According to The Cambridge Dictionary, cultural appropriation is “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture.” This phenomenon is commonly observed throughout society and becoming a really big problem. Summer seems to warrant many people to appropriate culture more often. For example at Coachella, a six day music festival where the daily dose of 100,000 festival-goers display other cultures as a trend. Their accessories include bindis, which are usually worn by South Asian women as a symbol of the third eye, and is a site of wisdom and spiritual development. Many women at the concert even wore scared Native American headdresses which resemble honor and respect within their culture. Every year people continue to abuse the contents of other cultures despite how offensive it actually is. As a member of a distinguished culture, it is ironic to see people take the “coolest” things from our background yet they won’t respect us as people. Some people that tend to take advantage of our lives to make it trendy then bash us for taking part in our own culture.

One of the most memorable and biggest culprit this year has been Kylie Jenner. She is known creating trends that many young girls and boys have learned to follow. One of them included the #KylieJennerChallenge where young people sucked on shot glasses to obtain plump lips that are a dominant black feature. Kylie made a predominately black feature popular where blacks have been discriminated for it. Kylie also likes to wear cornrows quite frequently as a fashion choice. It is astonishing to see her appropriate black culture and receive praise, but when an ethnically black person like Zendaya does it, she seems dirty. There is a gigantic fault here, white women are getting credit for things black women do on a regular. The most recent problem with Kylie in terms of cultural appropriation is her and her sister Kendall Jenner’s release of their new clothing line. The sisters put their faces on pictures of artists Biggie and Tupac and branded them as vintage t-shirts. After releasing these shirts, the families of the legendary rappers expressed that the Jenners never brought up the idea to the family to be approved, and everything they were doing was disrespectful and essentially illegal. This is a prime example of Kylie and her family using their status and money to develop products that display black culture and make a profit off it.

Cultural appropriation allows other races (mostly white) to benefit from and use distinctive aspects of someone else’s culture. This action is so hypocritical, because many members of these diverse cultures receive so much hate and disrespect for the way they live. However, as soon as a fashion icon does it, it becomes trend. I have one thing to say as a black woman and a minority; our culture is for you to appreciate not take!