Cultural Appropriation vs Appreciation: Where do we draw the line?

The line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation is often blurred and hard to decipher. There are many questions which surround both these words and they are almost always difficult to answer. After all, what counts as appropriation and appreciation often varies from person to person.

Personally, I find that the difference between appropriation and appreciation is knowledge and understanding. Many objects from different cultures have a profound meaning and wouldn’t be appropriate for someone to wear for fun or aesthetic purposes. For example, an Indian saree, a very popular piece of clothing for women in India, doesn’t have a direct link to religion, and 95% of Indians said they didn’t have a problem with others wearing a saree. If we compare this to a bindi, a coloured dot mostly Indian women place in the middle of their forehead, which represents dedication to Hinduism and can also be seen as a third eye in the religion which wards against bad luck, we can start to see where the line between appropriation and appreciation can start to be drawn. 

Even if you find that a particular piece of clothing is nice for you to wear, I think it is vital to learn more about the culture. Knowing whether or not you can wear something is the bare minimum in order to respect and acknowledge other cultures but finding out about the culture is where appreciation comes into play. Make sure that you are using reliable sources to find out information about different cultures. Try to find websites or books written by someone who belongs to that culture, don’t just read the Wikipedia page on it. 

Sadly, the media has blurred the line between what appropriation is so much so that the general population has become very ignorant to what is and isn’t acceptable. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the fox eye trend, the trend where people would stretch their eyes for photos, as this became very popular over lockdown. The majority of people wouldn’t think that there was anything wrong with this trend, but this is completely false. People of East Asian descent were often mocked due to the shape of their eyes by people stretching their eyes, with it being identified as a racist action many years back. This is exactly what the fox eye trend is, so why is it suddenly ok? East Asians were mocked because of their eyes, something they have no control over, yet the minute a white girl starts to do it everyone thinks it's the prettiest thing ever. It isn’t mocked but praised, so why is the reaction different? I saw many posts circulating Instagram explaining why this trend was incredibly problematic and showed cultural appropriation, but due to the amount of people jumping on this trend, these voices were drowned out. People tend to think that whatever they see on the internet is also permissible for them to do, and this is why there are so many more instances of cultural appropriation than appreciation. If someone sees something online, they just believe that it's appropriate. No research goes into the origin of anything because people believe everything they see online is true. 

A girl came up to me in my English class asking me if she should paint a Buddha on her wall, since the image fit with the theme of her room. I told her that it wouldn’t be appropriate to have a painting of Buddha in her room, especially since Buddha is a religious figure who has very strong links to the Buddhists faith. Although she understood eventually, originally she asked me why? After all, Buddha statues can be seen in many places, such as garden centres or furniture stores. The image has been so commercialised that people don’t see the problem with massive companies selling religious symbols or statues. People have been so exposed to the image of Buddha being sold as a candle holder or a figurine that they are completely desensitized to those actual Buddhist links. It is very disappointing that I had to tell someone what the problem was with painting the Buddha on their wall but that is exactly what the world has come to through the influence of social media trends and the lack of knowledge surrounding this issue. No one knows right from wrong when it comes to cultural appropriation.

Sometimes, cultural appropriation is presented in things such as movies or music videos, with the sole purpose of showing an audience why it is wrong. Despite the good intentions, this misuse of culture raises lots of concerns, the primary one being is this a fair use of cultural appropriation? Even though the culture isn’t being used as an aesthetic, it is still being misrepresented, and this can be harmful to many people. A prime example of this is Mitski’s music video for her song ‘Your Best American Girl’. In the music video we see a white, American girl wearing a native-style shirt with a fake indigenous tattoo on her arm. Yes, this is 100% cultural appropriation, yet that is the whole point of the music video. The song is showing how white people have colonised on Indigenous land, to which Indigenous people no longer belong. Their culture and ways of life have been capitalised upon and turned into an aesthetic. So, can this interpretation of cultural appropriation be dismissed? After all, Mitski isn’t using the tattoo and native-style shirt as an aesthetic, but rather to support a deeper message of how Americans have shunned the indigenous population even though they had claim to the land first. Unfortunately, some people use the presentation of Indigenous culture in this video to attack Mitski, all with malicious intent. They aren’t bothered about the way she used the clothes and they don’t care about the cultural meaning, but they use this as an excuse to ridicule and shame her, and this is another problem with using cultural appropriation to portray a viewpoint. All it does is give people an excuse to penalise a creator.

I believe that the line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation is knowledge and understanding. Nowadays, there is so much misinformation online, and people don’t really fact check what they are reading. Appreciation is that extra step, checking facts and taking the time to gain more knowledge. If you are already someone who does a lot of research into different cultures, using reliable sources, well done. You are doing what countless other people can’t be bothered to do. Not everything online is trustworthy, so going that extra mile really shows that you appreciate different cultures.