# Where do you draw the line as to what is or is not cultural appropriation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 28, 2022, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360 "2022-09-28T05:24:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/101 "2022-10-02T01:02:42Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > The only reason there is no exclusivity is because such cultural artifacts are ubiquitous due to an openness to cultural appropriation. I think it is a good thing. There shouldn’t be _anything_ within my culture that is off limits to anyone else. Says somebody from the dominant culture that is in no danger of being diluted out of existence. I bet you also “don’t see color”. Cultures are bothered by cultural appropriation because they see thier culture being absorbed and merged into white culture to the extent that what makes them unique disappears and they just another flavor of white. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/102 "2022-10-02T07:03:05Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Says somebody from the dominant culture that is in no danger of being diluted out of existence. I bet you also “don’t see color”. Cultures are bothered by cultural appropriation because they see thier culture being absorbed and merged into white culture to the extent that what makes them unique disappears and they just another flavor of white. I dispute that there is any such thing as “white” culture. Not all people with a certain skin tone share the same culture. That’s a very strange view to hold. “culture” is not the same as “colour”. In any case, having your practices being adopted by other cultures is the price of being human, being in contact with other cultures and having good ideas. Sure, you might lose your uniqueness, tough. But the only way a culture to lose that practice totally is for them to appropriate someone else’s practices instead. If what you do matters to you then why not keep doing it? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/103 "2022-10-02T21:41:02Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I dispute that there is any such thing as “white” culture. Not all people with a certain skin tone share the same culture. That’s a very strange view to hold. > “culture” is not the same as “colour”. “White” in this context refers to a cultural group, not a skin color. Genrally it means the dominant cultural group of the US. For example, Italians and Jews weren’t white, in this sense, until a couple generations ago. Now they are. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/104 "2022-10-02T22:32:38Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > “White” in this context refers to a cultural group, not a skin color. Genrally it means the dominant cultural group of the US. For example, Italians and Jews weren’t white, in this sense, until a couple generations ago. Now they are. I doubt such groups readily accept your crude and lazy designations. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/105 "2022-10-02T22:42:17Z")
Well then, how about Irish? ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/106 "2022-10-02T22:45:38Z")
The Irish have a rich and varied cultural heritage, what about them exactly? what question are you asking? I can guarantee that they see themselves as a culture apart from others and wouldn’t thank you to be lumped into an amorphous “white” culture. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/107 "2022-10-02T22:53:29Z")
I think to a great extent that depends on which groups and where you are talking about. Speaking in terms of my experience, people of Italian , Irish and Jewish heritage in the Northeastern US would probably not consider themselves to be part of a generic “white”culture - but I have no idea what people of those heritages living in Kansas think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/108 "2022-10-02T22:55:15Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > think to a great extent that depends on which groups and where you are talking about. Speaking in terms of my experience, people of Italian , Irish and Jewish heritage in the Northeastern US would probably not consider themselves to be part of a generic white culture - but I have no idea what people of those heritages living in Kansas think about it. I think you are right but others on this board do love to lump groups together and assign them certain traits. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/109 "2022-10-03T00:19:44Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I doubt such groups readily accept your crude and lazy designations. That’s a content free-bit of snark, and absolutely lovely that it accuses a post other than itself of being lazy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/110 "2022-10-03T04:34:15Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > It confuses me when a girl wears a japanese dress to prom and people scream “cultural appropriation”. I personally don’t see a problem with that action. You are indeed somewhat confused, if what you have in mind was the [2018 “qipao prom dress” Twitter flap](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-43947959) about a non-Chinese teen wearing a traditional Chinese, not Japanese, garment as a prom dress. Of course people can, and people did, have many different valid opinions about whether and in what circumstances that should be considered a problem. But equally of course, people from the originating culture who see the garment as having specific cultural and ethnic significance rather than just being a pretty dress may understandably find it unsuitable for people outside that culture to treat it as nothing but a pretty dress for a dance. Similarly, a teenager from a culture where brides don’t wear the typical western white wedding dress might choose to wear a long white wedding gown and veil to her prom just because she thinks it’s pretty. But people from cultures where that style is automatically interpreted as “bride” may understandably find her choice unsuitable, given that she’s not actually getting married. > [@"Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > My oldest has a black sash in Kung Fu. He has swords and other items of Chinese culture. He spent years learning of the culture - this is appreciation, not appropriation. Well duh, sure, precisely because it comes out of his “learning of the culture”. That’s different. Your son didn’t just happen to notice an authentic Kung Fu gi or uniform in a shop window one day and decide to wear it to prom because he thought it looked cool. I’m not saying it would automatically have been unsuitable or disrespectful even if he did, but the point is that that sort of behavior—like a white girl deciding to wear a traditional qipao as a prom dress—is very different from what your son is doing in his study of Kung Fu. