You are a cultural appropriator!
I was driving in my car through unseasonably brisk weather today and listening to the radio when a story came on about cultural appropriation. Apparently there is a reggae group in England and when they are performing the lead singer will stop the show if she sees white people wearing dreadlocks and ask them to leave. Cultural appropriation she says and wrong. The journalist asked her if it were any exceptions to her rule. She thought for a moment before answering, “No. It is always wrong.”
“Hmmmm” I thought while chuckling about white people who get dreadlocks while also thinking about surfing.
Our favorite pastime either began in Polynesia or in Peru, depending on who you ask, and was a component of religion or old-school fishing, depending again on those same people. It did not, in any case, begin in southern California or Australia.
And that makes us all cultural appropriators and likely racist.
I think, in a gesture of good faith, everyone at The Inertia should stop surfing. I also think anyone who listens to reggae should stop surfing too. And anyone who prefers açai bowls to ice cream. And anyone who drives a Korean-made car. And anyone who uses, “Mahalo” unless Hawaiian and/or ironic. And anyone who celebrates Taco Tuesday.
It is only right.