This has been especially evident among celebrities and companies given their high visibility, such as Karlie Kloss wearing a feathered headdress at the Victoria Secret’s Fashion Show, Scarlett Johansson agreeing to play Asian roles in film, Katy Perry performing as a geisha in powdered face and kimono, and Awkwafina partaking in Black aesthetics and AAVE. These days, acts of cultural appropriation seem to trend on social media almost daily, from the yearly Halloween costumes and the whitewashing of Mahjong to white women pretending to be BIPOC.
HOW DID THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TRY TO SPEED INDIAN ASSIMILATION TO WHITE WAYS OF LIFE? FREE
This stood in direct contrast to the Black writers such as Claude McKay and Jean Toomer who struggled to free themselves from the very dialect that these white authors appropriated from Black linguistics.įrom there, cultural appropriation moved from academic discussions to popular culture, gaining widespread attention in the early-to mid-2010s with the growth of social media and cancel culture. Eliot, and Ezra Pound who mimicked the dialect of so-called “racial aliens” as a rebellion against standard language. In The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and Twentieth-Century Literature (1994), Michael North discusses his concerns regarding voice appropriation and linguistic imitation in the 1920s by white modernist authors such as Gertrude Stein, T.S. For example, punk style took elements from both Rastafarian and working-class youth culture.
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In Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), sociologist Dick Hebdige examines how style in (then) Great Britain borrowed cultural aspects and symbols from other marginalized groups, particularly those with less social or economic power. In Some General Observations on the Concept of Cultural Colonialism (1976), Kenneth Coutts-Smith discusses the Marxist idea of “class appropriation” whereby a dominant class appropriates and defines high culture as well as “ cultural colonialism”. It is on us as consumers to push back against the exploitative exchanges that may occur as a result, and instead encourage more thoughtful, regenerative, and community-based practices when engaging with and learning about aspects of other cultures. As the American mainstream increasingly desires to consume culture in “approachable” ways, capitalism will continue to fuel the commercialization of cultural traditions and objects while stripping them of cultural context.
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Ultimately, cultural appropriation will be able to exist as long as there are systems in place that sustain the power of dominant cultures.
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Provide suggestions to address and combat cultural appropriation in your spheres of influence. Offer examples of cultural appropriation across fashion, dance, and literature, with a case study in the food industry. Outline the harmful effects that cultural appropriation has on marginalized groups.Īnalyze the familiar arguments defending cultural appropriation as a type of cultural exchange, appreciation, or assimilation.
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Trace how power imbalances from systems such as colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, and consumerism have continually allowed dominant cultures to benefit from the objects and traditions of marginalized cultures. Examine the etymology of the words cultural appropriation as a foundation to better understand its relationship with power.