Cultural Appropriation: a confession of guilt.
I (when I was younger...and stupid) used to think that the discussion of cultural appropriation was a well-meaning, modern backpedaling towards a type of aesthetic segregation. Now I can see it is just the necessary process of karmic adjustment. A way for pride to be excluded from those who seem to not have the necessary responsibility and discernment to use information that is not their birthright (White people). It still is a landmine field but one, as white people, is part of our cultural inheritance. Our birthright is a kind of guilt from ages of ignorance and genocide. The danger of it is ignorance is also part of our privilege. We are born into a world where we think that we are above the karmic wheel. That we can undo the past by letting other people tell stories about how they were wronged and somehow that will undo every terrible thing that is our heritage. You can't wash away the blood of our past with good intentions. Good intentions do not make us exempt...but it is a s...