Cultural Appropriation – Or Is It Cultural Appreciation?

 Cultural appropriation is a term that I came across rather late in life, a few years ago, to be honest. Initially, I brushed it away. As a child growing up in India, it was common for us to wear attires from different regions once in a while. Come Onam, everyone wore Malayalee clothes. For Navratri, if you are lucky enough to be invited to a Garba, you wore Gujarati clothes. During the school annual day, there would be so many regional songs and dances in which everyone participated. Surely, it’s a matter of pride if someone from a different culture copies your attire or style or even name?

Well, it’s not as simple as that and it took me a while to appreciate it. The cultural appropriation that one objects to is apparently when members of a dominant culture – for example, white Americans or white Australians – take elements from the culture of an ethnicity or racial group they have typically oppressed – e.g. Indigenous peoples – and use them for themselves. That is, they appropriate a culture that is not their own. And it’s most problematic when that appropriation occurs for reasons of power or profit.

Now I do see where the objection is coming from. There is no law in the world which says you can’t copy the culture of someone else. There are Caucasians who immerse in Japanese culture, so many Indians and other Asians are anglophiles and everyone in Asia and Africa has adopted a lot of western customs and traditions, not to mention attire. So, is it a big deal if a Caucasian wears a bindi or a Maori dress? The objections seem to be that, until two generations ago, your people oppressed mine saying we are inferior, now how dare you wear our clothes or adopt our hair style? The objection becomes more vehement if a white model wears a native Indian or Maori dress or has dreadlocks, because the model is profiting from the attire. I do understand the objection, but my heart says this is not such a big deal and  appreciation of the culture of those previously oppressed by former oppressors should be welcomed. You can be sure that two generations ago, white men and women did not dress up as native Americans or as Maoris. Times have changed! Isn’t it time to move on?