(gentle music) - [Announcer] Roots, Race and Culture is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hey everyone and welcome to Roots, Race and Culture, a new show on PBS, Utah, where we bring you into candid conversations about shared cultural experiences.

My name is Lonzo Liggins.

- Hello I'm Danor Gerald.

According to Dr. Mia Moody-Ramirez in a recent issue of health magazine, "Cultural appropriation is the practice of using or taking something from another culture without giving proper recognition or respect to that culture."

And quite often, cultural appropriation gets confused with cultural appreciation.

To help us navigate these murky waters, we've invited a couple of experts in the field.

- Yes, indeed we have, we have two lovely guests here, Erika George, to my left, could you introduce yourself?

- Good evening, I'm Erika George.

I'm the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the S.J.

Quinney College of Law and I also have the honor of directing the Tanner Humanity Center and in that capacity we do a lot of work with culture with appreciating it, with having conversations about how it's appropriated, but mostly exposing people to different forms of art, literature, cultural forms in different contexts, so that we can better appreciate.

- Yeah and you're the first African American law professor there, right?

- I am in fact, yes.

- That's awesome.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, that is great.

And to my right, we have Paisley.

I'm gonna say this right Paisley Rekdal, right?

- That's Correct.

- Yes.

- Thank you very much, Norwegian.

I'm half Chinese and Norwegian that's why I got the last name it's a little tough, I'm Paisley Rekdal I'm a distinguished professor at the University of Utah, I'm Utah's Poet Laureate and I actually wrote a book called, "Appropriate A Provocation."

So it's all about cultural appropriation in literature and the arts and what are the various practices that go into appropriation.

- Yeah, so this is yep, and there's the book right there.

This is a great book actually I had a chance to read it and I'm gonna love getting into the discussion about the book.

It's funny this definition of cultural appropriation for me and Moody-Ramirez, how do you two stand on that?

Is that pretty accurate?

As far as that's concerned, I'll start with you.

- What do you mean by accurate exactly the ways in which you open the show?

I mean, I think that is accurate in the sense that we have so many different kinds and types of activities that fall under the category of appropriation.

Some we accept and in fact, we encourage each other to do and others we really revile and are angry by when we see them.

So the question is like, why do we accept some practices of appropriation?

And why do we reject others?

And the line between appreciation and appropriation is sometimes almost individual by individual, the kind of ethics that we have to develop as artists and as consumers in the world mean that there is no hard line, consistent ways of defining what is harmful appropriation for a lot of people.

But that said, there's two issues in appropriation, one is, can you do it?

And the other is, should you do it?

Because of course we are thinking about a very long history in which lots of cultures have gone in colonized and taken cultural and sacred artifacts from other cultures and made money a off of it and displaying it in their museums or in their artists, reproducing these as mat motifs and subjects in their own art and those are harmful when we think about the long legacy of colonialism and racism as it still affects us all.

- Right, absolutely.

What about you, Erika?

What were your thoughts on that?

- I actually appreciated the divide though we understand there's some blur between there is appreciation and with that, we are connoting some form of respect for a culture versus appropriation, which just feels and is much more extractive.

It's about enriching one self or enriching one culture, perhaps at the expense of another, not crediting and undermining.

So there are ways in which the appropriate aspect of things is quite connected to how am I drawing benefit economically, status wise, something that is in Vogue or cache, cashing in on creativity of another, the other hat I wear as a lawyer, there's a regime of intellectual property protection because we value the intangible property of creativity.

We wanna encourage it.

- Absolutely.

- But we also don't want to say you cannot use, we also have things like fair use.

Are we sampling music?

If so, are maybe introducing that music to new audiences that may not have ever known what of Miles Davis on a Riff would be.

So navigating that what I appreciate about it Paisley's work is that she asked nuanced questions.

Should you do it?

Can you do it?

Of course she can do anything, but why are you doing this?

And is it the right thing to do?

- It's funny because Danor and I, we both have our own, we've had lengthy chats about cultural appropriation and I see it as more of a music thing.

He sees as more of a clothing and hairstyle thing.

