Appropriation Of African American Culture Essay

What’s Appropriation Have To Do With It?

Have you ever wondered about the different cultures and ethnic groups in America? What comes to mind when you hear the word race? How about ethnic culture? Did you know according to an article on Cliffsnotes, “Race refers to groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant.” Meaning that the color of your skin is your race and that culture must be something else right?

Cliffsnotes also states, “Ethnicity refers to shared cultural practices, perspectives, and distinctions that set apart one group of people from another.” This means that an ethnic culture would be your historical background in a sense. So knowing this now makes me think what does appropriation have to do with this? We can find out the answer to this question by learning about black and white culture, similarities and differences, and appropriation of black culture.

One of the growing cultures in America is the African American culture or more commonly known as black culture. Most people probably don’t even know that there is a difference between the two, even though they are very similar they both have different meanings. “African american culture is a combination of what was brought to this land by the african slaves, the segregation of blacks throughout american history and those values that make every american tear up when they see amber waves of grain.” ( Eshowoman Screen 1). Also according to Eshowoman black culture can be seen in religion, language, family structure, food, music, dance, literature, art and so much more. So African American culture is what the slaves made out of the culture already here and black culture is what society perceives as our culture. What about white culture? What exactly is