Random thing from the internet
Jan. 30th, 2009 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesHow a Thirteenth Century Islamic Poet Conquered America
The article is a news story about how the best selling poet in America is Rumi, who, as the title may have indicated to you, was a thirteenth century Islamic poet from Afghanistan (way back when people called it Bactria).
My interest in the article is about how Coleman Barks, a man from Tennessee who doesn't speak Persian at all, is supposedly responsible for making Rumi so accessible to Americans. The writer of the article gives Barks plenty of praise for, in a way, translating the translations of Rumi for the purpose of adding accessibility for Americans.
I have deep misgivings about whether this deserves praise or not. As a historian, I really loathe taking things out of their historical context, of acting as though you can wipe away the place and time in which a thing or person existed and package it up in modern trappings and enjoy it and still consider it the same thing.
But this quote, especially, really made me pause:
I have to confess that I find myself shaking my head at this.
More than that, it makes me sad that the Cultural Appropriation Debate Of Doom turned out to be such a disappointing misnomer. Precious little of the posts, comments, and discussion ever got around to talking about cultural appropriation at all. Most of it was sadly derailed into discussions of race, racism, and what is and is not acceptable when we discuss racism. I saw somebody call it Racefail 2009, and I think that's a better title because it really was about the ways in which a large group of people are continuing to fail to understand how it is that racism works and functions in our society and mediates how we act, how we create literature, how we interact, and how resources are distributed and made available.
But I'm not derailing this discussion. I'm not saying it's a separate topic, but this time I want to focus on cultural appropriation.
I don't know that it can ever be okay to a) look at someone as the "other" and then b) set out purposely to "Americanize" them. I certainly have grave reservations about saying that not only is it acceptable, but that an Americanized version of something is ever not as bastardization.
The thing about cultural appropriation is that I'm still learning how to see it and define it and change what I do and what I consume (media-wise) to stop it from happening in harmful ways. But I get stuck sometimes.
I do think it is perfectly fine to have translations of literature and whatnot from other cultures. Now, this is not to say that translations cannot be problematic, or that there can't be dominance structured into it.
To my mind, it seems perfectly valid and even potentially positive that different cultures swap literature and movies and songs - the caveat being that it is so long as the playing fields are equal, that the incoming material to a culture isn't drowning out what natively is produced, and thus negatively impacting the native producers. Or that the material coming in isn't shredded and taken out of context to suit the needs of the culture incorporating it.
For instance, I like to listen to songs from Bollywood movies. But I wonder: am I doing harm by the simple act of listening to these things? Am I culturally appropriating what's not mine just by listening and having this music? Am I hurting people by doing this thing?
When I read translated material of, say, collections of myths from non-European cultures - am I doing harm? If I incorporated those myths into a story, would I be doing harm?
That's my biggest concern in all this. I can't say I care one whit about the academia of it. I don't care about construction and deconstruction. I don't care about all the big, empty words that people in Ivory Towers use to say things that are actually quite simple. I've been to college, got my English degree, and I found literary criticism to be a load of crap. I find it to be mostly time wasting nonsense.
Anyone who tells you that you need any methods or tools for digging into a text, that you need anything besides your eyes and your mind, has some other agenda and it smacks of exclusion. Let me make it clear: I do not tolerate arguments about whether a certain reading is right or wrong.
I believe the only wrong is in totally dismissing somebody's point of view out of hand without considering it, without completely ditching any notions of "valid" or "invalid". I could care less if I get the Extra Special College-Professor Stamp of Approval for my thoughts on a text.
What I care about is if I am doing harm to people, collectively or individually. I care if my activities, both as a writer and reader (or a listener) are doing harm. Am I thwarting someone else's ability to speak and be heard? Am I damaging their creativity? Am I causing them to feel they must make hard choices between self and acceptance?
Back to the subject of Rumi specifically. I have to wonder what the effect on Muslims living in this country to see that a Muslim poet becomes more popular as he becomes more accessible to Americans, especially mainstream - meaning: mainly White and Christian Americans.
I was listening yesterday to QPTV (Queens Public TV) and there was a man speaking on a program called "Gems of Islam". I believe he was a member of the Muslim clergy, thought I can't be entirely sure. I didn't catch him being introduced on the program and they did not say his name and QPTV's site doesn't give any info (way to be helpful!).
