Other ballpark examples: Wanting to eat in a Mexican restaurant, but only as long as there aren't actual Mexicans in the dining room.
That's... Racist as shit though, and the antithesis to the whole idea of cultural exchange. An entirely different problem.
Putting white actors in blackface or other makeup- or changing a character's ethnicity to be white- instead of hiring actual minority actors because "you need established names to sell".
I think this is less a case of cultural appropriation and more a case of racial profiling. I think this is wrong, by the way. If a role is written to be black, star a black person in it. Turning it white is dumb. But, Hollywood likes making money and hates taking risks, even if not taking risks means perpetuating racist hiring practices.
Painting religious symbols on yourself that have no special meaning to you because they're "cute" or "cool" when they DO have special significance to people of the religion in question.
Freedom of expression, yo. Same reason I can draw Mohammad, if I want to. One person's symbolism is another person's "neato" thing. Heck, if they decide to paint religious symbols on themselves, they might actually end up learning about them in the process, or as a result of encountering someone who holds value in those symbols. Resulting in greater cultural exchange, so long as the person who holds an invested meaning in said symbols is not an asshole about it and tears into someone who is simply benignly ignorant of their culture. Punishing someone for ignorance is like burning a child with a cattle prod for failing to understand something: It's counter-productive.
I think, as adults, as individuals, we can teach each other things about one another through incidental interactions, rather than forcing one another to comply to hundreds (if not thousands) of restrictions on what we can and cannot wear, paint, or otherwise express.
Por ejemplo, it's trendy and fashionable for white celebs to have cornrows or dreadlocks or afros. But a black person having their NATURAL curly hairstyle is considered unprofessional in the workplace or seen as "trashy" or "ethnic" or "stereotypical".
That's a case of plain old racism and should be pointed out if it's not considered trashy on both sides of the race spectrum. Here in Canada though I've never seen a black person punished for holding their hair in a natural style. Might be a US thing, or I've simply never seen it, and now I'm learning about something to look for in the future.
Also, I'd argue that punishing someone based on physical characteristics they cannot change or control because of birth is plain old evil, irrelevant of what you think of its "cultural meaning", but hey. What do I know of two-spirit peoples and the like?
Or how about a white, non-Muslim girl wearing a headdress that looks a loooot like a hijab and being seen as "cultured" or "fashion-savvy". Meanwhile the Arab girl on the other side of town is being harassed on the street for being a "terrorist" or told she's wrong to wear her hijab (by her own choice) because it's oppressive.
I've never seen an example of this that didn't first fall under the racism umbrella. I wouldn't punish the white girl for wearing the hijab: I'd take my outrage out on the people trying to punish the Arab girl for wearing hers. Racism is wrong, period.
EDIT: Goddammit, why won't it let me leave space between quotes and text
Because the post box is an evil devil child. To summarize though: I do see your point of view. I'd argue though that these cases are examples of why we need
more cultural exchanges. More encouragement to normalize things that are seen as foreign and strange and unacceptable. The harder we fight to divide each other, the more resentment we'll breed as a result, and the more racism that will be generated as a consequence. The more racism is generated, the more differences we'll find in each other, and the more "cultural appropriation" will suddenly appear.
Then again, we could simply be seeing this from differing perspectives. I value an individual's rights far more than a collective's rights. Both for those who are oppressed, and those who aren't... And I don't think punishing the unoppressed for using cultural motifs of the oppressed does anything other than cause unnecessary suffering and anger. Telling that white girl that she can't wear a hijab because it represents Arabic culture for instance, might cause her to instead become hateful towards Arabic peoples for taking something away from her individually. Maybe if time was spent telling her what it meant to the Arabic peoples and then letting her go her way instead, will let her learn something new about a group of people the mass media normally demonizes. She could walk away
enriched, or walk away feeling tormented and angry.
And, granted, she might not care after it's explained to her. God knows I'm pretty callous about religions myself, my avatar is Christopher Hitchen's for goodness sake. But I would rather not punish someone for a fashion choice because of the actions of a bunch of racists hounding the Arab girl. I'd rather punish those racists directly, every chance I get.
EDIT
I guess at the end of the day, in this case, I preach patience and kindness and understanding. You can't force every person you meet to conform to everything you value: That's the definition of totalitarianism. That's what the likes of Hitler and Stalin and Mao tried to do, and as a result, they killed millions of people. What I seek instead is equal understanding. I may not believe in the Christian God, but I don't go into chapels and smear shit on the walls and harass Christians over it. Heck, I'm an atheist, I'm not exactly new to the whole "and everyone hate this particular fucker in the room" mentality. However, if I were to take any page from the Bible, any lesson from it at all, it would be to turn the other cheek.
You can't make the entire world conform to what you think is right, but you can do the right thing on a personal level and make it 1/7 billionth better as a result. And hey, if you act like a kind, reasonable, responsible, merciful, tolerant person, than maybe a few other people who know nothing about what you believe, might stop and listen to you for a few minutes, and learn to be a little bit better themselves as a result. I don't think the concept of "cultural appropriation" is inherently evil, but I think it's a classic case of "good intentions gone wrong." It means well, the core desire is to get people to tolerant and respect each other, but it does it in a very harsh, very criticizing, and almost cruel way. There are better ways to live than to stick a thousand needles in someone for every piece of appropriation they take from another culture. Save the needles for the blatant racists who treat people like shit. Innocent, naive, even ignorant people, don't need that.
tl;dr: Lovey mushy shit. I don't do lovey mushy shit often either.