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/111 "2022-10-03T04:46:07Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > A few years ago there was a Twitter flap when somebody claimed Hilliary Clinton was appropriating black culture by carrying hot sauce in her purse, but their angle was “It’s cultual appropriation by any race to use hot sauce because hot sauce is a black thing only”. This is yet another example of how discussions of “cultural appropriation” tend to get distorted as people misremember the facts. The “Hillary Clinton hot-sauce-in-the-handbag” flap in 2016 was not about accusing Clinton of “cultural appropriation”, or trying to claim that “hot sauce is a black thing only”, but about criticisms that Clinton was claiming this practice as a way of “pandering” to Black voters. [(Clinton had been very public about her love of hot sauce for years previously,](https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1075391036350959617?lang=en) but that didn’t stop Trump and Fox etc. from continuing to accuse her of “pandering”.) > [@Asuka](#): > > Which is the danger of calling cultural appropriation when you yourself culturally appropriate. Like I said, you remembered that wrong. Nobody AFAICT in the “Clinton hot sauce” flap was trying to claim that liking hot sauce is an originally or exclusively “Black thing”. They were suggesting that the reason that Clinton publicized it in her campaign was a mere PR stunt to make her more “relatable” to Black people. > [@silenus](#): > > Wait, what? I must have totally missed this. Guess that means I’m Black because I’ve been carrying hot sauce with me while traveling for decades Like I said, this is a distortion of the actual situation. Nobody is arguing that keeping a travel supply of hot sauce is “cultural appropriation” from Black people. At worst, if you make a big thing out of it during a campaign where you’re encouraging Black people to vote for you, you may be suspected or accused of doing it as a PR stunt. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/112 "2022-10-03T04:56:01Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Speaking in terms of my experience, people of Italian , Irish and Jewish heritage in the Northeastern US would probably not consider themselves to be part of a generic “white”culture Not in terms of specific cultural heritage, sure, but obviously modern Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Jewish Americans are sociopolitically very much part of what MandaJo called the “dominant cultural group of the US” in that they’re not automatically “othered” as being non-white. For example, my experience as a “bicultural” American, with one Jewish American and one WASP-American parent, allowed me to see ways in which those two cultural heritages were different but also ways in which they were both currently part of the “dominant cultural group of the US”. My experiences and my identity would have been very different if one of my parents had been of an ethnicity routinely coded as “non-white” in the America of that day. It seemed pretty clear to me that that’s the basic point MandaJo was trying to make, rather than attempting to claim that Americans of Jewish, Irish and Italian heritage are culturally identical, or any such so-called “crude and lazy designations”. Novelty\_Bobble misunderstood that entirely, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/113 "2022-10-03T05:21:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > but the point is that that sort of behavior—like a white girl deciding to wear a traditional qipao as a prom dress Wikipedia says the quipao is the same as a Cheongsam, which was partially influenced by western culture itself. Is that not true? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/114 "2022-10-03T05:32:41Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Wikipedia says the quipao is the same as a Cheongsam, which was partially influenced by western culture itself. Is that not true? “Western” in the sense of “Manchurian”, you mean? Yes, originally, AFAICT. Or “western” in the sense of “modern western culture and its dress styles”? Yes also, secondarily, AFAICT. But none of that contradicts my description of the qipao as a traditional Chinese garment that for many Chinese holds specifically Chinese cultural significance, rather than being simply a generic pretty dress. Nobody is claiming that the Chinese tradition of the qipao dates back to time immemorial, or is completely immutable or free from any foreign influences whatsoever. Nor does a particular cultural practice have to be completely immutable and free from any foreign influences whatsoever since time immemorial in order for people from that culture to be “allowed” to have concerns about cultural appropriation when people outside that culture superficially adopt that practice. So if you were meditating a “gotcha” attempt along the lines of “but the qipao wasn’t really AUTHENTICALLY Chinese to begin with, so Chinese people can’t complain about other people ‘appropriating’ it, so there!”, let it go. As I already acknowledged [back in post #62,](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/62) > [@Kimstu](#): > > Every custom everywhere, pretty much, was at some point borrowed or modified based on other people’s customary practices. That doesn’t mean that the concept of “cultural appropriation” has no meaning whatsoever, but it does mean that it’s impossible to define it precisely or make one-size-fits-all rules about it. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/115 "2022-10-03T05:39:53Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Says somebody from the dominant culture that is in no danger of being diluted out of existence. I bet you also “don’t see color”. Cultures are bothered by cultural appropriation because they see thier culture being absorbed and merged into white culture to the extent that what makes them unique disappears and they just another flavor of white. A few years back, I remember a discussion that came up on a different message board about the Canadian reggae band Magic! when their song “Rude” was frequently on the radio (circa 2013-2014 I think). The discussion was about a bunch of white Candians appropriating reggae when someone brought up that the lead singer was ethnically Palestinian. Suddenly, because he wasn’t “white,” it wasn’t cultural appropriation and that just fascinated me. The Wu-Tang Clan took their name from a movie called _Shaolin and Wu Tang,_ but you won’t hear many people complain about appropriation here. Why not? (I’d classify it as cultural exchange myself.) It’s not always clear to me when cultural appropriation is good and when it’s bad. I agree that it can be bad at times, but sometimes what appears innocuous to me really sets some people off. I gotta say, it sounds really odd to hear anyone talk about “white” culture. Usually it’s white supremacist who bring up “white” culture within the context of celebrating and preserving it. When they talk about “white” culture, most other people call it baloney. