#cultural-appropriation

#cultural-appropriation

In March 2025, the UK experimental music scene was pleasantly surprised when London venue Cafe Oto got a mention at the Oscars. Daniel Blumberg, who won an Oscar for the score for The Brutalist, used his acceptance speech to pay tribute to the East London venue and its community of "hard working, radical musicians, who've been making uncompromising music for many years" (the soundtrack features the likes of Seymour Wright, Evan Parker and Steve Noble).

When many people envision a Native blanket, they see a "Southwestern" style rather than blankets like the ones my family-who is Lakota and Dakota from Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribe-made from buffalo hides. Those heirlooms were vibrant and varied, embellished with figures and animals, glass beads, porcupine quills, shells, bone, and seeds, all stitched into decorative designs and full-out tableaux.

The opening sequence of Bring It On is in a word unapologetic. A dozen cheerleaders scream I'm sexy, I'm cute, I'm popular to boot in synchronicity and I have yet to meet anyone (and I have tried) who has the willpower to look away. It's certainly not an exaggeration to say I wanted to be one of them that is, one of the Toros, Rancho Carne high school's premier cheer squad.

Once a decade or so, the urban-centric fashion world discovers this delightful concept called The Countryside. With the vanishingly scant levels of self-awareness that are fashion's default setting, it then proceeds to immediately and loudly tell the world about it. There are so many trees! Don't you just love trees? Especially at this time of year when the leaves are lovely tasteful colours, great for selfies, very flattering to the complexion. The pubs are absolutely charming. Sometimes they even have sourdough.

"African Imperial Wizard is a middle-aged white man," the band wrote in their Instagram post. "We had the extreme displeasure of playing with him last night not knowing who he was until he came backstage and, to our shock, took off his hood. The Imperial Wizard (which is a term for a 'Ku Klux Klan' leader) obscures his white identity to the extent that he even wears gloves to cover his hands all while projecting a pastiche of Black African 'tribal' imagery on screen."

"We can stop Mattel from making Catrina Barbies," Yañez told me. "Where we can make a difference and have some control is in what we can do as a community and for each other and how we engage with each other."

Although Soane himself never travelled to Egypt, he was deeply fascinated by its ancient culture - famously acquiring the sarcophagus of Seti I for his house collection. Yet, for all his admiration, Soane was dismissive of the Egyptomania sweeping through Georgian society, where Egyptian motifs were plastered onto anything that could be decorated. He regarded this craze as a form of early cultural appropriation, trivialising the civilisation he revered.

Pepsi's 2017 commercial starring Kendall Jenner attempted to link soda with unity and protest movements. The ad showed Jenner leaving a photo shoot to join a demonstration, ultimately handing a Pepsi to a police officer in a moment of supposed reconciliation. Critics immediately accused the brand of trivializing Black Lives Matter and real social justice movements, appropriating protest imagery for profit.

There is a whiff of grandiosity about this crime drama's title, hinting at ambitions to say something a little bigger than usual for a movie about cowboys and Indigenous Americans concerning cultural identities and appropriation, the legacy of the old west, and so on. It doesn't quite lasso the bronco, but the ambitions of writer-director Tony Tost's yarn are ambitious and interesting, and he has at least assembled a cracking cast to tell it.

how his phenomenal success owed so much to the R&B, gospel and rock he grew up around and the racist institutions that put him on a pedestal while holding down the Black artists that birthed and gave that music its soul. The movie also painted Elvis as a bleeding heart for the Black community, projecting so much torment on the crooner over the injustices he witnessed, despite his refusal to say anything publicly for the community he benefitted from during the civil rights era.

In this story, Alice Law studies at Cambridge under the tutelage of Professor Jacob Grimes, who is widely regarded as the greatest magician in the world. He's also a trailblazing scholar. Grimes is known for his harsh, abusive nature but Alice has happily put up with his antics, volatile personality, and even bullying because she knows that her considerable talents and dedication will only take her so far

Starbucks' new summer menu for 2025 includes returning favorites and new items like an Iced Horchata Oatmilk Shaken Espresso and a Strawberries & Cream Cake Pop.