I hear all this uproar all the time about people who use cultural appropriation, yet sometimes I just don’t see what the problem is. I get that it has been done for malicious intent before and I’m not defending that or suggesting I agree with doing it for such purposes, but is, for example, a chef cooking a certain dish that originates from a land that is not his own, or other examples, really worth the same uproar?
My take:
it’s rarely malicious. Usually a mixture of innocence/ignorance/and misplaced fun. E.g. dressing up as an indian (first-nations) chief for halloween. That does not deminish or ex use the hurt it causes. It’s a learning opportunity.
Food does not qualify as cultural appropriation. It is a legacy to be shared. I’ll be damned if anyone tells me what I can and can’t cook. A white chef can open a sushi restaurant, can do the decore as such, but shouldn’t dress-up japanese.
Culture is meant to be shared. Nothing wrong with partaking in culinary, philosophical, intellectual, spiritual traditions from around the world. Cultural appropriation is when you superficially appropriate cultural facets in a way that both disrespects the culture (e.g. Jamaican dreads without being a rastafarian) and diminishes the living breathing people of that culture into a stereotype.