Essay on Cultural Appropriation of Black Culture
Marc Jacob’s SpringSummer 2017 show featured predominantly white models including the industry’s ‘top models’, Bella and Gigi Hadid and Kendal Jenner, wearing wigs styled in pastel-colored dreadlocks for a ‘cyberpunk goth’ look inspired by ‘ravers’, ‘acid house’, ‘Harajuku girls’ and director Lana Wachowski’s distinctive hairdo. From the 52 shows, less than 10 of the models were people of color. When met with criticism for the show’s lack of acknowledgment of the style’s significant relation to Rastafarianism and Black culture, Jacobs took to Instagram to reply: ‘All who cry ‘cultural appropriation’ or whatever nonsense about any race or skin color wearing their hair in any particular style or manner – funny how you don’t criticize women of color for straightening their hair: don’t see color or race – I see people.’ Jacobs’ ‘color-blindness’ serves to erase Black culture and influence entirely from his design. Similarly, Comme des Garcon’s FallWinter 2020 collection put white models in Fulani-styled cornrowed lace front wigs to advertise their men’s collection; the collection’s hairstylist, Julien d’Ys, apologized on Instagram stating his inspiration was the look of an ‘Egyptian prince’, once again neglecting to credit the hair’s cultural roots and significance. Gucci also came under fire after its Fall 2018 show that featured white models wearing balaclavas that many said resembled blackface, as well as white models debuting its ‘Indy Full Turban’, a head scarf accessory that closely resembled Sikh turbans. The Sikh Coalition tweeted a response towards Gucci following the show, stating: ‘The Sikh turban is not a fashion accessory, but it’s also a sacred religious article of faith. We hope more can be done to recognize this critical context. #appropriation.’ Gucci did not release a statement following the issue. They, however, released an apology for their balaclava-style sweater that had a ring of red around the cut-out section of the lips which resembled a racist caricature. Their Twitter statement read: ‘We consider diversity to be a fundamental value to be fully upheld, respected and at the forefront of every decision we make.’
Marc Jacobs, Comme des GarSons, and Gucci are a few examples of fashion brands accused of cultural appropriation and many others include Louis Vuitton, Victoria’s Secret, and Urban Outfitters. These fashion brands, when accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ are likely to argue back with the idea of ‘cultural appreciation’ – suggesting that designers have respectively drawn from other cultures in a show of ‘artistic freedom, multicultural exchange, anthropology, reverse racism, and not sweating the small stuff’. There is often a debate about whether a brand’s actions can be considered ‘appreciation’ or ‘appropriation’ – creative, artistic freedom versus erasure of cultural significance. Minh-Ha T. Pham notes the difficulty of defining either term – ‘rather than clarify the issues at hand, they rest on and reproduce several conceptual confusions’. Pham notes that the limitations of the terms – ‘appreciation’ giving ‘too much weight to the designer’s feelings’ and ‘appropriation’ ‘too quickly reduces the problem to one of utility’ make it difficult to recognize why cultural appropriation is demeaning and ultimately entirely unappreciative. Marc Jacob’s, for example, refusal to acknowledge the dreadlock hairstyle’s significance to Black culture and its Rastafarian roots does not consider that marginalized groups and subcultures that are responsible for creating what the mainstream has embraced as a ‘trend’ are disregarded and excluded from the industry based on their culture. Similarly, Comme des Garcons’ claim that the use of cornrowed lace wigs was inspired by ‘Egyptian Prince’ which not only suggests appropriating Egyptian culture but also dismisses Black culture entirely – another example of high fashion’s continuous erasure and exploitation of Blackness. As some people commented on social media, if the inspiration was Egyptian princes, why not use Egyptian or Arabic models? To take ‘inspiration’ from such a culture and then not credit it, therefore excluding the people of that culture, is a form of cultural theft, or as Pham dubs it, ‘racial plagiarism’, a severe practice often adopted by ‘culture vultures’ to the detriment of Black people. I use the term ‘culture vulture’ to define those who commit culture theft – stealing fashion, language, music, and art, people who identify with parts of a culture that are not their own, mimicking it disingenuously without credit and forming an identity based of the stolen culture, usually for profit.
