Amala Ekpunobi

The Cultural Appropriation Army Is Going After Hozier

Irish musician Hozier is receiving backlash after fans discovered his gf uses white sage for cleansing. The smudging of white sage is considered a “closed practice” among native tribes and is apparently not supposed to be done by any other group of people??? Let’s talk about it.

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Broadcast on:: 28 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

"My dad works in B2B marketing. "He came by my school for career day "and said he was a big row as man. "Then he told everyone how much he loved "calculating his return on ad spend. "My friend's still laughing at me to this day." - Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in, the place to be, to be ABC Thursdays. - Welcome back. - Grey's Anatomy is all new. - Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant? - The drama going down. - Why don't you jump in from the bridge? Your cord snapped. - You need all hands on deck. - He's unbelievable. - You think if God's gift to this hospital, you're just another founder. - My relationship with Catherine is complicated. - I'm gonna sue you. - Your lawyers know where to find me. - You're unbelievable. - Grey's Anatomy. All new Thursdays, 10/9 central on ABC, and stream on Hulu. - No white men, no white sage, no performative activism, okay? - Famous Irish musician, Hosier, is now getting a lot of heat on the internet. Why? Not because of his actions, but because of the actions of his alleged girlfriend, Hannah Maeda. What did she do that was so wrong? Well, apparently she is a cultural-appropriating culture vulture who decided to use white sage, which is apparently a big no-no, and a big sign of disrespect to indigenous people. Let's talk about it. ♪ Yeah, you better ♪ ♪ Yeah, you better ♪ - Guys, before we get into today's video, please like and subscribe. Yes, again, we are gonna be talking about cultural appropriation on this channel, because famous singer, Hosier, has landed himself in a ton of hot water. For those of you who don't know Hosier, he's made songs like Cherry Wine, Work Song, Take Me to Church. He's been all over the place, and is still very famous to this day. He's also, I think, on the political spectrum, a leftist, and on the specific subject matter of indigenous people, he's known to go to certain concert venues that are on indigenous land, and he will even do acknowledgments for the indigenous people that were once there, or are still there to this day. But apparently, indigenous people are not too happy with Hosier today, because of who he's dating. It's been found out that apparently, Hosier is dating this woman by the name of Hannah Maeda. People were going through and doing all this research about who she is, and they found a website about a prior wedding that she had, not to Hosier, but to somebody else. And at this wedding, she gave White Sage to her guests, specifically White Sage wrapped in rose petals, and this set off alarm bells. Oh no, Hosier is dating a culture vulture. So let's hear some of the responses from indigenous people and leftists about why they're so upset at Hosier and his culture vulture girlfriend. - Hey, so for the record, White Sage is sacred. Don't smudge with it if you're not native, okay? It's as simple as that. And if you have, you just apologize, okay? White Sage is sacred to us. It's going extinct because of mass production, right? Don't smudge with it. Also, it's sacred medicine. If you're using it and you're not native, babe, I wonder why your life sucks. You wanna know why? Because that's not your medicine. That's not gonna heal you because it's not for you, babe. I promise you, there is other things you can smudge with. There's other things you can cleanse with. Don't use White Sage. I just got let down by another white male celebrity because I found out his connections to that. No white men, no white sage, no performative activism, okay? - You know, I know that we all have to walk on eggshells when we talk about subject matters like this because of American history, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it'd be so for real right now. Are we crying? Are we crying over the fact that we found out that some girl somewhere in probably California is burning white sage in her apartment? Newsflash, there's a lot of people out there doing that, especially in my home state of California right now. So should we really be attacking Hosier and his girlfriend for finding out this little tidbit of information? Also, do culture's own certain practices? I really need us to answer that question. In my opinion, no. And I understand that it's sacred. I understand that it's very important to you. I understand that you believe that white sage has certain healing powers, I guess specifically for indigenous people and not for others, but do you own a cultural practice because it's your cultural practice? I don't think so. And I know a lot of people are gonna call me a cultural appropriator, a culture vulture. I promise you, I'm not burning white sage in my apartment, but I will defend the right of those who want to, to do exactly that. And of course, I decided to look into the status of white sage and whether or not it's on the Endangered Species List, and there is stuff to substantiate exactly what she's saying. Let's read. Overharvest of wild California white sage populations is a concern held by many Native American groups and conservationists. Overharvesting is negatively affecting the wild population and distribution of white sage, and it is believed that illegal harvest is occurring on public lands, and non-permitted harvesting is also taking place on private land. Now, it is worthy of noting that these things are already illegal and people should not be doing them. But, deputies said in a statement that white sage is protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which is a common misconception. Collecting plants without permission from a landowner or land manager is illegal. Although California white sage is not listed on the Endangered Species List, conservationists are still concerned about the future survival and distribution of the species. So yeah, I totally get it. If a practice is sacred to you and a very fundamental piece of that practice, you believe is endangered and is being over-harvested, you're going to want to protect that as much as possible. But does that involve gate keeping a plant and telling people from other cultures that they're not able to use it in the same way that you use it? In my opinion, no. And it is very strange to be crying about this and attacking somebody because their girlfriend is utilizing a plant that you believe to be sacred. But, let's listen to some more responses. We have some allies in the mix that are also making videos about the situation. This always fascinates me because there are over 900 species of sage. So a white person could use any other