Cultural Appropriation: Myth, Controversy, and Free Expression

In this episode of The Perspicacious Perspective, I tackle the contentious topic of cultural appropriation. I unpack what it claims to be, how it’s often misunderstood, and why I believe much of the outrage is overblown. From viral online controversies to historical examples like Jim Crow caricatures, I explore how culture, identity, and offense collide in today’s hyper-sensitive society.

I ask tough questions: Is cultural appropriation a legitimate critique or a manufactured grievance? And how should freedom of expression navigate this complicated landscape? I break it down with nuance, challenging mainstream narratives and arguing for thoughtful discussion over performative outrage.

Transcript

Welcome to the Perspicacious Perspective.

This episode will be all about cultural appropriation.

I didn’t think I’d have to do an episode on cultural appropriation since it seems so obvious to me that it’s not possible to culturally appropriate. But here I am.

Stay tuned in if you wanna know why I don’t think culture can be appropriated as I’ll be going through some of the controversies that sparked debate online.

Let’s start by defining cultural appropriation. 

It’s when theoretically, elements of one culture- often a marginalised one- are adopted or used by a member of another culture- which is usually the dominant one.

I mean… I found this definition online but even the definition itself is just so vague. Unless I have a bad definition or I’m missing something- it’s so nonsensical to me. Like I have so many questions already.

Like which elements are deemed to belong to a specific culture? What constitutes a marginalised culture? What constitutes a dominant culture? What qualifies as appropriation and what doesn’t? Who do we ask if we’re unsure? Is there like a cultural appropriation hotline we can use?

Sounds very fucking Animal Farm-like to me! An Orwellian nightmare if you will.

Anyway… I digress. So that’s the definition. It’s self-explanatory and axiomatic anyway. It’s the idea of ‘stealing’ or ‘appropriating’ something which belongs to one culture, and using it in another culture- which I guess will be the dominant culture. And let’s be real- when they say dominant culture. They mean white people. Whoever came up with the definition for cultural appropriation obviously bears much resentment for white people. 

I mean who else are they referring to here? Are they referring to the majority Han Chinese race and culture which predominates the world? Are they referring to the dominant 1.9 billion people that make up Southern Asia?

No, it’s obviously a contrast between the predominant white culture and the minority communities that now exist in the West. It’s obviously a myopic perspective taken on the West which fails to consider the world holistically and globally. It’s obviously an attempt to punish white people for having ancestors that were responsible for the colonisation of most of the world under the European, British an American aggressors.

I mean the reason I can’t even bring myself to be impartial about this topic is because I’ve lived in the most populous area of the world- Shanghai. Both Tokyo and Shanghai are the most populous areas of the world.

Shanghai is so populous, that the amount of people there made me question God’s existence- which is I guess why they say people should travel. 

I’m from Manchester which has a population today of around 2.8 million people. And that includes the Greater Manchester boroughs Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford. To give you context, travelling to another borough in Manchester feels like travelling to another city. In fact, many people from these boroughs don’t even identify as being from Manchester.

Shanghai however, has a population of around 30 million people. That’s 10x the amount of people I’m used to being exposed to. So you can only imagine how mind-boggling it would’ve been for me to observe that many people for the first time. And I didn’t notice right away.

I remember the first time I moved to Shanghai, I was in a relatively metropolitan area. Xujiahui if you know it. I thought I was bang on in the city centre as it has loads of malls, restaurants, banks, public transport, people, and everything else you would see in a city centre. It wasn’t until I learned that I wasn’t in the city centre that I started to question things. Obviously living there, I would end up running errands in different parts of the city and I remember being on the metro for a good 30-45 minutes in one direction and getting off it, all I would see are malls, restaurants, banks, public transport, people- and the same thing would happen no matter what direction I would travel in.

That’s when I realised how narcissistic and limited my worldview was. I thought… God can’t really give a shit about every single one of us! 

So I say this to say, when they talk of dominant cultures- they’re picking on white people. It is in fact the Chinese who make up the dominant culture in the world.

