Essay On Cultural Appropriation

Some people aren’t familiar with the term “Cultural Appropriation” which can be why the issue is so often overlooked. Usually, this occurs with people appropriating eastern cultures and religions. Although cultural appropriation can sound like a simple concept at first such as Chinese food adapting into American culture, it’s not that simple. Cultural appropriation can make people stereotype one another and it tends to taint religious and cultural symbols, which often leads to cause people of the original culture or religion to find it disrespectful and offensive.
Cultural appropriation normally occurs without any understanding of a particular culture and why they take part in certain activities and wear certain things. When people appropriate
Really they are expressing the views of that particular culture or religion in the end, not themselves. People can be seen wearing saris and Muslim hijab’s and they seem to think of it as a fashion “trend”. Hijabs and saris are not a “trend” for those of the particular religion. You wouldn’t wear a cross if you weren’t a Christian, would you? There are too many things wrong with cultural appropriation for it to be acceptable in today’s society. Firstly, it trivializes violent historical oppression. To some people this may not seem like a good enough reason to stop wearing their favourite kimono or bindi but when violence targets a particular group of people through genocide or slavery the trauma of the past will last through generations. Cultural appropriation allows white people to do freely, what people of colour were punished for doing in the past, is this fair? Yoga can be a common example of this. Yoga was once banned in India as part of the “racist and orientalist narratives” which forced Indians to conform to western ways, but nowadays yoga seems to be everywhere. Cultural appropriation perpetrates racial stereotypes Dr. Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations once said: “You are pretending to be a race that you are not, and are drawing