CULTURAL APPROPRIATION 

Cultural appropriation is a concept dealing with the adoption of the elements of a minority culture by members of the dominant culture. It is distinguished from equal cultural exchange due to the presence of a colonial element and imbalance of power. 

Recently an interest incident where a white girl wore a Chinese traditional dress to prom. The internet was split. From people being confused on what was going on. To others praising the girl and others hating it stating “My culture is not your prom dress”. The theme of cultural appropriation isn’t a new theme but has only recently become a very widely talked about subject where a few years ago it wasn’t a common phrase or well-known phrase. It’s really interesting because personally I’ve always found it hard to understand when it is wrong and when it isn’t and how to tell if someone is using the culture, taking advantage, misusing or when they are appreciating it. I think in a perfect world the idea of cultural appropriation would be absurd but we don’t live in that kind of world. Especially In places such as America where there is still not fair treatment and all you hear is about police brutality and targeting minorities. The phrase “people love black culture but not black people” has become a very common theme in African American debates and arguments. And if you think about it’s very true. African American musicians and artists have largely impacted fashion, music industry, art and many other forms of the arts very heavily using their cultures to portray themselves, this is clearly evident when you see African American artists or African American songs dominating the music, film arts industry. However, although they are heavily liked in music and entertainment people often ignore or turn a blind eye to the issues they face in America.  

Okay before I digress, cultural appropriation is a very controversial topic with an actually extremely negative representation I think largely because of misinformation, misunderstanding. People think that cultural appropriation is “You can’t wear this if you are white” or “You can’t do this if you are black” but that is far from what it is. The problem with cultural appropriation is not actually trying each other’s cultures out, it’s not wearing traditional dresses are a person who isn’t from that culture. It’s more about awareness about the culture, how you portray it and giving credit where it is due. If you wear a Chinese traditional dress rename it and then wear it as a costume that would be cultural appropriation. But, if you go to china or go to a Chinese festival, where the correct Chinese cultural dress and call it what it is, then it’s not appropriation its appreciation. It’s all about being aware that it isn’t you culture and not mocking it and doing it correctly. It’s the same when people wear African hairstyles such as Fulani braids. This cultural appropriation can be seen with people such as Kim K and her family who extremely notorious for appropriation. You can see this with the Fulani braids which she had the nerve to call “Bo-Derek braids” crediting it to a random white celebrity from the 80s when it is African culture and the Fulani ethnic group from west Africa have been wearing literally forever, or earlier with her “boxer braids” which were literally cornrows. This is cultural appropriation because she had the nerve to re-name African braids and not even give credit to the creators. African hairstyles may seem like just a hairstyle to many but for Africans its protection for our hair, it’s our ethnic group, it’s our form of beauty and in the past you could tell so much from a person’s hair in many African countries, such us their ethnic group, their mood and even what position they are in that society whether rich or poor. It’s a huge element for many African cultures.  

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Cultural appreciation and appropriation it’s all about respect. If you just control something like that and take something that doesn’t belong to you and claim it as your own it shows that the respect isn’t there at all. We can all experience each other’s culture without mocking it, stealing it and doing it wrong. We have to learn in order to get things write and preserve cultures. The biggest form of cultural appropriation was seen with yoga. Yoga was used as a form of heritage for many Asian cultures but now it’s been so westernised that its original meaning has become almost lost with many people who believe it’s an American. This is the danger of cultural appropriation because now its original meaning is completely destroyed all because of people renaming it, claiming it and using it recklessly.  

There is just one misconception and to be honest I feel like this started because of weak people who can’t handle criticism but “EVERYONE CAN CULTURAL APPROPRIATE”. It’s not just white people who can appropriate culture. If a black woman wears a sexualised Native American “costume” it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still cultural appropriation. If like Kim K an Asian person wears Fulani braids and calls it some random name. It is still appropriation. People of colour don’t suddenly get a pass to disrespect someone’s culture, that not how life works. Anyone can appropriate culture. It’s all about being aware that culture is something that means a lot to a lot of people. So respecting this isn’t hard, we can all share each other’s culture but let’s not forget and preserve the creator because in this world copyright isn’t okay so why would it be okay with culture. Let’s live respecting each other. 

