Cultural Appropriation In Fashion

America is one of the most diverse nations in the world. It is a melting pot of cultures, which has made it a great nation. This variety of cultures has helped impact and build America into the great nation we are today. One of the cultures that has influenced America is the Black Culture. This particular culture is known for their evolution of music and fashion and also their trendsetting skills in hair and dance. Unfortunately, like every other culture, they have had to face cultural appropriation.

Both racism and classism contribute to the cultural appropriation of black culture because culture is not always portrayed in the right context, often viewed as a negative or stereotype for the group in which the cultural component belongs to and white groups tend to capitalize on the appropriation of other cultures. The appropriation of black culture is nothing new, nor is black culture a trend or recent fad. The usage of elements of black culture through appropriation contributes to the marginalization of the people and some of the major forms of oppression, in particular racism and classism. Racism being a primary factor; it is a form of discrimination towards an individual or group of people based on their race. Classism playing less of

Walking into the Intersections exhibit at UCLA Fowler Museum, I immediately encountered varying masks from different countries as representation of their cultural beliefs. The Intersections exhibition features different objects from the countries primarily of Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. These objects serve as a medium to communicate the stories from the past and how it connect to the present, as well as identify the social context that each item represents. For example, one of the items displayed is a silk shoulder cloth made in Sumatra. The shoulder cloth can be seen in ceremonial events. To display the shoulder cloth is to convey the significance of the textile, as well as serve as the primary marker of the female skill and status. This tradition is not much different from what we see in today’s world. Particularly with women, “name brand” clothing and accessories are much sought after as it play a significant role in elevating one’s social or economic status. Taking that perspective into the counseling world, a counselor does not associate the client who wears all name brand clothing as having such a significant role in society. A client’s disposition would alert the counselor such as if the client was unkempt and disoriented, and would be more of a concern to the counselor. In this particular instance, the

Cultural Appropriation is a problem because we do not choose to accept other people livelihoods. “ cultural appropriation typically involves members of a dominant group exploiting the culture of less privileged groups.” (Little, Cultural). That is the society we live in today, we do not want to understand other cultures, race, and ideas. It is like when our mothers say don’t judge a book by its cover, it is the most important lesson we can all learn in this lifetime. When a dominant group is comfortable, it is easy to dismiss the less privileged problems because it isn’t the reality they face. America shouldn’t be based on dominant and dominant, it should be recognized as one

Cultural appropriation is the product of globalisation in the 21st century. Fashion designers from around the globe are continuously appropriating from one another. Cultural appropriation refers to the adoption of cultural elements from other cultures (Young, 2008). Appropriation has given the freedom to the dominant group to dress beautifully; however, it has devastating consequences for the minority group being appropriated, particularly the Native Americans. For decades, social activists were unsuccessful in stopping companies from selling Native inspired designs (Trevor, 2016). Appropriation in fashion has affected the spiritual significance and livelihood of these indigenous people. This paper aims to examine how cultural appropriation has negatively affected the Native

After reading Laura Bohannan’s Shakespeare in the Bush and Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, a common theme presents itself between the two articles. Ethnocentrism, particularly within the U.S., is elucidated through the actions of Bohannan while in West Africa, and the reaction of any American reading Miner’s piece about the “magical” Nacirema culture. In Bohannan’s piece, she struggles to prove that Hamlet is a universal story that any culture can easily understand. She speaks to the elders of the Tiv people, and is shocked to conclude that they do not understand Hamlet the way Americans understand it. In Miner’s piece, he cleverly presents the idea of the culture of the Nacirema people who are sadistic in nature, and lack logic

Cultural appropriation has been used throughout history to imply messages in both art and design. Often used in political art, satire and contempary art, this type of insinuation uses popular symbols of a culture or sub-culture (these symbols often stem from stereotypes so that they can be understood by the masses) to further layer an artwork or imply a deeper meaning by hinting towards a characteristic of said culture. The key to identifying appropriation is whether these symbols and signs are being used out of their original context. It is therefore important to understand the meaning of cultural appropriation and how it is used, to completely comprehend these works of art. This essay considers three works and how cultural appropriation was

Being black in America has become a curse and a blessing for those who identify within the black community. Most mainstream artists that are successful are black, there is biracial president who identifies himself black, and black culture has become the popular culture. Ironically, there in lies the problem with black culture becoming the dominating culture. Everyone wants to be black until police brutality, racism, and a historical prejudice are brought into the mix. In my group our topic was the title of my paper, “Shades of Grey”: Narratives of Black Experience. We covered the topics of the view of African-Americans in society, media coverage and stereotypes, and black cultural appropriation. My portion of the group assignment was to cover black cultural appropriation.

