It's how we learn and understand other cultures.

According to SJW-logic, if you're white, you can't make traditional Mexican food and open up your own food cart in Oregon...Even though you took the time and energy to learn as much as you could from Mexican people on how to actually make their food. That's cultural appropriation and that's ALWAYS wrong!!!1!

I just got back from New Zealand. It's a part of the British commonwealth and the primary language is English, but the ancient Maori culture is heavily integrated into everyday society. The entire country is a perfect example of correct cultural appropriation of the native Maori. Seriously, almost everywhere I traveled down there, there were bits and pieces of Maori culture mixed in; many towns and cities were named in Maori (I was there for 9 months and I still couldn't pronounce most of them by the time I went home), Maori translations on English signs, Maori carvings, symbols, and statues, rugby teams perform "hakas" (a war-cry/dance in Maori) as part of their pre-game tradition, Maori TV channels...The grocery store where I worked for 4 months had Maori translations along the walls, alongside the English titles for each of the produce sections. A few of my backpacker tour-bus drivers were legit Maori natives. We got to spend a night on a traditional Maori "marae" (pronounced as "ma-rai"...the Maori village), the chief taught us a few fun stick games that night, our bus driver taught us one welcoming Maori song to sing to the chief when we arrived, and we were taught another song ("Maori Alphabet" and a welcoming "Love, Faith, Peace To All" song...lots of their songs are very catchy and stick in your head forever. That's how they effectively teach people the language) to sing to the other guests at the community dinner that night.

That's all cultural appropriation of the Maori traditions by the English. But all of it is done 100% out of respect for the native Maori history, origins, and culture, and the Maori people are perfectly fine with it. In fact, we were told by Maori natives that they always welcome the concept of teaching their culture to others. And from what I heard from Japanese people, they believe the same thing...Cultures are supposed to be shared.

But for whatever reason, the SJWs have the mindset that this is wrong. You can't learn or borrow from other cultures. That's stealing.
You can't make Mexican food if you're white.
You can't celebrate Dia De Los Muertos if you're white.
You can't wear kimonos if you're not Japanese.
You can't wear the bindi on your forehead if you're white.
You can't do yoga if you're white and not Indonesian.

Well, I love to break it to you guys, but everyone has stolen from everyone. Everybody has been appropriating cultural aspects from everywhere for thousands of years. Why do you think some Bible stories are eerily similar to other cultures' myths and legends? So if making traditional Mexican food as a white person is wrong, then I guess all other Mexican restaurants should be shut down too. And I guess I'm racist because I'm white, not Hispanic or Latina, and I celebrated Dia De Los Muertos in Spanish class in high school by decorating sugar-skulls and doing other traditions for the holiday.

By that logic, we should stop drinking tea. Because tea originated in China. We should also stop eating spaghetti. That's a food staple from Italian culture. We should also stop practicing democracy. That's stolen from the ancient Greeks.

...See how fucking stupid that sounds? If cultural appropriation is 100% wrong, then we should drop every single thing that originated from somewhere else.

The only time cultural appropriation is wrong...is when it's done to deliberately insult and demean the culture.
But if it's done out of respect for the culture...That's cultural appropriation done the RIGHT way.

_{Now I have the Maori Alphabet song stuck in my head again~ That was a fun song. Unfortunately I'm not very body-coordinated, so I kept confusing the movements.}