Joe Rogan discusses Cultural Appropriation with Moshe Kasher

Hello freak bitches. So at any rate, there's a story in there where he talks about talking to this person who's like, he lived in an all-white town except one of the Klansmen that was dehooded talks about he lived in this all-white town and he was raised very racist and that black people were the worst and there was one black family like the Johnsons or whatever and his father told him all black people were the worst. They're monkeys, they're the worst, except the Johnsons. The Johnsons are good, they're good people and he had this realization, this like tickle in his brain of like, wait, my father hates all the black people except the black family that he's met. Like all black people are bad except the one group that he's actually met and that is like the phenomenon of othering, right? It's like, yeah, oh black people are bad. Muslims are bad, but actually my friend Tom, the Muslim, he's nice, but Muslims want to kill me but Tom over here, he's a good dude. Anyway, I think othering is like the big, one of the big problems that we have. Well, it's also, I think what's going on with Black Lives Matter, one of the things that's going on is that they're in the middle of the battle, right? So if you're in the middle of the battle every day you wake up, prime for battle, you're getting online, you're activating your membership, you're organizing, doing whatever and then this guy comes along and he's doing something totally different. He's out there talking to the Klansmen, you know, fuck those people, man. What are you doing? Right, totally. For my show, my Comedy Central show, we're doing like, we just did a cultural appropriation episode and I was studying, I was like deep in the cultural appropriation, I was reading so much shit about it but one of the more interesting things that's said about Black Lives Matter, it's kind of connected to this, is that one thing that happens with cultural appropriation and things in general is that people seize on language. It's like a crazy language war right now, right? Like so many of the phrases that we use are so charged with secondary and tertiary meaning that they don't even mean anything anymore. Like white privilege is a concept that the moment you bring it up there's so many levels of eye roll that it's like, I don't even think it's a useful phrase anymore because it's like the moment you say white privilege, then the white person who you're saying is privileged is going like, fuck you. And the minute someone's saying fuck you, the conversation has ended. So the thing they said about Black Lives Matter was... Also a lot of silly people use that expression. No doubt. That's the weird baggage that it has. The thing that we learned about, that I learned about cultural appropriation, because for me I roll my eyes so deeply at the concept of cultural appropriation. It's like, oh so I shouldn't eat burritos anymore? Also I always think, I'm always really tickled with the idea of the person saying, oh you shouldn't wear that tribal gear and then it's like go to the third world country where the market is and tell the impoverished merchant, oh I'm sorry I can't buy this bit of silk from you because it's racist for me to wear it. That person's like, please, please buy it and wear it. Or you know what I'm saying? Or the family that's like, oh it would be a great honor if you would wear this, sorry or whatever. So it's a big eye roll. Except then you start to think, upon reading it, it's like, oh the thing is it's not incidental, it's emotional. It's deeper than just trying to parse out the logic and go, oh well I found an example where your thing falls apart. It's like, there's an emotional reaction. Like when somebody affects, you know, dreads up their hair, even though you can say, people have been dreading their hair in other cultures for a million years. Vikings had dreads and that is true. It doesn't matter because the person that's in front of you, that's a black person, that's going, I have pain when I'm, I have this pain that I'm looking at, you know, a person that's affecting my culture without any of the negative parts, right? So you can wear the hair and you can have the dreads. Yeah but why is that okay just because of the word culture? Because if that's the case with someone else, someone else wearing something that you might find a, like what if you're a person that's extremely conservative when it comes to dress and you see a woman in a short skirt and you have pain, should that impose upon that woman's ability to wear that skirt? No, definitely. And I'm not making a case that anybody's pain ought to be automatically adopted as like a behavioral standard, right? Right. That's not really what I learned from this whole discussion is it's like, it's not really about going, no one is really saying, except the most emotionally kind of inferior, like the person that doesn't have the language to express what they're really saying, almost no one that I read when I was reading these real like intellectuals and their concepts of cultural appropriation is saying white people should stop doing this stuff altogether. Almost no one, I didn't find one left wing woke article that said white people should stop adopting the culture of other, of people of color, right? Okay. So I read a lot of right wing think pieces that were saying, this is absurd, why are you telling us to stop adopting these cultures? Isn't all culture a melting pot and all culture borrowing? But not once did I read somebody saying, white people stop this altogether. Well, what did you read? So mostly, and I hope I can articulate this well, because I'm not the best advocate for this position, because like I said, it's one that I struggle with. It's dubious. It's dubious and difficult. And there are ridiculous parts of the cultural appropriation argument. But one thing that like, it's all connected