Both cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation are major topics in today’s society. However, cultural appropriation is a large problem that is widely ignored as a problem. Its general presence, as well as its prevalence in social media perpetuates harmful stereotypes and can cause several other problems. Acts of appropriation carried out by influential people are problematic because they are widely seen and

African-American pop culture and pop culture in general, may be researched by a lot of researchers but I still get the impression that its roots are badly overlooked. Pop culture isn’t only an entertainment but it has some great depth into it that makes it worth learning the subject. In my thesis, I want to give more attention to the development of the African-American culture throughout all these years from the very beginning. How only one race can make a significant changes, not only in their own nation but in the country they’ve been brought to ruthlessly. It’s amazing how the human race that used to be treated literally like animals, representing the lowest class, benefitted the ones that used them in the past with their creativity

It can also be said that the discourse of honor resulted in misunderstood or misidentified Native Americans speaking out on behalf of the mascots. Many of those who spoke out in favor of the mascots were found to be “self-proclaimed” Native Americans. These people were maybe one-sixteenth Native American or confusedly said to be related to a Native American chief or princess. The article by Pauline Strong supports this idea stating “given this pattern of socialization, many non-Indians come to feel deeply invested in Indian mascots... Such an emotional investment is a form of White privilege akin to that analyzed more generally by George Lipsitz (1998). In identifying themselves with pseudo-Indian symbols, non Indians come to feel authorized to appropriate and even to profit from these symbols as well as to

Cultural appropriation occurs when people adopt aspects of a culture that is not their own. More specifically, it occurs when people from a dominant culture steal customs, styles, and/or ideologies from a marginalized group of people in order for them to personally benefit. This harmful process has been taking place within the U.S. and around the world for hundreds years, although few people have taken the initiative to put a stop to it. Many individuals don’t even see an issue with cultural appropriation at all. White people do not have the right to borrow from other cultures because of the way we have, and continue, to oppress the people of these cultures in our society.

Broadly defined, cultural appropriation is the use of the aspects of one culture by members of other cultures (Young, 2010). However, it is important to note that not all cultural appropriation is equal. In his synthesis, Richard A. Rogers (2006) categorised cultural appropriation into four groups: cultural exchange, cultural dominance, cultural exploitation, and transculturation. The debates surrounding cultural appropriation mainly focused only the usage of a subordinated culture by a dominant culture without permission, which Rogers identified as cultural exploitation. This is different from cultural exchange and transculturation, which is done on equal basis, and cultural dominance, which is done by the subordinated

Over the weekend The Coachella Music Festival took place in Indio, California. Many to talk about cultural appropriation have used the outfits and styles many wear to this festival. This is even an Instagram dedicated to “Coachellaappropriation.” Or as Kathryn Sorrells titles it, cultural corruption which, “refers to the perceived and experienced alteration of a cultural in a negative or detrimental ways through the influence of other cultures” (p.158). For example, at Coachella you may see many non Native Americans wearing Native American Headdresses. As a Native American and someone who likes fashion I love wearing cultural jewelry, however if you are not Native American there will be backlash in many ways. First, a headdress is not mean for women to wear; rather it is for the men that have earned to power to wear it. Not only is it offensive to the Native American culture if a women wear it, it also is usually worn with not much else. The headdress is the fashion statement and minimal clothes tend to sexualize this cultural piece. The result is that in pop culture the dominant groups influence us and in turn, we are seeing headdress as a fashion statement and not attaching the cultural importance to the item, but instead offending other non dominant

It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it before, the problem was I’d seen it before, in memes and angry instagram post, and used as a joke in our daily lives to call someone over sensitive or just as a straight up joke. My mother often told me the story of the lack african firman. In her village the firman would come to the burning house to asses the fire, see how many buckets of water they needed. Then go back into station and get the buckets of water needed. The problem is when they returned they realized the house now needed twice the amount of water to be put out. This ideology has taken root in our society where, in our society we often times take words like cultural appropriation, once used to convey a serious point and through media convolute them so much through sites like urban dictionary so that there point is no there strengths are underestimated much like the fires in my mother villages. So let 's come up with a definition for this, that this isn’t on urban dictionary. In richard a rogers book titled, from Cultural Exchange to Transculturation Cultural appropriation is often mentioned but undertheorized in critical rhetorical and media studies. Defined as the use of a culture’s symbols, artifacts, genres, rituals, or technologies by members of another culture, cultural appropriation can be placed into 4 categories: exchange, dominance, exploitation, and transculturation. Or in english by activist