A prominent trend among the “progressive” left is identifying and stopping cultural appropriation. It’s become trendy to yell at white people for being influenced by various cultures and not embodying them the way you want them to. Some on the left even believe that white people should not even partake in other cultures because it is cultural appropriation. I am absolutely furious at this trend because no one should be policing others on how to celebrate cultures or on how to embody these cultures.

I am half Honduran and half Hungarian, and many of these “progressives” know next to nothing about either of these countries and their cultures. If someone wants to incorporate some elements from either Hungarian culture or Honduran culture, I would be extremely flattered because not that many people know about these cultures, or classify them under Mexican culture or Eastern European culture. Instead of yelling at someone for not embodying a culture correctly, we should celebrate that people are making an effort to become interested in cultures that are not the dominant culture.

The cultural appropriation or more accurately the cultural policing trend is not progressive in any shape or form. It promotes a society that may be culturally diverse, but is a conglomerate of homogenous cultures. Every culture can learn something from one another, and if we truly want to move to a multicultural world we should be willing to incorporate aspects of cultures different from our own in our everyday lives.

By the movement against cultural appropriation’s own logic, we should only care about the cultures that we were born into, and not attempt to understand other cultures because our understanding will never be good enough. If we do not take the time to understand other cultures for the fear of appropriating them, we will actually be doing more harm because historically when cultures do not try to understand each other one is usually destroyed. No one wants to see their culture destroyed, and if we truly want to preserve our culture we should allow other people to be inspired by them and keep different aspects of it alive.

Another problem I have with the movement against cultural appropriation is its racism.

The only group of people that are accused of cultural appropriation are white people. White people are ridiculed and threatened with violence for wearing cornrows or dreadlocks, while non-white cultures can straighten their hair, or even appropriate other non-white cultures and it’s seen as survival. The movement against cultural appropriation has already failed because they do not realize that anyone regardless of their race can appropriate another culture. The dominant culture may be white, however their are still cultures that are predominantly white that are not part of the dominant culture such as Hungarian culture. When we do not hold everyone to the same standards, the movement fails because people are resentful that one group can do the very thing they criticize and still be seen as progressive.

Lastly, only allowing people to adopt aspects of a culture if they are approved by people of that culture leads to horrible authenticity tests that diminish people’s connection they have with a culture because it’s not good enough. I do not know everything about both the cultures I am a part of, however that does not mean that I should have someone who is more Hungarian or more Honduran than me tell me how I should practice my culture. I should be able to be inspired by my cultures and other cultures without waiting for approval from someone. To have arbitrary qualifications for embodying certain cultures means that no one can because there will always be something that is not 100% perfect about one’s adaptation.

It is okay if the embodiment of a certain culture is not 100% perfect because cultures change throughout history and are reinterpreted. Progressives should not tout themselves as authorities of culture because chances are they do not have perfect knowledge of every culture. We should be influenced by other cultures and shouting cultural appropriation only serves to keep cultures divided instead of bringing them together.