The sound of Music 

I have vivid memories of repeating Sound of Music constantly as a child. The songs ringing in my head, copying the characters and acting out the storyline. This movie opened my eyes to an interesting world of musicals, throwing me head first into the excitement that is musicals. Musicals have a bad reputation overall. People see musicals as weird and not enjoyable but they are so much more than what people perceive. It’s such a beautiful experience when actors present the character’s emotions through songs. That’s what attracted me to begin with. Then I saw my first west end show which was Lion King and later saw Wicked and I knew this was one of the most amazing forms of art that humans had ever pieced together.

No matter how much a person hates musicals and shows, once you see in it on West End or broadway if changes the whole perception of it and makes everything so magical. The sound of music was that to me. A moment where finally realise the beauty of the arts. To be fair I had no idea who the Nazis were at that age and that was a common theme in that musical but just the whole ambience the colours used to reflect certain emotions and moods. The warmth reflected within the family that grew and the blossoming relationship of the nun and father. All of it added to become a beautiful story and the songs just made the emotions felt the more present and beautiful. 

The sound of music was such a strange entity now that I look back but it was the starting point of my love for movies overall. Another musical that gave me the same emotions and excitement that sound of music left in me was largely west side story. Everything about that movie was perfect when I first saw it. The essence of forbidden love between two groups who believed and the *spoiler set structure of romeo and Juliet, Shakespearean tragedy formed within the storyline. The movie was long but it was a bright existence, romantic and beautiful. Perfect in every sense.

Rapid Language Learning 

I was struggling to figure out about what I should write. Although I am extremely opinionated and quite boastful of my own views there is always a slight confusion in my mind. It’s not that I have no views but there are just too many in my head for me to make a decision on which one would be best to talk about. Now, before I begin a ranting session about how it was hard for me to make a decision. Instead I will say the main reason I came to the decision of doing it about Language learning.  

Why should you care? 

This is exactly what I would have said to you a few years ago. I vividly remember when learning French and Spanish I honestly couldn’t care less. I was living in my whole world and was not in the slightest bit curious about other people’s lives, culture, how they lived and their purposes in life. Therefore, I didn’t care when learning French and Spanish which I intensely regret today. I wonder how fluent I would be if I did extra practice and how I missed my chance to become fluent in another language. 

See, I grew up in a trilingual household and spent my early years in a multi lingual country with many different languages all around me every day. See in Kenya which is where I’m originally from, everyone knows more than one language and it’s common for people to know more than 3 two. Maybe because I spent my early years there and moved to a country with largely one language I thought… I know more than the average here so it’s okay. I’m bilingual so, I’m doing okay. However, at least for me it became not okay. I started to really think about this when I made my first “true” friends. I call them true because I see those friends as friends whom I will always keep in touch with till I’m old. Anyways, those friends were all from several of backgrounds although they were all born in the UK. It was nice having friends from such diverse backgrounds but it also made me curious about their cultures as things they did at home sometimes varied from me. That was the first time I began to question English ignorance. By English ignorance I don’t mean British ignorance I mean the ignorance held by people who speak English as a first language.  

It made me question little things for example, when us English speakers go abroad and expect to find people who can speak English at our convenience, or how many European countries learn other European languages and know them fairly fluently and how most English speaking people probably only know “hello my name is …” It’s not really our fault though but it’s just sad to see English speakers lose out on this other world. When I started learning languages although I was already fluent in two it opened my eyes once again. It was like there was so much I didn’t know before. I regretted I didn’t start earlier. It may not be same for every person but for me it became a blessing and has now become one of my biggest interests. Even simple things like how others insult others in different languages and formal and informal forms of language that just made me so surprised. 

