Cultural Appropriation Of The United States

It is a term that has dominated the media; from Halloween costumes to NFL mascots, headlines across the nation blare the words: “cultural appropriation.” Yet, many still are not quite sure what the term means. To put it simply, cultural appropriation is the exploitation of a culture that is not one’s own.

You cant steal a culture was written by John McWorter. He is writing this paper to a general audience, or anyone interested about culture appropriation. Jon McWorter is an american studies teacher at Columbia University. McWorter connected with the topic because he sees the problem everyday. His arguments strongly written, and he is trying to explain that everyone thinks culture appropriations wrong, but its just a normal thing. His opinion is clearly stated that culture appropriation is fine. People are jus taking it the wrong way. It should be flattery not offending. McWorter states his thesis statement in the first sentence. He uses logos to explain his essay. He gives a lot of examples of where culture appropriation is used in the wrong way, or taken the wrong way. Like when he references Harlem and Miley Cyrus. The main one was when White gay men imitate black women. I thought the essay was very convincing, not just because I agree that culture appropriation isn 't a bad thing but,because of the great references.

Racial and cultural appropriation has become increasingly significant in society within the past 30 years. “The idea of “cultural appropriation” has recently entered mainstream

Cultural appropriation is not seen exclusively in dance but rather a multitude of pop culture. For example in fashion. Fashion is a huge part of today's culture, and many designers created their clothing through the inspiration of other objects and or culture. Appropriation begins to

Appropriation is very disrespectful and harmful to the culture being appropriated. In everyday society, African-American culture is being used to be “cool” and “different”. The fact that society values a white person for doing the same things black people having being doing for decades, “everyone wants to be black until it’s time to be black”, and allowing people to remain prejudice and/or ignore the racism the black community deals with, has led me to believe that the appropriation of African-American culture is significant and its effects cannot be ignored or washed away.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture. Cultural appropriation is portrayed as rude, called cultural misappropriation, and claims to be a violation of the history of a culture. Often unavoidable when cultures come together, cultural appropriation can include using another culture's traditions, such as fashion, symbols, language, and cultural songs without permission. Even though society consistently uses Native American and African American styles at festivals, in magazines and on celebrities, this form of cultural appropriation is not right because we are not using it for the right reasons.

Cultural Appropriation is the adoption and adaptation of certain elements of a minority culture by a socially dominant group of people. This is becoming a large social issue because, people are refusing to acknowledge the true meanings of these elements. Malversation has occurred steadily throughout American and global history and it has been very prominent for the duration of the 20th and 21st centuries. For example, wearing a traditional Native American headdress for the sake of an international fashion show and not acknowledging that it is a piece of ancient, and even present day sacred and a religious sacrament. The headdresses are worn by highly respected tribal chiefs and symbolizes great strength and “god's messenger” and is reserved for the highest power in the tribe. To use it in a lingerie campaign is disrespectful

A man stands proud and tall, an elegant headdress of feathers adorning his head. He is not at a ceremony, nor is he going to war to preserve his way of life. He is not Native American, either, and he is not alone. At the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival, people like this man gather in throngs to listen to alternative rock and electronic dance music. They often claim to be honoring Native American tradition, but others consider his choices offensive. Cultural borrowing and assimilation have been, and continue to be an integral part of American society, but some think that this diffusion has gone as far as theft. In order to determine that, however, on must cast a discerning eye on both arguments.

In my opinion I do believe that U.S. cultural imperialism exist. Many countries in a way look up to the United States. There are maybe a variety of people that wish they could live in the United States. Especially since it is always advertised as a free country. People come to the United States and change their culture and there believes just to fit in. Another sign of U.S. imperialism is the food. McDonald’s started in the United States and now there are a variety of restaurants around the globe. It is little by little that things that start trending in the U.S. later begin to trend in other countries. A product that was first major in the U.S. was the soda Pepsi and now it is all over the world. Another example is fashion trend work places

My mom introduced me to the art of henna tattoos when I was four years old. Henna is a flowering plant that is used during temporary body staining in events such as weddings . This unique and impressive art form has been a part of my identity for my entire life. In times when I started to lose sight of my roots, henna tattoos reminded me of my Djiboutian heritage. Amidst the unbearable arid weather, the crystalline beaches bordering the Red Sea and the omnipresent smell of couscous, henna tattoos are, to this day, my favorite thing from Djibouti.

