Q: So which is it, assimilation or appropriation? And how can we tell?
A: I briefly studied flute with an admirer of Jimi Hendrix who demonstrated the power of attitude by first putting a lot of effort into playing a passage in a thin and tinny tone and then playing the same passage with a full, rich, powerful sound, whereupon he announced proudly, “I didn’t change anything—except my mind!”
Whatever practices we may learn from whatever source—and lest we forget, none of the Abrahamic traditions originated in Europe, either—when we assimilate them, we change our minds. Ultimately, all the knowledge we need for healing is in us—in our hearts, in our souls, in the marrow of our bones, and yes, in our brains, too. What we are taught by other people can only point the way to finding the gift of healing in ourselves. If we’re not bringing a healing practice out of ourselves, it’s not authentic, it’s thin and tinny, just like so many covers White performers have made of songs originally written and performed by Black people.
White people aren’t supposed to assimilate—God forbid we should lose any valuable Whiteness points (“as a White person…”). White people assimilating to other cultures has its very own pejorative term: “going native”; and the most prevalent and arrogant assumption is that all the other people are supposed to assimilate to a preapproved culture of Whiteness. It’s okay to copy from other people, especially with intent to ridicule, but not okay to be like other people, because then the boundaries get blurred and it blows our whole White-people-are-so-special thing.
The lyrics of Jayne Cortez’s “US/Nigerian Relations,” which are an increasingly intense and seemingly endless repetition of “They want the oil but they don’t want the people,” certainly apply here. Closer to home, in his essay “Music” (a succinct exposé of the ways White racism poisons everything it touches), which is included in The 1619 Project, Wesley Morris writes, “Pass the culture. Hold the people.”
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