The hat in question

Last spring, I was waiting at a bus stop, and I was wearing baggy pants, a big shirt, and a round hat without a brim. A young man came up and asked me about my hat, and I told him I made it.

Yes, I wear these out of the house. That’s not the topic today.

I have been writing and rewriting this since then. I am very comfortable with overthinking. Much of this is me overthinking out loud. I could keep editing it but it’s time to let it out.

If you aren’t into this, please come back next week. We’ll have new choir dresses. I’m picking up the first tomorrow: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ORDERED.

😮😮😮

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A few months ago, White Middle Class Woman was waiting at a bus stop, dressed in MC Hammer/Thai fisherman pants in a cable television cartoon character print, an oversized shirt of indeterminate design (Issey Miyake Vogue, but hacked) in a African wax print manufactured and designed in China, and a round hat in a large multicolored print. A young man of color, wearing a Pacific Northwest REI rain anorak and 1890s California gold rush worker pants (aka Levi’s) (don’t know his shirt because anorak) came up and asked her about her Kofi hat, and she told him she made it from fabric she had hand painted herself. And then she went on about the rest of the appropriated clothing styles she was wearing. It was very civil and pleasant. No one said anything mean. She did gas on and on. She does that. She’s working on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufi

The notes on the company for this indicate where the materials for their items come from, not usually a feature on Amazon. Also, pretty hat!.

I wish this conversation had not been a monologue on my part, because he brought up something I do think about a lot. The ‘don’t touch my stuff’ conversation. The ‘it’s my culture and you can’t have it’ conversation.

Kate on Fabrikated has written about this, and I am finally publishing this because of that

and this photo.

PM May is wearing a local designer; the Nigerian guards are wearing the Empire’s uniforms. You could spend a month unpacking this photo, about soft power and colonialism. Just let this image linger in your afterbrain while I gas on and on.

I like other people’s stuff. I am a magpie. I secretly love fashion because I love adornment, I love the shiny and expressive. I want everyone to have the shiny happy feeling of being their own true selves.

I owned this print for awhile. And then I didn’t.

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/seattle-centric-prints-from-peace-for-profit-167900?

read the comments

I grew up knowing that I can be invited to the blanket dance of the local First Nations, but that I can’t invite myself (and thanks for inviting me when I was a kid). I no longer buy ‘native inspired’ stuff, because these items are crowding out First Nations artworks from the galleries. Life is tough enough as it is for them.

I really love this hat.

Remember those “Aboriginal inspired prints?” I have heaps of them. Many are forgeries of someone else’s sacred ritual paintings. I will admit that even as an atheist, I am uncomfortable with wearing anything resembling a rosary.

I have mixed feelings about African wax prints. I rationalize my wearing of them by observing that they were originally made in Holland for export to India, and dumped on the African market. African designers made a Dutch fail into an African success. The only reason I have seen them is that they were made popular by African designers with a lot more flare than I can ever hope to have. My self-defensive mechanism here is that there are no particular images in these that are sacred; I admit the debt, but I am not giving them up.

I no longer own a qi’pao, but I have owned several as I am 59 and I live on the West Coast of the United States and we have a rich history of Pacific Rim souvenir clothes (Aloha shirt? I have a few). I can’t begin to talk about this, but ..

https://youtu.be/vLgzFCifhaY

The Fung Brothers video does a nice overview and starts a great conversation.

In fact, if you do anything here, watch this video.

An example from my closet is this kimono style cotton robe. It’s made from a IKEA duvet cover, in a faux Balinese block print. By IKEA. International sauce on top.

Going back to the question that started this thinking: I am guilty of doing the thing that I resent others of doing. I’m capitalizing it to make sure it sticks.

Don’t use language to shut down the conversation.

I buried the honest question under a pile of carefully stacked word structures that repeat “YOUR QUESTION IS NOT VALID AND I WILL NOT ANSWER IT” It’s just an evasion.

I do envision a day when all people share their cultures and don’t keep their stuff to themselves. Where everyone lives in equality and harmony, and you know that speech.

But we aren’t there yet.

We practice identity politics because we haven’t had our identities respected yet. Before we can have that idyllic future, we really do need to work it out between ourselves, stop pretending that it’s all okay BECAUSE ITS CLEARLY NOT.

It’s going to be uncomfortable for me to talk about my privilege; it’s always been uncomfortable for others because they don’t have that privilege.

But I really truly love this hat.

What I wish I had done was ask him “Tell me about kofi hats”. I wish I hadn’t done the jargon pile thing. I am sorry. We could have talked about things because clearly, he was there to engage, not to judge, and I was embarrassed and used my word salad defense to shut him down.

So please, tell me about my hat. Please.

Tags » Cultural Theft

Tell Me About My Hat