type, like rosemary, for example, is a type of sage. So you could burn it and smudge that instead if you really want to smudge. Or if you have room to grow a garden, you can be like me and I grow clary sage. Now some of my best friends are Lakota and they did give me some white sage. Hell no one didn't burn it. They actually gave me a buffalo horn too. I collect bones, the whole thing, but. So I actually put it in my curio cabinet with all my precious things in between the two buffalo horns that they gave me. It's real easy to learn about and respect other people's cultures. It just depends if you want to. You know what I actually agree with the last part? It just depends on if you want to. And if you don't want to adhere to the list of rules that somebody has thrust upon you and says you have to abide by, then you don't have to. And I'm pretty sure there are far bigger fish to fry when it comes to the utilization and harvesting of white sage than Hoseer's girlfriend. And I feel like we see this all the time with the cultural appropriation conversation. People feel like they own hairstyles and cultural practices and plants and foods and pieces of clothing. And while you may feel that way, it is not the reality. And of course we can have a great conversation about conservation and what it means for something to be endangered and how we should treat things that have been established to be endangered. But it has nothing to do with you having ownership over a plant or a cultural practice. But still people are going after Hoseer because of what his girlfriend has allegedly done. Let's read a comment. At Hoseer, speaking of insensitive and disrespectful, any thoughts on your girlfriend's long and shameless history of culture-vulturing from indigenous communities associating with a person such as this sure makes butchered tongue ring hollow. And for those of you that don't know, butchered tongue is a song by Hoseer that speaks about indigenous people and their experience. And of course, there's more. - I just had to talk saying that Hoseer's girlfriend uses white sage. And then when it gets brought up, how that's a problem to either him or his girlfriend, it wasn't really clarified who it was. They got blocked by whoever it was that they tried to hold accountable for not being for being non-native and using white sage, which is a close practice in native cultures. And I just, y'all really pissing me off. What's so hard about just not using something? - Really, if it's a closed practice for a specific culture, don't use it. What's so fucking hard? One, there's different types of sage. So if you wanted to use sage, there's other types of sage that you can use that isn't a closed practice. But even then, you know you don't have to use sage at all, right? You know there's other options? - It has got to be exhausting to go after people like this for doing what, burning sage in their apartment. It has to just tire you out. I can only imagine that that has to be the case. Meanwhile, Hoseer and his girlfriend are just blocking people who are leaving the comments as they have the right to do. Because what? I wouldn't want to have to deal with a thousand comments from people who are trying to safeguard this particular cultural practice. What else she wanted to do was give some sage to her wedding guests and maybe burn some in her apartment. I cannot stress this enough. I know I keep a harping on this point, but your cultures do not own anything. I can't think of a single example of something that I believe is owned by a particular culture and cannot be practiced, enjoyed or utilized by other people, most especially plants that grow out of the ground. But we live in peak sensitivity culture, peak gatekeep culture, peak culture, vulture accusation culture, and we're gonna keep getting stories like this time and time again. And you'll notice how the stories only flow in one direction. I'm sure there are a ton of cultural practices and even sacred ones among all types of different cultures that have moved around to different demographics of people that have been practiced by different demographics of people. It seems to always be from people of color or marginalized groups as we've identified them and the complaints flow over to those privileged individuals who are committing the act of cultural appropriation. Even though every single culture in its past has both its transgressions and its persecution, we all have a story to tell. We all have cultural practices that we hold near and dear to our hearts, that we actively watch other people engage with every single day. But it only seems to be the cultures that we pity for lack of a better word that we are so sensitive about and that we feel the need to tiptoe around. And I'll tell you right now why it's happening. It's because of things like white guilt and oppression dynamics and critical theory that has now been injected into our society and adopted by those who want to one be allies, but also to pat themselves on the back for being so virtuous. I mean, guys, at the risk of sounding insensitive, it's not that deep. If you are crying over a hosier's girlfriend who you do not know, burning sage, which you had to go down an internet rabbit hole to even find out about, what are you gonna do the next time you walk into a target or a world market and see white sage just wrapped up sitting there on the shelf for people to buy? There are bigger fish chufrai. Whether you like it or not, cultures are going to be shared, especially in today's time where we're all connected through one another, through the internet and we're constantly learning about other people's cultures and other people's lives. And you can take that to heart and get upset and call this cultural appropriation and culture vulturing or you can learn to live with it and maybe even turn it into a positive thing, cultural appreciation. But if you can't manage to do that, I don't know what to tell you. We should accept the things in our lives that are out of our control. And this is one of those things. No matter how much we try to bully and comment and go after people for doing things that they want to do, maybe we should just accept this one. And who knows, maybe Hosier and his girlfriend will come out with this big apology and say that they'll never ever use white sage again because of all your comments and all your videos going after them. But pushing somebody into submission, ain't it babe? But those are just my thoughts on what's going on with Hosier and his girlfriend. You guys dropped your thoughts in the comments down below. I always encourage healthy debate on this channel. So if you disagree with anything said in this video, do get out but do so respectfully. And if you like this video, like, subscribe, click the notification button to be notified every single time I post a video for you guys, which is every day, and I will see you next time. Bye guys. ♪ Yeah, you better ♪ ♪ Yeah, you better ♪