Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 May 16

= May 16 =

Jenner / Kardishian
Sorry, bored at work again, I was reading an article entitled stars who have been accused of culturally inappropriate acts, or something like that. It went on to discuss Someone Jenner and her sister Someone Kardashian and how they have donned corn-rows and a do-rag, I had to google do-rag, corn-rows and bindi to find out what these are. My question though, are these two ladies not of African-American descent? To my untrained eye it would appear that they are. Please advise. As an aside, I don't mean to be culturally insensitive in any way, I am just curious. Thanks -- 81.131.40.58
 * Not according to our articles on their (i.e. Khloé Kardashian and Kylie Jenner's) mother Kris Jenner and fathers Robert Kardashian & Caitlyn Jenner which list a number of ancestries, but not African American. As for the controversy, see also cultural appropriation. ---Sluzzelin talk  10:07, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Their father's line is Armenian. He was somewhat darker-skinned and the kids have some of that. It sounds like we need an article about Cultural Nazi (in the same semi-satirical sense as the Soup Nazi). A huge amount of pop music, jazz, etc. can be argued to be "cultural appropriation". And there's no law against it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:27, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There's a distinction between honoring the culture of others in a respectful manner, and exploiting the culture of other for profit (when the culture in question is denied the right to profit from their own culture similarly) or for humor sake. Only one of those is cultural appropriation.  People in the dominant culture in a society like to pretend they don't understand the difference, or deliberately claim that cultural appropriation is applied to situations where it has never been.  -- Jayron 32 10:57, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * An earlier example could be Pat Boone vs. Little Richard. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * (and just for the record, regarding Bugs's first sentence: Only Khloé's father is of Armenian heritage. Unlike either of Kylie's parents). ---Sluzzelin talk  11:17, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * True. The OP is apparently referring to Robert's daughters. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No, the OP is referring to two daughters of two different fathers: Caitlyn Jenner (named Bruce Jenner at the time of the daughters' births) and Robert Kardashian.
 * According to the various WP articles on these subjects, Kylie Jenner is of English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Welsh, and German descent (ok, it could be her sister Kendall too, but after skimming through online gossip I concluded they meant Kylie. Besides, the list of ancestries applies to both Kylie and Kendall equally, as they share both parents).
 * By the same reading, Kylie's half-sister Khloé Kardashian is of English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Welsh, and Armenian descent (again, it could also be Khloé's sisters Kim or Kourtney, but ... see above).
 * Here's a family tree. The daughters named Jenner are half-sisters of the daughters named Kardashian. The two groups share only one parent, their mother Kris. ---Sluzzelin talk  16:36, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The OP doesn't refer to any first names. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:23, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No, but the OP gives surnames. Again, the ones named Jenner are half-sisters of the ones named Kardashian. ---Sluzzelin talk  17:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It's good that you've implicitly corrected the OP's assumptions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:28, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * That's not how the term "cultural appropriation" is used nowadays. What we now are often told is that in order not to be racist, whites should only wear 'white' clothing, only play 'white' roles, only put on 'white' cultural events, only cook 'white' food, etc., in any role whether private, non-economic, or professional.  The slippery slope has been taken far enough that the underlying concept appears open to question -- especially for those who believe that 'intellectual property', as a whole, is a form of slavery. Wnt (talk) 16:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No, that's how 'racist white people' mis-characterize it because they miss the days in the past when no one called them on their racist bullshit. -- Jayron 32 16:40, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, come on. Yes, I'm sure "racist white people who miss the days in the past when no one called them on their racist bullshit" will complain about all accusations of cultural appropriation.  But that doesn't mean that everyone who criticises the concept (or specific accusations) is a "racist white person who misses the days in the past when no one called them on their racist bullshit". Iapetus (talk) 09:35, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that I agree that both those links back up Jayron's interpretation.
 * If a Chinese-looking person in a mostly-white American school wore a traditional Chinese dress, people would think less of them. They would think that they were either intentionally, or through ignorance, not integrating with American the culture.
 * On the other hand, those white students weren't wearing those dresses because they grew up around them and wanted to wear something they saw as increasingly normal. They were intentionally looking for something "exotic" to wear.
