Is cultural appropriation in and of itself such a bad thing? Why or why not?
In my opinion, the notion that cultural appropriation in and of itself is a bad thing is ridiculous. It fails to take into account a number of issues. Among those issues: If cultural appropriation were wholly bad, we would need to declare bad any ideas that were born of the an interaction between cultures.
For instance, the transistor radio. The transistor was invented in America, and then appropriated and adapted by the Japanese to create easily portable radios. If that was bad, then why was it bad?
Again many ethnic foods in America are appropriated from other cultures, then adapted to American tastes. If that's bad, why is it bad?
Sorry for the distraction.
All culture in the modern day, at the extent of being offensive, is appropriated which includes religions such as Christainity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.
Every society is building upon that which they learned or took from another culture.
As far as recent cultural phenomenon's it is recognized that rock and roll is a combination of African music with Northern European music.
Should we be obsessed about the skin color of an American playing jazz, rock or pop?
Food's like pizza which we recognize today are different from traditional ideas of pizza that you would find in Italy and Greece. Peppers used in Thai and other Southeastern Asian recipes are derived from the Dutch bringing spices from South America to those nations.
We should not worry about cultural appropriation. The mixing of cultural ideals has been a benefit since Sargon was the first empire builder and he sent out emissaries to learn about the various cultures of his empire.
Culture is an ongoing evolving concept and anyone declaring that a specific group has a hold upon a specific ideal only holds back the progress that brings the diverse concepts together to understand each other. Never mind the fact that there is no actual concept that a particular group of people have a sole ownership of a particular concept.
More important is that one's cultural identity is how you are raised. It has very little do with one's ethnic identity but more importantly with one's identity based upon your peers, your parentage, etc.
So no.......I don't adhere to the idea of cultural appropriation. You have to understand the individual in every aspect to understand another person.
