So, outside of the game context, this has come up for me a few times.

A longish example: A friend of mine really likes Mexican Dia de los Muertes imagery, but is not herself connected to any culture that observes that tradition. So, for her birthday — not October 31 – November 2 — she wanted to use that as a costuming theme. She wanted to enjoy the visual styling (and made an incredible costume), and she wanted people at the party to appreciate the transition from life to death that ageing brings. A weird thing to think about at a birthday party, but not entirely inapt.

So. Clearly that’s not the proper use of someone else’s culture. Clearly my friend had no claim on that culture or its symbols. But, the use wasn’t directly meant to be disrespectful. It potentially could be harmful, I suppose, at the bare minimum because it could be seen as a casual treatment of something that someone else holds sacred. Like, I don’t know, throwing a College of the Cardinals-themed kegger. But it could also be educational, if the participants took the time to educate themselves about the imagery they were using. It could also be sort of “neutral,” if it were a use and appreciation of the artistic value as separate from the belief value.

And somewhere along that spectrum lies every interaction of any two cultures. Which is where privilege rears its ugly head.

It’s (apparently) fine for Chet Whitebread to learn a language without acquiring any knowledge of the history of the cultures who that language belongs to. It’s (I think, generally) OK for him to learn to play a cultural musical style. Certain dance styles have their origins in cultural traditions, but are part of the “ballroom dance” canon, so it’s presumably OK for him to learn those as well. But at some point, maybe it’s storytelling from that culture’s perspective; maybe it’s performing a traditional song style; maybe it’s in visual art, he’s going to cross a line.

My question is: how do we decide what cultural elements are “immune” from appropriation, and who makes the call?