 * ApLundell (talk) 18:51, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That seems like a very strange expectation. It doesn't make sense to me that anyone, Chinese or otherwise, should not be encouraged to wear a traditional Chinese dress for a fancy occasion simply as a matter of personal aesthetics.  This 'controversy' seems to me to be purely one of the inscrutably illogical tantrums of the same sort of fashion fascists who like to insist that men not wear beards or that women must wear goop on their face, in between railing against the intolerable injustice of allowing Muslim women to wear veils.  Such fashion pickiness seems all the more bizarre when we see even pretty celebrities defaced with so much random permanent scribbling that William-Adolphe Bouguereau would have broken every single last one of his paintbrushes in despair.  Like it or don't, but I say if a young lady wants to wear a pretty dress she should be able to go into the dressing room and make her choice and everybody else should butt out. Wnt (talk) 19:12, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Alan King would agree: "The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:15, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not interested in debating the morality or appropriateness of the rules of polite society. That's an infinite rabbit hole.
 * My point is that there is a difference between non-controversial forms of cultural diffusion and 'cultural appropriation', the difference is more or less how Jayron described it, and usually when I see people in media conflate the two, my instinct is that they're doing intentionally to mock a social rule they don't want to be constrained by. ApLundell (talk) 19:55, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Since there does seem to be some confusion, please read articles like this and this and this and this that explain some of the differences between cultural appropriation and other more benign adoptions of cultural elements from others. It's really not hard to find reliable, well-written sources on your own to learn what cultural appropriation actually is.  Anybody can cherry pick some anecdote to allow them to ridicule the concept, but that's not really intellectually honest.  Instead, learn what it actually means.  Understanding the differences can be difficult, and does require some nuance, but just because a concept is nuanced doesn't mean it isn't real.  Some real things are hard to understand and work out.  -- Jayron 32 19:22, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I looked through those papers. The way the concept is defined in the first paper, and as you wrote above, is actually somewhat straightforward -- adopting the custom or habit of a culture that you are denigrating as a gesture of colonial superiority, putting it in an inaccurate context for mockery or advertising.  That would be something like a coon song or blackface.  This is wrong (in the sense of being stupid and mistaken; I'm not at all acquiescing to any effort to "no-platform" such things) because it really is racist, intentionally misrepresenting a group of people.
 * The problem is, you and they both go on to try to implement your definition as some kind of "plagiarism" like notion that totally doesn't make any sense to me. We're talking about large groups of people whose culture is well known and obvious.  If Bo Derek wears an African-inspired hairstyle, either it's obvious where she got it in which case attribution is unnecessary, or it isn't so attribution is inappropriate.  How exactly is she supposed to wear a footnote in her hair?  Additionally, there is a strong sense of oversimplification to what I see in those essays -- for example, assuming that wearing a feather in your hair is Native American.  What about Yankee Doodle?  What about a cocked hat?  I mean, I feel like there is absolutely minimal thought and maximal bullying for the sake of bullying involved in these things, then they tell the victims that they ought to have been world-class philosophers, and we're talking models and high school kids at that. Wnt (talk) 21:34, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you're interpreting "inaccurate context for mockery or advertising", far too narrowly. Or at least, much more narrowly than the authors of those articles. Racism doesn't have to be a sneering hillbilly intentionally insulting people to get his jollies. It can be ignorant and thoughtless.
 * In any case, There's no point debating the underlying concept. Jayron does not actually have the power to change society, even if you successfully convince him that cultural appropriation is not to be worried about. ApLundell (talk) 23:54, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course. But usually on the Science desk we try to get at whether sources are pseudo-science or not, and I feel like a similar issue might be in play here. Wnt (talk) 00:57, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Okinawa, Japan
I have two questions please. A: What is the significance of the heart bell found here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Heart+Bell/@26.1788342,127.8299095,3a,75y/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipNYbPGVkkyodYebh0sdV5p4H4QKR_nB4nUe6GEU!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNYbPGVkkyodYebh0sdV5p4H4QKR_nB4nUe6GEU%3Dw129-h86-k-no!7i6000!8i4000!4m15!1m9!2m8!1sHotels!3m6!1sHotels!2sCape+Kyan,+Kyan,+Itoman,+Okinawa+901-0354,+Japan!3s0x34e567304f2b45cb:0x7b06d766574c13ac!4m2!1d127.6691965!2d26.0788535!3m4!1s0x34e571f4d49e4d0b:0x61dd27257d0d2a41!8m2!3d26.1788346!4d127.8299095 and B: Between Nanjo, Okinawa and Kudaka Island there appears to be a lagoon type see, if you zoom in it looks like farm land, what are these structures seen on what I presume is the sea bed?