Anyways I’m drifting away from my point. Rapid Language Learning. If you are convinced I will help you through my own mistakes so you can avoid them in the future. There are a few simple things you need to know. 

1. 
   
   1.Don’t start a language if you aren’t interested in the culture – You won’t enjoy it trust me. A big part of language learning is having a goal. Watching the countries films and listening to their music, travelling there is a big part of language learning. Otherwise you’ll waste your time knowing this language you’ll never use in your life. 
   
   

2. 2.Try not to learn more than one at one time even if they are extremely different. You’ll find yourself mixing up words. Especially Spanish and Portuguese. 
   
   

3. 3.DON’T LEARN ROMANISATIONS- honestly I couldn’t say it enough. If you want to learn Romanisation then learn a European language. It may not seem like a problem at the start but later your pronunciation will be completely messed up. Especially in languages with very different character/writing systems. Not to mention how offensive it is also. Respect the languages you are learning 
   
   

4. 4.Take your time. Know every simple thing and understand how the language works before you move on. If you work too fast thinking you understand things such as grammar and pronunciation you are more bound to make mistakes. Grammar is never complicated if you are learning simple things like “I ate a potato” it starts to get complicated when you begin longer sentences “I ate a potato yesterday because I like and it was very good”. This is where things will get complicated and harder, slow down and understand how the grammar works first.
   
   

5. 5.Don’t give up. It will feel hard sometimes but think of how far you have come and continue. 
   
   

6. 6.This is probably the most important piece of advice. Forget about English when you are learning a language. Start as if you are a baby and don’t know anything. The rules that apply in English are most likely not going to work for the language you are about to learn. Also they may have more new rules. For examples some language don’t need you to use pronouns constantly so it may sound weird to use them. Whereas in English they are a necessity. E.g in English you have to say “she” went her. Whereas some languages you can remove the “she” as it’s often obvious by context. Don’t assume the rules that apply in English will be the same.  This also applies for languages with similar aspects such as Chinese and Korean. In Korean you learn characters that apply to each letter similar to English. You use them to make a word and sentence. This means if you know each character you can read anything without knowing what it means. Whereas in Chinese each character is unique to the word. This means you need to know every character to read it. 
   
   

7. 7.Practise speaking. You’ll feel awkward speaking if you are only writing how to write  
   
   

8. 8.Don’t feel embarrassed speaking and learning another language especially to native speakers. You learn from mistakes, it’s better to make them early and learn for life. 

The Images Of Sub-Saharan Africa

I don't blame people with their ignorance to Africa. How are people at fault when constantly reflected with the image of the poor starving African child I need of medicine or basic needs such as food or the American president who calls these countries "sh*t hole countries". See to be honest I moved to Europe Uk when I was around 8 and so I got to first hand experience the pure utter misrepresentation of Africa in the media and how disturbed people's perceptions are of not just the world but of sub-saharan Africa to be specific. It's truly crazy how far the perceptions have been destroyed that people don't even have an image of what Africa even truly is. The strangest thing is when people think of Asia they rarely think of it as a whole same with continents such as Europe. When you think of India you don't confuse it with China, despite their relatively close vicinity. This is not because they look different or have different cultures as countries in Africa have just as much variation whereas if I said Gambia and Senegal, I doubt you know anything relating to these countries. When you think of China although it may be a very disturbed image, you have an idea of what the culture is or what it looks like whereas if I say for example, Congo I doubt all you may know is the conflict it has.

