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Cultural appropriation is the borrowing of traditions or practices—such as food, dress, music, or language—from another culture. Oluo believes that cultural appropriation is harmful when there’s a power imbalance between the borrowing culture and the one being borrowed from, as this can result in further economic or social oppression for the latter.
Cultural Appropriation Quotes in So You Want to Talk About Race
The So You Want to Talk About Race quotes below are all either spoken by Cultural Appropriation or refer to Cultural Appropriation. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 10
Quotes
But instead what I was standing in front of in that airport was a caricature of my culture. A caricature of the vibrant decorations and festive music. Everything I'd loved about African food had been skinned and draped around the shoulders of a glorified McDonalds.
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We can broadly define the concept of cultural appropriation as the adoption or exploitation of another culture by a more dominant culture. This is not usually the wholesale adoption of an entire culture, but usually just attractive bits and pieces that are taken and used by the dominant culture.
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Some modern and fairly well known examples of cultural appropriation by the dominant white culture in the West are things like the use of American Indian headdresses as casual fashion, the use of the bindi as an accessory, the adoption of belly-dancing into fitness routines, and basically every single “ethnic” Halloween costume.
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Think of artists like Elvis Presley who have been canonized in the annals of music history for work that was lifted almost wholesale from the backs of black musicians whose names most Americans will never know.
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That “legitimacy” bestowed by whiteness actually changes the definition of rap for the American culture.
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Cultural appropriation is the product of a society that prefers its culture cloaked in whiteness.
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Chapter 11
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“I’m glad it's not one of those weaves […] Those are so expensive and really bad for your hair.”
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Cultural Appropriation Term Timeline in So You Want to Talk About Race
The timeline below shows where the term Cultural Appropriation appears in So You Want to Talk About Race. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 10: What is cultural appropriation?
Oluo sees cultural appropriation as something that happens when a dominant culture exploits or uses an oppressed culture. Examples...
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The biggest problem, for Oluo, is that cultural appropriation betrays a society that “prefers its culture cloaked in whiteness.” In a society where all...
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