Cultural Appropriation | Misappropriations and The ManKind Project

0:00 Greetings, and welcome to real men field. I'm your host Andy Grant. I'm a coach author speaker. And healer, please visit v&e Grant.com to learn more about that right now. I should be volunteering at a new Warrior training Adventure. It's a weekend event run by the mankind project. But a couple weeks ago, October 11th to be exact, it was canceled by mkp USA. All the planned new Warrior training Adventures NW Tas were canceled in the United States, for the rest of 2022. The cancellations were due to charges of cultural appropriation from a group of Native American Elders, called spirit. Now, since I have talked about and recommended the nwt a often on this show and just two episodes ago, episode 275 regular guy chat with Ken, my guests can shared his excitement about going to this weekend, the one that should be happening right now because of all that I felt it was important to address this.

1:07 I had considered doing a panel of men coming together or finding an expert on cultural appropriation. But in the End, I decided to share what I'm struggling with because whenever I do that, I always find that other people are feeling the same way, okay? But first off, let me clarify, that I am a middle-aged white American. I have no insight into what it means to be Native American or any other race or culture for that matter. I'm sharing my opinions and asking questions. I'm not representing any other individual or group. And perhaps most importantly, I'm willing to be wrong about everything that I think I know. When I discovered that all nwt A's were canceled, I was shocked disappointed and hurt my nwt.

2:00 A was a phenomenal growth experience for me. It was back in October of 2016. Now there were a lots of Native American ritual and ceremony and it was presented very respectfully, and honoring where they came from and getting full acknowledgement. It was stressed, how much training the mankind Men had with the Lakota people to learn, what would be doing? After hearing the cancellation news, my first thought was that all I had been told that my nwt a was a lie or perhaps all the details of training in the handing down from tribes wasn't accurate everywhere across the country. I thought cultural appropriation meant taking something from another culture and claiming it as your own mkp. Never did that in anything that I was involved. Nobody and mkp claimed to have invented the sweat lodge or any other rituals that I took pardon and the sweat lodge seems to be the main point of contention but it is just one of many different events that make up the entire nwt a weekend. And my brief research found that many cultures have used, sweat lodges for purification, healing, and relaxation, and most commonly known are the Native Americans but also the Mayans, the Aztecs and across Europe. As early as the 5th Century.

3:19 This proof of sweat lodges Now, in mkp statement about the cancellation said, a public campaign against the mankind project, over concerns about cultural appropriation launched in the evening of October 6th 2022. One aspect of the campaign encourages public protests at nwt a locations across the country. The locations of our events are published after assessing the content on the website. It became apparent that to proceed would put mkp participants and volunteers at risk. So the events will cancelled out of concern of clashes of protests of making me, you know, what should be a really peaceful support of space, not that at all. So, you know how to unpack this, I thought, well, let's start with a definition of cultural appropriation. And this is really the first challenge that there's no legal definition.

4:14 This is one is one no definition that everybody agrees to because this is not a crime, right? It's a relatively. Recent term in society. But here's ago, his, the most General thing I could find cultural appropriation, is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture, or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from Minority cultures. So appropriate is just to take it right to take it and claim it as yours, which is kind of what I thought. But again I thought cultural appropriation was An issue. If I said now we're going to do the ceremony which comes from the Eskimo people that I met in 2025, you know, whatever it is. But so mkp is now kind of on pause with these weekend events and their attempted to create a healthy inclusive. Way to handle the processes of the weekend and be respectful to indigenous people.

5:12 So threatened with lawsuits and protest mkp USA canceled the weekend trainings until everyone had more clarity of how to move forward so the good so good can come out of this. I by hope but Spirit or claims that mkp has not received permission properly from indigenous tribes, the native people who did gift mkp what they've been doing for 30 years. Spirit says it wasn't valid so they write all their all at an impasse So approximately thirty years ago, a Native American leader taught mankind project Representatives, how to properly do a sweat lodge. And, you know, there was a handing down there was a teaching, but this organization today says that that person was not a tribe leader and that they are the tribal leaders who only can decide to do that and they wanted to stop. So that's that's the big sticking point. Now, hopefully this will all lead to an even better and WT experience for everyone in the future. But you know my biggest concern was not for me, not volunteering this weekend but it was for the men who are going to come step forward because, you know, this being in the news, this being kind of a controversy, it puts a, you know, it definitely puts a shadow across the whole event.

6:25 And when I did the weekend, I had no idea a sweat lodge was part of it. You just go, you know, you kind of go in blindly and, and step into the unknown. Phone and all that fear that brings up. And you know just this this culture Clash is just one of those fears that had not even crossed my mind but America is a Melting Pot of hundreds of cultures borrowing from other cultures is it's inevitable and I think it can be positive to me, it's the evolution of society. But it seems to me that so many people feel some level of entitlement to never be offended. And that's a big problem we have today. you know, there were so many just silly questions and some have obvious answers but Major League Baseball and the NFL have only recently gotten rid of old bigoted names and mascot images things that perpetuated negative stereotypes and poured salt into Old Wounds.

7:20 So you know as a society we're moving forward, we're healing. But but again if if you're a member of that hurt culture, if you were part of the people that Society has been hurting and stepping on, I'm sure it all. Seems like way too little and way too late. I get that Centuries ago, people came to North America and saw natives as less than them. The letter from spiritwood, which I will link to everything, I'm referencing will be linked in the show notes that letter from spirit, makes it clear that native people are still hurting Now, to me mkp has been trying to honor the native practices they use. But it was not seen that way by all Native leaders. Now, I'm recording this a couple days from Halloween and each year, it seems that there are more costumes accused of cultural appropriation and you know the wrong outfit can have you called a racist and you know, to me it boy. It just all seems like it's an attack on imagination and play, but but again I recognize and know that I speak from a place of privilege.

8:21 So I could be wrong about everything. I think that's okay. We're all the growth is the point of this. Conversation with myself and hopefully hopefully it triggers some other conversations out there. You have trying to clarify, cultural appropriation, can be a maddening never-ending debate. In closing, I'll share something. A friend of mine said, regarding the mkp cancellations, there is no culture or ritual. That is not derivative of others, but the white man is the face of the Predator to so many other cultures, Hearing that really helped me see? This from a different perspective and and imagine the the decades, the centuries of Oppression and another man said you can do the right thing and still have it be the wrong thing. And that can be a really uncomfortable challenging place to be.

9:20 So cultural appropriation, it's confusing, it's blurry. I still don't get it. If you get it and would like to educate me. I'm glad to talk to you on a show or just privately if that's what you prefer. Wherever you are discovering real men feel please like subscribe, follow, comment, share and until next time be good to yourself.