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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Cultural Appropriation is Healthy and Beneficial

Just to preface because I see it coming - when I talk about cultural appropriation, I’m talking about people borrowing cultural products or practices from other cultures. I am **not** talking about blackface, the Washington Redskins, or anything of that sort, because those are plain racism. Blackface isn't part of African-American culture, and "redskin" isn't part of Native American culture.

The way I understand it, cases of cultural appropriation usually make several assumptions that I disagree with. Not every case will involve all assumptions, but these are common themes that tend to come up. These assumptions are:

1. Cultural products usually develop within a single culture

So many well-known cultural products are the result of centuries if not millenia of cultures borrowing from one another. Italian food would be unrecognizable without tomatoes, but these didn't exist in Italy until they were brought over from the new world. Hip-hop and trap music are uniquely African-American genres, but they would NEVER exist as we know them today without the Japanese synthesizers that defined their sounds (the MPC for hip-hop and 808 for trap).

2. Culture is defined by the way you look

According to the logic of cultural appropriation, a European-American wearing a ceremonial Vietnamese dress is offensive, but an Asian-American wearing the same dress isn't, even if the Asian-American was was born in the US, does not speak Vietnamese, and has the same knowledge of Vietnamese culture that most Americans have (which is, basically none). This assumption is inherently racist because it categorizes people by their looks. This is also why you won't hear about cultural appropriation when Chinese people wear Vietnamese clothes, or when Ethiopians borrow from west-african culture, even though these groups come from fundamentally different cultures. This mindset ignores the rich, mind-boggling beauty and diversity of Asian and African cultures, classifying people instead based on their skin color.

The common counter-argument for this is that white people (whatever that means) are colonizers and therefore when they borrow from an Asian or African culture it's demeaning. But this argument itself is ethnocentric, because it views white Americans as the center of the world, ignoring around literally a 1,000 years of aggressive Chinese colonialism in Vietnam, as well as warfare among different African tribes and nations.

3. Borrowing from someone else's culture means that the original people of that culture get less recognition for their culture

I agree that this does happen and happens often. For example, Elvis was an excellent musician, but there were many other Rock n' Roll artists that were just as talented. They didn’t succeed as much because they were black. However, this isn't a problem with borrowing culture, but with how a racist audience receives this culture. In other words, the problem isn't with Elvis, it's with his listeners.

4. If something is sacred to you, others should treat it as sacred as well

This is something that comes up, for example, when non-native-american people wear war bonnets (which traditionally carry a lot of significance in native cultures). I don’t accept this argument, because just because you think something is sacred, doesn’t entitle you to force others to think so as well. A lot of people think that the idea of marriage being between a man and a woman is sacred, but that doesn’t entitle them to make others think that way too.

5. Using another culture’s products is OK as long as you study and understand its cultural significance

I 100% support people learning and getting to know other cultures. But practically, this can’t be a prerequisite to borrowing cultural products. I don’t need to pass an Italian history quiz to eat pasta. In addition, this is usually a double standard because many times people engage in practices from their own culture while having little to no knowledge of their traditional significance or origins.

Bottom line, I fail to see any meaningful harm in cultural borrowing, particularly considering its awesome benefits. Living in the US, I'm surrounded everyday by amazing things that would never have been created if this country wasn't the confluence of people from literally hundreds of cultures. CMV!
gpt
I think you're misunderstanding appropriation and appreciation. 

It is one thing to use things from other cultures if it enhances the understanding of that culture. 

While many get angry over appropriation when it is simply appreciation, the reason why appropriation is how we end up with the satirical stereotypes like Chinese wearing big round hats with buck teeth, Jewish people with giant noses and Mexicans as gardeners. There are tons of companies making money off of this imagery. The issue is that it makes it difficult for these cultures to not have these images because they are so common. It is offensive and it makes people less interested in learning about these cultures that are essentially jokes. 

A white person opening a taco shop because of their appreciation of Mexican cuisine is not appropriation. Especially if they learned their technique from Mexican sources, because then they are simple an interim voice for that culture.