Is this cultural appropriation?

[Anonymous]

Both sisters married non-Americans (Japanese and Indian) and both wear that attire to formal occasions with their inlaws family. It would be offensive not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends. Like if you are married to a person of Indian heritage and you go to an Indian wedding, yes you can wear a sari no problem, lots of non-Indian people do this at weddings even if they are not married in, because saris are beautiful and it’s considered a respectful way of embracing the culture and traditions.

On the other hand, if you married a Jewish woman (who is not orthodox) and then wanted to dress as an Orthodox Jew, I’d consider that weird and disrespectful on like 4 different levels.

The detail matter here.

What does to mean to dress like an Orthodox Jew?

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on whether it is done out of respect or an utter lack of respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m white and married to a south Asian man. I wear saris (gifted to me by in laws) to Indian weddings and family events of course. But neither of us would wear those clothes to a western wedding or event. That would be weird, and in poor taste for me especially.

Super weird you say western wedding

Why? What should I say instead? European-American wedding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m white and married to a south Asian man. I wear saris (gifted to me by in laws) to Indian weddings and family events of course. But neither of us would wear those clothes to a western wedding or event. That would be weird, and in poor taste for me especially.

Super weird you say western wedding

Why? What else would they say? I have heard many friends of South Asian, East Asian and African descent refer to parts of their own wedding festivities using that term. Many have married partners that were European or American, and thus not from their cultural or ethnic background, so they had many wedding events because they wanted to celebrate their specific wedding traditions and rituals, and also have a traditional western style wedding with a white dress, bridesmaids, in addition to a traditional Ghanian or Bengali or Korean etc wedding ceremony and celebration. This is a pretty common phase to use....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this board is probably majority white, but I wonder if those of you saying “of course you can, you dummy!” Are not white. White people know you can’t wear stuff or hairstyles or anything of ethnicities where the people are not white without possibly being horribly offensive. We are constantly told we cannot do it. That’s fine with me, whatever makes other people comfortable is fine. But don’t act like this stuff is universally accepted.

You clearly aren't married to or good friends with someone from a different culture or you would already know the answer to OP's question - totally fine, shows respect and appreciation of the culture.

Now if you are a white person who wore a sari to your white friend's wedding in rural Kentucky, that would be weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m white and married to a south Asian man. I wear saris (gifted to me by in laws) to Indian weddings and family events of course. But neither of us would wear those clothes to a western wedding or event. That would be weird, and in poor taste for me especially.

Super weird you say western wedding

DP but no it's not, that's a pretty common way to differentiate between a traditional Indian wedding and Christian/Jewish/non-Secular wedding. Sorrynotsorry that you don't like our terminology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends. Like if you are married to a person of Indian heritage and you go to an Indian wedding, yes you can wear a sari no problem, lots of non-Indian people do this at weddings even if they are not married in, because saris are beautiful and it’s considered a respectful way of embracing the culture and traditions.

On the other hand, if you married a Jewish woman (who is not orthodox) and then wanted to dress as an Orthodox Jew, I’d consider that weird and disrespectful on like 4 different levels.

The detail matter here.

What does to mean to dress like an Orthodox Jew?

Lol like Orthodox Jews marry non-orthodox Jews anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't ask white people this question, they're always going to say yes it's OK go ahead! In reality, it's not. Marrying someone doesn't give you a free pass to play dress up. It's not your culture, it never will be. You already know not to do it.

+100000.

Please don't play dress up. Just wear your regular clothes. Appropriating someone else's dress is almost always SUPER OFFENSIVE and patronizing. Also, what's next? By that twisted logic, are you also going to give yourself permission to wear non-white hairstyles just because you married a non-white person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends. Like if you are married to a person of Indian heritage and you go to an Indian wedding, yes you can wear a sari no problem, lots of non-Indian people do this at weddings even if they are not married in, because saris are beautiful and it’s considered a respectful way of embracing the culture and traditions.

On the other hand, if you married a Jewish woman (who is not orthodox) and then wanted to dress as an Orthodox Jew, I’d consider that weird and disrespectful on like 4 different levels.

The detail matter here.

What does to mean to dress like an Orthodox Jew?

Lol like Orthodox Jews marry non-orthodox Jews anyway.

PP specified that the spouse was jewish but not orthodox. The idea being that simply being married to a jewish person does not give you carte blanche to play dress up in another culture's traditions.

And there are certain signifiers that someone is orthodox because of the common ways people interpret the rules of orthodox modesty, especially women. You could absolutely dress up like an Orthodox Jew and it would almost certainly be offensive because there is no compelling reason I can think of for doing this. Totally different from just wearing a yarmulke in a synagogue or wearing a sari to an Indian wedding. It would come off as making fun or criticizing no matter how it was intended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't ask white people this question, they're always going to say yes it's OK go ahead! In reality, it's not. Marrying someone doesn't give you a free pass to play dress up. It's not your culture, it never will be. You already know not to do it.

+100000.

Please don't play dress up. Just wear your regular clothes. Appropriating someone else's dress is almost always SUPER OFFENSIVE and patronizing. Also, what's next? By that twisted logic, are you also going to give yourself permission to wear non-white hairstyles just because you married a non-white person?

Who died and made you the boss of deciding what other people should wear?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't ask white people this question, they're always going to say yes it's OK go ahead! In reality, it's not. Marrying someone doesn't give you a free pass to play dress up. It's not your culture, it never will be. You already know not to do it.

+100000.

Please don't play dress up. Just wear your regular clothes. Appropriating someone else's dress is almost always SUPER OFFENSIVE and patronizing. Also, what's next? By that twisted logic, are you also going to give yourself permission to wear non-white hairstyles just because you married a non-white person?

Tell that to all my husband’s aunties who draped my sari for me and did my henna at my wedding I guess, I’m sure they’d be fascinated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't ask white people this question, they're always going to say yes it's OK go ahead! In reality, it's not. Marrying someone doesn't give you a free pass to play dress up. It's not your culture, it never will be. You already know not to do it.

+100000.

Please don't play dress up. Just wear your regular clothes. Appropriating someone else's dress is almost always SUPER OFFENSIVE and patronizing. Also, what's next? By that twisted logic, are you also going to give yourself permission to wear non-white hairstyles just because you married a non-white person?

Tell that to all my husband’s aunties who draped my sari for me and did my henna at my wedding I guess, I’m sure they’d be fascinated

+1

I was invited at a relative wedding and the mother of the groom personally invited me to get my henna done. Refusing it would have bern considered offensive since I was one of the women belonging to the bride’s family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wear anything you want, any time you want, regardless of your spouse’s ethnicity. Cultural appropriation is a myth.

I agree with you that people should be able to wear whatever they want. But in our messed up world, people will judge you for it, even though that’s dumb.

Years ago I had a beautiful red dress with a flower pattern on it and a mandarin collar. I wore it because it was pretty and got lots of compliments. Two decades later when someone saw an old photo of me in it they commented that I “couldn’t get away with that today” because apparently that was “cultural appropriation.” The world has gone totally mad.

[Anonymous]

The history of the world is the history of the migration of peoples, the absorption of one language into another, the mix of musical styles, fashion and food impacted by trade and the availability of new products, etc.

If if you fought against it every moment of your life, you'd never win. But why do it at all? The whole concept of cultural appropriation is just really stupid.