What is Cultural Appropriation

A few days ago, I saw a Tik Tok of a group of bridesmaids who were just having fun and showing off their outfits before the wedding. And in this group of girls, there were 2 girls who were wearing a simple but beautiful scarf. Tik Tok went crazy over this saying that the girls were appropriating South Asian culture by wearing these scarves. And to be completely honest, saying that this was an overreaction is an understatement. So, I decided to make a Tik Tok questioning why these 2 girls were getting so much hate for wearing a scarf with their dresses. I got responses like, "It's not their culture, so they can't wear them." "Their using it for profit." I am not exactly sure how two girls wearing scarves are getting any kind of profit besides the fact that they looked beautiful. But they weren't getting any monetary gains from wearing those scarves. It's not like they were models showing off the product for money. They were just girls making a cute video.

Anyways these comments lead to a few discussions of whether or not you should be allowed to participate in something if you're not apart of the culture. Personally, I believe we should share culture, but it seems that everyone else had a more defensive opinion. Almost the attitude of, "It's mine and you can't have it." I'm sorry but just because you're apart of something, doesn't mean you own it or have the right to prohibit someone for wanting to participate or join. I gave a personal example. I am Puerto Rican. It is apart of culture to wear dresses called Bombas. They are the dresses with the frills at the bottom and top (I'm sure you've seen them). But just because I am Puerto Rican, doesn't mean that I have the right to prohibit someone else to wear them simply because they are not Puerto Rican. I am Puerto Rican, but that does not make me the owner of my race and ethnicity. That's not how that works. Everyone else seemed to have different opinions. If an African American person tells you that you can't wear braids, then you can't wear braids. If an Indian person tells you that you can't wear scarves, then you can't wear scarves. This is the American point of view. The crazy thing that I was realizing is that native Africans and native Indians, native Hispanics, native Asians, etc, didn't have a problem with someone of another culture and ethnicity or race indulging in their culture. It was strictly the African Americans, and the American Indians, and so on and so forth, who had an issue with this.

So much so that they resulted to insulting. This bothered them so much that they called me whitewashed. Well, hold on a second, isn't that culturally appropriating and racist? You are taking the white culture and making it something it isn't but also applying that to others. Sounds like hypocrisy to me. How is it that these groups of people cry about racism but then have no shame, no issue in using racism to their advantage? What does whitewashed even mean? I grew up in a Hispanic household. My mom cooked rice and beans almost everyday. She used empty butter containers for leftovers. She would blast Frankie Ruiz every Saturday when we would clean. She had special heels for when she would teach me how to dance salsa and bachata. She would pray in Spanish, and use her flip flop when we did something wrong. She would teach me Spanish as a little girl. I remember loving the maracas that had Puerto Rico painted on them. I remember being told to move my hips when dancing. How do you have such strong judgment from a 2 minute clip?

Furthermore, out of curiosity, I looked up what cultural appropriation is versus what cultural appreciation is. Cultural appropriation is esentially the theft of someone else's culture and exploiting them. Cultural appreciation is said to be, "engaging with and learning about another culture with respect, understanding, and a genuine desire to learn." These 2 girls were wearing thin scarves across their neck to match their dresses, and it was called cultural appropriation. I'm sorry but how is this the theft of someone's culture and exploitation of it. These looked like 20 year old girls having a fun time in a video, not an ad, not a form of propaganda, it was a video made by a 20 something year old girl who wanted to show off their bridesmaids dresses. This did not deserve the reaction that it got. They did not claim that these scarves were theirs. They did not make any statement at all. They simply wore them. I expressed my belief that culture should be shared and almost everyone threw a temper tantrum as if a child had stolen their toy. "Culture doesn't need to be shared." Listen, I don't need to have a sweet treat after dinner, but it sure is nice to have one. Just because it doesn't "need to be shared," doesn't mean that you have the right to bash others who want to experience different cultures. And I would argue that culture does need to be shared. Otherwise how will we learn about one another. How will we gain comaraderie with one another if we don't embrace our differences. I believe that is why God made us all different. He made us this way to show that even though our styles, our foods, our clothes, our skin tones, our languages may be different, we can still have fellowship. I'm sorry but if you're hating on that, then maybe it's not so much a me problem, maybe it's a you problem.