Culture vultures appear not only in the fashion industry but also in music, art, as well as celebrity culture which is prominent due to social media and the digital age. Lauren Jackson writes in White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue: and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation that appropriation is ‘everywhere, and it is inevitable’. The commodification of Black and Urban aesthetics is a development that is not particularly new; black performers have been disregarded and their craft ‘refined’, but I argue that it is especially prominent in recent years considering the unique platform that social media provides the masses. Providing context using the works of Lauren Jackson as a framework for defining the subject of cultural appropriation, and Minh-Ha T. Pham’s criticism of the fashion industry’s uncredited imitation of Black culture, ‘racial plagiarism’, this essay will explore the nuances of racial and cultural appropriation, racial plagiarism, cultural materialism. Scholarly work by Christian Fuchs will help to define culture and consider cultural and racial economics, particularly about social media and its complex economic framework, and to furthermore analyze how culture vultures profit from stolen and uncredited culture and also benefit from Black outrage – monetizing on the engagement that is consequent to people’s reactions following cases of cultural theft.
Everywhere and Inevitable
To first understand the term ‘culture vulture’, it is important to be able to define culture and several other terminologies relating to it that will be applied throughout this essay. ‘Culture’ is notoriously hard to define. Raymond Williams, an influential cultural critic, famously stated that ‘culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’. In Keywords (1976), Williams analyzed its various meanings, clarifying that ‘ culture in all its early uses was a noun of the process: the tending of something, basically crops or animals’, otherwise known as ‘agriculture’. The meaning of ‘culture’ developed significantly over the centuries that followed, and ‘the tending of natural growth was extended to a process of human development’ from the eighteenth century onwards, it became important to consider culture in a plural sense to determine the difference between cultures of different nations and periods, as well as ‘specific and variable cultures of social and economic groups within a nation’. According to Williams, there came to be three definitive definitions in use by the twentieth century; (i) a general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development; (ii) an indication of a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period, a group, or humanity in general; (iii) a description of the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity. Religion, social structures, class, values, societal position, attitudes, language, economy, manners, customs, behavior, and education are a long list of some factors that contribute to the meaning of ‘culture’, which in turn shape an entire group of people. It is a limitless list, complex, and rich and it forms culture as a social group’s most distinguishing feature; and is generally, a specific part of distinguishing sociocultural groups from others.
A ‘vulture’ according to Oxford Languages, is ‘a contemptible person who preys on or exploits others’. A ‘culture vulture’ is a relatively recent term. Urban Dictionary’s earliest definition of it was in 2003: ‘a scavenger, circling the media, looking for scraps of originality to add to their conceit’, but the most popular (most agreed on) definition of the term was made in 2018, defining ‘culture vulture’ as a ‘person or an organization making a profit using unhonorable practices from a culture they do not care for’. Raymond Williams also mentions the term in his book, Keywords, and stresses that ‘virtually all the hostility has been connected with uses involving claims to superior knowledge and distinctions between ‘high’ art (culture) and popular art and entertainment’, illustrating that culture ‘culturing’ indicates a level of privilege and access which permits people of higher social standing to do so.
To begin to fully be able to understand the term ‘culture vultures’, it is necessary to first define the terms ‘cultural appropriation and ‘cultural appreciation’. Cultural appropriation is, to put it simply, the act of adopting cultural elements of a (minority) group by a group non-native to that culture. The term has evolved from academia, and it is only relatively recently that it began to be used generally, especially on social media. Though not inherently particularly offensive, it has taken on a more sinister meaning throughout the past decade as people have come to understand that cultural appropriation often takes the form of exploitive cultural theft that contributes to the reinforcement of stereotypes and the continued social and economic oppression of minority groups. Cultural appropriation is a layered and nuanced subject that is difficult to grasp, as definitions can sometimes be too vague and too partial, creating a problem as people begin to contest the difference between what is appropriation versus appreciation, the ‘respectful borrowing’ of culture. Cultural appreciation is, arguably, an unnecessary term – cultural appreciation is cultural appropriation and recent discourse has reduced both terms to function simply as euphemisms that distort to the point of unintelligibility the very things that people are doing when they ‘appreciate’. ‘Appropriation’ is not an inherently negative term, nor does it suggest a lack of appreciation, and only when it is exploitative, uncredited, and unpermitted that it becomes a problem.
Marc Jacob’s Spring Summer 2017 show, for example, featured a predominantly white cast of fashion models including Kendall Jenner, and Bella Hadid, with hair styled in colorful dreadlocks. According to Guido Palau, Marc Jacobs’ stylist for the show, the hairstyle was inspired by ‘ravers, acid house, travelers, Boy George, [the singer] Marilyn in the ’80s, Harajuku girls’ – with no mention of the hair’s cultural origins. Furthermore, when inquired about the hairstyle’s cultural roots, the stylist responded that Rasta culture was not an inspiration for the look, ‘No, not at all’. Elle, as well as other influential fashion magazines such as Vogue, and Glamour, among other influential fashion magazines and blogs, reported Palau’s words, effectively furthering the erasure of Black cultural history.