Appropriation—with Due Respect

It occurred to me as I was microwaving my (very) late breakfast of a bean, cheese, and jalapeño burrito, that much offense is taken these days at what is called “cultural appropriation.” Occasionally, someone on my social media feed will post an indignant diatribe about members of one (somewhat privileged) group thoughtlessly partaking of a cultural boon created by another (less privileged) group. My response to such thinking (as I prepare to duck the epithets that inevitably ensue) is that for some of us, at least, there would be no culture without appropriation. I’ve never been possessed of a strong innate ethnicity that I could brandish with pride. In the seventh grade, we were required to bring in a food item relating to our specific heritage for a banquet celebrating Where We Came From. In the dim, distant past, someone on my mother’s side had sailed in from Poland but I have never been able to tolerate Polish food unless prepared by a non-relation. I never felt that anything wrapped in cabbage and served by my mother was a celebration of my cultural roots. There was a second maternal line that came from Lancashire (though the name was Welsh) and so I ultimately (and grudgingly) produced a Welsh Rarebit. It was so gross that no one would try it. I took it home and threw most of it away, envying the Italians. In this age of DNA analysis, I had my ethnicity checke