Thanks


 * There certainly are some interesting rectangular structures offshore to the East of Nanjo. There are fixed-size small ones maybe with 3x20 meter dimensions, and variable-sized large ones, with maybe 20 x 60-130 meter dimensions (rough estimate). The whole undersea area there seems quite shallow, so was presumably above sea level when sea level was lower. My guess is that they are the foundations of some type of warehouse facilities for the port (which would have been farther out, then). The smaller structures could possibly be stables, for horses to be shipped in and out by sea.  I didn't find any evidence that any archaeological studies have been done there, but it might be interesting if there were. As for it being farmland, I doubt that, as it probably was subject to saltwater infiltration, which would kill off most crops. Seaweed may now be growing there now.


 * Note that there's even more of those structures on the N side of the harbor, say to the NW of Ukibaru Island: . SinisterLefty (talk) 17:25, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This is really starting to bother me now. Does the Japanese Wikipedia have a reference desk?  Does anyone read Japanese and are they able to post this question there.  Lets forget the heart a Google search sorted that out but the sub-aquatic structures is puzzling.  I suspect this is seabed farming for some product which is oceanic, crab, seaweed, clams etc. But this is entirely speculative with no evidence.
 * There are several other places around Okinawa island with the same imagery and around the south-east coast of South Korea you can see similar shapes. Almost certainly some shallow-water farming or cultivation. As you suggest, shellfish, seaweed, crabs, lobsters and similar things. I have seen shapes like these in the Mediterranean sea and in lochs in Scotland but those images are not there now. The following links go some way to explain the shapes - Here in Ireland and here and here in Catalonia. I do not think they are any sort of historical artifact. Sorry this is all personal opinion. Richard Avery (talk) 13:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Many ocean-front areas across Japan and Okinawa have bells. It was an old warning system. If something nasty is coming, ring the bell to warn people who are inland. It isn't used now. But, you will still see many bells along the coast. This one in particular was not torn down. It was repurposed as a tourist spot. Newlyweds are supposed to ring the bell together to ensure a good marriage. The showers at that beach are in the same color pink with the phrase, in English for some reason, "Okinawa Lovers". It is very much an attempt to market itself as a honeymoon destination. 12.207.168.3 (talk) 12:35, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Why are copyrighted pictures on Wikipedia have their author labeled as “Fair use”?
I’ve been viewing pictures on Wikipedia for a long time. But when I view a copyrighted picture, the bottom right corner shows that the author of the picture is Fair use. Why do copyrighted pictures on Wikipedia show the author as Fair use? Metric Supporter 89 (talk) 20:53, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * See WP:NFCI. --Viennese Waltz 20:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd need more details of how you're viewing it to be sure, but I think you're mistaken. In "Media Viewer" (an interface I generally don't use, since I normally keep the javascripts disabled) the "Fair Use" will appear at the upper right part of the box describing the image.  In other images that would be filled with some license like CC-by-SA.  The Fair Use images don't display an author in Media Viewer (since the uploader didn't author it, and tracking down third party authorship and properly crediting it can be hard); instead they have a "view author information" at the upper left in the box that leads to the full file description which will point toward it came from, which hopefully is at least the mouth of a rabbit hole. Wnt (talk) 21:12, 16 May 2019 (UTC)