The Importance Of Culture Appropriation

The Hispanic Culture is beautiful because it varies from clothes, food, and music in the different types of Hispanics from North America, Central America, and South America. The Hispanic culture is being appropriated by people who don't care for it, they are being appropriated from people who want to make money off it. From Puerto-Ricans to Mexicans, Latinos are tired of their culture, who they are proud of and embrace without shame to be taken by companies, designers, and musicians. As a Hispanic I am one of those people, I'm tired of our culture and heritage being stolen from my ancestors. The Hispanic Culture should not be a tool for people to make money off of by appropriating it.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements in one culture by members of another culture. There has been a lot of cultural appropriation throughout the years. Lately, many people have been noticing it more often. One of the largest issues in the cultural appropriation that has hit the media lately is hair. There have been many white celebrities who have been culturally appropriating Black hairstyles. The most recent have been the Jenner/Kardashian sisters. On the other hand, some believe the same goes for vice versa; African-Americans have been appropriating White culture. One example can be Malcolm X. He even wrote a speech about how he realized that wearing a conk made him look more “White” and he felt he was trying to be exactly that. Recently, that idea has changed. Many people believe that it is only cultural appropriation when a White person does it. This social issue has been a large debate on whether White people are culturally appropriating Black culture by wearing traditionally Black hairstyles.

or the other is not looked upon as politically incorrect or wrong-minded. However, it allows

In Western culture, people seldom realize the amount of cultural appropriation that occurs around them. Westerners are blinded by cultural mockery and cultural appropriation without realizing its offensive effects to minority groups. During the Halloween holiday, in Western culture, people of all ages dress up in a variety of costumes such as horror themed, fairy tale themed, job themed, cultural themed and much more. Harvard University members have argued that a cultural themed costume is a form of cultural appropriation. Also in Western culture, in the music industry, white artists have utilized and exploited aspects from minority cultures to boost their fame. Costumes, props, ideas, music, and others considered as cultural appropriation is often overlooked but it is apparent when closely examined.

The idea of culture means different things to different people. Groups and communities are often separated by having clearly defined cultural traditions, clothing, and attitudes. However, these cultural distinctions are sometimes adopted by others who do not belong to the community that the appropriated ideas are from. This cultural appropriation is often present in popular culture in the United States. Several examples exist in the American pop music industry. While most instances of cultural appropriation in American pop music may seem to consist of white performers appropriating “black” culture, another important example is the appropriation of Native American culture.

these ideas originate from. The media needs to stop glorifying these celebrates and see that they are being extremely offensive to these cultures.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. What happens when it’s not so flattering? One might say that it’s a way of showing appreciation for different cultures, but that’s where they are wrong.There is a fine line between cultural appreciation, and cultural appropriation. And one must not cross it. Like Bill Nye says “please, consider the following”.

It has become one of the leading issues especially in the United States in the past few years. In the world today, many people are witless as to what is cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation defines as when one culture adopts an element of another culture. (Uwujaren 9/30/13) When it comes to Cultural appropriation a lot of the South Asian culture get appropriated. Being a South Asian myself I feel obligated to let people know.

Cultural appropriation is, ‘the ridiculous notion that being of a different culture or race (especially white) means that you are not allowed to adopt things from other cultures” (urban dictionary). A majority of whites feel this way but that is because they do not have a full understanding of the topic. Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture, however cultural appropriation typically involves members of a dominant group exploiting the culture of less privileged groups and usually with little understanding of the history. The united states is made up of hundreds of different ethnicities and some cultural groups rub off on

What one may see as offensive, another will see as normal. For example, in 2013, Katy Perry’s music performance performed as a geisha and described it as, “A tribute to Asian culture”. However, many disagreed with this by saying the act mirrors black face. Despite her good intentions, “borrowing” an aspect from a minority culture displays lack of consideration for the sacrety of a cultural act. While cultural appropriation displays diversity in a growing society, it is insensitive toward the customs and practices of other cultures which creates tensions such as lack of credit or resurgence of oppressive acts and events; therefore, cultural appropriation has a negative impact on racial and ethnic groups. Despite many having the opinion that society has become extremely overly sensitive, people still lack the sensitivity or logic to know when they are taking part in cultural appropriation. In the article “Profound Offense and Cultural Appropriation” James O. Young states, “In general, although an act may be offensive to some people, it may nevertheless have social value”(Young) He even compliments this idea when he states further in the article, “A profound offense is an offense to one’s moral sensibilities or insulting in a way that the unwashed rider is

Cultural Re-appropriation and political correctness in today’s music industry have been a big problem which has degraded its culture and origins. For this matter, I have chosen to cover the topic of Taylor’s swifts use of re-appropriation, abuse of the term feminism, and how political correctness determines the perception of the music video by comparing her and Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda for my written task 2 choice. The reason as to why this topic is chosen is due to the fact that a lot of caucasian female pop stars like Taylor swift herself nowadays such as Iggy Azalea is constantly able to get away with the use of stolen identity by culturally re-appropriating dance moves. She westernises dances including twerking as well as abuses feminism’s

What is now considered as cultural appropriation is when people see or hear about someone else’s culture or way of life and use it to benefit themselves, mainly for monetary gain or popularity, without a care as to it’s true meaning or purpose. During the minstrelsy era, cultural appropriation came into play when it was used to get a few laughs by making fun of their differences. This led to minstrelsy being heavily misappropriated as a way for white supremacists to prove that they should remain dominant over blacks. Fortunately, nowadays minstrelsy and blackface are looked down upon and is not being used in popular entertainment today. The use of another’s culture for personal gain does still happen, not always in a negative manner as minstrelsy,

In 2016 I remember watching former President Barack Obama hold the first ever Diwali celebration in the White House. And although this was an attempt for America to appropriate Indian culture, at no point did I feel offended or mocked. As an American Indian, this made me garner a feeling of great pride for both my country (USA) and for my ethnicity. I felt as though I was more a part of the USA, as it supported the same values I was taught growing up. According to Oxford Dictionary, cultural appropriation is defined as the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society. This can be especially dangerous due to the distortion and disconnection of such custom from its roots. Losing one’s cultural identity to another group is not fair or proper. However, at the same time, cultural appropriation can be beneficial to the overall development of the world. People can relate to aspects of other cultures and feel as though they too support the same ideologies. In this case it is improper for us to discourage such actions because many people in the world can share the same viewpoints and therefore be connected. Therefore, cultural exchange is the act of sharing cultural values between different groups of people and thus connecting the world through similar interests. One universal commonality between many groups is art, specifically music. Music is a media which can be

Not to mention whites were raised to believe that they have the upper hand; in other words, they feel obligated to power. “White colonialism was romanticized and portrayed as an acceptable, even normalized part of history”(Q3.1). White colonialism was indoctrinated that what they were doing to minorities is acceptable. This is because cultural appropriation is apart of history. In Taylor Swift music video for “Wildest Dreams”, she showed appropriation and colonialism. In her video, which is shot in Africa, is only consisted of whites. In this video, there are no African or people of color, which is not normal. Africa is predominantly black, so how there were no Africans in the video with their cultural landscape.

Even though it is tough to give a clear definition, the article states that cultural appropriation is, “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else 's culture without permission.” This includes unauthorized use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. When these things are used it is most likely to be harmful when the source community is minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, especially sacred objects.