Cultural Appropriation - What Are We To Do?

One of the big topics among campus protesters recently has been cultural appropriation.  That's the adoption of someone else's culture, usually with certain changes included.  I'm sure there is a more politically correct definition filled with jargon like "patriarchy" that would be used by the protesters, but let's stick with mine.  Cultural appropriation was especially a big topic around Halloween when many were roundly criticized for dressing as someone from a different culture.  The world may be filled with problems, but the micro-aggression of having to see a white guy from New Jersey dressed as an Indian (excuse me, a native American) tops them all for these protesters.  Most recently, the issue of cultural appropriation has been used in connection with the food being served in college dining halls.  Now as anyone who attended college knows, most of the food served by college dining services is second rate.  No matter what is served, the food never tastes like it should.  I remember when I was in college, we often had a dish we called "footballs" which were something like a cross between hamburgers and meatloaf that came in odd shapes that generated our name for it.  No one particularly liked the food, but we ate it anyway.  Now, however, rather than just lamenting the inadequacies of the food from the campus dining service, the protesters are accusing the college of cultural appropriation.  The cafeterias are serving things like poorly made (of course) Vietnamese dishes or poorly made (of course) Chinese dishes or poorly made (of course) Swedish meatballs etc.  So not only is the food bad, but it also is the appropriation of someone else's culture (a heinous crime) and the damaging of that culture by improperly making the dish.  It's enough to give the truly politically correct a case of the vapors!

This all hit home to me the other day when I went with my wife for dinner at a local Japanese restaurant.  It's a small place owned by a family who obviously work very hard to keep the place going.  When we were finished with our meal we came upon the young son of the owners who said good night and wished us a merry Christmas.  My wife asked him "Do you celebrate Christmas?"  (I'm sure that's some sort of political correctness violation, but I'm not sure exactly what.)  The response from the boy was, "No, Chinese New Year."  So there you have it.  The owners of the Japanese restaurant are Chinese!  It was a major case of cultural appropriation.  How dare this Chinese family presume to adopt and produce Japanese cuisine!  We left the restaurant at that point before the gravity of what we had just heard sunk in. 

Is it really possible that there are people in America who worry about silly things like cultural appropriation?  Everything in the USA is a cultural appropriation of some sort.  Indeed, that's the point of America.  Cultures from all over the world have blended together here.  Someone ought to tell those college kids about that.