To put it more concisely, as I realized I rambled a lot: while I agree that I don't think cultural appropriation is inherently racist, unfortunately there is a growing number of examples that ignore the historical context behind the thing they are appropriating, which leads to the most outcry and is either downright offensive or at its best, in poor taste. We talked about Black culture, but another good example is Native American culture, specifically the head-dresses. In their culture it is something you have to earn and is used for ceremonies. Tack the original use of the headdress to the centuries of genocide committed against Native Americans by white colonizers, and I think you get a well-justified outrage when white girls and guys at coachella or Halloween parties decide to dress up as Native Americans just because it looks "cool"
Cooking food or speaking the language or, in some cases, wearing the traditional garment on the other hand is more of a cultural appreciation (though Im sure some will argue it is still appropriation) and is certainly not malicious and not to be lumped in with the ones that are truly insensitive, ignorant, and harmful.
This conversation thread is getting to the point where Steemit will make my paragraphs an inch wide so I'll try to some up my argument and likely explore some of these tangential conversations in further posts. =)
I think each of your paragraphs in your first-latest reply hit on a distinct aspect of race relations in the US that are not always linked but often purposefully conflated to construct an umbrella narrative that POC (which is honestly a ridiculous term to me) are systematically oppressed. In this post, I try to explore whether "cultural appropriation" is an actual systematic power dynamic in the US. I believe that is not the case and little evidence beyond the anecdotal substantiates the concept.
Again, I'm right there with you on the feel-bads. I've had almost identical experiences of people freaking out at my mother's hand-rolls that she packed for my school lunches. Now it seems every hipster mom is sticking stacks of seaweed in their kids' lunchboxes. It's the same for black hair. It's the same for everything that is ever new and fresh and curiously taken from another.
But those stem from the eternal and seemingly impossible ambition to create a multicultural society. In diversity, there will always be a supposed majority and an infinite amount of minorities. Majorities dictate the trends and majorities likely take inspiration from the minority. And nothing exists in hard rules. Are we claiming that every POC (of which Asians are conveniently left out of) is at the mercy of non-POCs? Culture should not be sliced up and distributed in a way in which I'm supposed to eat a certain thing and you're supposed to wear a certain thing and he/she over there is supposed to act/dance/talk/do a certain thing and anyone who breaches those artificial boundaries are to be punished. That is anti-culture. That is racial profiling.
This might be a controversial bit that warrants a longer post rather than a comment - a Native American headdress has nothing to do with genocide. I'm not ignorant of the painful past of America's indigenous populations. But the correlation of a cultural artifact with a racial sentiment that virtually disappeared generations ago (even more so than Nazism or ideologies of ethnic purity) is nothing more than a social narrative. Should Japanese people never visit Korea to take selfies in hanbok dresses? Should Germans never attend synagogue? Should Spanish citizens never import Pisco from South America? I know I list a lot of these hypotheticals, but my aim is to illustrate that these constructed 'cultural' tropes are seemingly endless and lead to nothing but a blockade on free expression. If something is offensive or even 'microaggressive', let's have a conversation, not claim that there is a supposed system which promotes appropriation/oppression.
This has definitely been an enlightening discussion for me, however I think we will both just have our separate opinions and agree to disagree. I agree with your assertion that, ideally, culture should not be a "you should/I should" deal, but I am also of the mind that we shouldn't ignore historical context and practice tact, mindfulness, and empathy with what (and how) we decide to appropriate, ESPECIALLY with the grim history of colonization, which still affects the modern world. I also disagree that those racial sentiments disappeared. They are still here, just diluted and not as "obviously/blatantly" racist (altho Trump's presidency is certainly encouraging more outward displays). We live in a day and age where it's difficult to have "hard evidence" of racism bc it is so subvertive. But systemic racism does exist, and it does perpetuate all lives -- including Asian lives. Thanks for keeping the discussion civil.