Cultural Appropriation Word List

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

WATCH

1. The Bling Ring — Sofia Coppola, 2013 · Film · Celebrity culture and the appropriation of identity and status; shallow and deliberate.

2. Reel Injun — Neil Diamond, 2009 · Documentary · How Hollywood appropriated and distorted Indigenous identity across a century of film.

3. Free Angela and All Political Prisoners — Shola Lynch, 2012 · Documentary · How Black radical culture is appropriated by mainstream culture without credit.

4. Miss Representation — Jennifer Siebel Newsom, 2011 · Documentary · Cultural appropriation of women’s image and identity by media industries.

5. Pick Up the Mic — Alex Hinton, 2006 · Film · LGBTQ+ hip-hop and the appropriation of Black queer culture by mainstream artists.

6. Selma — Ava DuVernay, 2014 · Film · The civil rights movement’s cultural heritage and who gets to tell it.

7. The Fits — Anna Rose Holmer, 2015 · Film · A girl navigating cultural identity and belonging in a Black dance community.

8. Bamboozled — Spike Lee, 2000 · Film · Minstrelsy and the history of Black cultural appropriation in entertainment.

9. Ethnic Notions — Marlon Riggs, 1987 · Documentary · The history of Black caricature in American popular culture; the root of appropriation.

10. Disclosure — Laverne Cox, 2020 · Documentary · Trans identity appropriated and distorted by Hollywood.

LISTEN

1. Code Switch: Cultural appropriation — NPR · The line between appreciation and appropriation examined with nuance.

2. Still Processing — Wesley Morris & Jenna Wortham · Cultural appropriation in music, fashion, and media explored critically.

3. The Receipts Podcast — Various · Black British women on cultural appropriation in UK culture.

4. Stuff Mom Never Told You: Appropriation — Anney & Samantha · The history and politics of cultural borrowing without credit.

5. NPR Music: Who Owns Black Music? — Various · The economic and cultural appropriation at the heart of American popular music.

6. Hrishikesh Hirway: Song Exploder · How artists protect the integrity of their cultural expression.

7. Revisionist History: Appropriation episodes — Malcolm Gladwell · Historical examples of cultural theft reframed as discovery.

8. Las Culturistas — Matt Rogers & Bowen Yang · Queer and Latino culture examined for authenticity and appropriation.

9. The Breakfast Club: Appropriation discussions — Various · Hip-hop culture’s response to mainstream appropriation.

10. On Being: Culture and identity — Krista Tippett · The spiritual dimensions of cultural identity and what it means to borrow from it.

READ

1. Who Owns Culture? — Susan Scafidi · The legal and ethical framework for cultural appropriation and intellectual property.

2. Appropriating Blackness — E. Patrick Johnson · Performance, authenticity, and the appropriation of Black cultural identity.

3. Killing the Indian in the Child — Various · Indigenous cultural appropriation and its relationship to colonial erasure.

4. We Were Eight Years in Power — Ta-Nehisi Coates · Essays on Black cultural production and how it is appropriated and misunderstood.

5. Sister Outsider — Audre Lorde · The importance of acknowledging difference rather than appropriating a sameness that doesn’t exist.

6. The Cooking Gene — Michael Twitty · Black culinary culture and its appropriation by Southern food mythology.

7. Thick — Tressie McMillan Cottom · The appropriation of Black women’s bodies, aesthetics, and culture without credit.

8. Bad Feminist — Roxane Gay · Cultural appropriation in feminism; whose experiences get centered and whose get borrowed.

9. Minor Feelings — Cathy Park Hong · Asian American cultural identity and its appropriation and erasure.

10. The Wretched of the Earth — Frantz Fanon · Cultural appropriation as a tool of colonial domination; the native’s culture as raw material for the colonizer.