I did not say that, nothing I've written anywhere ever could imply it, and I don't believe it.
Next.
Well you're claiming that white people cannot possibly steal black culture, because culture doesn't exist.
After a dozen pages, this is what you think my position is?
I did not claim, and do not believe, that 'culture doesn't exist'. My flabber is gasted that anybody could possibly take that from what I've written. A culture is a set of ideas; ideas exist, sets exist, cultures exist.
What I have claimed is that the ordinary meaning of the term 'appropriation' applies to things that can be stolen. Culture cannot be stolen by copying ideas because nobody owns a culture and copying an idea does not deprive anyone of that idea.
Now, can white people (or any people) copy ideas of cultures they were not raised in? Sure they can, and should, whenever they see an idea that is good and worth copying. Indeed, you should copy ideas from any culture, whether you were raised in it or not, if you like the idea and it's a good one and it brings you happiness. If you want to call this copying 'cultural appropriation', I certainly can't stop you calling it that, no matter how silly I think the term is. If you want to
stop people 'culturally appropriating', then I take issue.
Some posters -- notably laughing dog -- try to conflate cultural appropriation with intellectual property law, as if copying a specific idea by an identifiable inventor is remotely like copying an idea with no identifiable inventor. Indeed, under this analogy, anybpdy who uses
any cultural idea,
whether they were raised in that culture or not, is copying it -- appropriating it.