The point is, he was speaking about the struggles that a lot of Muslims have when they come to America, in that they are identified as dangerous and identified with terrorism. But he also addressed what I'm sure many Muslims feel when they decide whether, as he said, to keep the faith in the home but not to do so in public (a paraphrase of his words). Then he gave the example of a Muslim family who sends a child to public schools, where at lunchtime, in time honored kid fashion, food might be traded across the lunch table. And the problem he brought up was, what do you tell your child to do?
Do you tell them to take whatever is offered, whether it has pork or not, because that's okay? Do you tell them absolutely to never take anything at all, because it might be food that is not acceptable according to Islamic dietary laws?
And as I listened to him, I got this really clear picture in my head of some kid sitting across a table with other kids, who perhaps he or she has been lucky enough to make friends with and being offered something that they can't eat according to their faith.
Then I got this image of this kid staring at what was being offered as the entire world sort of stopped, and there was this dilemma for him/her, with the very clear crux of the dilemma being, "How Muslim should I be in front of them?"
Because it's pretty universal for kids to want to fit in with their peers, to have friends, to be able to play and join in the same as everyone else around them is doing.
The sad part is? The program cut out because Gems of Islam overran it's thirty minute time slot, and I never got to hear the man's answer to this dilemma, I never got to see in my mind, whether the kid took the food or said, "No, I can't."
And then this article came along and I couldn't help but wonder if things like this are just reinforcing the notion for people, like the kid in the cafeteria, that if you want to make it in America, if you don't want to be shunned and spit on and thought of as a terrorist, that you need to make yourself less Muslim, less foreign.
Yes, Barker's translations might make it easier on English speaking Americans, but one wonders if it is at the expense of the people who call Rumi their own. Is doing this, and popularizing Rumi this way sending the message that the culture and history and language that Rumi comes from are unacceptable to us in their pure forms?
Who does this hurt, and could this hurt be stopped?
I just keep thinking about that theoretical kid in the cafeteria. I keep thinking about the fact that s/he's got to negotiate how much to sacrifice, either friendship or parts of him/herself. And I keep thinking that it could all be made better if the kids around him/her, the American kids, could be taught that it's okay. So that if s/he turned down, say, pork rinds (stupid example, I know) s/he wouldn't face being distanced from people s/he wants to have a friendship (or at least friendly relationship) with.
What if the kids around him/her knew not to offer certain foods, or when turned down would just say, "That's cool." And really mean it. What if the message could be sent to the kid, to all the other people in America who feel they have to play double dutch between cultures, that they're okay as they are?
I wonder, have we really done Rumi any service? Maybe Barker did "escort him through Ellis Island", but perhaps he should have let Rumi make his own way.
I also want to, in advance, offer apologies to any offense I may cause in this entry, in this post, especially to PoC who might be reading this and find that I have said something that only adds to their hurt.
I owe you that apology, I owe you that humility. Not out some Liberal White Guilt, but out of my own need to be better. I owe you this because it is part of my development as a person, as a better person, a better ally.
I think overcoming one's White/American Privilege is a lot like going through a 12-step program for addiction. You have to acknowledge it, you have to own it, and you have to make amends. You have to understand that there is no divorcing the past from the present and the future. There is no drawing a clear line and saying, "All past debts are settled", because a lot of people are still living under the weight of that deficiency, a deficiency that I have, in small ways and big, put there and have benefited from.
Sure, clearing debt helps the debtor, but it hurts the creditor. And yes, the people who's necks I've stepped on, knowing and unknowing, are my creditors. I owe them, with interest. Which means not only do I need to do my best to right my wrongs, but to stop adding to my big damn debt.
Which is why I'm asking so many questions in this entry. Because I'm asking "how much does this cost?" - how much will it cost you, how much will it cost me?
So if I have offended, I am so sorry. I will try to do better. And I will next expect or feel entitled to any education, any explanation. If I have done something to hurt you, to make things harder for you, merely say so and I will go out and try to figure out the hows and the whys.
And if you are kind enough, gracious enough, to educate me a little, to articulate things and point out my wrongdoings, then I owe you doubly and can only take your kindness as motivation to do that much better, because I know full repayment is an impossibility.
I think also, a big round of applause is due to the PoC who spoke out during the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom (again, a misnomer). I think that there were a lot of backs patted on the side of white folks, but not enough "thank yous" and "you're so right" and "yes!" and "this!" said to the PoC who stood up, spoke out, and got a lot of their feelings hurt for the sake of saying true and necessary things.
Especially since I've noticed that when I look over the posts and comments, the posts by white people tended to get a lot of cheering and relatively few disagreements, but the posts by people of color tended to get a lot of grumpy white folks barging in, and not nearly as much back patting.
I think that sucks, just so you know.
