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Why Cultural Appropriation Isn’t Bad

What is Cultural Appropriation? 

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture.

Why would someone find Cultural Appropriation harmful? 

Some individuals find that other cultures taking or using elements of their culture is harmful to their culture itself. Such as a woman in college wearing the ceremonial head-dress of specific tribes of aboriginal Americans.

With the above scenario, a member of the aforementioned tribe may take offence to something with such cultural importance being taken for granted by someone ignorant of its significance in their culture. 

Why Culture Appropriation isn’t bad. 

In my opinion, Cultural Appropriation isn’t “bad” because culture does not belong to any individual. I wont bore you with definitions, but Culture isn’t something an individual can possess, therefore it isn’t something an individual should feel they have the right to defend. Some people feel pride at what their ancestors did, but this is foolish. People who take pride and offence in things that they had nothing to do with have no right to do so. 

By focusing on the cultural surroundings of individuals, we rob them of their individuality. I don’t have a culture I am proud of, because I did not impact the people who were born before me. What they did, has nothing to do with me. 

The remainders of their culture impact me, but it was not on purpose and it has no significance. My ancestors culture was a combination of individual tastes and traditions. It is not special. It is not sacred. It is not valuable. 

If you find something valuable in the culture you identify with, by all means you should hold on to it. However, it’s not yours. You’re just some random string of DNA that happened to pick one line of your many, many ancestors and adopt traditions, styles and attributes of them. You didn’t earn it, you chose it. 

You have no more a right to it than any of the other billions of people who didn’t create it. 

Cultural Appropriation isn’t bad, because it isn’t a thing. Culture isn’t a thing. It’s ever changing social fragments that individual people assign value to and give a title. These individuals don’t know each piece of a “culture” because a “culture” isn’t confined by definitions. 

You can’t appropriate something that doesn’t exist.