What is Cultural Appropriation?
This harkens back to the idea behind digital Blackface, in that it is a person from outside a culture using and benefitting from said culture. Usually without permission. It’s not necessarily just participation, especially if that comes from an invitation to join in. There is a difference.
Cultural appropriation is white women using hairstyles Black women created, but not getting in trouble with their workplace for it, when their Black coworkers get punished for showing up with the same style.
It is a white person opening a taco stand and profiting from Mexican culture, and keeping an actual Mexican American from being able to open their own taco stand in that neighborhood. We see this with food, a lot. Look at the “experts” we assign in the food world to certain cultures. Why is a white American man considered the authority in this country on Mexican food? Why not an actual Mexican or Mexican American?
We see it in other industries, as well. Why is Iggy Azalea taking from Black culture and profiting from it, and loved by society, yet actual Black women rappers are often disparaged by white people?
Cultural appropriation isn’t always about profiting. Sometimes it’s about taking from cultures that aren’t ours when we haven’t been invited. It’s white women wearing bindis on their foreheads. It’s white people burning white sage when we’ve been told time and again that white sage is difficult to come by, and necessary for Native American ceremonies. It’s white people having Tibetan prayer flags or tiki statues in their homes as cute decorations. And don’t let me get started on Halloween costumes…
white people usually feel free to do whatever we want and enjoy elements of any culture we want with little care or thought as to the impact it might have on people from those cultures. We like to take without giving back.
Equity will sometimes feel like a loss to us, or that we are being left out/excluded, but I like to think of this as good manners. We’ve had our turn for a long time, of taking and taking consequence free. It’s time for us to start doing better.
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