Some thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

Over on the Facebooks, a friend of mine was kvetching about Cultural Appropriation, and as I think it is an important topic, I thought I'd do a slightly longer post.  

What is Cultural Appropriation?  If you just are looking at the words and not familiar with the context in which the term developed, you get something like "taking the products of one culture and using them for your own profit" - probably with overtones of not giving credit or recompense, from the appropriation bit.  That's not too far off.  Pick an artist whose style is grounded in a culture not their own, and you can probably slap that label on them, from The Rolling Stones to Picasso.    

Fair enough as far as it goes.  And labels change when they get into common parlance, so I'm not arguing that the above is _wrong_ so much as it misses the context, which is of course Colonialism.  A lot of the current meta in politics has grown out of the academic studies of the second half of the twentieth century around the nature and use of power in culture.  Consider african-american dancers adopting a European form of dance such as the "two-step" (which isn't exactly the country-western dance you see today, though there are similarities) and turning it into the "Fox-Trot" is, by the above definition, cultural appropriation.  They took something from a culture not their own, put their flavor in it, and without attribution profited (for a given value of profit, mind you, and we're getting to that) thereby.  

That, the academic case goes, is not "cultural appropriation" because of the power imbalance between the two cultures involved.  Now, you can balk at that hurdle right here and we're done, because if you don't accept that the label can change based on the circumstances of the participants, you aren't going to agree with anything else that follows. FWIW I am not unsympathetic to this point of view, though I don't hold it.  When the point is to identify the dynamics of power imbalances between different cultures, and how they play out in terms of justice, then I think it is important to work under the assumption that terminology will not map 1:1 with similar comparisons inside a homogeneous culture. I think that some people are just unprepared to accept that proposition - I know it took me a long time to come around to a point where I think its the best way to approach power dynamics.  But there you go.  The argument is that there is a fundamental difference between, say, Jazz musicians riffing on Classical music and oh, the Washington Redskins or Chicago Blackhawks using native american iconography (I'm trying to spread the examples around here).  

I'd further argue that there is a spectrum, rather than a black-and-white label to be applied.  When you look at the way that capitalism in general operates, it doesn't care who created the product - it just tries to maximize profit.  Similarly, most artists aren't trying to "steal" from other cultures, so much as they are influenced by what is out there in the world, and go on to create their own art, sometimes without giving much if any thought to those influences.  So what is Cultural Appropriation really about, then?  For my money its about describing systems of power, where that power is leveraged to the advantage of the dominant culture, often with the effect of marginalizing the lesser culture.  Examples abound.  Individual actors/directors/screenwriters/etc. might just be creating art, but think about Hollywood as a system in which White, Male culture is prioritized while drawing on the tropes and trappings of black/asian/native american/female/etc. culture for legitimization and marketability.  Why are so many politicians in America white and male?  There is a system of power that puts them there, and when that system draws on the tropes and trappings of other cultures to advance itself, that is Cultural Appropriation.  

To which one might say "So what?  Who cares if there are systems of power that take advantage of their position of power to re-purpose other cultures products?  Isn't that what being in power means, that you can take from those who have less power?"  In which case, I'd say the answer is in the question.  Is that what being in power means?  And if not, then isn't it right to call out such things, and label them appropriately?