Black Culture

Appropriation A wise man by the name of Paul Mooney once said, “Everybody wanna be a nigga, but nobody wanna be a nigga”. Although that quote could be looked at as vulgar, it is extremely true and has been shown throughout time. Black culture has almost always been the most popular in American society. It quite possibly may be the most popular culture in the world. Many of the things we see around today in pop culture have come from some part of black culture. Just about every TV show, commercial, advertisement, song, etc. has some attribute of black culture in it. Whether it is the music, slang, or even simple mannerisms, they are all used in most of what we hear or see in society today. At the same time the aspects of black culture that the majority of society do not see as worthy of being popular is being dubbed ghetto or as some people say today, “ratchet”. All around today’s society black culture is simultaneously being appropriated and stigmatize by America and will continue to be. What is appropriating? Appropriating is defined as the act of taking something for ones use, typically without the permission of the owner. Cultural appropriation is the adoption of elements of one culture by a different cultural group. American society has historically been very good at this. They have especially been good at doing this when it comes to black culture. Black culture has been culturally appropriated by America ever since our ancestors were forcefully brought to this country. We as a culture have had our culture almost stolen from us, from our ways of life, our music, food, and even dance among many other things. I’ll give you a few examples of how our black culture has been appropriated and why these things are continuing to happen. An apparent example of appropriation of the black culture in America would be none other than, the dialect. There has been countless times where white people have begun using slang created by black people to appeal to them.