or her the rights that I take for granted? What does it matter to me? People should stop being bigoted idiots and realise that what a person does with another person, if these actions are a result of true love, is none of their bloody business. Personally I think that most people are bisexual to a certain degree, but that culture and expectations have the majority leading heterosexual lives. Freud refers to it as an innate bisexuality, but I dislike Freud so forget that I mentioned him.

Niqabs, Hijabs, Burqas. Don’t, just don’t. I find it incredibly discriminatory when people either discriminate against women who have chosen to wear them, because they assume that all women who wear them are somehow oppressed and cannot possibly have chosen to wear them out of their own free will, (contrary to popular beliefs, not everyone thinks that female liberation equals wearing skimpy bikinis) and I am just as much upset by people who connect them with terrorism. Granted, the Qur’an does not prescribe them, but that does not mean that they don’t play an important role in some Muslim women’s lives, and to discriminate against another being based on the way she chooses to dress is just wrong. So wrong.

Alcohol. You know what, you don’t need alcohol to have fun. I’m not tee-total by any means, but I hate parties and groups where binge-drinking is the norm. Why does everyone have to get drunk to believe that they’re having a great time? Why isn’t one beer or two enough? I don’t care if others waste their money and brain cells, but don’t fucking try to use group pressure into having me drink more than I want to. Thankfully I’m 23 - most of the people I consider my friends know this, but my younger self constantly had to defend this opinion to my younger self’s class mates.