Your Culture is My Underpants By Andrew Klavan May 4, 2018
Your culture is my underpants.
I mention this because, earlier this week, a young lady named Keziah Daum tweeted a picture of herself in a Chinese-style prom dress. In the picture, Keziah was standing with her date. She looked absolutely adorable in the pretty dress and her date was obviously wondering how he got so lucky. It was a photo to inspire a smile in anyone who feels pleasure at the sight of youth, beauty, life, love, joy or the harmless delights of just being human.
So, you guessed it, leftists were triggered. "My culture is not your prom dress," tweeted one presumably Asian knucklehead. And plenty of other angry little trolls joined in.
But actually, they were all wrong, every one of them. Because you know what? Your culture is her prom dress. It's also my underpants.
In fact, I have the entire history of the Ming dynasty embroidered on the seat of my jockeys. Occasionally I even dig around back there and use the Prince of Yan to scratch an itch. The sometimes-tragic and occasionally triumphant journey of black Americans adorns the pouch up front. Mexicans get the left leg, the Irish the right, and various mixed races are spread across the elastic waist because, you know, they're flexible.
Now none of this is to insult any of these peoples. It's to insult leftists. Or more precisely, it's to tell leftists they can pound sand, every one of them. No matter where you're from, no matter what you look like, your culture is not your culture. Your culture is just there and I can appropriate it any time I want for any reason I see fit. Know why? I'm a free American man, I don't care what you think and I can do whatever I like. And I like scratching my butt itches with the Prince of Yan.
Cultural appropriation is not a glitch of American life. It's a feature. It's part of what makes the country great. We take your culture, we get rid of the oppression, the mass murder, the slavery, the intransigent poverty and the endless internecine wars. We keep the pasta and the funny hats, and occasionally we dress up as you on Halloween. It's a good deal for everyone.
People who get angry about pretty girls wearing pretty dresses have lost the plot of life. Same with people who get angry about comedians making jokes, silly characters in television cartoons and rap stars who disagree with their politics. These are not bad things. They are good things. They are what real diversity looks like: people of different colors from different places living together as one nation, disagreeing with one another, making fun of each other, stealing fashion ideas from one another, eating each other's food, marrying each other and celebrating that out of many lesser cultures we are making one new culture, free and prosperous, powerful and great.
Does that bother you? Guess what: you're an idiot. Are you giving a young lady a hard time about what dress she chooses to wear to prom? Hooray: you're a bully and a schmuck. Does everything that everybody does or say make you feel offended and angry? I'm happy to report there's a cure for that. Stop being a leftist and the world will suddenly become very beautiful indeed.
Why? Because we are Americans. If you live here, you are blessed. If you live in a world that includes us, you are better off than you would be otherwise. And all your cultures are belong to us.
Are you complaining about that? Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I was scratching my butt with your face.