Cultural appropriation is a huge topic, within today’s society, many question what is cultural appropriation and what is not. The definition of cultural appropriation is, “....the use of ideas, symbols, artifacts, images, objects, etc., derived from contact between different cultures. It often implies a negative view towards the minority culture by the dominant one and is often culturally insensitive”(Biron). Examples of cultural appropriation would be portraying a culture through stereotypical depictions of them or wearing a culture as a ‘trend’. Another example would be wearing a headdress to portray a Native American or wearing a sombrero and a poncho to depict a Mexican. Just those words sound degrading and racist each of these ethnicities. Many think it is socially acceptable to be insensitive to a culture, because they classify the appropriation as them appreciating the culture. Cultural appropriation shows only the stereotypical view of culture and has no regards to the actual culture. Many look at the cultures as inspiration for ideas, but that does not mean to steal the ideas completely. Cultural appropriation is not only insensitive, but also racist. Blackface, for example, was used to portray an African American by painting the face of an non-black actor black. The NFL team Redskins uses an offensive and racist word to label their team; their mascot is a “Native American” wearing headdress. First and foremost, not all Native American cultures wear headdresses, these depictions of Native culture show natives as all the same. Minorities have faced appropriation for decades, but why did this problem only recently come about?

Henna has been used by many cultures for weddings, rituals, and religious ceremonies. In many wedding ceremonies, the women's hands would be tattooed with henna this meant that they couldn’t do lots of housework until the tattoos had worn off so they could bond with their new husband,

I, myself, had no issues with cultural borrowing, as long as it was used in a non-offensive nature. I do borrow aspects of my attire from other cultures; if you were to look through all my articles of clothing, then you would see that almost all of it are from the West. This practice of cultural borrowing can describe my own individual sense of identity as one that was heavily influenced by the nations that had colonized my home country, centuries before. In terms of cultural borrowing, one must know of where the line shall be drawn and in this case, you will only cross the line, if you borrow from a culture and it be used as a disrespect for that culture; this was also applicable to expressions of people’s spirituality and religious beliefs.

Cultural appropriation is when someone adopts aspects of a culture that’s not their own. That's only the icing on the cake. It’s particularly a power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group. Cultural appropriation is not the same as cultural appreciation, (when people share mutually with each other, because cultural exchange lacks that systemic power dynamic). When it comes to wearing fashion based on other cultures, it’s hard to know if you’re being tacky, cool, or offensive. Practicing appropriating culture let’s people show love for the culture,

Cultural appropriation and multiculturalism are seen as opposites that can either be seen separately or together, as in one example portraying both. Cultural appropriation is a dominant group participating or expressing in a minority groups’ aspect of their culture. Prior to the dominant group’s partaking in this, the aspect of the culture would have to be frowned upon or have been socially unaccepted. The main part that makes something cultural appropriation is that once the dominant group took part in this, then the certain aspect of the minority group was praised and people changed their view on it from a positive outlook to a negative one. Cultural appropriation is considered as mocking by some while others simply are confused on how an element of a culture is socially accepted if the dominant group of society wears it. For example, certain Disney characters are seen as appropriating a culture because they only represent the nicer elements of the culture. Multiculturalism, on the other hand, is the essentially a similar thing but it produces different outcomes and it is done for different intentions. An element of a group’s culture spreads outside of the only the people of that culture and is often practices/expressed, praised, celebrated, or simply acknowledged in a positive manner. Multiculturalism, in its very obvious definition, also means valuing everyone – every culture and person. For example, Disney movies have