Welcome participation in your culture is not appropriation. Appropriation happens when a tradition is taken and decontextualized from its original culture, adopted by mainstream culture, and changed to mean something else without buy-in from the originating culture.

You know your culture has been appropriated when some rando who isn’t even part of your culture explains to you how you’re wrong about your tradition because it doesn’t look like their mainstream version. For example, explaining to an Indian person that yoga is a physical exercise program where you continuously shift between isometric stretches.

It’s sad only because the tone is dismissive/condescending. Otherwise it’s just describing someone who figured out how their gf likes to receive affection. My head canon says they’ve only been dating for a couple months and they’ve had their dog for years.

People who cannot discern context or degrees of wrong are no better than ICE agents. Love you