OK, I am pretty sure that no one reading this watched the four-day late-June "livestream" by the performer Katy Perry, who was made famous by ... OK, I have no idea what she sings, and it doesn't matter. I'll look it up if I feel like it.
Apparently she felt that she was worth people listening to her, so she conducted a livestream, packed with interviews and performances and God-knows what all else and, apparently 40 million times, people have tuned in to it. I've no idea what Katy Perry had to offer that would get 40 million people to tune in for at least a part of four days, but that actually isn't the topic of this piece.
Thankfully.
At least one part of it, however, got a laugh out of most of the rest of the nation, because the limousine liberal Miss Perry decided to wander off into the lovely topic of "cultural appropriation."
Now, frequent readers of this column are familiar with my take on cultural appropriation, which I urge you to read (http://uberthoughtsusa.blogspot.com/2015/12/300-suffer-your-sushi-in-silence.html), at least for the humor in it. I'll even forgive you if you follow the link before you finish reading this piece.
For the rest of you, "cultural appropriation" is a new-wave leftist meme that says that a white person cannot do something that is culturally associated with any other race, creed, religion, national or ethnic "community." It doesn't say that a black man can't wear a suit and tie, or play cricket or bagpipes or sing Irish songs, or eat sushi. But God forbid ... well, let's listen to Katy Perry.
On the topic of cultural appropriation, Miss Perry was the picture of apology. "I’ve made several mistakes,” she said, apparently exempting stealing four days of her fans' lives from that list. Referring to a video she made, she said, “Even in this ... video, with how I wore my hair and having a hard conversation with one of one of my empowered angels, Cleo, about what does it mean?" My crack research team is trying to figure out what an "empowered angel" is, and who empowered her, and how do I get some empowerment.
Apparently in the video, Miss Perry wore cornrows, sort of like the white Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo did in the unenlightened days of 2004.
"Why can’t I wear my hair that way?", she asked. "Or what is the history behind wearing my hair that way? And she [presumably the empowered angel] told me about the power in black women’s hair and how beautiful it is, and the struggle ... I listened and I heard and I didn’t know, and I won’t ever understand some of those things because of who I am. I will never understand, but I can educate myself and that’s what I’m trying to do along the way.”
I liked the part where the presumably black "empowered angel" said how beautiful her own hair and that of her own race was, but instead of being sneered at for her ego, she was actually listened to. I especially liked the part where she said "I won't ever understand because of who I am." I agree. She won't ever understand because of who she is, which is a stupid, now-privileged creation of the music industry, a leftist too stupid to consider that "cultural appropriation" is a moronic concept. But I'll get to that.
In another take, she apologized, sort of like Barack Obama on his apology tour around the world in 2009, for having done a video where she was dressed in traditional Japanese female garb and makeup. That, too, was cultural appropriation and very, very bad. Streams of apology words followed. It is very bad, in leftist culture, for a white female person to dress up like a Japanese girl.
I saw the picture (I didn't have to listen to the singing) and I thought it was actually a pretty picture. Katy Perry should dress like a Japanese girl more often. The outfit was colorful and attractive, which is why she wore it in the first place, before she then entered the indoctrination camp that made it a bad thing to do.
I mention that latter apology for a reason. Obviously, if Katy Perry wants to do a video dressed up like a Japanese girl, she is free to do it, free of having culture police knock on her door and tell her she needed to do a four-day apology for it. She did it because that specific aspect of Japanese culture deserved appropriation.
Do you follow? We live in a country that appropriated everything from some other culture. Our legal system is generally British, our music is now primarily African; our numbering system is Arabic. And our food is Chinese, Mexican, Italian, and everything else.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Katy Perry! If you want to bind up your hair in cornrows, well, be a trendsetter and do it. For God's sake, don't apologize for it. I am proud of having won four world championships in competitive barbershop singing, which is an art form culturally appropriated from late-19th Century black America. I do not apologize for that.
Katy Perry has recorded dozens of songs written and originally performed by someone else, called "covering." Yes, I looked it up. Should the now mega-rich Miss Perry now decide that was "appropriation" too, and return all the remaining millions she made on those songs to the original performer, even though she paid royalties to the composer?
Ah, the left. White is bad, everything else is good, but God forbid a white person decide that some aspect of the culture of other societies is worth enjoying or even adopting. I cannot possibly understand that logic, unless it is simply the left undermining its opposition.
I think we'll have -- excuse me, "appropriate" -- some taco bowls tonight.
Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton