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Being allergic to sunlight is tough because you can get sick from literally just existing outdoors for too long. How do I know? I get sick from daylight. It’s a thing. It’s also a thing that’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older and a thing that played heavily into my love of nightlife.
And that’s where the story begins.
Not too long ago, I had a friend we’ll call Dips*, short for Dipshit. Dips introduced himself to me as a person who understood my background — primarily because he, himself, claimed to have a similar background. He was into rap, I was into rap, he said he did lots of clubbing, so did I, he lived a hard life, so did I.
We were friend for about 11 years. This was not a short-lived friendship by any means of the word. Despite that, I always had the gut feeling that I should remain guarded around him. He had a tendency of being a bit of a fuckboy at times, which was fine by me because I never viewed him as relationship material. He was just a friend.
However, Dips and I are no longer friends. This is the story of how he blew up our friendship once and for all.
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Long story short, Dips had a girlfriend who exposed him.
Tanya* had been cheated on by Dips. Dips said he broke up with her. He then accompanied me to a party, we hooked up, and she contacted me. We began to talk and several things became clear:
Dips was beating Tanya. These were not minor bruises, either. These were, “GET TO A HOSPITAL NOW” bruises. I was horrified because he had been telling me that she was hitting him!
Dips had completely and utterly lied about every little detail of his life to both of us. Truth be told, Dips never had a rough life like he said he did. He never was homeless, he never had to deal with street fights or drug dealer tantrums. He grew up in a middle class home and never really had any issues. He even went to college and had a sports team thing going on. He never even went to a damn rave!
He had, however, started telling people stories about me…with a twist. He was telling her that HE had a sun allergy, that HE was hanging out with graffiti artists, and that HE was an underground raver. I was, apparently, a poser.
Oh, and Tanya also caught him buying books about vampires and trying to have an accent to really sell it. Bela. Lugosi. Is. Not. Romanian. AND HE DID NOT HAVE THE STUPID ALLERGY-DISEASE THING I HAVE THAT TURNS MY PEE RED, GODDAMNIT.
Oh, and the best part? He was talking about his “ancient, pre-Colombian, Romanian ancestry” that somehow magically remained culturally intact over the course of hundreds of years. And he could apparently speak Romanian and was allergic to daylight.
I want to emphasize that Dip looks nothing like any Romanian man I’ve ever seen. The dude is from the Dominican Republic and has a father who was Fijian or something. He has an afro, skin that tans faster than anyone else I’ve met, and he never puts on sunscreen.
He’s basically made of sunlight and sand.
He can’t speak Romanian for shit. I ought to know, I tried to teach him five words and he butchered them all. Just like that, he commodified my family history and my past to suit his weird … whatever.
As a white person, the concept of cultural appropriation often whizzes right over my head — even when I want to understand.
Cultural appropriation often doesn’t make sense to many white folks because “generic white culture” is the default culture. It’s casually taken as part of the mainstream. But when you have certain parts of your identity that are more fringe, you might see them as sacred.
For example, the Romanian community in America is small. If you try to explain to people what a cermale is, why you wear martisor, or why your mom just threw a raw onion out the door, they might look at you like you’re nuts. Living with certain conditions, such as pissing blood when you’re exposed to sun, stress, and certain drugs, also can fall under that category.
It’s a certain struggle, a certain knowing nod, something that you might take a little more seriously than others. That’s doubly true with faith and the like. And you know what? I was actually surprised at how hurt and offended I was by his actions.
Having a moment like this, when I realized how much it hurt to be treated like some kind of costume or novelty, would set anyone straight. And yes, it really drove home how hurtful it can be.
This dude wanted to be me for novelty’s sake. And maybe because he thought that it’d get him laid more. What the fuck, right?
This was a well-needed lesson for me and others like me.
As a white person, it often doesn’t really click how offensive and hurtful it can be to see others claiming your culture, butchering it, and using it as a way to steal the spotlight. It cheapens everything you have to deal with.
I was shocked at how violated and used I felt.
I would have been fine with him partaking in Romanian culture, if he had just said he really appreciates it rather than say it was his own. He just exploited me for his own bizarre reasons. It was stunning, to say the least.
That’s the funny thing about cultural appropriation. It hurts a lot more than you would think it does when it happens to you.
Cultural appropriation is a very nuanced issue, especially in the US.
There are several terms that often get mixed up together: cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation, and cultural diffusion. The lines between them can be quite blurred, so here’s what I have gotten so far.
Cultural appreciation includes things like buying and wearing art made by people who enjoy the culture. This can also include learning about the culture, learning a new language, partaking in cultural events (but not claiming you ARE part of it when you’re not), and trying to understand the nuances in things. For example, this might include things like buying a cute Maneki Neko bag — it’s a work of art that also celebrates certain cultural icons in a way that is harmless and fun.
Cultural appropriation is when you do things that exploit, dehumanize, minimize, or otherwise harm the culture you claim to like. This would involve things like wearing “costumes” based on extremely sacred Native American regalia, “blackfishing,” or claiming to be a nationality that you’re not just so you can get laid/win an argument. If you’re dehumanizing the person, oversimplifying it, making caricatures of it, or using it as a stepping stone, you’re appropriating.
Cultural diffusion is the natural tendency of cultures to share traditions, recipes, and fashions as part of the increased intermingling of people, leading to fusion practice. A great example of this would be sushi tacos, or the type of fusion fare you’d see in Bubbakoos’ Burritos. Or, if it’s a holiday, celebrating Halloween when you live in England. Or, if you need a fashion example, wearing a cyberpunk-looking cheongsam dress that incorporates sci-fi with traditional Chinese twists.
Generally speaking, if you’re not sure whether something is appropriation, it’s perfectly okay to ASK people from that culture. And if you haven’t asked folks, the best thing to do is to see if there are PSA’s warning you not to do something — or better still, do your damn research.
As for Dipshit?
You’d think that being a man of color in America would have taught him to not wear other cultures as a costume, but here we are. I kicked him out of my life. Me and Tanya became friends.
Aside from that, he also has the dubious dishonor of being the one guy to culturally appropriate a Romanian vampire, leading to a slew of different jokes from both me and Tara. Go figure.
Blep.
