@BETAOPTICS - "When someone adopts my culture and does something new, creative and brilliant with it, I am not jealous that I didn't figure it out and they did, to me it is a sign of appreciation to show someone genuinely likes your culture so much they wish they could be part of your culture." And that is a reasonable and excellent example of a cultural appreciation *rather* than a cultural appropriation. Appropriation is when Person A (usually someone from a majority culture in a particular area) takes a piece of Person B's culture (usually a minority culture in the same geographic region) and proceeds to dilute the piece so that it's mass marketable, re-sell it with Person A's name, duplicate it without adding anything, make an inferior quality version and call it the same, make an inferior quality version and use it to mock Person B's culture, or turn it into a costume. It's not a matter of not realizing when appreciation takes place- Person B is likely able to recognize an earnest interest leading to cultural appreciation, but that's not what the debate is about these days. The issue that keeps popping up, especially in places where you do have distinct, but still vibrantly sustained cultures, one with more power than the other, is when the majority culture seizes upon some facet of the minority's culture with the result leading to cultural dilution and erosion of the minority culture.
36
@BETAOPTICS - "When someone adopts my culture and does something new, creative and brilliant with it, I am not jealous that I didn't figure it out and they did, to me it is a sign of appreciation to show someone genuinely likes your culture so much they wish they could be part of your culture." And that is a reasonable and excellent example of a cultural appreciation *rather* than a cultural appropriation. Appropriation is when Person A (usually someone from a majority culture in a particular area) takes a piece of Person B's culture (usually a minority culture in the same geographic region) and proceeds to dilute the piece so that it's mass marketable, re-sell it with Person A's name, duplicate it without adding anything, make an inferior quality version and call it the same, make an inferior quality version and use it to mock Person B's culture, or turn it into a costume. It's not a matter of not realizing when appreciation takes place- Person B is likely able to recognize an earnest interest leading to cultural appreciation, but that's not what the debate is about these days. The issue that keeps popping up, especially in places where you do have distinct, but still vibrantly sustained cultures, one with more power than the other, is when the majority culture seizes upon some facet of the minority's culture with the result leading to cultural dilution and erosion of the minority culture.
*That* is appropriation.