Is cultural appropriation always done with malicious intent?

No.

It’s almost always completely innocuous and innocent. That’s why calling it out is a thing.

I imagine many people have lost the plot, but the point of calling out cultural appropriation is not to stop appreciating other cultures and their designs, clothing, ethnicity, everything else. It’s to stop from whitewashing it, to prevent it from being absorbed by Western society and its individuality stripped from it and sold to the highest bidder.

As long as the thing that is a cultural thing is appreciated as a cultural thing, it’s fine.

Most of the stuff people call out as cultural appropriation is literally not. They’re just virtue signalling white knights that think appreciating another culture is stealing said culture.

Cooking dishes from another place is not cultural appropriation. Especially if Jamie Oliver is the one cooking. Tho I do understand the fears of a British man liking your culture’s stuff and believing they want to steal it.

The problem with food is, it’s all cultural appropriation at some point in the time line. Who gets to decide at what point in history do we lock down the recipes and call it pure?

Can’t really call tacos Mexican, because it originates from Lebanese immigrants.

Sushi rolls aren’t Japanese, but they sell them in Japan.

Siracha is a product of the U.S.A. Although it has Thai roots, but is available at any Vietnamese restaurant.

Who gets to make the rules, it is certainly not some famous chef, we just to tell them to fuck off.

Cultural malice can certainly cause offense, but to me cultural appropriation is a distinctly different offence, due specifically to willful ignorance. When cultural symbols have a very specific meaning, and are misused as vaguely exotic, people of that culture, who know those symbols and see them being used ignorantly and improperly, and now know that you didn’t really care about their culture, couldn’t even be bothered to ask anybody or look up how to use them authentically.

As a non-example, I don’t consider it cultural appropriation when culture when I eat tacos, assuming I eat them for the same reason the Mexicans do – their people’s food is better than my people’s food.

There was a “Scandinavian Scarf” controversy that happened last year and someone had shared these links (warning, these sites will probably give your phone cancer if you don’t have ad blockers): link 1, link 2.

I think this paragraph summarizes the issue:

Imagine logging onto Instagram or TikTok and finding the vibrant, flowing dupatta—a cultural staple worn across South Asia for generations—suddenly rebranded as the “Scandinavian scarf.” No mention of its roots, no nod to its cultural meaning, just a new label, a new aesthetic, and a flurry of confused applause from Western fashion influencers.

Pretty much every single Indian I know loves it when anybody wears their traditional clothing, cooks their food, or even attempts to sneak in a word or two from their language. Nobody has a problem when someone wears a saree or a kurta and calls it a saree or kurta. Nobody called that cultural appropriation.

The problem was with western designers/brands repeatedly taking traditional Indian wear and rebranding without any credit to the source.

I don’t really have a horse in this race. But I do agree with that proper credits should be given where it’s due. We expect the same with art, right? So why not with culture?

Exhibit A

The issue with cultural appropriation previously was that those from the culture were denied opportunities to make money off their own culture. There are still some economic restrictions, but the political and cultural restrictions are mostly gone.

There were some cultural appropriation complaints when the chopped cheese got big for a hot minute, but it was widely sold in bodegas already so it didn’t have a single creator and a lot of people wanting to try it went to Harlem and the South Bronx to get it. More places started selling it, but it wasn’t like the original bodega owners were barred from being a part of the dish’s expansion. It was just really easy to make.

Sometimes I feel like calling out “cultural appropriation” is just a covert way to yell for “cultural purity”, which is just xenophobia.

Sure, not every “import” of a different culture is done in good faith, but just because some assholes do it wrong doesn’t mean everyone is wrong.

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.

• 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.

Reading into the articles linked and doing a bit of refreshing about it (I vaguely remember there being issues about Jamie Oliver’s jollof rice) the issues arise from him doing a “spin” on it, and still calling it jollof rice.

It doesn’t seem to me that the issues were over him appropriating the dish but rather calling something that isn’t jollof rice or paella or any other dish that Oliver has massacred, and then calling it the original. It presents a world to his audience that doesn’t exist and minimises the culture and cuisine that he’s interpreting.

I kind of get it from both sides, he’s trying to sell books and TV shows and there’s only so much food in the world and I think he’s pretty much done a recipe for nigh on everything already. But when I’ve wanted to replicate a dish I’ve eaten, because I’m a food nerd (and worked for 15 years in professional kitchens) it’s about studying a cuisine and wanting to celebrate it as authentically as possible.

To actually answer your question, no I don’t believe it’s always malicious or even intentional.

“Cultural appropriation” as in idk claiming something that had been taking place forever halfway around the world because it’s cool, elevated or positive in any way is certainly malicious (profiting from it without even the acknowledgement of it also fits here). If it’s just eating tapas while visiting Valencia and saying “moochass grassyass”, or celebrating a holiday that’s not from the culture you’re from and dressing up because everyone from that culture is, then no. At most, it’s tone deaf, ignorant or a bit cringy, but there’s no malice behind it so we gotta let it slide and see it for what it is: people wanting to share in with other people’s experiences. 🤷‍♂️

And there’s a lot to hate in the way people behave, but we gotta be cautious about overdoing it.

It’s always white people calling out other white people, and almost never people from the actual culture. And I have never seen white people complaining about their culture being appropriated. So I don’t think it’s a thing.

I put it to you that cultural appropriation doesn’t exist. Someone either borrows from a culture because they think it’s beautiful or they maliciously make fun of it.

The idea of cultural appropriation itself was created with malicious intent.

It serves only to give toxic people an excuse to start drama on other people’s behalf because they couldn’t find enough problems in their own lives to justify their anger problems.