Cultural Appropriation: In a world where we are eventually offended by everything...

If you ask the average, urban 20-year-old what cultural appropriation is, chances are they’ll be able to give you a long list of the times they’ve witnessed it, or been a victim of it. From pho recipes to ‘sexy Indian’ costumes, cultural appropriation has taken multiple forms. All this sensitivity begs the question: are we really this rude, or are we too easily offended?

Cultural appropriation is generally defined as taking elements from another person’s culture, without their consent. This glorified debate begins with the boundaries of culture, and what constitutes ownership of a tradition, habit, or belief.  Some (including myself) believe that a non-Hindu person wearing a bindi is cultural appropriation (simply because it disrespects another's religion), whereas others would say that a white person wearing dreadlocks carries the same weight.

Some of the hottest topics in news right now are the hair choices of different celebrities, and how they allegedly stole from different ethnic communities. Hairstyles like dreadlocks, gelled curls, and cornrows are now considered socially unjust if worn by a white person. In March of 2016, a video was released by a San Francisco University student, depicting a debacle on the concept of appropriation. The video showed two African Americans stopping a Caucasian wearing dreadlocks, and claiming that he stole from their culture.

New York Times’ Martha Rose Shulman recently came under fire for a pho recipe that included quinoa instead of pho’s namesake rice noodle. Irritated commenters argued that since the recipe didn’t include a rice noodle, it wasn’t technically pho, and was therefore culturally appropriating Vietnamese tradition. Both of the accused took elements from a fully established culture, and altered them. Neither of them claimed to have been the original creators of their dreadlocks/soup — only artists who changed aspects of it. If creativity is being considered culture-theft, then I fear it’s the beginning of a hyper-sensitive world.

This topic has been blown massively out of proportion. Therefore, if you’re going to label things you believe are wrong, make sure you know what you’re labelling. Blatantly racist sports team names have been named as cultural appropriators, and disgustingly over-sexualised Halloween costumes have been called thieves of tradition.

If we are going to tell people off for cultural appropriation, we must decipher the difference between racism and legitimate cultural appropriation. The first case of mis-naming began in 1848; commonly known as ‘Minstrel Shows,’ white men would don ‘blackface,’ and pretend to be black men. With their faces painted brown, wide lips, wild looking eyes, this dress-up was giving into a common racial stereotype, rather than committing an act of cultural appropriation. In other words, it stole nothing from the African American community — it simply stereotyped it.

The problem with setting harsh boundaries in culture is this: if we set boundaries, where nobody is allowed take elements from another’s culture, we would all be severely limited in our foods, clothes, and languages. You’re not Dutch? No more Santa Claus. You don’t have Arabic heritage? You’ve got to forget all the algebra you learned. The idea of cosmopolitan culture is that we all learn and grow from each other. We take elements from each other’s communities, and put them into our own. The entirety of human history has been a conglomeration of cultures, taking and giving elements from and to each other, and we can continue in that way without sliding into racism.

By: Sophia Marcus, Writer.