You would think by the definition that Chinese people would be disproportionately represented when it comes to committing this ‘cultural appropriation’ infraction- but of course you already know that this crap was made up to antagonise white people, not Chinese people.

So let’s get into some of the controversies…

So Elvis Pressley is often credited as the ‘King of Rock and Roll’, but many argue that he appropriated the musical styles of black artists without giving them proper recognition.

Again, who did Elvis Pressley have to call to give proper recognition to black artists? Who was the spokesperson for black people to give the go-ahead that he could use aspects of their culture in his song?

Now the thing is, I was a die-hard Michael Jackson fan when I was a teenager. Most people think that Michael Jackson invented ‘The moonwalk’. He didn’t. In theory, he appropriated the move from a Jazz legend called Cab Calloway in the 1930s and 40s and he actually called it ‘The Buzz’ at the time. He appropriated it from a famous tap dancer named Bill Bailey who was the first person to be recorded on TV doing ‘The Moonwalk’. He appropriated a lot of his moves from James Brown who was prominent in the 50s 60s and 70s. And he was taught the moonwalk by a guy called Jeffrey Daniel who was a street dancer who adopted the move from the LA street dancing scene in the 1970s. 

How many of you have heard those names before? If you haven’t, Michael Jackson obviously didn’t give them the proper recognition they deserved. Yes, they were all black, but I’m pretty sure none of them or their families received any royalties every time Michael Jackson did ‘The Moonwalk’.

Let’s take another example. P Diddy’s instrumental to his song in 1997 ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ which is a banger by the way… was appropriated by P Diddy. The white rock band ‘The Police’ released their version of the song in 1983 which was called ‘Every Breath You Take’. The reason I love this example is because P Diddy’s song ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ is such an iconic song in black culture across both America and the World. It was a song that eulogised Notorious BIG after his death in 1997 and I hope I don’t have to tell you how important Biggie’s contribution to popular black American culture was.

So the very victims of this bullshit cultural appropriation misdemeanour have used cultural appropriation to popularise their own culture. Can you see now why I say this concept is analogous to that used in Orwell’s Animal farm?

Let’s take a look at another controversy…

The American fashion designer Marc Jacobs used dreadlocks on white models at a fashion show in 2016 and said we should all be free to wear what we want. People saw his response as dismissive of the history of discrimination Black people face for wearing natural hairstyles.

Again, who does Marc Jacobs need to call for consent to use dreadlocks on his models? Which hairstyles qualify as dreadlocks and which don’t? Who qualifies as black enough to wear dreadlocks? And how the fuck does he find the time to address the history of discrimination black people faced for wearing natural hairstyles while he’s got a fashion show to run?

Yes, my rhetorical questions are designed to shed light on how ridiculous cultural appropriation is and Marc Jacobs was right. People should be free to wear what the fuck they want. There are 8 billion people on the planet and most of us change what we wear every day. No one gives enough of a fuck to monitor what everyone wears every day so wear what you want.

Let’s move on to the Halloween costumes controversy.

Halloween is interesting since it originated as a pagan festival in parts of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The church Christianised the pagan festival and called it Halloween. It was  brought to the US in the 19th century by Irish and Scottish immigrants and Halloween evolved into a secular holiday where people would wear costumes, go trick-or-treating and have Halloween parties.

So Halloween is uniquely a Western festival and evolved into one that encourages people to wear costumes to celebrate it. People decided to be offended by white people dressing up in Geisha, Indian or Mexican costumes as they viewed it as lampooning ethnic identities by reducing them to stereotypes.

Let’s be real, due the evolution of Halloween, you can never be sure if someone is trying to look good when they dress up for a Halloween party, if they’re trying to be funny, or if they’re trying to be unique- which is the whole point of Halloween.

It seems to me like another pathetic attempt to police what white people can and can’t do when it comes to other races and cultures. Claiming that they’re being insensitive to the cultures they’re masquerading as is a fucking reach.

