Mine, mine, mine | Karen Kao
For me, writing is a series of synapses: firing, sparking, veering off into places unknown. I connect a newspaper article with a podcast with drinks last night with an incident in the park this morning. Writing is both an act and a release. The deliberate use of my imagination in order to drive the train off the rails. So this is what happened in June 2017 when I read Kenan Malik 's essay in the New York Times in defense of cultural appropriation. A newspaper article First, the lawyer in me comes to the fore. Give me a definition of cultural appropriation and then we'll talk. Malik obliges by quoting Fordham University law professor Susan Scafidi. She defines cultural appropriation as: taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission [including] the unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, et...