Cultural Appropriation

Wild. Primitive. Tribal. All terms used by twenty-first century fashion designers, describing their latest Paris Fashion Week collections of 2016. These words have deep, historical implications; often used to describe Native Americans and Africans by Europeans, who viewed them as subhuman. The recurrence of these words to describe these particular groups of people displays how today’s society has not progressed as far as many people believe, and our views today still reflect a history of stereotypes and dehumanization. Valentino Garavani, a high-end fashion designer, produced a collection of African-inspired pieces for Paris Fashion Week in 2016, but the line was subject to criticism due to the hairstyles and races of the models who walked

Often the object that is taken away from the minority culture is only made popular, when it is worn or re-created by someone who is a part of the dominant race. Cultural appropriation can be seen throughout the media and popular culture; making it common and hard to distinguish. In the fashion, music, dance, and art industries, minority artists do not often receive the credit they deserve for their work, which is a form of cultural appropriation . In the United States, the two groups who most often experience cultural appropriation are Native Americans and Blacks. Reasons for this begin with the founding of America, a country built on settler colonialism that stripped them of their land land, enslaved them, stole their art, and forced them to assimilate into the European culture. Cultural appropriation in music, popular culture, and fashion happens today because the white dominant culture continues to embrace stereotypes rooted in white American’s power and position in the world through

In 1860, the first Indian boarding school was opened on the Yakima Indian reservation in Washington. These boarding schools were established as a means to easily assimilate Indian children into the white, Christian culture and force them to denounce their own Native beliefs and ways of life. Thousands of Native American children were rounded up and forced at gunpoint to go to these schools. Many tribal leaders’ children were taken hostage as a weapon to force leaders to comply with other land demands. The motto for many of the schools was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”. Children were not allowed to speak in their native languages, the boys were forced to have their heads shaved, and their names were changed to European ones. In a report from 1920, the boarding school students were described as “malnourished, overworked, harshly punished, and poorly educated.” Once the students graduated from the boarding schools they would return to the reservations completely different people who knew nothing of their origin or