From hairstyles to festival fashion to food, the debate around what the distinction is between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation is longstanding. A quote from actress and activist Amandla Stenberg speaks to this issue: “What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?”
Personally, I felt that Dr Nicole Perry’s research on Native American-German relations and the ‘Indianer’ deepens the issue of cultural appropriation on a level that often isn’t considered. When you look at it from a surface level perspective, it is immediately obvious that the vague and unrealistic German portrayal of Native American people is problematic. However, it isn’t until we stop to consider WHY we find these images so unnerving that the issue becomes extremely relevant to current debates surrounding appropriation.
The very brief history of the motivation behind the German ‘Indianer’ image is that Germany could relate to these fictional characters – the natives of a land, a brave and strong people. Relating to things like this isn’t inherently wrong, but this supposed ‘connection’ that Germany feels with an oppressed indigenous group, without the intention of actually becoming educated or involved in Native American issues or worldviews, is wrong. Appropriation like this isn’t on the level of cheapening traditional dress or commercializing and profiting off of culturally authentic food – this is about people inserting themselves into the experience of living as an oppressed minority, and using the excuse of universal human connection to justify it.
