My Struggle With "Cultural Appropriation"

I'm sort of ashamed to admit this, but though I hail from Asheville NC, one of the most liberal cities in the south, there are are many, MANY progressive concepts I had not heard of until I transferred for my junior year to Agnes Scott in Atlanta. Being from Asheville, I thought I was pretty up-to-date on liberalism. Turns out, I pretty much lived under a rock. I didn't hear the term "cultural appropriation" until my junior year of college, and it was (and is, I guess) a pretty confusing idea that I'm currently doing my best to understand, accept, and respect. But I've got some deep-set childhood shame issues now if this is true, so listen to my story and tell me what you think....

It was within the first two or three days in my apartment that the concept of "cultural appropriation" came up in a conversation with my roommates, and woah, I was pretty floored that I hadn't heard of it before. We were talking about dreadlocks on white people, and how unacceptable it was at Agnes Scott. I was completely taken aback, because if you're from Asheville you know dreadlocks on white people is COMPLETELY common-place, and it's very likely to be a young democrat that has them (not stereotyping! But you know its true!) and probably the exact same ones that I saw joining racial equality rallies on my WNC campus after Ferguson during my sophomore-ish year.

It's so bizarre to me that this term was never once mentioned to me in my years of education in Asheville. Furthermore, that I had been committing this social sin all my LIFE without even realizing it! As a child, I was the first kid to be seen culturally appropriating come Halloween or ANY OTHER TIME OF THE YEAR. I had Native American headdresses, multiple Kimonos, frequently sported a turban or a hijab style headpiece, learned how to do corn-rows on myself at age 11, sewed my own Sari, and was absolutely OBSESSED with Jewish culture as a kid, and enjoyed having pretend passover dinners and following a Jewish holiday calendar.

Looking back, it's disheartening to think that my excitement over other cultures was... wrong? That wearing a kimono to school for a project on Japanese Tea Ceremonies was offensive and distasteful...? I loved other cultures, and it was in complete innocence and excitement that I read about them, thought about them, and wanted to have some sort of real-life experience with them, either through dress or ceremony. I don't want to think that my involvement as a little white girl in these outfits somehow "cheapened" the cultures and created a disrespectful attitude towards them... because I LOVED these cultures and the stories about them, and never wanted to create stereotypes or harmful ideas about them. I was a smart kid, and I think I had the whole "love all of humanity, respect everyone, be a great person" thing down, yet what I'm learning as I read articles and statuses from many of my friends is that I was (if ignorantly) still cheapening, disrespecting, and abusing someone else's culture and background.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Was 7 year old Sarah wearing a kimono a socially disrespectful thing to do? Do we tell our kids that they are forbidden from stepping too closely to cultural symbols that don't "belong" to them? Forgive me for my naive commentary on this, it's such a new idea to me and I really want to understand it... I'm always ready to learn. PLEASE COMMENT! I NEED YOUR IDEAS!