{pickpocket}

bossymarmalade:

headsoffdogs:

lettherebecramp:

butwithawhimper:

I hate when people talk about “Cultural Appropriation.”
Like freaking out on hipster white chicks for wearing a “native american” headdress.
If you’re going to pull that, then don’t you dare wear clothes that were made in a textile factory, because those originated in England, and if you’re not from there, then you should get bitched at every time you wear a shirt made in a factory. 

Explain to me how that is justifiable again?

Because people of “English culture” haven’t suffered oppression, racism, and violence as a result of their race and culture. :/ People of indigenous cultures have suffered all that and then some (and still do.)

Cultural appropriation isn’t actually an inherently bad thing (it simply means one culture adopting another’s anything), so I think the best way to explain why I dislike a lot of what we’re confronted with right now, especially on the internet, is the way in which it’s done. The whole native american headdress thing is approached, often, with bad taste and an ignorance to what it means to that culture.

Respect is an issue for me. I have a problem with throwing around the term ‘cultural appropriation,’ as of a discussion a couple of days ago, as an insult in and of itself, because as a history major I should be more respectful of what that actually means and what it’s actually given every culture from others. But I do have a problem with people disrespecting the cultures they’re appropriating - cramp reblogged something earlier where a girl had tagged a pic of herself wearing fringe as ‘native american’ and ‘gypsy,’ for example, neither of which terms have anything to do with each other and one of which is a slur for the Romani people. That? That, I take issue with.

If you’re going to get hung up on terminology, cultural appropriation very much IS a bad thing.  It’s the same as cultural assimilation or cultural imperialism.  It’s theft and misuse and disrespect and refusal to accord other, less privileged people’s cultures the same value that you assume for your own.

What you’re talking about — “one culture adopting another’s anything” — is cultural diffusion.  Which very tenuously exists between lateral cultures, and which doesn’t exist at all between those who have been colonized/oppressed/marginalized and the colonizer/oppressor/privileged.

So no, there’s no way that a random white non-indigenous person can use the cultural markers of an indigenous group without it being harmfully appropriative, because the power differentials that exist between the groups are too great.  It doesn’t matter if they say they do it because they “respect” indigenous peoples. Appropriation is a marked LACK of any respect.