When I heard Beyoncé sing, "Don't be a bitch, come take it to the floor now", I fell in love. Something about those lyrics with a banjo and crickets in the background got to me. It's because I identify with crickets at night AND taking it to the floor. It's because I haven't heard that kind of phrase coupled with that type of music. It's unique. It's irreverent. Most of all, it represents a woman who refuses to be typecast. She does what she wants to do, and to hell with you if you don't like it.
After some thought, I realized what I loved most about her country music is the fact that in singing country music, she fused two seemingly very different genres. She took her genre of music and coupled it with what people traditionally consider country music. And in doing so, she created something that was neither country nor R&B. And yet, she also created something that was both country and R&B. She fused cultures.
Maybe I appreciate it so much because I am a product of mixing cultures. My dad is from India, my mother from Mississippi. I'm neither American nor Indian, but somehow, I'm both American and Indian. I've seen white women in Saris, and brown men in cowboy hats. And it's beautiful.
But for some reason, mixing cultures has become taboo. For a while, it was liberal-minded people claiming that mixing cultures was cultural appropriation and disrespectful. And now, conservatives make the same claim. Beyoncé, they claim, should stick to her lane, and she should do what she knows best. She's disrespecting country music, somehow, because her music doesn't sound country.
And for the life of me, I can't understand why. I've always been taught that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If I imitate you, it means I want to be like you. I appreciate something about you that I don't see in myself. And I want to combine something you have with something I have. Not only is it the sincerest form of flattery, but it's one of the most intimate forms of exchange. We're merging our identities together when we share cultures.
The above line of thought is what leads me to dismiss people who complain about cultural appropriation. What they end up advocating for, whether intentional or not, is separation, apartheid. If we take complaints about cultural appropriation to their logical extreme, we arrive at a world where cultures are kept separate. We arrive at a world of cultural apartheid. We're in a world without rock, country, rap, and most other types of music. We're in a world without me, a product of the most intimate way cultures can mix. Ironically enough, we end up in a world with less diversity.
Which brings me to another problem we run into when we decide cultural exchange is not ok. Complaints against cultural exchange can devolve quite easily into exclusion and racism. "Beyoncé needs to stay in her lane and stick to what she's good at" and "Elvis and Eminem culturally appropriated black music" sound a lot like "Black people have one genre, white people have another, and the two have no business mixing". As a product of a culturally diverse marriage and as someone in a racially mixed marriage, I find that sentiment deeply offensive.
I understand some imitation is not flattering, but I also don't think the line between flattering and unflattering imitation is very thick. Unfortunately, the appropriateness of imitation is largely dependent on intent, and it's difficult to observe or confirm intent. But the gains from imitation are so great, that it's incredibly easy to lose out on valuable and fulfilling experiences and exchanges if we take a hard line against it. My wife and I have had an enriching experience sharing cultures. And I doing so, we've created our own unique culture.
So, let's think deeply about what our real problem with “cultural appropriation” is. And let's be very careful about confusing appropriation with imitation and exchange. Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And if you don't like it, the beautiful thing about voluntary exchange is you don't have to participate.
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