to historical trauma, it's all deeper, like basically, let's see if I can articulate this well, what this one, this one person, and I wish I could find his name, actually, but because he deserves it, because he's a really deep thinker about this stuff, was talking about was that, you know, we have racism, right? Racism is a huge word that that describes everything from a white person, like hugging their purse closer to their chest when a black person walks by, or even like a weird like, you know, just the smallest little racial weirdness, all the way to lighting across on somebody's fire on somebody's lawn, to murdering someone like that's all encompassed in racism. So they started trying to like, parse it out. People are going, when you call someone a racist, right, they go, I'm not a racist, you're calling me a monster. And then somebody will go, Oh, no, I meant like, a systemically racist, it's like, you need more specific, right? Example. So cultural appropriation is one, white privilege is another, there's all these, right, but still, we'll go back to what what cultural appropriation like, you said that no one was saying, don't do it. Right. So what they what? So what are they doing when they're trying to chop someone's dreads off? Okay, I don't know about this. I mean, what what example you mean, the San Francisco State example, where the girl attacked the guy. I mean, that girl was just inarticulately expressing some insanity. I don't I don't think that's defensible. And I think most of the articles in the stuff that I read about that specific instance are just like basically saying that woman's a lunatic. Well, I've heard people, though, enforce it. And I know someone who was mad at their friend as a black girl, as mad at her friend, who was a white girl, who had braids. She had like cornrows. And she was mad because she was saying that it's cultural appropriation. I said, Do you know about Bo Derek? Right, right. Like, she was one of the first people to ever have cornrows. You know, there's cornrows on Roman coins, actually, right? I mean, it's a crazy thing to call that cultural appropriation, but also saying that a white person shouldn't wear that. That's fucking crazy. Because what do you what about a black guy wearing a polo shirt? Well, okay, so okay, there's a good example, right? Yeah, is, and again, I'm not like I said, I'm not the greatest advocate for this position. I just read so much that made me empathize with the position, not necessarily agree with it, but empathize with where it's coming from. So the polo, for example, when you see you as a white dude, or me as a white dude, when I see somebody wearing a polo, it's just a polo. It has no historical antecedent. It has no historical baggage to it. There's no connection to systemic racism or Elvis Presley stealing the cream of the intellectual musical crop and then never giving back to that community or Iggy Azalea coming in adopting a black accent and then just like taking all the money and running, you know, it has no connection to deeper root systems like these trees have that communicate with each other. Like taste bitter, right? So all it is is a polo. It's just a guy wearing a polo. And that's why the the counter argument doesn't make sense. Because it's like, nobody's upset when they see a black dude in a polo shirt. I mean, maybe some weird racist guy is is but mostly not. On the other hand, when a person sees a like a white person affecting a deep part of black culture without any of the baggage that is associated with it, like, for example, dreads, right? One of the arguments I read a lot is that like, white people wearing braids and dreads, you know, you get rewarded for it. You look cool. You look awesome. And meanwhile, black women are having a difficult time getting a job because they have black hair or black people getting fired from jobs because they have dreads, right? So there's these consequences that black people experience because of black shit that white people that are adopting it don't necessarily experience. I don't think that's true at all. I think if you were working in an office and some white dude at dreads, he'd be highly suspicious of his behavior. Well, for example, like this guy's kind of a dork. I hear what you're saying. I mean, hire him. There's a guy who had hair like you. And right next to him is some stinky white dude with some stinky dreads because dreads stink. Okay, take dreads out. Let's say that's a good example. Okay. They're in the US military. There was just a new set of acceptable hairstyles and almost every one of the unacceptable hairstyles that they put into place was basically black hair. Like what? Braids wearing your hair natural. I don't know the natural. What do you mean? I mean, I would have to, we'd have to pull like an afro. Yeah. A short afro. Yeah. I mean, you're not allowed to do that. You'd have to pull up the article to give the specific examples. But basically, there are a million different examples like that. And like I said, I'm not, I'm not necessarily an advocate for heed and and honor the call of the appropriation accuser. I'm more like now realizing that I'm more now realizing that there's like just a lot of deep emotional, weird trauma underneath every, every accusation of appropriation. It's not that I think, therefore, white girls shouldn't wear braids. It's that I think I understand more where the person that is upset is coming from. It just from a compassion perspective. Mm hmm. You know, I get that. I get that. It just logically doesn't drive. It's not about logic. Yeah, but it should be all human interaction should have some base in logic if you're going to communicate with things. I don't agree because emotions aren't about logic. Right. But should anybody be subject to your own emotions? Like should like you change your behavior, your dress. If you're a person who's completely not racist, but you enjoy