This is not to hate on you but rather to make people think about how damaged their perceptions of certain countries are without their knowledge and how biased we actually are. Even though Africa is known as the most ethnically diverse continent people still prefer to group all countries into one small box. The realisation of these biases is extremely important because it shows how much media and representation affects our views on certain places. I remember when someone would make a snarky comment "oh Africa is poor and desolate" or "they walk around naked" I would say " no it isn't". Although I grew up in Africa for 8 long years. People who have never stepped a foot in an African country nor even have any relation to any African country or know its cultures they seem to believe they know a whole lot more about Africa, they believe they know more about my own continent, my own country although they know almost nothing about the individual countries and even what they cultures may look like. The image of Africa is so disturbed that people cancelled their trips to Tanzania and Kenya to go to European countries such as France and England during the ebola crisis when where the crisis happened was closer to France than Tanzania and Kenya. I mean "AFRICA IS THE SECOND BIGGEST CONTINENT". Actually "If you combine the USA, China, India, Europe and Japan - they all fit into the continent of Africa". Although, people still think everyone looks the same and acts the same and have the same cultures from the North, South to the West and East. It is crazy.

I'll take this opportunity to educate whoever whose reading this wth some ethnical and cultural facts so we can at least not say my positive views about Africa aren't misjudged. I will take this opportunity to reflect the Africa you don't see in the media. Firstly about the statistics 10 of some of the fastest growing economies are in Africa. These include, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Uganda, Siera Leone, Kenya and many more. Ivory Coast is outstanding in it's growth with 8.5% growth annually. Which is a lot although it doesn't sound like it as one of the countries with the highest GDP has a less growth. "China, despite experiencing a slowdown and an economic transition, was in 16th place with 6.5% expected growth".

Okay, since to not bore, I will also explain the difference ethnic and racial groups in Africa countries. The ethnicities in African countries can be grouped into many different groups. Here are some, Bantu, Arabs, Fulani, Khoisan, San, Oromo, Berbers and more.
Bantu people are used as a general label for around 300-600 ethnic groups around the continent who speak bantu languages. These languages are largely spoken is eastern south and central countries in Africa. Berbers are usually people who from the North of Africa. Commonly mistaken for "being white" although they are group of people who can have many different skin colours, facial features and more. They are typically mixed with any different people including arabs, sub-saharan africans and Europeans. Furthermore, Fulani or fula people are numbering around 20-25 millions of people who are traditionally believed to have roots in people from North Africa and the Middle East.

Stolen History

History is something largely important as African History has often being confused and lost and misjudged. For example the Great Zimbabwe which has an amazing structures built and a European observer denied it was actually built by Africans. Which now seems mad but it was used as an excuse to claim that country and culture for years. Furthermore, Egyptians which are often represented in films and media with white features and skin which is inaccurate to the actual Berber people and how they looked in the past. Furthermore, the little to no representation of the many different empires in African history, With the Mali Empire having a leader called Mansa Musa who was the richest man to ever lived and his tour to Mecca which caused inflation in many countries he travelled to and how many universities he created. Also the Ethiopian empires which were extremely powerful and long lasting. Also the trading histories of many African countries which had been trading with Arab countries and China for millions of years way before any European influence every even was reflected on the continent. 

Altogether, I care more about africans see themselves than how other countries see us. Us these selfish and cruel views we have towards Africa will not improve anything in the continent. Yes, it does have its problems but the answers have never been aid and giving random money to random money it is the history that china realised and created trading deals with the countries which have began rising Africa as a continent. If you give money to one child in one country it may help them escape death and heal their wounds but in the long run all it does is still leave the child to a life of poverty. We all need LONG-TERM solutions, LONG-TERM deals, My country in Kenya dealt with a deal of a loan with china and was able to built its first high-speed train which has not only imporved it's image but also has meant that business can increase throughout the whole country as before only sending something from one side of the country to other took hours and now a trip from Nairobi the city to Mombasa the second city takes only around 4 hours. These solutions make big changes, that offer solutions change, infrastructure and more. Also further improving comfort for African people and business throughout the country.

Here are some photos of sub-Saharan African creations:

These include countries such as (in order): Mali, Zimbabwe, Created by the Nubians, rest is east Africa trading stations and more: Kilwa Kisiwani and finally Ghana