Are You Not Feeling the Positive Vibrations?
And so we turn our attention to Santa Barbara City College, where creatively-inclined students have been “exploring issues and practices of… interactive and chance-derived work.” Specifically,
Students harnessed complicated architectural designs and intricate woodworking to create an artistic teepee, which they set up on one of the quad’s grassy knolls earlier this month. As the student newspaper reports, the four art students who built the teepee saw it as “a place of positive vibes and community engagement.”
Assembled from “upcycled and reclaimed material from an old farm house,” and “lined with pillows and rugs,” the students’ vibe-enhancing structure “provides a comfy, squishy environment” for music and conversation. Also included in the experience is “a shelf of blank books for people to express themselves in written word.” Engorged with positivity, the students posted an invitation for others to partake in their creation:
Join us to support the opening day of an amazing art event and large scale installation… The piece harks back to ways of the past in American history while juxtaposing current counter culture with futuristic elements that bring it to life.
We want to provide you with an experience out of the mundane – right here on campus! Celebrate our labour of love with live music, refreshments and a trading post! That’s right, bring something to trade and become part of the installation.
Oh, come on. Who could resist so much switched-on grooviness? Surely what followed was a day of vibrant self-expression and communal hugging?
The Native American students said that the installation was a form of appropriation that was hurtful to them.
You see, anything that resembles a teepee, even an art-installation-cum-music-venue that glows in the dark, is apparently covered by some kind of ethno-spiritual copyright:
“What people don’t understand is that for many Native people, spirituality and sacredness are not separate from everyday life,” said Native American student Eli Cordero. “When you take something from the culture you’re taking something that’s important to us on that level.”
And so,
What followed was a collaborative dismantling of the structure. According to the artists’ instructor Elizabeth Folk, the group came together to encircle the empty space where the controversial teepee once stood.
Ah, a spiritual moment.
And then things went downhill.
As Native American student Carmen Cordero pointed out, this void was soon filled with equally divisive dialogue. “I was told by other students to just get over it. Don’t feel angry about it, don’t feel anything about it,” said Cordero, Eli’s sister.
And,
Some called the removal of the teepee an act of censorship and a threat to artistic freedom. Others voiced concern for the lack of a safe space for marginalised students to convey their pain and anger.
Pain and anger. Over a luminous love-in teepee.
“I was most disturbed by the accusatory, negative, and hostile tone directed at those who said [the teepee] was culturally offensive,” said Tina Foss, a Native American studies instructor at City College… “It’s bewildering that this level of ignorance and racism would occur at an institution that has been celebrated as tied for No. 1 community college in the nation,” said Native American student Jacqs Nevarez.
Yes, a bewildering level of racism. A discussion about sensitivity has therefore been deemed necessary:
In the aftermath of the incident, Executive Vice President Jack Friedlander announced an upcoming forum titled “Inspiration or Marginalisation? Cultural Appropriation and its Impact.” The event is scheduled for Tuesday, April 7.
Students will presumably be invited to realign their heathen views with the proprietary claim of ethno-spiritual copyright.
When there is no willingness to practice some transaction, then don’t get into any sort of transaction or at least accept that when you do get in to some, that will indeed lead to the distinct likelihood of any transaction.
IOW, Hal, it is YOUR message that all others must adhere to or be denied pursing their livelihood.
If a photographer, custom cake baker or florist refuse to participate in an event (same-sex wedding, polygamous wedding, nudist wedding, Church of Christian identity wedding) and the State mandates they must or go out of business, why not then musicians, writers and filmmakers?
Why shouldn’t The State force t-shirt shops to fulfill a “Leviticus 18:22” custom shirt order for Westboro Church?
Why wasn’t the baker who refused to do a “happy birthday, Adolf Hitler” cake sued? (not Godwin, an actual case)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/store-wont-make-cake-for-adolf-hitler/
Where do you draw the line on how far you are willing to abrogate the First Amendment?
Gosh, Hal, would you walk into a Muslim-owned bakery to demand your cake?
Well, there are exceptions, right (a joke). As it is an extremely complicated subject, unless that is, one lives outside of Western Civilization, then it is cut and dry. Throw off roof tops, crucify, hang, and etc.
You do make a lot of sense, Hal. It’s just that we are so far gone that each molecule of further subjugation is of importance, and worth refuting. Even if perhaps futile in the end.
Hullo all again, long weekend. Many pictures, speaking of pictures, a bit of sunburn, and a bashed in knee and ripped at hand—was sprinting across gravel, and tripped. Oh, don’t worry, the camera’s fine.
Why wasn’t the baker who refused to do a “happy birthday, Adolf Hitler” cake sued? (not Godwin, an actual case)
. . . I have no idea. At a practical level, what is the cost of a lawsuit these days? With one easy or cheaper answer being to just go somewhere else, if the circumstances fit.
Now for general consideration, what if someone goes to a fundamentalist Xtian bakery and wants a cake reading Wedding blessings to Tim and Greg, except that when the cake is ordered, with that message, the explanation is also given that both names were picked at random and the destination of the cake is actually going to a museum to be part of a display of the sorts of horrid things that Those Gays will Make People Do. Given a law that The State now mandates that faith must take precedence over all other decisions, how is that baker thus required to decide?—And never mind which faith, somehow that doesn’t quite seem to ever get explained, everything seems to relate to some variety of Xtianity . . . nevermind which branch, sect, subsect, cult, subcult, whatever.
Gosh, Hal, would you walk into a Muslim-owned bakery to demand your cake?
Speaking of whom . . . . So, what of a Xtian wedding cake ordered from a Muslim bakery? What of a cake celebrating someone’s ordination in pick-your-faith, and the owner is a vehement practitioner of that faith called atheism?
No, y’all don’t get to duck that one by demanding that atheism be declared other than faith. Whether the form of the faith demands that there really is a god, or the form of the faith demands that god is a fictional sky pixie, the complete lack of any proof of both sorts of faith—because it’s all faith—means that, yes, the faith of atheism remains just as valid as the faith of protestant Xtianity, the faith of Jains, the faith of Orthodox Xtianity, the faith of Islam, the faith of . . . keep going, it’s a long list.
As an editorial note, that is an inherent advantage to . . . . well the practice tends to get called Buddhism, of some sort or another, but also gets named as the practice of the buddha-dharma, with basically the same message noted from Gautama in mebbe 500 BCE, Dogen in the 1200s, Ikkyu in the 1300s to 1400s, Bankei in the 1600s, Adyashanti and Eckhart Tolle these days . . . and there are others . . . . All of whom basically stating that the individual must ascertain individually, faith is mere faith and an illusion, direct personal experience is all . . . . which I why and how I do note that religion is not faith, but that’s a different discussion . . . and digression.
In The Meantime, as all this has been bubbling up, I ran across a rather fascinating bit of commentary which does rather remind what is actually being discussed here, and reminds that, really now, really, when someone makes a perfectly polite and benign request for the baking of a cake, all that is needed is that the customer hand off some payment, and the baker hand off a cake . . . . . . . . . . or pizza. Y’know, that pizza company really should have gotten themselves their own website, instead of letting someone else set up a website for them . . .