In my spring semester composition class, our final project was a research paper. I at that point in my life, I did not enjoy writing nor did I consider myself a writer in the slightest bit, so as you can imagine I was not thrilled to take on this project. My professor, Kelly, kept encouraging us to really make the project our own. She was not giving a lot of guidance as far as topic and where to go in our writing. This style of teaching was not what I was used to with writing. Most of my writing teachers were very specific, so Kelly’s creativity challenge was hard for me.

I was in the process of becoming the Black Student Union president at a PWI, so topics of race were, and still are. a big part of my daily conversations. I had also just come back from the Big XII conference in Lawrence Kansas. At the conference I sat in a session called “Everyone wants to be a Nigga, but nobody wants to be a Nigger” with the speaker Bryant Smith. This session was really powerful and inspired the topic of my research paper, cultural appropriation.

Although my topic was chosen, I still had no idea where to go with it. Kelly was still encouraging me to challenge myself and think outside of the box and find my own way. I finally narrowed it down to the appropriation of black culture. I was just going to talk about culture appropriation and give examples of where we see black culture being stolen in the past and present. Pretty basic. One day in class, Kelly told us to fill the gap in the research already done on our topics. That statement completely opened my mind. I don’t know why I never thought about that. I just was spitting out what had already been researched in my own words. I had never thought about adding my own opinion and thoughts to the conversation. So I really looked at my topic and everything I knew about it, and decided to talk about the effects of cultural appropriation on the black community. I got even more specific as I researched and came to the psychological effects of cultural appropriation on the black community. The effect that I kept coming back to was self-hate. I want to share with you my theory that cultural appropriation has a direct link to self-hate in the black community. Below is my research paper.

Where Black Pride Went

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of identifiers from one culture (clothes, traditions, etc.) by another culture. This seems harmless at face value, but when one looks at the effects of that act on the culture being taken from its much more immoral than simply sharing ideas. This is defiantly the case with Black culture. For years, African Americans were told we were less-than while our accomplishments were being passed off as a white man’s success. As far as history is concerned, our story beings at slavery and ends at the “I Have A Dream” speech. The true brilliance of black culture was left on the shores of west Africa. Our heritage was tossed over board into the Atlantic. Our identity was beaten out of us on the plantation. A false history was fed to us with Jim Crow. We over came these hardships but it still left our community longing for an identity lost by the systematic hate of our oppressors. Self-hate is a problem in the black community. No one is proud of being African American because we were told that being white was better. We are never taught about how amazing it is to be black because our culture and innovations were stolen from us. There is a direct link between cultural appropriation and self-hate; not knowing where you come from leaves you with nothing to be proud of.

When people steal other cultures, they say they are celebrating that culture. There is a distinct difference between appreciation and appropriation. Appreciation is recognizing the good qualities of someone else. A person can appreciate aspects of another culture. That appreciation ends when that person claims it as their own or diminishes the importance of that particular object to the rightful owner. Once that person takes ownership of something that is not their own or turns something of importance into a joke, that is where the appropriation starts.

Unless some one is apart of that culture, it is hard for them to understand the importance of certain aspects of another culture. Jamia Wilson wrote an article called “Consider Historical and Political Context When Appropriating Others’ Culture.” In this article she explains how important it is to understand the “back story” before you get involved in something. Wilson eloquently says “Context matters. When we carelessly adopt the culture of oppressed groups without regard to history, unequal power dynamics and the political context of our actions, we risk causing further damage” (Wilson1). Not understanding the history, importance, or meaning of something before taking it from someone hurts that person in a way that the thief will never understand because the identifier they stole does not have the same significance it has to the original owner.

Cultural Appropriation is not an act of racism. It is often associated with racism but those are two very different injustices. Taking from another culture comes from a place of entitlement. It starts when someone feels so entitled to the world that they believe everything in it belongs to them. Some cases of this inconsiderate behavior are more obvious than others, but it can be a very subtle. Simply thinking you can say rude things because you are a “brutally honest person” or believing that its not your job to clean up after yourself in a public place because there are janitors are both very subtle forms of entitlement. But that way of thinking grows and turns into appropriating other culture without even thinking about it. People believe they can wear a hijab for fashion and ignore the religious meaning behind it, or they can sexualize the burka in complete contrast to the modesty indented by this garment, or they can wear black face with no regard for how offensive it is to make a caricature of someone’s identity. These actions are all centered around the personal enjoyment of that person without any regard to the affect that has on the people of that culture. Appropriation is feeling like you have the right to claim someone else’s identity whether it be for your own entertainment or to advance your own self worth. Racism also stems from a place of entitlement. It is believing you have the right to mistreat others based on their ethnicity. Because these two injustices, racism and cultural appropriation stem from the same place they are often associated with each other, but they are very different.

People tend to mistake appropriation as a positive result of globalization. They claim that through a globalization (a global economy), cultures are being shared and blended. They are wrong. Appropriation is taking something without consent and claiming it. It is not a culture willing sharing their practices. In the article “Our Cultures are Not Your Costumes” written by Eden Caceda, she explains how sharing (a result globalization) and stealing (appropriation) are different. Caceda says “Cultural exchange occurs within a space of respect and engagement” (Caceda 1). There has to be respect of that culture in order for sharing to occur. The difference is clear between respecting the rightful owner and the meaning of something to that owner versus taking ownership of it and disregarding its meaning. For example, wearing headscarf as a part of your fashion and claiming it as your own trend is appropriation. Headscarves (hijabs) are apart of Muslim culture and an identifier of Muslim women’s commitment to modesty.