Like with me, when I think of cultural appropriation, I think of music, like I think of old rhythm and blues, - Right.

- People when they think of rock and roll, they think of Elvis Presley.

They think of the Rolling Stones, they think of the Beatles, but there's another element to that.

I used to study the history of rock and roll and there's these other artists, for example, I'm gonna show you a picture of some artists right now that most people don't really know, see to the left there's a Big Mama Thornton and there's Louis Jordan.

A lot of people don't know who they are, but Big Mama Thornton she was the, the person who made this song, "Hound Dog" really popular.

Louis Jordan is the one who helped to fuse jazz and blues and bring that together.

Now, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Rolling stones.

They didn't know who those guys were, right?

But we don't know who they are.

So the credit's kind of been stripped and those guys didn't make as much money.

They were kind of, left in the cold when it came to the actual wealth of the music.

So to me, it's like and look, I'm not bagging Elvis Presley, I'm not bagging the Rolling Stones.

They, I think were appreciating the culture.

It was the record labels that were kind of just knocking the other old black artists off to the side.

But the problem with it is that regardless those artists got left out in the cold and I think when it comes to cultural appropriation, that can be the ultimate damage of it.

- That's one of them.

That's definitely one of them because there's always that economic argument in that economic issue.

One of the going back to something Erika said is that we're all encouraged to appropriate.

I mean, we think there are certain people who are appropriating and other people who are appropriated, but the reality is that we're all doing it and when we're talking about like the loss of Big Mama Thornton's, economic power in that market, which is terrible, there's a sort of flip side to it, which is that there's a younger artist, who's also sampling and using other people who might have like the Rolling Stones and turning it into their own art.

So one of the things that we're missing- - In case of hiphop.

- In the case of hiphop exactly and so one of the risks that we have of sort of saying like appropriation is always wrong is that we don't understand that you can also appropriate the appropriators and you can turn something that usually was maybe a colonial art form or something that absolutely took advantage of certain communities.

You can turn that into a powerful critique back.

And to a certain extent, that's kind of what you wanna have in that openness, this sort of, if one person appropriates negatively, one can person can appropriate positively and actually open up and widen that conversation even globally.

Hip hop for example, is not just an American art form though of course it was born and raised in America.

There are global hiphop artists who see some of their own racial, ethnic, or political struggles as aligned with American hip hop artists and have taken those art forms and sort of said, we're part of this too, we're part of this conversation.

So you lose something economically for sure.

But you also gain something politically transnationally and transcommunally.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I wanted to ask, so K-pop in relation.

- Yes, which is huge success.

- Which has been that Powerful, cultural and political movement, I think it was K-pop fans that bought the tickets or booked up tickets for a particular political event in order to alter what the composition of that audience was or whether there was an audience so there is something about, I wonder if that, is that cultural appropriation or is that recreation and sharing and solidarity work.

- That's solidarity work and I think that's a great distinction to make.

Again, like sometimes we just lump all of these different activities under like the same name.

Going back to Korea for a moment, I used to live in Korea and it was in the 90s and, K-pop was sort of coming to it feet and one of the things that I found really disturbing was a lot of these young bands were trying to take on American styles and there were a couple of bands that actually dressed up as if they were African American.

There was like a menstrual show.

- With blackface?

- With blackface, right?

And that's an perfect example of cultural appropriation.

It's worst, most negative form.

This isn't about solidarity work.

This isn't about expanding or having a global conversation.

This is about performing ideas of race and oftentimes when we're thinking about, what turns something from appreciation to appropriation, it's this collapse of the racial identity means something as a kind of performative of act itself.

This is what it means to be black, this is what it means to be Asian.

- Yeah.

- So for instance, when Katie Perry gets up and she decides to sing one of her big songs, unconditionally dressed as a geisha, I mean, there's no reason for her to do that except to sort of plug into this stereotype of Asian women as subservient docile and suicidal lovers of white men.

- Wow.

- Right and so it's this collapse of race means this particular kind of thing.

So they're not just playing the music, they're playing the race and a stereotype of the race.

