Cultural Appropriation?

[jthk]

Thank you for all the replies.

My own instinct, which I kept quiet about in the original post to encourage discussion, is that registering our own corporate tartan is the best way to avoid cultural appropriation.

I've always felt very uncomfortable with the idea of wearing a tartan from a clan or region with which I have no connection, so I tend to stick to Irish-American / Celtic Heritage or universal tartans. (Typical Irish family -- we have no idea where we came from, and the surnames are entirely too common to be of any help. And to make matters worse, 23 & Me revealed that I'm actually only about 1/8 Irish despite having been raised half Irish my whole life. Apparently marrying an Irishman made you Irish even if you were 100% English or German.) I've recently solved the problem altogether by registering my own tartan and I'm now saving my pennies to get it produced. The kilt, to me, is not distinctly enough Scottish or Irish for me to feel like I'm being appropriative wearing one as long as I'm wearing it in an appropriate tartan. So creating an organizational tartan would allow those who just love kilts to finally have a "clan" to identify with, albeit a corporate one.

But, again, those doing the appropriation never feel they're being inappropriate, so I want more perspectives on this.

Comrades,

Excuse the intrusion but just to clarify -- the tartan kilt as we know it isn't Irish but is Scottish in origin unless I'm mistaken (which is entirely possible). Also, "Celtic" descent doesn't really matter as not all Celtic cultures had a tartan kilt. Since I currently don't live in Ireland or Scotland and am not Irish or Scottish, I will be very careful about my response to the cultural appropriation question. I agree with Jock, Steve, and CDN -- I don't think it's cultural appropriation in this situation at all. If I were to get tattooed with spiritual and sacred images of another culture, or to wear another culture's spiritual head-dress then that's an entirely different story.

(Further, which I hesitate to include ... but six of my eight great-grandparents were born in Ireland and subsequently moved to the US. I have spent years traveling and living in Ireland, I am a fluent Irish-speaker, and play traditional music but I don't consider myself Irish. I'm American ... yes, with Irish background but when people ask, "Are you Irish?" my response is "No, I'm American." One doesn't have to be French to enjoy French wine or to speak French after all.)

Regards,
Jonathan