the way your hair looks and it's in braids. Should you take into consideration all the people that you're going to run into and they're going to be upset at you over braids? Even though they're ignorant about the history of braids and cornrows. Sure. Should you alter or change your behavior? Should you accept the fact that you're just going to have a certain amount of cultural appropriation? Well, let me ask you this. Like if you, I don't have an answer to that question. I don't think so. But isn't that an important part of this? I mean, if you're going to accept the fact there's some sort of an emotional attachment to these things and that's where the argument comes from. Shouldn't you decide or at least contemplate whether or not that emotion's valid? It doesn't seem to be. Seems to me there's real examples of racism and horrible things. Like if you want to, you know, make your eyes squinty and look like a Japanese character from a Bugs Bunny cartoon in, you know, 1940 and then you want to go to a party and people think you're a racist. You should be aware that you're presenting an image that is inherently racist. Like that's something that's kind of fucked up and you should be considered about the way people's emotions are going to fire up looking at your image. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, but that's a different thing than braids. Oh, but that's what I'm, I'm not advocating. First of all, I'm not advocating anything. I'm just saying I've delved into this topic enough that I've started to understand where people are coming from when they get activated by this stuff. I understand too, but I think a big part of it is reinforcement in the community that that's acceptable to be upset at people for cornrows or braids. And I don't, I actually don't disagree with you. I think you're right about that. And yet I think it also is connected to like a legitimate emotional reality that's happening. Like, for example, by the way, logic is very important. And I would say logic is more important than emotion when it comes to communication, but it doesn't because something is more important doesn't negate the importance of the other thing. Well, it certainly doesn't solve the situation just by clearly using logic. You might get a certain percentage of the people that agree with you because of logic, but that's more rare than it is common. Right. It's like, would you, would you feel comfortable going to a Native American powwow, you know, with a headdress on, not even a powwow, there's a powwow next door, you can see it, and you're at a music festival. Would you wear an Indian headdress? I mean, I don't know. But the reason why you can't and the reason why you shouldn't, or the reason why it's an issue is because the people are marginalized. Let me take my own people. I'm Italian. And my people, for the longest time, there was a lot of anti Italian racism. My grandfather used to talk to me about it, what it was like coming off the boat. But then somewhere along the line, it became acceptable for Italians in an American culture where it's not, it's not real racism. It doesn't stick. Like you call it Italian a guinea. You can call us a guinea to our face. We will laugh. No one cares. You can make meatballs and spaghetti all day long. Nobody gives a shit. Nobody accuses you of, you know, you have a pizza party. Nobody thinks it's cultural appropriation. Try having a taco party. Try having Taco Tuesdays. People get pissed to you. Why? Because Mexicans still experience real racism in this country, whereas Italians largely just don't. Right. And like Taco Tuesday is an example of something that's like, who fucking cares? That's not important. And so if that's... But wearing a sombrero is offensive to a lot of people. That's as deep as most people go, right? That's dumb. What are you talking about? A Candida Taco? I mean, that's dumb. And it is dumb. But if you kind of like get under the dumb, which is the name of my third special. So it's... Get under the dumb? It's live in Oakland. Mouth fucking Hitler. Mouth fucking Hitler and then get under the dumb. But if you get under the first, like the most epidermal layer of like flashy insanity and go like, what's really happening here? It's like, oh, it's just what you're saying. Actually, you're more woke than you let on, Joe. Interesting. It's like, it's really about like power dynamics. It's not really about the appropriation incident. Although on some level, maybe it is. It's really about the power dynamic underneath it. Well, I think one of the things that we're seeing in universities in particular is people that are exercising the ability to affect change, even if it doesn't make sense. Uh-huh. I agree. Because they have the ability to point out something that they think is incorrect or is unjust, and then they attack it and go after it and they see results. Right. And by seeing those results, it's almost in a lot of ways kind of attached to the same idea, like if you're worth X amount of dollars, why do you still chase money? Because you're trying to get the thrill of the accomplishment. There's the game that's going on. And there's a certain amount of game going on trying to get that white kid that you don't even know to cut off his dreads. Whether or not you know that the Romans wore dreads, whether or not you know the Greeks wore dreads, the Vikings, all these different people had them, it doesn't matter. There's a little tiny white guy, and that girl could yell at that white guy and then chase him with a pair of scissors. Yeah, exactly. It's the incidents are the absurdity, but the conceptual current is somewhat valid. And the over – yeah, I'm sorry. No, but to some degree, like even you – and I think that you're naturally skeptical towards concepts like cultural appropriation, because – and I am too, because especially as comedians, it's very easy to see the absurdity. Yeah. And it's so – it's