People love the flavor the food offers until they meet the cook.
Textbook Definitions (Vocabulary Lessons)
Culture “The shared beliefs, values, customs, traditions, languages, arts, behaviors, and social practices that characterize a particular group of people and are passed from one generation to another.”
Cultural appreciation ”The respectful effort to learn about, understand, and engage with a culture different from one’s own. It involves acknowledging the culture’s history, significance, and contributions while showing respect for the people who belong to that culture.”
Cultural appropriation “The adoption, use, or imitation of elements from one culture by members of another culture, particularly when done without understanding, permission, acknowledgment, or respect for their original meaning. The term is most often used when members of a dominant group take elements from a historically marginalized culture in ways that can reinforce stereotypes, erase cultural significance, or profit from the culture without benefiting its members.”
Understanding The Big Difference: Appreciation vs. Appropriation
Appreciation seeks to understand, honor, and respect a culture while Appropriation often takes, uses, or profits from cultural elements while ignoring the significance.
Examples of Cultural Appropriation
1. Traditional Hairstyles as Fashion Trends : “Sticky Bangs” vs Laying Baby Hairs
Protective hairstyles such as cornrows, Bantu knots, locs, and baby hair styling have deep cultural roots within Black communities. For decades, Black individuals have faced discrimination in schools and workplaces for wearing these styles.
However, when celebrities, influencers, or fashion brands adopt these hairstyles and receive praise for being “edgy,” “fashion forward,” or “trendsetting” while the communities that created them continue to face bias, concerns about cultural appropriation emerge.
One example was the widespread popularity of “sticky bangs”. Sticky bangs have been defined as “gelling pesky hair to one’s forehead,” which, of course, sounds quite familiar, as this is the purpose of laying edges, a common practice in the Black community when not only having protective styles but natural styles out as well.
2. The Popularization 90s Hip-Hop Styling
During and after the COVID-19 quarantine period, social media saw a resurgence of aesthetics heavily inspired by 1990s Black culture, particularly styles associated with hip-hop fashion.
Many younger audiences encountered these styles through celebrities, including figures such as Billie Eilish, who embraced fashion influences that reflected broader 90s hip-hop aesthetics. While these influences were not created by contemporary celebrities themselves, some online discussions highlighted how audiences occasionally credited modern public figures for trends that Black communities had been cultivating for decades.
The concern is not necessarily that individuals wear the style, but that the cultural origins are often overlooked. When the public celebrates a trend without recognizing the communities that pioneered it, the history behind the style can become erased with one end of the pencil and redrawn with the other.
How to Practice Appreciation Instead of Appropriation
1. Learn the History
2.Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
3. Support Creators From the Culture
4. Listen to Community Voices
5. Avoid Treating Culture as a Costume
6. Be Open to Correction, especially if the one educating you is immersed in the culture themselves!
Culture is more than a trend, aesthetic, or social media moment. It is a living record of history.
Resources
Holmes, K. (n.d.). Cultural appreciation vs. cultural appropriation: Why it matters. Greenheart International.
Retrieved October 2023
Vox ATL. (n.d.). We need to talk about Billie Eilish [Opinion]. Retrieved October 2023, from https:/L
voxatl.org/billie-eilish-cultural-appropriation/
Essence. (n.d.). TikTokers are calling laid edges
“sticky bangs.” Retrieved October 2023,