Lina's Take on Cultural Appropriation

Hello, everyone!

The best thing about the internet is that we can learn a lot of things from all over the world without actually having to go places. From the internet, we can educate ourselves on a lot of different things and for me, that is amazing!

From the internet, I also learned about cultural appropriation. Okay, so from what I understand after seeing some arguments and reading people's opinions on the matter, cultural appropriation is when a person from another culture, take something from another culture and make it their own while completely disregarding what is the significance of the something that they take. Does that make sense? Like, one of the most famous example is the dreads. When black people wear dreads, they're reprimanded for it. And when white people wear it, they're called edgy and fashionable.

And yeah, I do agree that cultural appropriation is annoying, and it can also be very offensive. But where is the limit though? I've seen countless arguments on Twitter and how people just freely scream cultural appropriation on every single damned thing. *facepalm*

I don't know how it is for you guys in the USA or in the UK or in any other part of the world. Here in Malaysia, we've assimilated with each others' cultures so much that we just don't care anymore. Malays can wear Indians traditional clothing and nobody cares. Indians can wear Chinese traditional clothing and nobody bats an eyelash. It's as simple as that because for us, those are just clothes.

Just yesterday, my office was having a Diwali celebration to commemorate the Festival of Light and everyone, Indians and non-Indians alike were wearing Indian traditional clothes. And it was beautiful and colourful! Some were even wearing bindis.

So what I'm saying is, it's okay if you want to wear the clothes from the other cultures... as long as you understand it and not be all offensive about it? Like yesterday's case, we were celebrating a celebration with our friends and we wear their outfits for the spirit of it.

It is not okay, however, to wear their outfit and start talking in fake Indian accents and make all the racist, stereotypical jokes. That, for me, is when it becomes cultural appropriation.

Am I making sense at all right now? Idk. Malaysians have never cared much about things like clothing when it comes to the top three majority races (Malay, Indian and Chinese). The history goes a long time ago and so we just don't bother digging deep. We live in harmony now. Why ruin it with something as petty as clothing?

I don't even know what I'm rambling. Lol!

Anyway, have a nice day everyone! Until then, so long!

xxLina