Chet Hanks clearly loves black culture. The son of Tom Hanks recently took to his social media to address his critics, who seem baffled by Hanks’ attempts to show his appreciation for the culture.
Chet recently shared a post to his Instagram titled “Chet Chat Vol. VI (Part 2): Cultural Appropriation,” touching on a variety of arguments related to the larger issue of appropriation, especially one that he claimed is “confusing” to him; the notion that white people have no culture of their own.
“That to me, is confusing because just look at all the different varieties of European cultures . . . Second of all, let’s assume that’s true, let’s assume white people have no culture, but if they did have a culture, what would that be like?” he asked.
Hanks attempted to give some examples of “white culture” before moving on to a different angle. “I imagine it to be something like, one example, snowboarding—like the culture surrounding snowboarding—or motocross where it’s just, like, mostly white people,” he said. “Not saying that it has to be that way or it should be that way, but that’s just, for the most part, what it is.”
Then he moved on to the issue of hip hop music vs. country music saying, “If you don’t have a problem with a black person wearing cowboy hats and cowboys boots and loving country music, then why do you have a problem with white people wearing braids and gold teeth and getting into hip-hop music?” he queried, wondering why the idea of “theft” is discussed at all.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“Why do you have to look at it as a white person who is wearing braids and gold teeth is trying to manipulate and steal from black culture, why can’t it be that he loves black culture and that’s just what speaks to him?”
So what are your thoughts on #chethanx’s questions? Is it cultural appropriation or cultural appreciation?
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