Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute, was quoted in a Think Progress article about cultural appropriation.
Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University and author of the 2005 book “Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law,” told ThinkProgress that while the Elba-as-Bond debate wasn’t a hot topic when she wrote her book, it’s become a relevant example of the cultural discussions it engenders in the past three to four years. “That’s because of social media,” Scafidi said in a phone interview. “The conversations we’ve had about stealing culture from minorities that we’ve had in private are now public conversations.”
Scafidi pointed to a 2015 Halloween incident at Yale as a flashpoint that elevated cultural appropriation to fevered national debate. In that case, a Yale faculty member sent out guidelines, warning students about racial and ethnic sensitivities in how they dressed and behaved at costume parties. Outraged white students complained their freedom of speech and expression were being hindered, sparking a campus debate over race and privilege that jumped from the campus to prominence across the land.
“The incident became a cultural moment,” she said. “What might have stayed quietly in dorm rooms or among campus debates became a national conversation and the discussion over cultural appropriation has grown from there.”
Scafidi, who is the founder of the Fashion Law Institute that explores issues of culture in the fashion industry, said the fluid nature of culture makes it difficult to discern what’s exploitative and what’s merely borrowing from different groups. She said that while the misappropriation of culture can create harm when it exerts or extends economic or psychological damage to minority groups, equitably sharing or sampling from the melange of cultures available potentially produces a social benefit.
“We do need to have a certain amount of cultural borrowing, which can be good,” she said. “That’s how we get fusion cuisine, Tex-Mex and California rolls.”