No surprises here. I think Mormonism appropriates everything it deems "more" "good" being true to at least one of their articles of faith.

"On top of this, the church hasn’t proved its ability to celebrate cultures respectfully. Beginning in 2006, the BYU football team and Utah high schools performed a version of the traditional New Zealand Māori Haka dance before games, attracting criticism, including from the vice president at BYU–Hawaii, who is Māori. White American Mormons have an affinity for Native American culture and Pacific Islander culture, Mueller says. “They revere it to the point where they have been accused of culturally appropriating, collapsing the identity between Mormon and Pacific Islander.” "
https://www.ozy.com/acumen/why-pacific-islanders-love-the-book-of-mormon/87818

The sad thing to me is how colonial this is. It is taking always taking and giving back outdated 19th Century Victorian heavy constrained culture back to them.

Reminds me of "The Music Man" where the ladies society is doing "Greecian Urn."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkXSgvr9qAg

At least in this it is a farce and there is some connection to Western Cultural influences in the farce.

I dunno. Are we a melting pot or not? If we are a melting pot then isn't it just a given that "cultural appropriation" is a norm?

Bamboozled Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If we are a
> melting pot then isn't it just a given that
> "cultural appropriation" is a norm?

I guess so but isn't attribution a part of respectful assimilation? I think the thing is how the dance became disconnected from the host culture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2018 03:18PM by Elder Berry.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the notion that certain things "belong" exclusively to one "culture" or another. Or that anyone who copies/modifies/uses such things, and who isn't part of that "culture," is "appropriating" anything. We share the earth as human beings, we can share dances and clothing styles and other such things. Without rancor or offense. Anything else -- on either side of the "appropriation" is just tribal posturing.

Yeah, I know, not everyone feels that way. That's OK. Others can get all upset about "cultural appropriation." I won't. :)

"The sad thing to me is how colonial this is."

Mormonism is the 19th Century with the 1950s thrown into a bottle in my opinion.

Their appropriation is what gets me. Like anything that takes cultural/artistic output where creative energy is misdirected for a crappy corporation's directives.

I haven't been to Hawaii but I think anglo tourists from the States have this idea about having a very Brady vacation with the natives on some remote island. they think about hula dances and lei wreaths and giant pigs being roasted on the fire, and loose women who will get physical, and of course barbarians saying things like "Mahana you ugly!"

The trouble is that in the 21st century everything is modernized out there. Hawaii is no longer the old place of superstition and shrunken heads. The natives wear jeans and go to work everyday in offices. But Anglos want a Disney experience, and since Disney refuses to build a theme park out there, the Mormon church created their own fantasy world.

But I don't like old white men telling natives not to forget their heritage. Heritage is something people decide for themselves. No one makes Nelson put on a cowboy hat and get bucked off a bull in the rodeo.

LOL!

The Mormons need to create a cowboyland in Utah for Nelson to dedicate.

Mormons appropriate cool things because they don't know how to invent them themselves. It's a bland culture.

Well, this Mormon thinks there are things in Mormon culture that are cool.

http://www.provomormondude.com/2014/12/things-mormon-culture-does-right.html

I think it is ridiculous.


Marriage and Family - No alternatives to traditional nuclear family recognized as valid.

Record-keeping - I've been on their genealogy site and they have my father and grandfather's records there a few times with grandfather's different wives and my father's different names.

They keep records. If that is something cool for culture I don't know why? family histories? I'll give them that if that is what they push. Nice picture uploads on their site.

Languages - So? It is missionary facilitation not cultural.

Music - Nothing majestic and nothing alternative.

Service - To each other.