What's Appropriate?

As I learn more about cultural appropriation, the thing I realize is that if one is going to apply it, one should go all the way with their application. That's to say that if you are tangentially related to the people an act is being appropriated from, but aren't actually from that culture, you may be culturally appropriating their work if you do it. Here's a few thought experiments I've run on it.

So, let's take an easy scenario. Let's say there's a very specific Native American tribe that has a very specific kind of headdress for very specific purposes. Now, let's say some outside person sees this headdress, likes the aesthetics of it, then proceeds to imitate it and sell the imitations to a bunch of people. Is that cultural appropriation? I'd say so. Now, what if the person wasn't from the outside, but from that very tribe? What if this person took their very people's religious imagery and sold it to the masses? Is this cultural appropriation? Are they making many other people complicit in cultural appropriation?

This can get even more complicated. Imagine we have a person whose great-grandparents came from a very specific village from somewhere in the South Pacific. Now, this very specific village has very specific customs and dress. If this particular person, who has been 100% enveloped into the culture of the United States and had no desire to better learn about their great-grandparent's culture, were to wear around that particular culture's dress not as a nod to that culture, but just because they thought they looked good, would that be cultural appropriation? I'm thinking yes, but mainly due to the fact that the person has nothing to do with that culture, even though they are of the same ethnicity. It's that cultural specificity that makes the difference, it seems.

So, let's take this to a...controversial real-world example. Let's take twerking. It's origins as a dance are a bit uncertain. Some believe it may be derived from the Mapouka, a traditional dance from the Dabou area of the southeast region of Cote d'lvoire that originated with the Alladian, Aizi, and Avikam people. Some also call it the "dance of the behind." It's mostly performed by women who stand facing away from the audience while shaking their behinds, sometimes while bent over. It should be noted that in its origin the dance was not sexual in nature, but the newer version has drawn some controversy. It's this modern version that is most closely related to twerking, and was even rendered as lewd from some time by the Ivorian government from the 1980's up until the year 2000. Even so, this version spread throughout countries along coastal West Africa. Some other people attribute it to a dance called The Bump. This was mostly done in the 1970's, as possibly popularized by by a guy named Johnny Spruce. In this dance, the dancers would bump hips on every other beat of the music. The dance progressed over the years and people started bumping hips to butts, bumping and bending over, and so on. There's even some that suggest that the term was originated in New Orleans with the rise of bounce music. At any rate, since the 1990's, the dance found its way into hip hop, and then the world. It even entered the Oxford dictionary, which claims that the word has been around for nearly 20 years.

So, now that we have some background info out of the way, let's get to the thought experiment. We know that it's origins may most likely be African in nature, and from a very specific place there. So, if a person in the United States does this dance, having absolutely no relation to its African origins, is that cultural appropriation? Let's go a step further. If a black person who lives in the United States, who has never been to this part of Africa, does this dance is it cultural appropriation? In both cases, the cultures of the latest people dancing to it are completely removed from their original context. What if the person doing the dance is descended directly from people from that region, but never traveled there and grew up totally immersed in the culture of the United States? I'm gonna still go with yes. Again, cultural specificity matters.

What's really important to consider in all of this is the power of globalization. Ideas and customs spread so quickly thanks to the internet that it's difficult to keep practices and beliefs contained to where they originated. This ultimately creates an environment where a culture's religious clothing or traditions can be somewhat co-opted by another, more affluent, culture. The new iteration becomes completely devoid of the original's intent, thus serving as a bastardized version. The thing is, much of our culture is made of aspects and influences of other cultures. Just look at some of the words that we say, like gumbo (Bantu, Africa), bacon (Germanic), jungle (Hindi or Urdu), or julep (Arabic). Many of the words we consider as being English are from other countries and cultures. Are we all subject to appropriation? Can OUR culture be appropriated?

To be honest, I don't know the answer to that. This is, as you've seen, a pretty complicated subject. It's a discussion that's being had online more and more, so more are becoming aware of it. With that, I think it's important to consider what we do and how we do it. That being said, 50 years from now, whole cultures may be absorbed in to less homogenized societies. Given that the United States is a country of many different cultures, with states sometimes seeming like completely separate countries that interact with each other, I'd imagine that it'd be difficult to keep different cultures from mixing in. At that, I suppose the best we can do is attempt to be as respectful as we can to what people believe and practice. All the same, this is an issue that may not be leaving any time soon