A lesson on cultural appropriation courtesy of Rihanna’s eyebrows

“I guarantee had, say, J.Lo or Gina Rodriguez graced the cover of a magazine with pencil-thin brows, they would have been ripped apart on the Internet for looking like a girl from the hood at best, or a chola at ‘worst.’ To most Mexican and Mexican-American women, drawn-on eyebrows are a look historically representative of a marginalized culture—my culture—and have become a Latinx street style viewed as ‘trashy’ by the rest of society. That is, until Rihanna wears them,” Krystyna Chavez wrote last Thursday.

What makes this an interesting case study in the Left’s crusade against cultural appropriation is that Rihanna is black. The commonly accepted definition of cultural appropriation narrowly describes members of a dominant culture appropriating the culture of a marginalized group (think white college students wearing Native-American headdresses on Halloween). The problem the concept addresses is exploitation — a dominant culture relying on its power to lift a custom from the disenfranchised, reaping profits (financial or otherwise) the oppressed class never saw, and sometimes distorting it without any appreciation for the relevant history.

For instance, have there been white rappers for whom success came easier, despite their work being of a lower quality? (There certainly has.)

“[C]ultural appropriation happens when a dominant culture takes elements or customs specific to a minority group for their own use. Thin eyebrows were never a trend solely linked to latinas because of their gang affiliation,” a writer for Ebony noted in response to Chavez’s complaint in Marie Claire. Chavez, interestingly, acknowledged that last point in her article. “I understand that skinny brows were not created or exclusively owned by the Latinx community: They also have roots in South African culture, in Roaring Twenties fashion, in the Harlem Renaissance community, and I’m sure they can be found in many other subsections of the world, too,” she wrote. This was her next sentence: “But to me and thousands of other Mexican and Mexican-American girls looking at these photos, RiRi’s brows look a lot like the chola brows our mothers feared we would one day wear—the brows that are now untouchable and unwearable to women like me, especially in conjunction with hoop earrings and, god forbid, lip liner.”

And so personal association, in this argument, trumps the historical roots of the custom. Offense-taking really is just in the eye of the offended. Even when the alleged appropriation can’t be egregious, because it can’t even be linked specifically and directly back to the culture from which it’s allegedly borrowing.

And this gets to the heart of the Left’s problem on this issue. Cultural appropriation can describe something serious, or it can describe … well, whatever. And when the term is overused (and misused), that gets lost.

For the sake of argument, assume Rihanna explicitly reveals her brows were inspired by Latina culture. Given that neither culture in question is “dominant,” how can this amount to appropriation? Is it because Rihanna’s wealth and success give her a measure of personal privilege, despite her race? How does that square with intersectionality? Is it more about British Vogue’s privilege than Rihanna’s? I certainly don’t have the answers, but I’m not sure they’re readily available to those who’ve joined the thin-brow pile-on either. It seems the over-application (and misapplication) of the concept has done a disservice to its definition.