What Is Cultural Appropriation?

You hear about it on Twitter, in news headlines, and at Thanksgiving dinner. But what is cultural appropriation, anyway?

It’s not a concept designed to trick you. Taking off in the 1980s, the term cultural appropriation was first used in academic spaces to discuss issues such as colonialism and the relationships between majority and minority groups. Like many such terms, cultural appropriation eventually made its way out of the academy and into popular culture. (Other examples include gaslighting, an elaborate, all-encompassing form of deception, and triggering, “to cause,” as Merriam-Webster defines it, “an intense and usually negative emotional reaction in someone.” Both spent time as mainly academic words before gaining broader usage both online and off.)

Cultural appropriation takes place when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way. To fully understand its consequences, though, we need to make sure we have a working definition of culture itself.

Historically, deciding exactly what culture is hasn’t been easy. The earliest and most quoted anthropological explanation comes from English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, who wrote in 1871 that “culture…is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Tylor explains that culture isn’t biologically inherited. Rather, it’s the things you learn and do when you belong to a particular group.

It may not be immediately obvious from Tylor’s definition why adopting elements from another culture can be harmful. But there’s a difference between appreciating a culture, which might include enjoying food from another country or learning a new language, and appropriating it, which involves taking something “without authority or right,” as Merriam-Webster explains.

Let’s explore a few different ways cultural appropriation can be perpetuated, taken from a largely American context:

A member of a majority group profiting financially or socially from the culture of a minority group is cultural appropriation. In 1990 Madonna released the music video for her song “Vogue,” which featured a dance (voguing) developed in the gay drag-ball subculture. Though Madonna included drag performers in the video, ostensibly respecting the dance’s origins, she was the one who profited when “Vogue” went double platinum in the United States. Because Madonna gained financial and cultural capital from voguing in a way that its creators did not, her use of the dance was cultural appropriation.

A member of a majority group oversimplifying the culture of a minority group, or treating the culture of a minority group as a joke, is cultural appropriation. When the first iteration of the Cleveland Indians baseball team formed in 1915, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper wrote: “There will be no real Indians on the roster, but the name will recall fine traditions.” Though not intended as criticism at the time, that sentence neatly explains the problem with a concept like Native American sports mascots: they are not a product of actual indigenous cultures, but they represent what non-indigenous people assume indigenous cultures to be. Because these mascots rely on racial caricature and perpetuate false stereotypes of Native Americans, they function as cultural appropriation.

A member of a majority group separating a cultural element of a minority group from its original meaning is cultural appropriation. In the 2010s the rise of music festivals such as Coachella sparked new trends in festival fashion, including Native American warbonnets worn as headdresses. Unlike traditional Native American jewelry, much of which is sold by indigenous artists to customers of all cultures, these feathered headdresses hold a significant cultural purpose. Among Plains Indian communities, warbonnets are worn only by community leaders on special occasions; in other groups, they’re an earned honour not unlike a military medal. Because they separate the warbonnet from its original cultural meaning, non-indigenous festival attendees wearing Native American headdresses are practicing cultural appropriation.

A member of a majority group adopting an element of a minority culture without consequences while members of the minority group face backlash for the same cultural element is cultural appropriation. Dreadlocks have long been associated with Black culture—though it’s easy to find non-Black people wearing the style as well. Historically, though, Black people have faced discrimination for wearing traditionally Black hairstyles including locs: Black people with locs have been barred from walking at high-school graduations, denied jobs, wrongfully associated with drug use, and otherwise discriminated against. As a result of systemic racism, Black people face consequences for wearing dreadlocks that non-Black people do not. Non-Black people wearing their hair in dreadlocks is cultural appropriation.

As these examples show, the consequences of cultural appropriation can be wide-ranging. But they’re all ultimately the result of a more powerful person’s lack of thoughtful, respectful engagement with others—a dynamic that’s harmful whether it is intentional or not.