Why the Culture Appropriation Argument is Dumb

So if you’ve spent any time online in the past year or so, you will have heard the “culture appropriation” argument, which, upon first glance, seems like it could be a good thing. The culture appropriation argument comes into play whenever someone, be it an actor, a comedian, a social media netizen etc. utilizes something from a historically oppressed or minority culture. The argument is that such a person has no right to “appropriate” a culture other than their own, as this is seen as “colonialism” and “culture imperialism”. Both of those things, along with racism and pedophilia are considered to be capital offenses on American social media today.

The viral and controversial tweet

All that sounds very nice at first glance, but thinking about the implications at play here make this whole idea very disturbing, and logically contradictory. Let me take the recent example of the Animal Crossing “space buns” minor social media scandal. A Twitter user going by @stardewleaf who also is a player of Nintendo’s famous video game Animal Crossing, tweeted out an image of her in-game fictional avatar. In Animal Crossing, you can customize your avatar however you’d like, there are a bevy of cosmetic options available. This user had used a hairstyle she called “space buns,” presumably referencing Star Wars’ Princess Leia. The backlash to this completely innocent tweet was rather horrifying to say the least. Twitter users accused her of appropriating Black culture, specifically the “Afro puffs” hairstyle. Some outraged Twitter users reportedly encouraged others to “find and kill” Stardewleaf’s pet dog.

One tweet reads “…These are for POC NOT for people that are NOT POC”; another reads “Stop using Black hair if you are white” despite there being no obvious indication that Stardewleaf was white; another reads “SpAcE bUnS” she knew wtf she was doing,” implicitly accusing Stardewleaf of deliberately clothing and screenshoting her avatar specifically to offend black people. Reportedly, and unsurprisingly in my opinion, a lot of the Twitter users crying foul are not even black, but rather white people getting offended on black people’s behalf.

Of course, there are probably hundred of scenarios where the cultural appropriation argument is used on social media, many involving upcoming movies or pop culture. This is just one recent example.

This brings us to the title and topic of my article, “Why the Culture Appropriation Argument is Dumb,” and also harmful and hypocritical to any real social change. I caution readers not to immediately discount my arguments as “biased” or “privileged,” because to me that indicates an unwillingness to challenge your own beliefs, and are non-arguments. Feelings are not logic, and feelings do not discount logic. Moving on. Here are some problems with claiming “cultural appropriation” regarding pop culture.

1. The idea itself is inherently self-contradictory in it’s logical end result. As Twitter users have mentioned in the above example, white people must stop using black hairstyles. The self-evident conclusion to this, of course, would be that black people must stop using white hairstyles, which brings us back to Jim Crow-style segregation. There is also the famous example of voice acting, where it is asserted that white voice actors cannot voice black characters. Again, the flipside of this is that black people cannot voice white characters, which is segregation and obvious systemic racism. So why isn’t saying white people can’t voice black characters systemic racism? Speaking of segregation,
2. The frequent claiming of “that’s cultural appropriation” promotes an ideology of segregation and intolerance. If white people cannot absorb aspects of black culture, and blacks cannot absorb aspects of white culture, then that is clearly segregation, and discourages interaction between races. Discouraging interaction between races leads to even more segregation and increasing intolerance. How can we be “anti-racist” if we cannot share cultures?
3. Claims of cultural appropriation contradict other “woke” ideas, such as the idea of multiculturalism. The idea of cultural appropriation has no place in a truly color-blind society, where each culture is equal and allowed to spread and intermingle with other cultures.
4. Another logical outcome of this idea is the black people are not allowed to benefit from so-called “white culture.” This argument has already been used famously/infamously by the Smithsonian Institute in a controversial article regarding “whiteness.” “White culture” would presumably include basketball (invented by a white man), Christianity, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, a large amount if not majority of the inventions of modern society, democracy, etc. When taken to its fullest extent, which is total segregation of cultures, the implication is that black people should be sent back in time to the 3rd world monarchies of Africa. This was actually essentially the point of the Smithsonian article, exemplified by a viral graphic that I believe they since redacted.
5. Logic aside, cultural appropriation goes against the natural processes of cultural diffusion, which would promote actual tolerance, harmony, and multiculturalism. If people are allowed to try out different cultures, they grow to appreciate and understand them more, leading to a broadened worldview and expanded tolerance.
6. The frequent responses to the arguments that I have made so far is “I know cultural appropriation when I see it” or “I don’t care about logic issues or contradictions, what’s important is that POC’s have been oppressed”. The problem with both of these approaches is that by denying logic, you cannot predict logical outcomes, and by doing so you invalidate all technology in the world, and all common sense in the world. Presumably, this result is bad for everyone. Furthermore, POC’s being historically oppressed does not invalidate anything that I have said, unless you are advocating that due to historical injustice, black people today should be treated better than white people today. There are so many problems with that approach, the main one being that the conclusion is,
7. Black Supremacy. This is what SJW types seem to really be arguing for. Due to historic oppression of black people, they argue that we ought to adjust the scale, tip it in theoretical favor of people of color. We must fight White Supremacy by promoting Black Supremacy. This is absurd, ridiculous, and dangerous. Theoretical “equity” is not equality, and things like this create real systemic racism against white people, Hispanics, Asians, and yes even blacks.

In conclusion, segregation is a very bad thing. It is quite unfortunate that we seem to be reverting to it. Cultural diffusion, which every grade-schooler learns about, is far more preferable, and promotes kindness and true tolerance. If we are to attempt to truly end racism, we must strive to achieve a color-blind society, where cultures are allowed to share with each other.

Feel free to sound off in the comments if you agree, disagree, think I’m a biased racist, think I’m evil because I’m white, think straight people should be cancelled, etc.