Sahra Denner posted this information about cultural appropriation vs cultural assimilation vs cultural exchange. There are important distinctions between the three, and this post explains the differences. Here’s what she had to say about this:
“Graphic I made for @thepowerthread ⚡️ Chances are, you’ve probably heard of cultural appropriation, so this graphic is meant to help distinguish it from two other concepts that tend to get confusing during conversations about cultural appropriation. Remember, these interactions are all about power – balanced or imbalanced. There are so many other examples and this list is not at all exhaustive. Thanks for reading and have a great day 💫”
Further reading links:
A Cultural History of White Girls Wearing Bindis
What I Hear When You Say – Cultural Appropriation vs. Appreciation
Some White Influencers Are Being Accused of “Blackfishing,” or Using Makeup to Appear Black
Source: Sahra Denner for @thepowerthread
Adopting something another culture uses or does because you like it is not cultural appropriation; it’s cultural exchange, and it’s been going on since forever. Whether an adopted thing was once used by that other culture in a different context is irrelevant. The adoption of images and styles typically used by another culture CAN be used to represent oppression or disrespect, true. But it CAN just as easily occur because a person likes the image or style and decides they’d like to make use of it for their own harmless reasons and in their own harmless way.
It’s easy to think that anything you don’t happen to like is an attempt at oppression; particularly when you mire your mind in nothing but the politics of oppression, as critical race theorists (who should perhaps more accurately be referred to as critical theory racists, due to their profound anti-‘white’ rhetoric) do. But this is simply not the case.
Oppressive individuals and cultures have certainly historically taken up the imagery, styles, practices and holidays of others, and then demonized their original cultures’ use of them. Christianity with its theft of pagan holidays and symbolism is a classic example of this. And yet, a large proportion of those screaming about ‘cultural appropriation’ today are themselves proud Christians who see no problem at all with continuing their religion’s abusive appropriation of those same pagan holidays and symbols, even after they acknowledge the truth of their religion’s theft thereof. This is the very definition of hypocrisy, of course, and thus marks them as hypocrites.
But perfectly non-oppressive cultures have also taken on such imagery in a non-oppressive context, simply because they liked it and saw a way to apply it within their own cultural context that didn’t in any way oppress the culture from which they acquired it. The widespread use of originally Celtic jewellery styles by African cultures is an example of that: they saw what the Celtic mercenaries travelling through their lands and fighting in their armies wore in terms of jewellery, thought it was cool and made their own versions of the same styles, with no oppression involved. This is why you see African torcs in places like Ethiopia: they’re a direct adoption from the Celtic torc, made for no other reason than that the locals liked the style. I doubt very much that they understood the cultural meaning of the Celtic torc, or that they much cared to; they liked the look, so they adopted it. That’s cultural exchange for you.
The critical theory racists need to wake up to themselves, and realize that not only have white people not historically been the greatest oppressors of everyone else, but that they materially have not been any different from any other culture or human sub-group in terms of their degrees of oppression, cultural appropriation and cultural exchange.
They need to acknowledge, for starters, that the peoples of Africa, Asia Minor, Asia and Europe all UNIFORMLY ENGAGED IN SLAVERY regardless of the colours of each others’ skins (even to the point where their precious Bible has no problem whatsoever with the idea of slavery, and even suggests laws for its proper conduct and the responsibilities of slaves to their masters). And they need to acknowledge that it was actually the people of the UK (who are ostensibly ‘white’) who were the first to end their practice of slavery, and who then funded and supplied native populations in order to help them end their own local regions’ practices of it. They need, most especially, to acknowledge that those living today bear no guilt for the actions of the past; because no-one is ever responsible for things done by others before they were even born.
In the equation of cultural exchange, the colour of a person’s skin or the actions of their ancestors or presumed ancestors does not matter: only the metaphorical colour of their heart is of consequence. Anyone can take anything and make of it their own, and no disrespect to any group need ever be inferred nor implied. If this fact automatically disconcerts you before you even think to ask the other person’s intent, then that has more to do with what’s going on inside you than it does with what’s going on inside them. Not every action is measured in some grand equation of oppression and victimhood; and nor does every action need to be. Some actions are perfectly innocent, and in that innocence may even be complimentary.