Good arguments against "cultural appropriation"

Some CA is seen as a kind of theft of intellectual property

It's worth mentioning here that Intellectual Property is codified in law, that the version of it that is codified into law is restricted to a specific list of types of things, and that intellectual property existing at all is controversial, even within those codified categories. If "Cultural Appropriation is bad" is framed as an extension of the preexisting debate about intellectual property, it's solidly outside the Overton window: it would mean drastically increasing the scope of things which can be IP.

I was in a situation recently in which someone from one of my communities urged me to cut off my dreadlocks, so I have given a lot of thought to this. While my thoughts on this were on dreadlocks specifically they are at least to some degree generalizable onto CA.

I made a similar observation as your third argument: that contemporary society recognizes the property of individuals and coorporations but not of demographic groups. If an artist created some piece of art and someone else claimed that as their idea and made money on it while none of those money being returned back to the artist, most people would consider that ethically problematic. Many cultural artifacts of certain demographic groups are featured in designs, movies, stageperformances and such while none of the generated capital goes to the original group many of whom are living in proverty.

The most concrete argument I could think of in regards to dreadlocks is that there already exists a unfavorable bias towards black people in regards to getting jobs. There's a stereotype of black people in the US being lazy and having a poor workethic, and the stereotype of someone with dreadlocks is to be lazy, smoke pot, and have a poor work ethic. If a white person wears a black hairstyle and strengthens the stereotype there's a reasonably plausible causal link to making it more difficult for black people to get work and in the US not having a job quickly leads to .

While none of those arguments applies to my situation specifically I could understand a deontological viewpoint of discouraging CA in general to avoid the instances in which it does cause harm.

On a tangent I find the term African American infuriating due to it's blatant imprecise. People who come from south africa and are now living in the US would be white African Americans. America covers not one but two continents and yet only people from a single country within one of the continents call themselves 'Americans'.

2 and 3 need to be contextualized a bit more: they're cultural appropriation in circumstances where the more powerful group has forced the less powerful one to mix with or assimilate to it.

In 2, mixing means that the less powerful group's ability to maintain their own set of signals within their territory is diminished. This is why fashionably copying their signals is a problem: it disrupts one of the few remaining ways for minority-group members to recognize and selectively pay attention to other full participants in their culture.

In 3, assimilation means that members of the less powerful group face an incentive to distance themselves from signifiers of their culture, so they often can't profit from such signifiers, while members of the more powerful culture may have more freedom to countersignal by playing around with things from the less powerful culture.

I haven't heard the complaint much, recently. Sports mascots and misuse of representative characteristics in media is now generally attacked without use of the term "appropriation", and identified more directly (and correctly, often) as demeaning stereotype.

The complaint I heard most about appropriation was related to #2 and #3 above, but distinct. The reason given to me that appropriation was problematic was that it perpetuates a power imbalance. The appropriating culture is historically dominant over the appropriated-from, and the topic of appropriation is one way that the victim culture could start to become equal. Until it was copied - after the appropriation, there are fewer obvious reasons to value the victim culture.

I never fully accepted the argument (or the concept of cultural identity as a separate value from institution effectiveness), but that's how it was described to me.

Such CA is thought to result in diminished status and power for people in the "appropriated" culture.

I'm having a hard time separating this from the 'offense' argument that you're not including. Like, The Simpsons introduces Apu, who is Indian and works at a convenience store. Written by and voice-acted by white Americans, he's very much "Indian immigrants as seen from the outside" as opposed to "the self-representation of Indian immigrants"; as a character in a comedy show, he's often a subject of mockery.

But someone being offended by Apu is what expecting this will lead to diminished status and power for Indian immigrants to America feels like from the inside [LW · GW]. That makes me suspect that we should feel similarly about individuals taking offense claims of this category of CA, but I'm curious what makes you consider them separately.

Having lost this signaling tool, we are that much poorer.

Are we? Signaling value is both a blessing and a curse, and my impression is that it is generally zero-sum. Personally, I consider myself *richer* when a mundane activity or lifestyle choice loses its signaling association, for it means I am now less restricted in applying it.

mockery

I think you need to make a stronger case that mockery is bad.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/presidential-alert-thousands-take-opportunity-to-mock-donald-trump-after-emergency-test-is-sent-out-a3952971.html

Cultures often have harmful dysfunctional components, which should be criticised - and mockery is one of the more potent forms of criticism.