Halloween originated as a celebration that marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, a time when the boundary between the living and the dead was believed to be thin.

It was never a celebration to lament Geisha, Indian or Mexican ethnicities troubles and tribulations.

And if you really think that white people should ask for consent or follow some protocol to be able to wear attire endemic to other cultures and ethnicities then I hope you think the same about ethnicities and cultures other than the white Western culture wearing a suit.

The three-piece suit was first worn by the British aristocracy under King Charles II around 1666 in an effort to formalise men’s fashion and reduce flamboyance at court. The suit’s standardisation was influenced by a British dandy called Beau Brummell which later became the standard formal menswear across Europe and America.

Considering most of the British former colonies were decolonised in the 20th century, why can you still see politicians and business professionals still wearing suits in America, Europe, Africa and Asia? Shouldn’t they follow the same protocol to be able to wear a suit?

The answer is obviously fucking no. It’s ridiculous.

Some of you might argue that this dress code was imposed on these cultures, but since they were decolonised, they have chosen not to dispense with this aspect of colonisation- and maybe for a good reason.

Now let’s be very careful about the difference between what people might see as cultural appropriation and satire.

It’s obviously not wise for a white person in the West to dress up as Jim Crow for example, or anything resembling Jim Crow which is why I think people have a point when they’re offended by the whole black-face thing.

Jim Crow was a racist fictional character which became so notorious, that it was used as the name for the entire system of racial segregation in the USA.

A white performer called Thomas Rice made this Jim Crow personage up in the 1830s, where he would satirise an uneducated, submissive and asinine character using black-face.

Don’t forget, black people were uneducated in antebellum America because it was a crime to teach enslaved Africans to read and write- especially in the Southern states.

The Jim Crow caricature led to the belief that black people in America were intellectually inferior to white people all the way up to the 1960s when black people were finally granted civil rights in America.

So does that mean I believe white people can’t dress up as black people? It depends. If they’re dressing up to play a role in a film it’s fine. I don’t think it should be against the law, but if a white guy dresses up as Jim Crow at a Halloween party, he deserves wants coming for him.

Freedom of speech and expression doesn’t mean you need to abuse your right to do or say something. So if I saw a white guy dressed up as Jim Crow at a Halloween party, I would probably say something to him.

But back to cultural appropriation.

Is it even possible to culturally appropriate something? Things evolve so much over time that it’s almost impossible to ascertain which parts of that culture originated within that culture.

Even the three-piece suit. Although it originated in England, the waistcoat was actually inspired by garments worn in Persia in the 17th century. So it’s hard to tell.

Also, when do you know if you’re celebrating or stealing something from another culture? I can tell you now, if you’re white and happen to be in Nigeria, the locals would love to see you in Nigerian traditional attire. If you decide to wear traditional Nigerian attire at home with your friends and family, I can’t think of any Nigerian that wouldn’t be happy about that.

I can see why people are so possessive about aspects of their culture since humans are naturally tribal.

We’ve entered an age where information can be circulated from one end of the world to the other in a matter of seconds, in audio or video format- and even in 4k.

To be honest, when I see 4k videos of kids dancing in Africa it makes me feel a certain way because when I was a kid, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to see anything like that unless you actually went there.

So the advent of the internet and social media probably have a big role in cultural appropriation but I don’t think we should fear what this is going to do with the cultures we’re familiar with. If anything, it’s an opportunity for our cultures to be exposed to the rest of the world and I think we should just embrace it.

As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that makes sense is to agree that aspects of a culture can’t be stolen or appropriated. We should let our cultures coalesce into the new modern world we’re in and be receptive to what that’s going to bring about for our cultures and traditions.

It’s virtually impossible to define culture which means it’s practically impossible to ascribe ownership of an aspect of a culture- to a given culture.

With that being said, we should dispense with cultural appropriation and exercise our rights to freedom of speech and expression responsibly.

Thanks for listening. Subscribe if you enjoyed the episode.

Peace out.