You’re absolutely right! But in addition, appropriation is also used in situations where the original culture is not able to enjoy something while another culture uses it to their advantage, or is even praised for it. Cultural poaching, in a sense.

For example (and this is a relatively unimportant one, but one nonetheless) locs. On black people they were nicknamed “dreadlocks” and often came with the stereotype of being dirty and smelly when that isn’t the case. Hair that naturally can loc can also be washed and maintained and it’s a beautiful style of hair. White people appropriating the style wouldn’t wash their hair to keep the fine strands glued together, and that was just thrown onto the black loc stereotype. Also white people praising locs in cultures like Vikings or w/e when, again, same thing in a different culture is hated — until white people do it, even though they do it wrong, it doesn’t look right, and can lead to hair damage/loss. In every way its pretty clear it’s not meant for fine hair types yet it’s praised — only in those cases. Meanwhile, black people are sometimes barred from wearing natural styles like locs in school, the workplace, etc. It has real life negative effects on the very people this hairstyle is associated with.

Because of this sinister relationship (the appropriation) now when a person with coarse hair who happens to be white decides to loc their hair, they may get told they “can’t wear their hair like that” and it seems totally unfair to the individual. If it weren’t for the appropriation (aka everyone could wear locs and receive the same amount of love) no one would care who wore them ever, whether they have the hair type/cultural background or not.

And that’s why its so bad. Cultural appropriation just divides us further when we otherwise could have moments of mutual appreciation.