- Yeah.

- Wow and I think there's another side of it, not everyone's an artist, right?

Not everyone has that, but for example, what you wear you're hairstyle, that sort of thing and even down to like the kind of car you drive can be associated with those sort of things.

- Exactly.

- But, I was having a conversation with someone the other day and they said they were in Africa, this blonde lady from America and someone had gifted her.

It wasn't a Shalwar, but it was.

- A Kurta cloth.

- Yeah some Kurta cloth actually from India.

- Oh, okay I'm sorry.

- Shalwar kameez probably.

- Yes.

- Yeah that makes sense?

- Yes and so when she wore it, people were saying, well, what are you doing with that?

But I'm sitting here thinking, well, it was a gift.

- Where was she wearing it though, in the U.S. or in?

- Well is probably she was back in the United States.

- Okay because I spent a lot of time in India, and I actually felt out of place if I didn't wear Shalwar Kameez.

- Exactly right.

- It was inappropriate not to, if I go into a Mosque would be inappropriate not to cover my head.

- Exactly.

- Though I'm not culturally appreciating that's I don't even know if I'm assimilating, it's a gesture towards respect that cultural context.

- And they also feel your affecting their economy well, right?

'Cause if you're not buying their stuff, then that's not helping tourism, right?

That's of tourism if you start saying, I wanna buy this 'cause it's culturally appropriate and then it becomes a situation where you're damaging them as opposed to helping them.

- There's a complete difference between somebody offering their goods and gifts for sale, for wearing, just sort of saying this would be, we want you to do this versus like sneaking around and like maybe going into a sacred ceremony and then like, taking pictures of it or trying to wear something like that and I think that's really important because when we're thinking about, again, the idea of performing a race, there's nothing that requires me.

If I put on and I've lived in Japan, I've worn yuccas and kimonos.

There's nothing that makes you have to perform, being an idea of Japanese.

You can wear the clothing without actually, burlesque the culture.

- Right.

- And I think that's what, a lot of people forget and so people think, oh, I'm just gonna wear this cheongsam and now it makes me an Asian woman, like that's not what happens you just worn a dress, right?

- One of the biggest mistakes that I regret in my life when I worked at Disney World Epcot center has all of these different shops from around the world and I saw the flyest silk suit there.

I put it on and I felt like a million bucks and I was like, oh, I'll come back and get it later.

But I could never find it again.

- Oh no.

- I was so sad.

But we also have a video you wanted to introduce that.

- That's a funny side.

Anyway, so, there's a quote from your book that I wanted to read 'cause I wanna show you guys a video it's from an Apache woman, who's now a student Utah State University.

But I think this quote in the book will segue perfectly into it.

The quote is, "It's one thing to buy and display a Berber basket purchase during a trip to Morocco, that's a form of cultural appreciation for an object that Berber gave explicit permission to sell.

It's another thing entirely to secretly photograph a sacred Hopi ritual and publish it in a book of photos under your own name.

This is no longer cultural influence or admiration, but theft and this theft also returns us to the problem of how certain artists and institutions have materially profited from the cultural products of other communities."

And I think this is a perfect segue into this because it also does some emotional and cultural damage to some of the people who are in particular on these reservations.

So can we play that video?

(speaks in foreign language) - Hello my name is Shelvie James and I'm from the San Carl Apache tribe in San Carlos Arizona.

I am currently a student here at Southern Utah University in Cedar city, Utah.

I grew up my entire life on my reservation, and it wasn't until I left home to come to school that I realized that I was no longer part of a majority, but I was part of a very small minority.

The native people here have a small representation and I feel like throughout America, most people see native American culture only from whats being portrayed in the media and with that comes along with my exposure of racism and cultural appropriation.

I've seen so many people where native American regalia as a costume, as a prop, as an accessory, as an aesthetic and for me that just demeans who I am as a native American person, as an indigenous woman, because my identity has been reduced to a $20 costume.

With that brings in the stereotypes of what native American people or indigenous people are represented as.

