Taco Walk teaching tools: Time for DNA to stand up, step forward and begin learning AND teaching about cultural appropriation.

Ramsey sombrero photo sparks outcry, apology (C-J; 10-29-15)

Thanks to Jeff Gillenwater for inserting this link (below) into the discussion about Develop New Albany, its recent Taco Walk and the inappropriateness of sombreros, maracas and Frito Bandito theme songs amid what should be a foodie event, absent the condescending overtones.

It's up to Develop New Albany to own Saturday's errors in judgment and to make them right. These miscues are a teaching tool, but DNA must understand the ramifications and sincerely wish to use the opportunity.

If DNA actually is what it says (and thinks) it is, then it will have an earnest internal discussion and emerge with the right words and the appropriate actions. But if the wagons are circled and DNA's board refuses to discuss this publicly, then its Taco Walk becomes the Main Street organization's Thanksgiving promotion moment on WKRP in Cincinnati.

Paraphrasing Arthur Carlson: "As God is my witness, I think sombreros look cute on smoking hot Latino gardeners."

Sorry, DNA, but that's not enough. You're chartered to know better. Getting public money? Then you have absolutely no choice except to improve, and to fix this. You can do it. Step one is admitting there's a problem.

The Taco Walk doesn't need cheap stereotypes to succeed -- and no, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Open your eyes, DNA.

Commentary: Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible, by K. Tempest Bradford (NPR)

 ... Cultural appropriation can feel hard to get a handle on, because boiling it down to a two-sentence dictionary definition does no one any favors. Writer Maisha Z. Johnson offers an excellent starting point by describing it not only as the act of an individual, but an individual working within a "power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group."

That's why appropriation and exchange are two different things, Johnson says — there's no power imbalance involved in an exchange. And when artists appropriate, they can profit from what they take, while the oppressed group gets nothing.