First of all, Amen to that.
Cultural appropriation is something destructive packaged as virtue. Especially in the United States whose raison d'être (an expression I consciously appropriated ) is the melting pot and the notion of live-and-let-live freedom.
If Broadway producers want to portray the founding fathers as rappers and advertise for non-white actors -- go for it. But if a white actress happens to be cast in a high school musical for the role of Esmeralda...
Dr. Martin Luther King's offered the solution for a nation as diverse as the United States:
"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character".
The high school story stuns me. We're neutering a generation of creative/free thinkers and explorers before they have chance to get their hands dirty and properly explore, all because of the whims of loud misguided advocates who choose to engage in the most insignificant of battles.
If I were the family of that "white" kid, I would sue the school district to oblivion for discrimination.
Talk about pretzel-logic! The contortions that the Columbia Chronicle uses to justify this insanity -- it reads like a parody ;-)
http://www.columbiachronicle.com/arts_and_culture/article_d36510d4-0e03-11e8-bb96-bbd49a572e75.html