Native American women have been sexualized throughout all of history and the most popular would be Pocahontas, who was a child and she's seen as beautiful as a princess and when in real life, she was one of our first missing murder indigenous women.

And for native American people, it hurts knowing that most of our country still sees us as something that can be sexualized.

Something that is demeaned into what people say honor us, but honoring us can be found in different ways, but it doesn't have to be found in dressing as us, as trying to be us because it hurts to know that someone can dress up as a native American and take it off whenever they feel like it.

I carry around my identity 24/7, I can't take that off.

And it feels less empowering when you see people use these aesthetics as a way to identify you as, and that's something that I hope we can change soon in the future.

- Wow.

- powerful passion.

- That was very powerful.

I'd love to get your thoughts on it.

What do you think Paisley?

- I mean, I think she's completely right.

Again there's no question about that to me because we were sort of joking before about sort of the ways in which people even appropriate Cinco de Mayo, which is this that they turn it into a kind of cartoon and the ways in which especially native women have been sexualized and certainly there's and a tremendous, a history of genocide that is continuing on today with what's happening with native women.

And so to take unthinkingly these objects and artifacts from other cultures, or to try to dress up as, something that you want to perform or to imagine yourself as aligned with.

I think we have to be able to say, where are we different?

And respect those differences too, because all of these objects and items that we're attached to have historical meaning and value and oftentimes when we move into cultural appropriation it's because we're not actually paying attention to the historical and meanings of the people who have these items, wear these items who they are, and this isn't just dress up, it is really, it's a very powerful and sad story to talk about.

- Yeah, what really got me in her expression was the, I don't take this off.

- Exactly.

- This is something that I am embodying and others are extracting and reinventing in ways that are not consonant with the truth that she understand and knows about Pocahontas as the first missing and murdered indigenous woman, right?

But we glorify that there's the wonderful Disney cartoon.

- Right.

- But there are deeper histories and stories that she lives and knows and to see that played back with a dissonance that is disrespectful, captures the injury and I heard that in her voice and I think when one is in conversation with people who haven't had to think about the consequences of an appropriation, or what is the real injury here or the harm, we've talked about the economic extraction, but there is an emotional impact as well that I thought was very clear in her.

- And I think the problem that people have is they don't know the difference a lot of times they don't understand what they're doing.

There's a certain ignorance when it comes to this topic and it's been traditionally done this way and it seems like it's not a big deal, but to me, what you guys are doing is important because it's, the difference is really education in my mind.

Like if you're able to explain what this garment that you're wearing means, or the symbolism or the traditions behind it, when someone asks you, then you're wearing it with appreciation because you're using as an opportunity to teach about a culture.

At least that's how I see it in my mind.

- You get push back from white students or other students who say, look, this is too much, right?

What's the big deal here?

- This is the thing.

I mean, when I started writing the book about appropriation, I think one of the things that commonly is said by certain white students is the human imagination is free and it's not.

I always have to explain that, we might all share very similar emotions, jealousy, love, rage, desire, but we're only able to express them in particular ways, based to a certain extent on the ways that we've been socialized and historicized into very particular bodies.

For example, the whole thing about Will Smith's slap and the whole thing about like, this plays into a stereotype of angry black men who get violent.

- Right.

- The disappointment that I was reading from some think pieces sort of saying, like you can't express your anger this kind of way, but that's what I'm talking about, which is like, we can all express and feel anger, but we can't express them in the same ways because of racial stereotypes, the ways in which historically we've been imagined and when we are ourselves imagining our own body, we are also constructs of history in society.

- Right.

- And so there's nothing really free about this.

So when people push back and say, well, I should be able to do this because, hey, I'm just, what's the big deal?

The big deal is you just don't know your history.

- Right there we go that's it.

- I have to jump in and talk about my classmate, Ketanji Brown Jackson we were in law school together.

I don't know if you watched the confirmation hearings.

This is an African American woman, very accomplished lawyer who wears her hair, natural and dreads.

- Right.

- Just take 13 hours of questioning and abuse, no anger.

- Right.

- And she didn't get to pull at Brett Kavanaugh.

