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ziq wrote (edited )

When the dominant group in a society uses the minority's culture to be trendy, that's not 'sharing'. Colonizers insist that when they take culture from the people they've colonized, it's an equal transfer of ideas, but it's not because the relationship isn't equal at all.

One party has far more power than the other, and they use that power to claim ownership of the culture and then warp it to fit their (boring) sensibilities. From that moment on, the appropriated culture has been forever changed and is now associated with the appropriator rather than the originator (because the appropriator is more powerful/dominant), and the originator has now lost the right to their own (now thoroughly whitewashed and warped) culture.

When you say there's nothing wrong with you taking someone's culture because you think it 'looks cool', you readily demonstrate everything that's wrong with cultural appropriation. You're appropriating and watering down their culture so you can be trendy and have fun. Their centuries-old culture doesn't deserve to be treated like your yuppie fad fashion choice.

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