Cultural Appropriation In America

Cultural Appropriation in America is a valid reason as to why there is a prejudice and racism problem. Throughout the United States social issues considering racism and prejudice occur within the “borrowing” of varying cultures (Nittle). While affecting millions of minorities, this cultural thievery is not to be confused with cultural groups rubbing off on Americans which grew up in diverse communities. In example, diverse communities could potentially pick up the dialect and traditions of the cultural groups surrounding them. Cultural appropriation as defined by Susan Scafidi, “Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions…most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group.” The irony in this form of racism is socially, dominant groups are deemed as state-of-the-art and edgy, while minorities receive backlash and continuous systems of damaging varieties of stereotypes of lacking in creativity.
A recent illustration of cultural appropriation is the performance at the American Music Awards in November 2013 by Katy Perry.
While performing as a geisha, Katy Perry described what to be a tribute and homage to Asian Culture. Thousands of Asian American became outraged claiming the performance as “yellowface”. Jeff Yang from The Wall Street Journal states, “While toner can strip geisha makeup off of Katy’s face, nothing can remove harmful discrimination and the West’s perception of Asian women.” In addition, many examples of cultural appropriation subsist within the music industry, other examples stick out within fashion of various cultures (Nittle). US fraternity parties held at Arizona State University, Randolph-Macon University, and Duke University are just a few on an exhaustingly extensive list in which they dressed themselves in “thuggish clothing”, “sombreros with large fakes mustaches”, and “silk robes followed by stereotypical Asian accents”
(Gold).