Sharing is great. Unauthorised taking is not. In other words, cultural appreciation is great, however, cultural appropriation? Not so much.
Cultural appropriation is defined as “"the adoption or theft of icons, rituals, aesthetic standards, and behaviour from one culture or subculture by another".
In terms of fashion, it means taking ones culture and displaying it as a style for yourself without respecting or understanding the historical cultural significance that something has and not considering where it came from, erasing its history”. As Dr. Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations puts it, “you are pretending to be a race that you are not, and are drawing upon stereotypes to do so.”
The main point to appreciating a culture is to understand the history and significance behind it, whereas appropriating a culture disregards all of that and uses parts of a culture merely for shallow trends and fashion. Appropriation doesn’t acknowledge the history these customs come from or the oppression that some people who wear those clothes had to face because they were different from the majority culture.
Common examples of appropriation in our modern day society include the Bindi as costume makeup, Aztech designs, Native American Headdresses at festivals and yes, even your very fashionable tartan scarf which originated in Scotland.
The history of the Native American Headdress is that it is only worn by the most powerful and influential members of the tribe. There are different commonly used feathers that come from different birds such as crows, hawks, and eagles which all have different meanings. In many Native American cultures, the golden eagle feather is a symbol an honoured warrior.
Young Indian boys have to prove that they are brave enough to be worthy of wearing an eagle feather in their hair.
An eagle feather is never simply given to a boy, but it has to be earned. Thus when somebody decides to wear a Native American Headdress because they think it looks “edgy” and “cool but don’t realise how sacred it is to the culture it originates in, is offensive. Wearing Native American Headdresses for fun disregards all the hard work people of the Native American tribe have to do in order to gain the privilege to wear this headdress.
Talented actress, singer and dancer Zendaya informatively spoke about the subject of cultural appropriation and appreciation in an interview for Nylon. Zendaya sums up the difference between appreciating a culture and appropriating it.
"You have to be very careful. Some things are really sacred and important to other cultures, so you have to be aware, politically, about those things before you just adopt them." , says Zendaya Coleman.
Zendaya made an important point that the key to appreciating a culture is to understand the history behind it. She carries on the interview saying that, "I’m someone who feels uncomfortable with things unless I know [about them]," and that "I’m not going to try something unless I’ve taken the time and effort to learn about it. I just think with the Internet and the resources we have, you should do a little research.”
Here is a situation that illustrates the difference of appropriation and appreciation:
Appreciating a culture is wearing a sari to your Indian friend’s wedding as a sign of respect, however, appropriating a culture is wearing a sari because you thought it looked “trendy”.
