On the other hand, if minorities were encouraged not to wear dashiki in both social or professional settings, then yes it would turn into cultural appropriation. Especially when white people in dashiki can roam around freely.
"Roaming around freely" in a given attire isn't the same as wearing the same attire in a professional setting. A white person wearing a dashiki in a formal work setting would most likely be subject to the same dress code reprimands as a black person. So would it be cultural appropriation for a white person to wear the African dashiki, or not?
First you said it requires malicious intent, then later on you said it only requires that some oppression exist.
So does cultural appropriation require malicious or oppressive intent on the part of the individual, or not?
If you wear it after they tell you they dont find it honouring and would rather you didnt, you are a dick.
This is the way I've always considered it. But it seems that different people have very different opinions about what constitutes cultural appropriation.
For example, several years ago while hanging out with a Japanese friend, I expressed interest in buying a kimono to wear as part of a Halloween costume (Ogami Itto from
Lone Wolf and Cub). She loved the idea and enthusiastically volunteered to help me pick one that fits properly. We went to a Japanese import store and I found a very nice kimono that fit me well. On Halloween I wore the kimono along with a fake sword to my college classes. I received many compliments, even from some Japanese classmates. Then a few years later while wearing the same costume, I was reprimanded by some other people (who happened to be white), on the grounds that wearing a traditional Japanese garment was cultural appropriation and therefore insulting to Japanese people.
So who's right, the Japanese people who complimented the costume, or the white people who called it racist?