Description
this episode asks a hard question: am i doing cultural appropriation? drawing from personal experience, spiritual community conversations, and the work of shelly tochluk, i explore why defensiveness often blocks discernment, how harm can exist even with good intentions, and why the more important question may be whether harm is being caused at all. from there, the conversation turns toward accountability, repair, and liberation as a way forward.
Transcript
Welcome to White People, Black Music, and Liberation.
I’m Erich, and I’m here on the journey with you.
This is a transmission at the intersection of race, music, and spirituality
It’s about moving past programming and into liberation.
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AND DISCERNMENT
Cultural appropriation is an area where discernment feels especially important right now. At the same time, many of us have been deeply programmed around race, and that programming has created a lot of unconsciousness.
When we talk about discernment, it’s easy to use it as a way to push away discomfort. But often, those defensive reactions are actually guideposts. They point to places where we still have work to do.
Cultural appropriation tends to bring up a lot of defensiveness. One of the most helpful discussions I’ve encountered comes from Shelly Tochluk’s book Living in the Tension. Her work focuses on spiritual communities and how the deep human need for belonging can lead people, especially white people, to adopt practices from marginalized cultures.
Often this happens with good intentions, and yet it can still disrespect those practices or strip them from their origins.
BOTH-AND THINKING
One thing I deeply appreciate about Shelly’s work is her emphasis on both-and thinking. She asks how someone can feel connection and belonging without crossing into appropriation.
She also talks about the importance of white people developing positive racial identities. Not identities rooted in shame or guilt, but identities that include accountability and deprogramming the biases we’ve inherited.
Some questions she encourages us to ask include:
Am I honoring this practice or co-opting it?
Do I know who this practice belongs to?
Who historically had access to it, and who was punished or marginalized for using it?
These questions are just as relevant in music as they are in spiritual practice.
HISTORY, HARM, AND MUSIC
If you’re engaging with a tradition that was historically suppressed, especially by your own group, you may be entering appropriation territory.
Consent matters. Relationship matters.
Am I connected to the community this comes from?
Am I turning this into something I sell, brand, or profit from?
Am I extracting it from its cultural or historical context?
Even if I mean well, what harm might this be causing?
MOVING PAST THE DEBATE
It’s easy to get pulled into endless debates about what is or isn’t cultural appropriation. For me, that’s not the most useful question.
The more important question is: am I causing harm?
Because we live in an unjust society, it’s possible that simply playing Black music as a non-Black person can cause harm. That harm comes from a long history of exploitation.
When I play Black music, I’m stepping into that history. If someone feels harmed by that, their feelings are valid.
MY OWN RECKONING
For many years, I avoided this question entirely. I minimized it. I dismissed the harm.
Liberation began when I stopped doing that. When I acknowledged that harm exists and that I may be participating in it.
Because without that acknowledgment, I can’t ask the next question:
What am I going to do to repair it?
REPAIR AND RESPONSIBILITY
This isn’t a guidebook. It’s an invitation to ask the first, most honest question: am I causing harm?
And not to be afraid of answering yes.
That’s where the real conversation begins.
I’m Erich, and this has been White People, Black Music, and Liberation.