Many have been talking about an incident that occurred last week.  A young woman from Utah, shopping for her prom dress, found a beautiful qipao¹ in a vintage dress shop.   After posting pictures of herself wearing the dress, many on the left expressed outrage at her “cultural appropriation” which, of course, sparked a major frenzy.  It is a wonder to me how these people can maintain this posture on such a consistent basis.  It is as if they look for perceived slights to engender their already delicate, and now hurt, feelings.  It is a dress!

The irony here is that, according to many liberal news sources, the Chinese are not upset by this.  Amy Qin wrote in The New York Times, “When the furor reached Asia, though, many seemed to be scratching their heads. Far from being critical of Ms. Daum, who is not Chinese, many people in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan proclaimed her choice of the traditional high-necked dress as a victory for Chinese culture.”

Last year, in Portland, Oregon, two enterprising women owned and operated a food cart specializing in tortillas.  The popularity of this cart came to the attention of a Portland-based magazine which then published an article about these entrepreneurs.  The resulting overwhelming backlash against their “culturally appropriating” Mexican cuisine eventually caused them to close.

Outrage is, of course, appropriate when “cultural appropriation” is used to denigrate or show bad taste but there is no reason to act so appalled and indignant over a white woman wearing a Chinese-inspired dress or over tortillas being prepared and sold by two white ladies.

I was curious as to how “cultural appropriation” became such a hot topic and did some research.  While I didn’t exactly find out why, other than it appears to be part of the whole political correctness movement, I did read quite a few interesting comments…

On Quora.com, the question “What is Cultural Appropriation?” was posted and, while there were many thoughtful and interesting answers, Clarence Sherrick wrote “Cultural appropriation or ‘fusion’ is the most common and often flattering way of human imitation. Everyone imitates others that they admire, wish to be like or would want to join with.”

Another insightful response was written by Carlo Loreto.  “Appropriation cannot exist without ownership. No one owns culture. It’s a shared resource.

It’s rude to denigrate culture. There’s nothing wrong with admiring, emulating, using, or adding to existing culture. That’s what it’s there for. One person’s use of a cultural element doesn’t make less of it available for someone else.

When it comes to culture, if you didn’t invent it (and you didn’t), and you didn’t buy it from its previous rightful owner (and again, you didn’t), what business is it of yours what someone else does with it? Mind your own business. You don’t own culture.”

They make a good point.

¹Qipao is a body-hugging one-piece Chinese dress for women.  The stylish and often tight-fitting cheongsam or qipao (chipao) that is best known today was created in the 1920s in Shanghai and made fashionable by socialites and upper class women.