I was nine years old walking through my local mall when I caught a glimpse of an award show performance playing on a TV. It was of Selena Gomez’s new song “Come & Get It”, and she was dressed in traditional Indian attire, wearing a bindi, and dancing in Bollywood-inspired style. Since I was young at the time, I didn’t really think much about it. But now that I’m older, I can’t help but consider it as inappropriate and problematic

In the performance, Selena Gomez incorporated the clothing, dancing, and bindi simply for their aesthetic, disregarding all of the true meaning behind these cultural elements. Even though she changed the music video after receiving backlash, she still posted a picture of herself in a sari, a traditional Indian garment, captioned “sari, not sari.” Gomez using these traditional customs as an accessory not only dismisses the actual meaning of the attire and bindi but also reduces the significance of the oppression and discrimination of the people who get mocked for them.

The bindi, a forehead decoration originating from Hindu culture, is most commonly a red dot that represents a married woman; but is also said to be the third eye in the Hindu religion which can ward off bad luck. Selena Gomez wore this and got praised for it because it was exotic and trendy, but meanwhile, others wear it because it actually pertains to their culture…. Yet they are constantly discriminated against for being different.

What I had just seen was one of the infinitely many examples of cultural appropriation. Non-black people wearing African hair, dressing up as “Mexican” or any other cultures for Halloween, blackface, sports teams using Native Americans as mascots, wearing sacred religious symbols just for the aesthetic—the list could go on and on.

Cultural appropriation is the act of adopting elements of an outside, often minority, culture including knowledge, practices, and symbols, without understanding or respecting the original culture and context.

Disrespecting, mocking, and simply just taking aspects of other cultures without giving credit demeans the significance, value, and importance that the culture itself holds, and dumbs down the rich history and origins to it just simply being a “fashion look”, in Gomez’s case.

However, cultural appreciation is not bad. Cultural appreciation occurs when someone of a different culture honors and respect where the practice or symbol came from, also gaining understanding and knowledge from it.

A good way to appreciate a culture is simply to engage in it, but not steal any part of it that doesn’t belong to you. By just enjoying their food, listening to their music, reading their literature, analyzing their art, and more, you’re learning and understanding more about said culture without disrespecting it.

In a lot of cases, people don’t understand where the line can be drawn within cultural appropriation and appreciation.

Sophomore Michelle Hwang believes the line is drawn when the custom/object in question is presented in a way that disrespects its origins. “Appropriation often causes misunderstanding that hinders rather than helps development.”