Daniel Saadatmandi
Staff reporter
On April 22 2018, an 18-year-old high school graduate named Keziah Daum posted a picture of herself in a qipao, a Chinese dress, on Twitter. She herself is not Chinese and received a lot of hate for it, with people claiming she was committing “cultural appropriation” and other forms of casual racism. They said she shouldn’t be wearing this dress because she isn’t Asian and she isn’t part of the culture and thus she was disrespecting and appropriating Asian culture, even though the only thing she did was wear a dress. This is wrong, and it’s time to start discussing why this outrage over Cultural appropriation is unnecessary and is hurting multiculturalism.
The Oxford dictionary defines cultural appropriation as “taking over of creative or artistic forms, themes, or practices by one cultural group from another.” As Jonah Goldberg notes in his Chicago Tribune article called, “Cultural-appropriation outrage shows people are desperate to be offended” the term cultural appropriation was first used by academics to describe the process of cultures taking or sharing practices and ideas from each other.
However many people, including the website known as ThoughtCO are saying that cultural appropriation is a form of racism and that its theft since you’re taking from a culture that you are not a part of. This is insane.
First, the people who promote cultural appropriation, often say that you need the consent or permission from the people of the culture if you want to take from it, no you don’t. Cultures aren’t property, they are collection ideas, ideals, practices, themes, and styles. No person, government, or people own a culture and thus there is no “stealing” a cultural practice.
And besides, who do you call for the consent, a friend from the culture? The nation that represents the people of the culture? What if those people don’t have nation? Or what if there are multiple nations that represent the people of the culture? What if one person says you can take from the culture, but another person says no?
Another question, what about someone like me, someone of Persian descent, who sometimes practices Iranian culture, (When I say practice, I mean eat the food) but considers myself Canadian, I was born in Canada and I practice Canadian culture, am I appropriating Iranian culture, or am I someone who can give “consent” for other people to practice Iranian culture? What are the rules? And that is the problem, there are no rules, except for one, and that is the rule of race.
When it comes to inevitable question of who can and cannot practice a culture, these people often fall back on race, saying that all only black people can practice black culture, or Asians can and wear a qipao dress. There are many problems with this line thinking. First, it conflates race with culture, which is incorrect, race has very little to do with culture. Would it be appropriation, for a Black man from America, whose family has lived there for generations, and who considers himself a firm American, to then start wearing some Tsonga tribal clothing from Zimbabwe? I am sure that most people, including myself, would say yes, it is ok if he wishes to do that, but wouldn’t it be appropriation? This man has lived his entire life in America and is part of a different culture then the Tsonga people, as American culture is very different then from Tsongense culture, but I doubt many people will throw a fuss over him, but if White man was to the same, he is likely to be called a appropriator.
Some people may counter with, “What if the man’s ancestors were from the Tsonga tribe and they were forced to come to America as slaves, then it wouldn’t be appropriation.” Well that just proves the previous point, these people don’t care about the culture the person in question is practicing now, they only care if the race of the person can be connected with that culture, and if it can’t, then it is appropriation.
We can say the same about are previous example as well, if Keziah had been Japanese, would it still be appropriation? From the standards of the people who support cultural appropriation, yes, but I doubt she would of received as much hate. These people are lazy, and will simply draw the line at race, saying stuff like don’t steal Black music, or don’t steal Native American symbols, but if two people of the same skin color “appropriate” each other’s cultures, they don’t care, because these people are a lot like traditional racists, they don’t see the difference between a black person from Zimbabwe or black person from America, or a Japanese person from a Chinese one, they just want all races to practice their racial idea of culture, and to stay in their own lane.
This idea of cultural appropriation is hurting multiculturalism, how can someone be both multicultural and not a cultural appropriator? It is simply not possible to get the consent needed to appease these people, especially since these people will often conflate race with culture. The outrage caused by cultural appropriation are making people, especially white people, scared of experimenting with other ideas and cultures, because they are afraid of being called racist like Keziah Daum was, so they’re going to stick with the culture they are familiar with, and how is that going to create a more tolerant and open society? If people are purposely self-segregating themselves? This is why the idea of cultural appropriation must be done away with.
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