Cultural Appropriation

[Dystopia]

From a "taking the piss" point of view, I get it. That's offensive. Blackface, exaggerated accents and the like would probably come under "taking the piss".

I don't agree with the argument that culture is something you can steal, which is what seems to be the gripe of a lot of Tumblrinas squealing over "cultural appropriation". If you take anything "ethnic", let's say dreadlocks for example because they're the first thing that comes to my mind, unless I physically snatch the dreads off your head and put them on mine, nothing has been stolen. Just because someone is doing something that originates in "your culture", that doesn't suddenly mean you can't do it anymore. Nothing has been stolen, culture isn't a finite resource.

I also find there's something racist in itself of trying to claim that every "cultural" thing a brown person does has deep spiritual significance. First off not all people of colour are religious. LOTS of black people wear certain natural hairstyles purely for aesthetic/fashion reasons, and there is a massive fashion industry made out of bejewelled bindis within India. It's hypocritical going off on a white girl for wearing henna and a bindi "for a fashion statement", when there are millions of people within said cultures who do it as a fashion statement already. You can't get mad at Becky for wearing African braids "for fashion" when Rihanna did exactly the same thing.

This is basically my opinion - But I would add the problem here is how dreadlocks and other black people's natural hair is seen on different people. If you're black and grow natural hair, you might be asked to cut if to get a proper job (if you're white, this is not likely unless you never ever style or comb your hair and don't keep it overly long) - If you're white, you're just trendy and hipster. I think that's unfair. From my experience, dreadlocks for black women are not just a haircut but also a form of individual identity.


I think many people are considering an extreme spectrum with two ends, on one there are people from tumblr who think almost everything is cultural appropriation and should be censored, and on the other there is this magic world where all culture belongs to everybody and has the same meaning to all of us. none of those cases are true. Culture is in constant mutation, but it is usually more related to some people. That's perfectly normal