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/116 "2022-10-03T05:42:31Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > So if you were meditating a “gotcha” attempt along the lines of “but the qipao wasn’t really AUTHENTICALLY Chinese to begin with, so Chinese people can’t complain about other people ‘appropriating’ it, so there!”, let it go. As I already acknowledged [back in post #62,](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/62) Do Chinese people actually complain about westerners wearing traditional (however we define it) Chinese clothing? Because it seems to me that the complaints mostly come from Asian Americans or others, not actual Chinese people. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/117 "2022-10-03T05:52:21Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Because it seems to me that the complaints mostly come from Asian Americans or others, not actual Chinese people. ISTM that there are lots of different opinions on the subject among many different groups of people, including Chinese nationals, Americans of Chinese descent, and members of other groups. I don’t have data on which groups have more positive vs. negative reactions about this or similar incidents. But since I don’t read Chinese and tend to read news items mostly in English, obviously I’m going to encounter a higher proportion of views from English speakers of Chinese descent than from Chinese nationals. If you’re able to read Chinese and interact with people on Chinese media a lot, perhaps your experience is different. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/118 "2022-10-03T06:02:20Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I gotta say, it sounds really odd to hear anyone talk about “white” culture. Usually it’s white supremacist who bring up “white” culture within the context of celebrating and preserving it. Like I said, there’s a significant difference between pretending that all white Americans have exactly the same cultural heritage (or pretending that a single mythologized “Nordic”-ish cultural stereotype is applicable to all or nearly all white Americans, which AFAICT is what the white supremacists are doing), and acknowledging that all white Americans belong to “the dominant cultural group of the US”. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/119 "2022-10-03T06:22:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > So if you were meditating a “gotcha” attempt along the lines of “but the qipao wasn’t really AUTHENTICALLY Chinese to begin with, so Chinese people can’t complain about other people ‘appropriating’ it, so there!”, let it go. As I already acknowledged [back in post #62,](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/62) OK but I don’t see any problem with a black or white women wearing one. The problem is cultural appropriation only ever seems to go one way - whites can’t do that. We are generous and open with our culture, minorities aren’t so much, and there is a reason for that, I know, they are just defending their identities, but it only ever goes one way. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360/120 "2022-10-03T06:49:00Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > OK but I don’t see any problem with a black or white women wearing one. Okay, neither do a lot of other people, among many different groups including Chinese nationals and Americans of Chinese descent. However, there are also a lot of people, among many different groups including Chinese nationals and Americans of Chinese descent, who do see a problem with a non-Chinese woman wearing one, at least in a superficial form where she’s just considering it as a pretty prom dress. It’s a complicated and subtle issue, and naturally there are going to be a variety of opinions about it. As long as people aren’t obliviously refusing to acknowledge that their opinion isn’t the only possible take on the issue, e.g., by sniffily declaring that they “do not accept the concept of cultural appropriation”, then there’s nothing wrong with having disagreement about it. > [@Isamu](#): > > The problem is cultural appropriation only ever seems to go one way - whites can’t do that. We are generous and open with our culture, minorities aren’t so much, and there is a reason for that, I know, they are just defending their identities, but it only ever goes one way. Nah, there are always periodic disputes about, e.g., whether it’s legit for non-Scotspeople to wear authentic Scots tartans, or who should call their sparkling wine “champagne” (the lawyers have weighed in on that one), and so on. And have you heard the fuss some people are making about whether it’s acceptable for Disney’s red-headed incarnation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Mermaid” to be played by a non-white actress??? Or about James Madison’s crystal flute being played by a black rap musician in concert? “Generous and open”, my ass: white people can be highly defensive about who’s “entitled” to participate in their cultural practices and whose participation is “defiling” them. What may be confusing you is that mainstream dominant cultural norms are frequently treated, by dominant cultural groups, as universal and desirable for everybody. Being white is the cultural default in American society, so it’s assumed that whatever is mainstream among white people should be shared by all Americans. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Christian prayers in schools, blue jeans, and so on. But that’s not members of a specific cultural heritage being “generous and open” about allowing others to appropriate their culture. That’s the normalization of specific cultural phenomena that the dominant cultural group reflexively identifies with the nation as a whole. For example: When white Americans say “Disney’s Little Mermaid adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story is a classic American family movie that all Americans can enjoy!” and never even think about the fact that all its characters (who don’t look like marine animals) look like white people, that’s cultural normalization of white cultural output as the assumed default for all Americans. When white Americans say “Sure, it’s great to have a Disney Little Mermaid remake with more cultural diversity, including a non-white Ariel!”, that arguably could be described as being “generous and open with our culture”. But you’ll notice that attitude is by no means universal among white Americans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-draw-the-line-as-to-what-is-or-is-not-cultural-appropriation/972360.md?page=7)