Cultural Appropriation Essay

There is no excuse for cultural appropriation, it has just become a norm to our society and most people try to ignore it. The idea of cultural appropriation can cause powerful emotional reactions, such as outrage, shock, sadness or even guilt. It is wrong to embrace a cultural trend that has been stigmatized when it was embraced by people of color, but once it becomes a white trend no one has a problem with it. Women of color across the globe were taught by western standards which deemed most of their cultural practices ugly, unprofessional, messy and criminal like. Between March and April of 1992, Canadians witnessed controversy on the pages of ‘The Globe and Mail,’ the problem was cultural appropriation. “Articles, editorials, and letters to the editor considered the propriety of depicting a culture other than one’s own, telling ‘someone else’s story’, and whether it was possible to ‘steal the culture of another’” (Coombe 2015). This argument was extremely intense because of all the emotion behind it. When a dominate group copies certain traditions from a society, it distorts the original meaning making it less valuable. The individuals that adopt these ideas don't normally understand the background/significance, therefore using it in a misleading and oppressive manner. Cultural appropriation is robbing minority groups

of the credit and respect that they deserve because the dominate groups are “borrowing” items and ideas from them. Cultural appropriation is extremely offensive to the past of cultures and is something deeper than the next trend, these issues have rooted far beyond our time and something must be done about it.
The targeted audience in this situation of cultural appropriation is typically African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and indigenous people because their traditions are unique and original. The dominant groups, typically white people, show interest in the other cultures traditions because of what they can initially gain from it and it “looks cool” to most of their viewers. Advocates of this include colleges and celebrates and most people don't even know they are appropriating when they do it. When it comes to claims makers of this situation, it is hard to say. It doesn't seem as though there are exerts on this claim and it is more or a societal problem that hasn't been fixed correctly. Although you can look at a notorious group, Black Lives Matter, which has been building connections between their allies to fight against anti-black racism to open resources for different practices for a way to train students, parents and staff to deal with interpersonal and cultural conflicts. Black Lives Matter demands that the war against black people end so that their can be more peace in the world. The root of cultural appropriation has come from racism and un-acceptance of a cultures value and the activists of Black Lives Matter are one foundation to stop that stigma of their oppressed community.
As you might be able to tell, claims makers are the root of it all and where cultural appropriation has really seen an issue recently is through media.

Media in some cases can become positive to the cause of a social problem and in other aspects it can hurt the movement. Within the past serval years, cultural appropriation has become normalized in the media, whether it be fashion, music, dance etc. it has been looked past constantly. This topic of cultural appropriation has caused a significant problem through social medias such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr Most trends have changed drastically recently, whether it be beauty to

music.
The Kardashians and Jenners' are a perfect example of media coverage on cultural appropriation. In 2015, Kylie Jenner set a challenge to enlarge your lips with YouTube tutorials on how to master it. These enlarged lips are the same lips that black and latin communities were mocked for and looked down upon tremendously. Another example of media coverage involving the Kardashians’ would involve not to long ago, women with curves and full bodies were thought of as fat and frowned upon. Yet recently after portraying their bodies females have began to gain weight, use waist trainers and squatting was introduced and still used to capture the new “perfect” body. Media coverage of cultural appropriation has had a negative affect on the issue because it glorifies celebrities that are appropriating and not appreciating the culture of where