@RobertSimonson I agree with your thoughts regarding intent, but I do think that there needs to be some reckoning for much of the more aggressive or heretical symbolism of the movement, whether or not it was born of malevolence. Coming from the Judeo-Christian tradition, I can’t imagine the offense many I know would take if they walked into a restaurant serving jaunty drinks in a crucifix mug, much less their reactions if others told them to take it easy, it’s just a mug.
I do think that the tiki community has done a good job of eliminating much of the overt racism (drawings of natives with huge lips, or slanted, closed eyes as was common in old menus) and moved past some of the misogyny in its costuming and representation of island life. But I can certainly understand the frustration of people seeing an idealized and bastardized version of their own culture on display, especially when their culture is still suffering under the consequences of the colonialism that tiki nostalgia is reaching back to.
I think the community would be better served by those who are offended in such a manner using their platforms to inform the tiki community about the problems facing their cultures due to militarized colonialism, rather than simply decrying the appropriation.
And @martin I agree completely with your point on language, but wonder if it is a matter of representation. I’m of Irish stock, another culture whose language was destroyed and punished by colonial overseers. And every other bar in NYC has “sláinte” posted over its door or bar. Which is fine here, as half the bar staff are from Dublin anyway, and it seems not to bother them terribly. But in bars across America, the word and its pronunciation are butchered on the regular (there is a bar called Sláinte in Fort Lauderdale Florida that is regularly called “Slay-on-tee” by locals). It irks me but doesn’t offend, but I can never know how much that is informed by the fact that Ireland is (mostly) beyond its imperial shackles, and the people mispronouncing and misusing the word all look like me. I simply don’t know how upsetting it would be to me to hear a drunken tourist mispronounce my language or order an Irish car bomb if I had grown up during The Troubles.