So there are guardrails and constraints around how a particularly embodied person has the Liberty freedom to express the full range of human emotion.

- And I think that's what I think, when I think about what race is, in some ways it's like, it's a series of choices that get made on almost a minute to minute basis based on who you're speaking to and who you're around.

I get to be more this or less this, depending on who I'm with and yeah.

- No, you're fine.

I don't, wanna interrupt you guys.

This is a great conversation, but we talked about Eastern culture and there's a martial arts thing that is really all about this process, right?

It's all about adopting in different fighting styles and philosophies from different cultures and using them to improve our lives.

And in Saratoga Springs, Utah, the International Martial Arts academy founded by master Augustine Torkornoo is doing just that.

So let's check this out and then we'll come I'm back.

- And turn around 1, 2, 3, 4.

My name is Augustine Torkornoo I'm originally from Ghana West Africa.

We are here at International Martial Academy and I'm the owner and CEO of the academy.

Wow, this whole and started when I was young, back home in Africa, right in Ghana, okay?

At the age of 14, 15, I told myself, one day I wanna move to the United States, have the biggest school, teach a lot of kids, try to reach kids and just teach them what type TaeKwonDo is all about, right?

- Even when you were 14, you were thinking like that?

- Yes yeah.

- Wow.

- 3, 4, 5.

In Africa in Ghana as a martial artist, we all had, we had that goal, to become the best martial artist we can become, right?

I wanted to do an individual sport instead of the groups, team sports.

- Like a team sport.

- I wanted that experience, and I think TaeKwonDo gave me that and TaeKwonDo gave me that confidence, to be in charge of your own destiny, I guess instead of like team sports.

- So do you do other things besides TaeKwonDo 'cause kids don't get outta school till, two, three in the afternoon.

- So I had all this time, to go back to school, and get my master's.

- And so you, wait, you got your master's degree.

- Yes I did, yeah.

- In what?

- In counseling.

Currently I'm a counseling two elementary schools in American for high.

So you in school as a counselor, you learn that, okay you have to listen, not only to the kids at school, but even here in the Dogen, right?

Martial art studio, and so that's helped me to actually listen to my students when they're struggling with something, right?

With their technique or why they're not doing certain things right, I need to be patient with them and listen to them and then that helps me come up with solution to help them.

Oh that's there is a good girl.

To give back to my community, I need to stay in the community and help the younger students, the younger kids in the community and the children that we have in the community to really understand what TaeKwonDo is all about.

It's not about kicking punching Olympics, as you can see, we have the Tenets of TaeKwonDo over there which is, can see courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self control, indomitable spirit, right?

So that's what I wanna teach the children of this community.

So for me, that's the most important thing about martial art, any martial art.

If you can teach a child to understand those tenents, then I think you're doing something great in your community.

Congratulations lets clap for student.

- Wow now that is appropriate, appreciation and teaching and all the good things are there.

- Yeah loved it.

- Well, we're just about outta time.

Do you guys have any parting words for us that you'd like to share about this topic?

- Well I do wanna continue to invite people to explore and appreciate other cultures.

I think that's how we come to understand the commonalities that we share as humans and appreciate the differences.

So respect if we ground what we're doing in a true spirit of respect and inquiry and asking and engaging, I think there are ways that we can be better do better and certainly continuing to understand and appreciate other cultures is something that as an educator I'm committed to doing.

- That's great.

- Perfect Paisley we are gonna keep you around.

- Okay.

- We're gonna wrap this show up.

We're gonna talk more about this on the podcast.

So we're gonna hear more of your words and wisdom.

So all right y'all well that concludes our show today.

We would like to give a special thanks to our guest, Erika George and Paisley Rekdal.

If you all would like to give more information about our guests and see our extended interview or listen to the podcast version of the show, please go to PBSutah.org/roots.

Now next week, we're gonna be discussing the diversity or lack thereof in religious art.

So you don't wanna miss that.

Roots, Race and Culture, PBS, Utah, y'all we are out.

- [Announcer] Roots, Race and Culture is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS, Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

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