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?
When people first started discussing the issues you are talking about they would use the term “Cultural Misappropriation” but over time people have dropped the “Mis”. In my opinion this was done because people aren’t very smart and didn’t understand what was being said, they just wanted to support a well meant trend. Cultural Misappropriation is inherently bad. Misappropriation means to steal.
Positive Cultural Appropriation is literally the end goal of liberalism. When you trade recipes that’s cultural Appropriation. When you learn a language that’s cultural Appropriation.
At least that used to be the case. Dictionaries now have the new usage. I think it might be a harmful misuse of a term though.