Cultural Appropriation Essay

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Cultural Appropriation Cultural appropriation is the act of negatively using ones culture (usually a hairstyle or item of clothing) for fashion without acknowledging the culture or its origins. Cultural appropriation has spread worldwide due to a surge in popularity of cultural clothing which is deemed by fashion websites to be the new thing to do; this includes traditional Indian Bindi’s, Native American headdresses and other clothing styles worn by people of an oppressed culture. In the picture above is a male not of Native American origin wearing a Native American headdress for what looks like a fancy dress party. It is an issue because he is exploiting the Native American culture by wearing their headdress with no regards to the oppression they had faced by the Americans from being separated from their culture and mocked for what they wore. It is argued that someone not from the culture should wear anything which belongs to another culture because they will not face the discrimination that people of the original culture do. A common controversy involving Cultural Appropriation is Kylie Jenner, and her decision to wear cornrows for an Instagram photo. The problem with what Kylie did was, that she had no regard for black culture and merely just posed as is cornrows were a fashion statement and not a cultural hairstyle which has ran through the black community for years. Not only this, but as a White American girl, she would never face the oppression or discrimination for having cornrows simply because she is White. A Black African American however, would be kicked out of schools; this has happened a number of times, just for having cornrows or dreads – this is why cultural appropriation is such an injustice to the cultures being appropriated. Zendaya Coleman, an African American teenage actress and recording artist was criticized by a woman on ‘Fashion
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