The article is a news story about how the best selling poet in America is Rumi, who, as the title may have indicated to you, was a thirteenth century Islamic poet from Afghanistan (way back when people called it Bactria).
My interest in the article is about how Coleman Barks, a man from Tennessee who doesn't speak Persian at all, is supposedly responsible for making Rumi so accessible to Americans. The writer of the article gives Barks plenty of praise for, in a way, translating the translations of Rumi for the purpose of adding accessibility for Americans.
I have deep misgivings about whether this deserves praise or not. As a historian, I really loathe taking things out of their historical context, of acting as though you can wipe away the place and time in which a thing or person existed and package it up in modern trappings and enjoy it and still consider it the same thing.
But this quote, especially, really made me pause:
"Although Barks may have had to escort Rumi through Ellis Island to import him to the United States, he has shown that one can Americanize an "other" without bastardizing him."
I have to confess that I find myself shaking my head at this.
More than that, it makes me sad that the Cultural Appropriation Debate Of Doom turned out to be such a disappointing misnomer. Precious little of the posts, comments, and discussion ever got around to talking about cultural appropriation at all. Most of it was sadly derailed into discussions of race, racism, and what is and is not acceptable when we discuss racism. I saw somebody call it Racefail 2009, and I think that's a better title because it really was about the ways in which a large group of people are continuing to fail to understand how it is that racism works and functions in our society and mediates how we act, how we create literature, how we interact, and how resources are distributed and made available.
But I'm not derailing this discussion. I'm not saying it's a separate topic, but this time I want to focus on cultural appropriation.
I don't know that it can ever be okay to a) look at someone as the "other" and then b) set out purposely to "Americanize" them. I certainly have grave reservations about saying that not only is it acceptable, but that an Americanized version of something is ever not as bastardization.
The thing about cultural appropriation is that I'm still learning how to see it and define it and change what I do and what I consume (media-wise) to stop it from happening in harmful ways. But I get stuck sometimes.
I do think it is perfectly fine to have translations of literature and whatnot from other cultures. Now, this is not to say that translations cannot be problematic, or that there can't be dominance structured into it.
To my mind, it seems perfectly valid and even potentially positive that different cultures swap literature and movies and songs - the caveat being that it is so long as the playing fields are equal, that the incoming material to a culture isn't drowning out what natively is produced, and thus negatively impacting the native producers. Or that the material coming in isn't shredded and taken out of context to suit the needs of the culture incorporating it.
For instance, I like to listen to songs from Bollywood movies. But I wonder: am I doing harm by the simple act of listening to these things? Am I culturally appropriating what's not mine just by listening and having this music? Am I hurting people by doing this thing?
When I read translated material of, say, collections of myths from non-European cultures - am I doing harm? If I incorporated those myths into a story, would I be doing harm?
That's my biggest concern in all this. I can't say I care one whit about the academia of it. I don't care about construction and deconstruction. I don't care about all the big, empty words that people in Ivory Towers use to say things that are actually quite simple. I've been to college, got my English degree, and I found literary criticism to be a load of crap. I find it to be mostly time wasting nonsense.
Anyone who tells you that you need any methods or tools for digging into a text, that you need anything besides your eyes and your mind, has some other agenda and it smacks of exclusion. Let me make it clear: I do not tolerate arguments about whether a certain reading is right or wrong.
I believe the only wrong is in totally dismissing somebody's point of view out of hand without considering it, without completely ditching any notions of "valid" or "invalid". I could care less if I get the Extra Special College-Professor Stamp of Approval for my thoughts on a text.
What I care about is if I am doing harm to people, collectively or individually. I care if my activities, both as a writer and reader (or a listener) are doing harm. Am I thwarting someone else's ability to speak and be heard? Am I damaging their creativity? Am I causing them to feel they must make hard choices between self and acceptance?
Back to the subject of Rumi specifically. I have to wonder what the effect on Muslims living in this country to see that a Muslim poet becomes more popular as he becomes more accessible to Americans, especially mainstream - meaning: mainly White and Christian Americans.
I was listening yesterday to QPTV (Queens Public TV) and there was a man speaking on a program called "Gems of Islam". I believe he was a member of the Muslim clergy, thought I can't be entirely sure. I didn't catch him being introduced on the program and they did not say his name and QPTV's site doesn't give any info (way to be helpful!).
