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Cultural appropriation has been going on literally since the beginning of recorded history. Even the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia did it. One group of people, with one culture, moving into an area and suppressing another group, with another culture, but then absorbing some of the oppressed people's culture into their own - that is a completely natural and human phenomenon that has gone on forever. So I guess the question is, can / should we as a species try to "civilize" ourselves out of the practice?
And my answer is, I don't think so. If we did, then by rule of logic, we would forever only have the cultures we have now on the planet, no more, no less, since they are no longer allowed to combine, grow, diverge and combine again, and so on. I think ironclad statically maintained cultures tend to induce large-scale violence, as it proliferates a strict "us-vs-them" mentality instead of bringing people together.
Nobody's saying we can't learn from and adopt from other cultures...there is just the hypocrisy of looking down on the original culture or that behavior when performed by the originators but then "borrowing" it and reaping the profits/benefits/compliments while carrying that bad attitude.
Nobody's saying we can't learn from and adopt from other cultures...there is just the hypocrisy of looking down on the original culture or that behavior when performed by the originators but then "borrowing" it and reaping the profits/benefits/compliments while carrying that bad attitude.
While you may be personally annoyed that you aren't reaping any profits from A THING it still doesn't matter. The one who profits DID something to make that happen...something another person wasn't/couldn't/wouldn't do. This is all just a giant "no faaaaaaair!!!" but it's not a real problem with a real solution. It's a made up situation by people with nothing better to do. Which is sad because THERE IS SO MUCH BETTER THAT NEEDS DOING.
I've heard people get mad when white women put their hair in many braids for this reason.
As long as no one is making fun of anyone else, what's so bad about enjoying something from another culture?
I think it was more than non African descended people wearing the style but from the movie 10 with Bo Derek being proclaimed the perfect woman it became known as the Bo look in the mass press while ignoring the many Black women who trail blazed the style in America
One of the complaints that college students have been focusing on is cultural (mis)appropriation. They think it's wrong when a mainstream culture or demographic group borrows aspects of the culture/group they oppressed. At one college, students were upset that people would wear sombreros as part of a Halloween costume if they aren't Mexican. At an awards ceremony, Katie Perry dressed as a geisha and people thought that was wrong. And Canadian college students think it's wrong to do yoga since it originated in and should stay in India.
This is the same crowd who will loudly demand "freedom of choice" when it comes to terminating a pregnancy, but will viciously shout down anyone who dares to express an opinion or perform an action that varies from the narrowly tailored worldview that they want to enforce with an iron fist. The hypocrisy, and authoritarianism, is appalling and repulsive.
The one bit of satisfaction I can derive from all this will come when these self-absorbed little snowflakes leave the "safe spaces" of their college cocoons and venture out into the real world, and learn that their employers have no inclination to indulge them in their ridiculous nonsense. (And, when they find out that the average boss is not nearly as easy to intimidate into acquiescence as the average university president is.)
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