Cultural Appropriation vs Cultural Appreciation

In my last post, I wrote about my opinions and the definition of Cultural Appropriation, and I found a word "Cultural Appreciation". So I was studying what is Cultural Appreciation? In this post, I want to write about the differences between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation as I found out that most of the people (including myself) usually did not aware that when we are trying to appreciate a culture, we never thought is it appropriate, and it might brings harm more than good. This is the reason why we need to understand the differences Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Appreciation. 

A person wearing an outfit, put their palms together and eye closing intended fit into a stereotypical “East Asian” image. (Image from Everyday Feminism.)

First, What is  Cultural Appreciation? Cultural Appreciation is similar with Cultural Exchange. It is about learning another culture with respectation and courtesy, take time to learn, interact and both sides will gain knowledges of each other's culture. In another hand, Culture Appropriation is what I mentioned in the last post, use other people's culture to make money without understanding their culture.

Now, get into the point, there are a lot of things from another culture that will inspired us, such as music, fashion, food etc. 

"One of the problems with cultural appropriation is that it often ends up erasing the origins of things people of colour have create." (Johnson, 2016)

Some people create their "own version" of music/fashion/food but it named it by the same name in another culture. For example, few years ago a video called "The Harlem Shake" went viral on most of the social media. But no one actually knows that the name Harlem Shake was came from a completely different dance in the historically Black Harlem. 

Perhaps whoever named this new trend after the Harlem Shake thought they were playing respect to an overlooked type of dance. But in many Black Communities, Hip-Hop dance is the vita form of survival, self-expression.

Also, instead of putting attention on ourselves by doing social experiments to "experience" people’s experiences to feel how their lives like, we should listen when people from another culture sharing their experiences. 

Example, there are one social experiment video on YouTube, a white non-Muslim wearing a hijab to experiment how would the people react when she put her bag in a park.

Social Experiment: American Muslim Bag Experiment. (Sources from YouTube.)

Although the intention of the video was good, but we can still never truly know the life of an Arab Muslim that lived in a Western country. 

"One day's experience cannot compare to a lifetime of being the 'enemy.'" Ala Ahmad said. (Johnson, 2016)

It is good that when people wants or interested in other people's culture and experiences, but instead of Social Experiments, we should learn from the people who from their own culture.



Reference:

Johnson, M, Z. (2016) 7 Ways of 'Honoring' Other Culture That Are Really Just Cultural Appropriation. [online] Available on:http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/04/honoring-culture-appropriation/ (Accessed on 2th June 2017)

Rivers, S. (2016) Wednesday Weekly Vigil - Halloween Edition: Cultural Appreciation vs Cultural Appropriation [online] Available on: https://www.smith.edu/religiouslife/articles/2015/fall/weekly-vigil-cultural-appreciation-cultural-appropriation.php (Accessed on 2th June 2017)


Image/ Video:

Johnson, M, Z. (2016) 7 Ways of 'Honoring' Other Culture That Are Really Just Cultural Appropriation. [online] Available on:http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/04/honoring-culture-appropriation/ (Accessed on 2th June 2017)

YouTube (2017) Social Experiment AMERICAN MUSLIM BAG EXPERIMENT YouTube [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YVolX3sI-I (Accessed on 1th June 2017)