so pointless. Like, we can't not adopt each other's cultures. That won't ever happen. So – but even we go, okay, but I wouldn't wear a sombrero to a Mexican club. I wouldn't walk into a club like, oh, hey, what's up? So if you say, okay, it's almost pornography, right? I know it when I see it. I know it's offensive when I feel it, you know? Yeah. So if you kind of expand further and go, okay, even the absurd examples, I kind of under – I'm going to try to understand – for me, I'm going to try to understand where people are coming from with that. Then I can kind of contextualize it. Now, I don't have to agree with it, but I can at least say, oh, I get where this is coming from. It's coming from historical antecedents of racism and oppression that are connected to hairstyle and the – and all of these musicians that have taken black culture and made money off of it. There's all this, like, deeper sedimentary layers of emotionality. I don't have to heed it and change accordingly, but I do – I would be foolish to ignore it. Right. Yeah, that completely makes sense. And also, I get it from a point of view of a person who comes from a culture that used to be maligned and isn't any more. I wanted to make one final point about – because I think I figured out how to make my cultural appropriation point. I don't want to take us back too far, but I think what we're doing is like – and we came to a good place with it. It's like what we're talking about – it's all about language, right? So cultural appropriation, your immediate reaction is that's absurd. And some of the examples people use is absurd. But the – underneath the racism is just we're talking about racial insensitivity. We're talking about being insensitive. And if you try to just focus on that, then you can get to, like, the reality of what's happening. And the original point I wanted to make was in this article I read about it. It said that we often get locked on these linguistic – the boat that the concept floats in on, the absurd boat. So, like, Black Lives Matter is the ultimate example he gave. I just thought this was such a fascinating point. It's like Black Lives Matter is the name of the organization that is there to fight against police brutality and killing of black kids. And people react to the words, right? So people go, what are you talking about? Black Lives Matter. All lives matter. Blue lives matter. And basically, if you don't acknowledge that it's Black Lives Matter 2, which is really obvious, right? You're fighting about the words Black Lives Matter where we haven't been talking – you've left the foundation principle behind, like, a long time ago, which is police brutality. No one's even talking about police brutality anymore. Now they're just talking about the language that you chose to call your group. So at any rate, I think that was the thing I was trying to say. No, that makes sense. Look, all of it makes sense if what is going on is people being racist, right? If someone is doing something – if racial appropriation or sexual – or cultural appropriation at the heart of it involves racial insensitivity or racist insensitivity. But there's difference, right? Racist – theoretically, racist is – and again, racism is a word that doesn't have a lot of use anymore either because you describe the same phenomenon of you saying to your black friend, like, wow, I didn't expect you to be so articulate. You mean well, right? You mean – you're trying to be polite. Or, I don't like black people. They're bad. These are the same – it's the same word to describe both of those things, right? So insensitivity is not overt and aggressive racism, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's insensitive. It's insensitive racism. Like, you're not being sensitive to the possibility that you're saying something offensive. Or just doing something boorishly dumb. Now, I agree with you that logic's more important than that. But I think the more aware we can all be about how to not be a dick, the better. Yeah. It's like people want to say, you know, you could never have all in the family on TV today. Could you imagine? People would go crazy. Well, yeah, that's because we moved past that. I mean, that's what's going on. What's going on is there's a process. And one of the things that's disturbing to people about Trump and what's disturbing to people about this new freedom to mock Jews or to point at them as the root of all evil. And it's much more open than it's been before, is that we thought we got through that. And that slowly but surely the demonization of individual groups in terms of, you know, like, who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. And instead, having it been boiled down to activities and behaviors and individual human beings that are the problem. Right. Not giant groups of people that believe in one God versus another God, which is what it's been historically. Right. And it really is that as time goes on and as people like my people, the Italians become so integrated that you can't be racist about us anymore. Right. It doesn't work. Right. Totally. I mean, it really doesn't work. Yeah. It's one of the best examples of it. Totally. It's fascinating because there's so many things that are there still and you're like, they don't have any charge or power any longer. Not only that, there's so much gross behavior by Italians that just goes unchecked, you know? And I think the Sopranos is probably responsible for a lot of that. Last year, and I was walking home real late at night and I saw this guy, he's got his girlfriend up against the car and he's fucking like going off on her. And I'm like this little like liberal American boy, like, is somebody going to call the police? And then I kind of stood there for a while longer and he's screaming in her face. And then I just like looked for about like two or three minutes. I go, oh, this is just some Italian shit. I just walked home.