Katy Perry’s Apology For Appropriation Wasn’t Good Enough

Never tell a white woman she can’t have something. Unless, apparently, you do it in a nice enough way. This seems to be the primary sentiment being expressed in the clip of an apologetic interview with activist Deray McKesson posted to Youtube during Katy Perry’s weekend-long stream of her daily activities used to promote her latest album, Witness.

“Why can’t I wear my hair that way?” Perry remembers questioning a confidant. However, according to Perry, there is a caveat: “It takes someone to say out of compassion, out of love, this is the origin… not just a clap back. Because your ego just wants to turn from them.”

Sorry, Katy, but I’m not buying it.

That’s not to say that she doesn’t make a couple of good points here. People are more receptive to criticism when it is presented as constructive criticism, rather than as a series of targeted insults, jokes, or impassioned, but angry-seeming arguments on Twitter.

With that being said, there’s no way that many people being that angry with you shouldn’t make you question whether you’ve actually done something to offend them. Intent, unfortunately, doesn’t earn any points in these social situations. People remember what is said, what is done, and not really what the person being remembered meant to do or say. They also don’t appreciate the apologizing party making the apology all about themselves and not the offended party.

Katy tries to cop the plea that, “My intention was to appreciate Japanese culture… I didn’t know I did it wrong!” Which is kind of hard to believe at this point. There is enough educational material out in the world that explains how and why dressing up in yellowface or wearing someone’s culture as what amounts to a Halloween costume is wrong.

This excuse comes off exactly like the kid who gets caught with a hand in the cookie jar, but feigns ignorance as to the off-limits-until-after-dinner nature of the snack they wanted more than they cared to follow the rules of the house. In most cases, the rules are clearly stated, or at least implied by experience and social cues that say, “ask first, wait until later, share with your siblings, make sure it’s OK.” The script is the same every time, so these pop stars are going to have to come up with some better excuses when they keep sticking their hand in for another bite and keep getting caught.

While we’re on the subject, since I never really got into saying this elsewhere, one of the main things that sets people off isn’t cultural appreciation, or cultural appropriation. It’s the erasure that takes place afterwards — the actions that make it appear as if the borrower is the originator, without having done any of the hard work, or invested the money, time, and tears into creating the original work to only accept the benefits when it becomes profitable, fashionable, or socially acceptable.

Imagine working your entire childhood to master a favored family recipe that has been passed down through the generations by loving and beloved grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles. There were burns, cuts, mishaps, mistakes, ruined dishes, and small fires, but one day, you made it just like grandma, and you felt so much sense of pride in this accomplishment, you opened a restaurant to share that history and pride with the world (and make a little profit off of all your hard work).

Now imagine a fellow restaurateur visits, and you, wanting to be a good host, show them around the kitchen, introduce them to the recipes you worked ages on, and gave them your blessing to try it out for themselves. A week later they open a new restaurant across town, and you come to find out they are making your grandma’s recipe.

They’ve changed a couple of things, taken out a dash of pepper or paprika, but they’re still telling your stories, and selling your history and hard work. That’s erasure, and that’s why people of color or marginalized minorities get so upset to see people wearing bindis and henna at Coachella, sagging their pants and turning their caps backwards to seem “down” and “hip” with rap culture, or sticking chopsticks in their hair as a fashion statement — because the stories are being ripped off, cut off, and incompletely sold back as a bastardized, commodified version of themselves. An apology just won’t cut it in that situation.

If you don’t know why Desi women wear bindis on their forehead — what it means, where it comes from, what it symbolizes — why do you want to do it so badly? Why do you absolutely need to make that chicken and watermelon reference, when you don’t know its origin or how it was historically used to ridicule and oppress an entire ethnicity?

Bill Maher doesn’t get to call himself a “house n***a,” because he doesn’t look anything like me, and historically speaking would be far more likely to be inside the house being catered to by me if this were the 1800s, because I fit the description of a “house n***a,” and as such, I would have been subject to the reprehensible treatment anyone who looked like me would have received in that time period. And let’s face it, even now — colorism is very real, no matter what shade you are, which is a further part of the discussion around what that phrase meant. None of it involves Maher’s lived experience, so he doesn’t get to just try it on for size on TV to raise eyebrows.

So to bring all that back to Katy… sorry, you aren’t owed “nice,” “loving,” or “compassionate.” You don’t get to cross the line, jump back over it, and claim you never knew it was there to begin with. The best policy, really, is to avoid jumping over the line in the first place, and it should be obvious exactly where the lines are.

The next time you want to “show appreciation for Asian culture,” instead of slapping together a bunch of stereotypes from the three or four mainstream movies that ostensibly take place in Asia, maybe ask an actual Asian person — maybe they can tell you that “Asian” can mean “Cambodian,” “Korean,” “Chinese,” “Japanese,” “Mongolian,” “Hmong,” “Vietnamese,” or “Thai,” and that all of these nationalities, while there may be similarities and cross-pollination of certain cultural affects due to a thousand generations of war, occupation, trade, and travel, are all distinct, separate things.

Maybe having a couple of sisters around will give you the perspective to realize that dressing up like a minstrel show caricature of a “ghetto,” “ratchet,” angry, black woman isn’t empowering as long as those stereotypes are still applied to and negatively affect those black women, it isn’t the way to go. It’s throwing all the vitriol black women receive — along with the erasure, the displacement, the stigmatization — back in their faces. “Oops” doesn’t cut it, you’ve got to go further than that.

Don’t just apologize; do better. Don’t make it about how much you’ve grown and “been educated.” Katy, you need to help educate others and do the work — not just when there’s an album release on the line. Maybe, instead of admonishing the offended parties to be a little nicer and more subtle in their guidance, become the teacher. Play the role of educator for your peers, while acknowledging that you’re still learning too. Don’t be “woke” when it’s convenient and there’s an album to sell, be consistently conscious and aware of how you can affect the world to be a better place — not just for you, but for everyone, regardless of whether or not you think they are going to buy your album.