Cultural appropriation is just a fictional concept created to limit people's opportunity to have fun, learn new things and create new content.
Learning from the good aspects of other cultures will always be an enrichment experience, no matter who you are, what culture are you from, or what culture are you learning from.
One of the best pleasures in life is to travel and to visit new places, which is to say, to learn from new cultures.
Everyone loves go to places like Egypt and their pyramids, or japan, or Rome and its ancient building, among much others places. When we go there, we learn from them and their history, increasing the wisdom we have of the world.
Cultural appropriation, is therefore, a destructive idea, with no good intentions behind them. Pizza for example, was created by Italians, does that mean a canadian cannot open his own pizza place and make pizzas with a personal twist? Nonsense.
Learning from other cultures is an easy way we all have to evolve as individuals. So, its a good thing and we should embrace it.
This was the beautiful ethic that was pervasive throughout my childhood, that culture is freely shared, freely expressed, and its reference should never be challenged in an absolute way.
Unfortunately, these extremist notions are being used as a blunt weapon against anyone the wielder wants to target for stepping on any supposed boundaries. I agree with you, fiction/ideology used inappropriately.
Our lives would be very narrow indeed if we did not absorb aspects from other cultures and add them to our own. Food is an extremely good example. Take away everything that came from the New World and we would not have potatoes (from Peru), tomatoes, peppers, chilies, aubergines, maize... Alexander the Great was responsible for introducing citrus fruits and peaches to the Mediterranean. Imagine Italian cuisine without tomatoes, a Greek courtyard without a lemon tree...
Amen. Food appropriation is a good one to showcase ;)