Culture goes beyond clothes, it also things such as includes intellectual achievements and art. In the context of cultural appropriation, these are not talked about as much as clothing. Even though it is not as talked about, it is stolen at the same rate. Black music has been being appropriated since Elvis. He is famed for being the king of Rock and Roll, but it has been proven several times by several sources that he stole every aspect of his style of music and performing from African Americans. Yet still to this day, he is labeled a king of a form of music he had nothing to do with creating (Kolawole). The constellation Andromeda is based on a Greek myth. Like most Greek myths, this story is based off of real people and real events. Andromeda was a beautiful woman and her image is depicted in the stars. When Googled, the story talks only about the Greek myth and she is depicted as a white woman, but the woman this story was based off of was an African princess from Ethiopia (constellation guide). Finding that part of the story is much harder. Another example is Charles Drew. He is the man that discovered the blood transfusion. When his name is Google Image searched, a white man’s picture appears or a man of an unidentifiable race. Charles Drew was undoubtedly a black man, so much so that he was denied a blood transfusion at the hospital for being black, which resulted in his death on the steps of that hospital (Chamberlain). Yet he is depicted as another race. The reason being society tells us that there is no way a black man was smart enough to make such a monumental discovery, therefore he must be white. These are three examples of the side of cultural appropriation that is not talked about. When such huge accomplishments and stories are taken from the black community it leaves a whole in the identity of African Americans.

Having honorable parts of your history rewritten, left out or out right stolen, cultivates miseducation. This miseducation is not just for the people of that particular culture but also for society as a whole. When a white man is given credit for every accomplishment of a black man, the public sees the black man as useless, uneducated and a menace to society. When these are the only qualities publicly associated with your culture, you begin to believe them. This cycle creates generations of misinformed individuals. It might not seem that important to someone’s future to study the past but as Dr. Joy DeGury Leary put it her book “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” (a book based on her doctoral thesis). “We must return and claim our past in order to move toward our future. It is in understanding who we were that will free us to embrace who we are now” (Leary 6). That is the meaning of Sankofa, a symbol and a principle. A person will have no idea who they are without understanding where they come from. There is no way to really form your identity without knowledge of your past.

Black culture is appropriated and replaced with a negative twisted definition of what it means to be African American. Generation after generation has been fed this definition to the point of believing it to be true. If for years you were told that the color of your skin was equivalent to stupidity, anger, aggression, over sexualized characters and self destructive behavior, would you be proud? Or would you try your hardest to be associated with anything but that characterization. Self-hate is a major problem in the black community because no one wants to be what they perceive being black to be. Many African Americans associated themselves with other cultures by claiming to be mixed race or trying to change their appearance to look more white — chemically straight blonde hair, blue contacts, skin bleaching or purposely having biracial children to erase their black heritage. African Americans have grown bitter toward themselves and others like them because they believe the stereotypes they have been fed.

These examples of self hate have been called appropriation of white culture. People say that when minorities try to be white, they are appropriating white culture. What these people do not understand is the psychological damage that has been done over years to make these minorities believe that their own identity is not worth owning. The imitation of white culture by minorities is the result of colonization. When indigenous people were forced to assimilate to European culture during colonization, they taught their children this foreign culture. White Europeans thought they were helping improve the lives of “uncivilized” people by eradicating their culture through scare tactics and genocide. Even the separation of generations, taking children away from the adults that could pass down cultural traditions, in order to create a new generation raised on European culture alone. This caused people to not raise their children in their own cultural traditions out of fear of loosing them. Their culture disappeared with the fear that was instilled in them by their colonizers. What was left was need to be white because that was what was socially accepted.

As an African American woman, this is my everyday life. A lot of people who do not believe that cultural appropriation is real or had no idea about it, have never had to live through it. Growing up and trying to learn about my history was difficult. If it did not have to do with the major mile stones of slavery or the civil rights movement, it was like it never existed. My history teachers would not even teach those sections of our textbook because it “takes too long, and isn’t that important.” If I wanted to learn about who my people were, I had to search on my own time. It would take hours to find African Americans depicted in positive light. This a problem that white children will never have. They will never have to leave the classroom to learn their heritage or have to find something about it to be proud of. If the accomplishments of African Americans were not stolen and buried, African American children would grow up with a sense of pride in their ethnicity.

Self-hate is directly related to cultural appropriation. Not being proud of who you are comes from a miseducation of where you come from. From clothing to music to intellectual property, black culture has been appropriated for years. Because African American children are not educated on their past, they are left with what the media tells them they are — angry, aggressive and uneducated. No one, no matter their race, wants to be labeled so negatively and because this is all they know, they try to align themselves with other races at any cost. If there was a more open and truthful dialogue about black history happening within society, black children would have so much more to be proud of and strive toward.

Works Cited

Caceda, Eden. "Our Cultures Are Not Your Costumes." The Sydney Morning Herald. N.p., 14 Nov. 2014. Web.

Constellation Guide. "Andromeda Constellation." Constellation Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.

Kolawole, Helen. "Helen Kolawole: He Wasn't My King." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 14 Aug. 2002. Web. 04 May 2016.

Leary, Joy. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. Milwaukie: Uptone, 2005. Print.

Lutz, Hartmut. "Cultural Appropriation as a Process of Displacing Peoples and History." (n.d.): n. pag. Learning and Violence. Web.

Unknown. "My Culture Is Not a Trend." Web log post. Tumblr. Tumblr, n.d. Web.

Wilson, Jamia. "Consider Historical and Political Context When Appropriating Others’ Culture." The New York Times. The New York Times, 4 Aug. 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2016

"Museums, History, and Cultural Appropriation." Footnotes. N.p., 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.