Modern critics decry white pop stars such as Iggy Azalea or Meghan Trainor for mimicking the ‘ethnolect’ (ethnic dialect) of African-American hip-hop artists, or, in the case of Trainor, choosing to employ black backup dancers in a music video. They call it “cultural appropriation,” or one culture’s borrowing aspects from another.
The term is used as a pejorative mostly by those who argue that white artists should abstain from borrowing from minority cultures, but the reasoning for this type of argument has lost focus over time. To answer the question of what artists should (or shouldn’t) do, it’s important to understand the historical context from which criticisms of cultural appropriation originate.
In the 1950s, white teenagers began to take interest in a musical style born out of black culture: R&B. While some black artists, such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard, saw commercial success, deeply entrenched racism among much of White America caused a backlash against what was described as the “raw, savage tone” of black R&B. The recording industry was not going to forgo capitalizing on the popularity of this new style, however, and white artists—most notably, Elvis Presley—were able to bring R&B into the mainstream as an iteration of rock-and-roll, while the African-American originators of the style remained relatively obscure.
As a piece on racialicious.com pointed out, “It matters who is doing the appropriating. If a dominant culture fancies some random element … of my culture interesting or exotic, but otherwise disdains my being and seeks to marginalize me, it is surely an insult.” It is the disdain and desire to marginalize that differentiates between harmless homage and racist appropriation.
According to this definition, it seems clear that the acceptance of R&B in the 50s, so long as its performer was white, was a clear example of cultural appropriation deserving of criticism. It is not so clear, however, that modern-day white pop stars fall into the same category. Their styling may derive from black culture—primarily hip-hop—but the argument that black hip-hop stars “languish in obscurity” as the likes of Azalea and Trainor profit from their innovation is specious at best.
Modern criticisms of appropriation aren’t concerned with this distinction, however. As John McWhorter wrote in a piece for The Daily Beast, “[There] is [a] new way to see the matter: Imitation is a kind of dismissal.”
This approach doesn’t seem to hold up under scrutiny, according to McWhorter. We imitate things we like. It makes more sense to assume, if we must make such assumptions, that Azalea raps like southern, hip-hop artists because she appreciates their music, not as a slight to black culture.
Once we dispose with the arguments relating to profiting on the backs of oppressed cultures, or the “dismissal” of those cultures, what we’re left with is the claim that white artists should avoid creating anything with even a modicum of inspiration from or inclusion of another culture, out of some vague sense of “respect.”
When we find ourselves feeling rage over a social issue such as cultural appropriation, it’s important to ask ourselves what our outrage accomplishes. The attitude that white culture ought to remain whitewashed is necessarily divisive. If our goal is a more open, accepting and tolerant society—which is a goal worth pursuing—we should take care not to let our outrage push us further apart.
