Of late there has been a lot of noise being made about "cultural (mis)appropriation" but what is it, and aren't people just being overly sensitive?
Just what is cultural misappropriation?
What is all this nonsense about "cultural (mis)appropriation"? Has exchange and influence of styles suddenly become toxic? Should white Anglo-Saxons stop eating curry and Chinese? Are people with non-white heritage no longer allowed to eat fish and chips, and Irish stew or Lancashire hotpot? Am I suddenly obliged to wear pyjamas and sandals? Seriously? Where does it stop?
Get a bloody grip. Cultures shift and change. Fashions have always been influenced by the adventurous and exotic, and that's always been true around the world throughout history. Whichever way you look at it this concept of cultural appropriation is just a nonsensical expression of a chip on the shoulder, and an absurdly racist concept of cultural purity.
Remember the basic rule about offence: it is taken, not given. It is the choice of the offendee, not the offender. Certainly, there are people who go out of their way to cause offence, but they still have little actual control over whether they succeed or not. When someone says "I am offended by..." what they are really saying is "I have decided to infer fault", and it does not need to be in any way dependent on an intent to offend. Every one is free to be offended, for sure, but it's their own choice and conditioning. To my mind - and I say this as someone who has suffered, particularly in childhood, the pain of racial abuse and racist treatment - this "cultural appropriation" is nothing more than people aching to play the racist card deliberately seeking out reason to. No more, no less. The only thing I find offensive in the whole sorry mess is their deliberate attempt to find it.
How does a white woman (or indeed a bloke) wearing their hair in dreadlocks and corn-rows, or a sarong on the beach, or even (as my Mum did occasionally under certain circumstances, but some girls are now doing purely for elegance) a sari, detriment the culture that invented them? And how come the different tribes aren't up in arms about claiming the original source? And how come it's perfectly dandy for them to "appropriate" jeans, and t-shirt and trainers? Why is it OK for culture to spread as long as it doesn't cross racial boundaries, or rather as long as it's not spreading TO the caucasian?
It's just racism, pure and simple, albeit a brand of racism that seems to have disguised itself as acceptable, and even hoodwinked the fervent anti-racists.