The point is, he was speaking about the struggles that a lot of Muslims have when they come to America, in that they are identified as dangerous and identified with terrorism. But he also addressed what I'm sure many Muslims feel when they decide whether, as he said, to keep the faith in the home but not to do so in public (a paraphrase of his words). Then he gave the example of a Muslim family who sends a child to public schools, where at lunchtime, in time honored kid fashion, food might be traded across the lunch table. And the problem he brought up was, what do you tell your child to do?
Do you tell them to take whatever is offered, whether it has pork or not, because that's okay? Do you tell them absolutely to never take anything at all, because it might be food that is not acceptable according to Islamic dietary laws?
And as I listened to him, I got this really clear picture in my head of some kid sitting across a table with other kids, who perhaps he or she has been lucky enough to make friends with and being offered something that they can't eat according to their faith.
Then I got this image of this kid staring at what was being offered as the entire world sort of stopped, and there was this dilemma for him/her, with the very clear crux of the dilemma being, "How Muslim should I be in front of them?"
Because it's pretty universal for kids to want to fit in with their peers, to have friends, to be able to play and join in the same as everyone else around them is doing.
The sad part is? The program cut out because Gems of Islam overran it's thirty minute time slot, and I never got to hear the man's answer to this dilemma, I never got to see in my mind, whether the kid took the food or said, "No, I can't."
And then this article came along and I couldn't help but wonder if things like this are just reinforcing the notion for people, like the kid in the cafeteria, that if you want to make it in America, if you don't want to be shunned and spit on and thought of as a terrorist, that you need to make yourself less Muslim, less foreign.
Yes, Barker's translations might make it easier on English speaking Americans, but one wonders if it is at the expense of the people who call Rumi their own. Is doing this, and popularizing Rumi this way sending the message that the culture and history and language that Rumi comes from are unacceptable to us in their pure forms?
Who does this hurt, and could this hurt be stopped?
I just keep thinking about that theoretical kid in the cafeteria. I keep thinking about the fact that s/he's got to negotiate how much to sacrifice, either friendship or parts of him/herself. And I keep thinking that it could all be made better if the kids around him/her, the American kids, could be taught that it's okay. So that if s/he turned down, say, pork rinds (stupid example, I know) s/he wouldn't face being distanced from people s/he wants to have a friendship (or at least friendly relationship) with.
What if the kids around him/her knew not to offer certain foods, or when turned down would just say, "That's cool." And really mean it. What if the message could be sent to the kid, to all the other people in America who feel they have to play double dutch between cultures, that they're okay as they are?
I wonder, have we really done Rumi any service? Maybe Barker did "escort him through Ellis Island", but perhaps he should have let Rumi make his own way.
I also want to, in advance, offer apologies to any offense I may cause in this entry, in this post, especially to PoC who might be reading this and find that I have said something that only adds to their hurt.
I owe you that apology, I owe you that humility. Not out some Liberal White Guilt, but out of my own need to be better. I owe you this because it is part of my development as a person, as a better person, a better ally.
I think overcoming one's White/American Privilege is a lot like going through a 12-step program for addiction. You have to acknowledge it, you have to own it, and you have to make amends. You have to understand that there is no divorcing the past from the present and the future. There is no drawing a clear line and saying, "All past debts are settled", because a lot of people are still living under the weight of that deficiency, a deficiency that I have, in small ways and big, put there and have benefited from.
Sure, clearing debt helps the debtor, but it hurts the creditor. And yes, the people who's necks I've stepped on, knowing and unknowing, are my creditors. I owe them, with interest. Which means not only do I need to do my best to right my wrongs, but to stop adding to my big damn debt.
Which is why I'm asking so many questions in this entry. Because I'm asking "how much does this cost?" - how much will it cost you, how much will it cost me?
So if I have offended, I am so sorry. I will try to do better. And I will next expect or feel entitled to any education, any explanation. If I have done something to hurt you, to make things harder for you, merely say so and I will go out and try to figure out the hows and the whys.
And if you are kind enough, gracious enough, to educate me a little, to articulate things and point out my wrongdoings, then I owe you doubly and can only take your kindness as motivation to do that much better, because I know full repayment is an impossibility.
I think also, a big round of applause is due to the PoC who spoke out during the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom (again, a misnomer). I think that there were a lot of backs patted on the side of white folks, but not enough "thank yous" and "you're so right" and "yes!" and "this!" said to the PoC who stood up, spoke out, and got a lot of their feelings hurt for the sake of saying true and necessary things.
Especially since I've noticed that when I look over the posts and comments, the posts by white people tended to get a lot of cheering and relatively few disagreements, but the posts by people of color tended to get a lot of grumpy white folks barging in, and not nearly as much back patting.
I think that sucks, just so you know.
