Culture Is The Meaning Of Culture

It is a term that has dominated the media; from Halloween costumes to NFL mascots, headlines across the nation blare the words: “cultural appropriation.” Yet, many still are not quite sure what the term means. To put it simply, cultural appropriation is the exploitation of a culture that is not one’s own.

What does culture mean to you? Culture is the arts and manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. Culture is you and the background you came from.It’s anything that describes you family,traditions,and music.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture. Cultural appropriation is portrayed as rude, called cultural misappropriation, and claims to be a violation of the history of a culture. Often unavoidable when cultures come together, cultural appropriation can include using another culture's traditions, such as fashion, symbols, language, and cultural songs without permission. Even though society consistently uses Native American and African American styles at festivals, in magazines and on celebrities, this form of cultural appropriation is not right because we are not using it for the right reasons.

As our country evolves with different cultures from around the world, people are unaware of the fine-line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. So, what is cultural appropriation? Cultural appropriation is when members of a dominate culture, mainly white, borrow from the cultures of minority groups without their input. While there are many people who feel disrespected by others using their culture, there are still people who appreciate and value ones culture.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or theft of icons, customs, beliefs, or styles from one culture or subculture by another. McWhorter argues,“But what began as a legitimate complaint has morphed into a handy way of being offended by something that should be taken as a compliment.”(McWhorter 1)A multitude of people may believe when there is adoption of one culture it should be seen as a compliment as well because they are appreciating the culture by imitating it into their own. “It used to be that we said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But now there is new way to see the matter: Imitation is a kind of dismissal.” But if not fully understandingthe significance of what is being adopted then to the owning culture it is seen as appropriating and not appreciating. If it was indeed appreciating, time would be taken out to fully understand what and why the culture indulges in the custom or belief and so on. Just noticing a particular act of item in a culture and putting it into your own without the proper

Cultural appropriation is disrespectful to those belonging to the minority culture. A blatant example of cultural appropriation shown in

There are several things that make culture difficult to define. For starters, culture has no definite boundaries or limitations therefore, it can be influenced by many things. O 'Neil (2006) suggested that regardless of what culture a community or group are a part of, one thing is for certain, culture will change. Culture has become a key part of the interconnected world, which is made up of so many ethnically diverse societies. Culture can no longer be assumed to be fixed, if it ever was. Instead, it is essentially fluid and constantly in motion. This is one reason

Cultural appropriation, on the surface, is when one takes and uses elements from a culture that they do not belong to. But when we go deeper a more insidious problem is revealed.

Cultural appropriation is “the adoption or theft of icons, rituals, aesthetic standards, and behavior from one culture or subculture to another” according to Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory & Practice.

This is to say, cultural appropriation is the stealing of “intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expression, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorized uses of another’s cultures dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, and religious symbols” (“Cultural Appropriation”, par 5).

Culture by definition is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person's self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any type of social group that has its own distinct culture. To me that definition couldn't be more spot on but let's go more in depth over the past few months in my English class we have been trying to learn what our culture is and what part culture plays in our daily lives so in this essay I will be sharing with you what I think culture is what it means to me and how I think it impacts our way of living and the way we look at each other as human beings and how we treat each other and how all this makes up my culture

Cultural appropriation can be defined as, by Wikipedia, “A concept in sociology dealing with the adoption of the elements of a minority culture by members of a minority culture by members of the dominant culture…cultural elements which may have deep meaning to the original culture may be reduced to “exotic” fashion or toys by those from the dominant culture”(Cultural Appropriation). However, cultural appropriation is a much deeper and methodical concept than a simple definition. It can be defined in numerous ways by people from various points of views and environments. It is so often overlooked on how it affects cultures and ethnic groups. First and foremost, cultural appropriation is the act of enacting or adopting a cultural aspect from another

Despite the long research, observation, and debate, there are many word concepts that do not have a standard definition. This may lead us to believe that a word may have multiple meanings and interpretations. Each of these meanings can be used in different aspects and purposes. As a result, many people believe that the concept of a word may be described, but the definition cannot be fully defined. In the nursing career, for example, there are many words that have been using, but these words have different meanings in other usages outside of nursing. The words stroke, heart, culture, power, and or sensitivity has a meaning in the medicine while they can be interpreted differently in other fields like sociology, in anthropology, and in religion

Culture can be defined in many ways due to the fact that everyone can have their own distinct and traditional beliefs and values. “ Culture is fluid, it is not a static entity which one takes out of the box on occasion. It is with us daily” (Cultural Handout). Someone’s culture is set as the characteristics of the group practices in language, religion, types of food, social traits and habits, and the distinct arts and music. There are a variety of different cultures for example, Western Culture, Eastern Culture, Latin Culture, Middle Eastern Culture, and African Culture. All of these different cultures have their own ideas, values, and individualism, laws that are implied, civil rights, and even technology. In our, “ Culture Handout” culture is defined as the tool of the mind, “ it is an individual’s way seeing and interacting within the world. It encompasses one’s values systems, beliefs, and perceptions of the world around them. Race, socio-economic class gender, sexual orientation, ability, geographic location, age, religion language, etc. all impact the formation of culture, but these various context are not culture” (Cultural Handout).

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,