Appropriate

It is not modernized; it is sexualized.

It is not parodied; it is plagiarized.

It is vandalized and then advertised; it is “Americanized.”

This is cultural appropriation.

This has nothing to do with left or right. Don’t polarize.

This is disrespecting a culture and a history and a people, and failing to sympathize

with the struggle of having your identity criticized

then inappropriately popularized and rudely glamorized.

You insist you’ve done nothing wrong and characterize

me as too sensitive, but I tell you, you trivialize

the pain and confusion that we face. It implies

you don’t care about our feelings and compromise

our chances of being understood and respected. I despise

the excuses and fallacious analogies that flimsily disguise

your flippant attitude. It’s not the same. Your culture is globalized

and the rest of us assimilate. You appropriate and cover our cultures in white lies.

I cannot tell you how I agonize

over your apathy and your refusal to understand me. I’ve been ostracized

by the society I call home. I hear your teases and cries

against the weird-looking, strange-sounding qipao, but when you sexualize

my culture—when you assert a thigh-high slit and a wide hole for cleavage (look at her size!)

and turn elegant garments into crop tops and booty skirts, and thus barbarize

traditional clothing—your “oriental” product is a trendy, exotic enterprise,

and when we call out your blatant disrespect, you act surprised.

Don’t you see? You chastise

us for our foreignity, yet expect us to quietly watch our culture be Westernized.

I’ve not come to demonize

you but you have become so desensitized,

as if you got baptized

in water that plugs your ears and shuts your eyes.

I just want you to apologize

to me, my culture, my people—

and, one person at a time, bring the demise

of cultural appropriation.