Cultural Appropriation¶

African American Studies (Humanities), 1968

Misrepresenting the normal human behaviour of exchanging and celebrating cultural symbols and motifs as theft.

Derived from the Marxist idea of “class appropriation”, the popularization of this abjectly-absurd phrase comes from an entry by British painter Kenneth Coutts‐Smith in a 1976 book entitled “The Myth of Primitivism”, chapter “Some General Observations on the Concept of Cultural Colonialism”. Originally referred to in “Rebellion or Revolution?” (1968) by professor of African American Studies, Harold Cruse.