OPINION: A conversation on privilege and cultural exchange
Emma Marshall, Publishing Editor
I grew up with a scraped knee. I was riding my bike with my friends around the cul-de-sac, high on sun-drunk summertime. One minute I’m flying, the next I’m bleeding.
I fell. I cried. I scabbed over. I scarred.
Then one day, it’s just gone. Faded into skin. And somehow I’m 21.
The bike is long gone. So are the juice boxes and the backyard games. I still remember them, but I’m not a kid anymore.
Some things from childhood stay with you—soft and stubborn, like a song stuck in your head.
Like in fourth grade, and all that mattered was how long recess lasted and whether my mum packed gummy bears in my lunch.
My teacher, a warm lady whom I knew only as Ms. Evans, had us rank our favourite school subjects from one to four.
My list went english, science, math, and social studies.
Now look at me, a writer. Some things never change. But also some things do.
I remember being so disinterested in social studies, my eyes glazing over when we talked about other countries and traditions.
“I live here, in England, with my friends and family and favourite food!” I thought.
I grew up thinking fusion was a Saturday night takeaway. Indian curries, Chinese noodles, maybe reggae on the radio. Fun, vibrant, and delicious—but largely divorced from any deeper cultural context.
Cultural exchange felt like novelty, a spicy alternative to my parents’ roast beef. It wasn’t until adulthood that I began to understand.
Politics behind the plate
Adulthood has a way of knocking you off balance. The fall doesn’t always draw blood, but it stings just the same.
I started to understand that what felt like sharing to me—a white, British immigrant now living in Canada—didn’t always feel that way to others.
Realizing the weight of cultural integration was humbling and culpable all the same. The line between appropriation and appreciation is blurring, but that doesn’t stop us from crossing it.
With technological advancements comes rapid cultural globalization. Blame the internet, travel, and social media, but fusion is a natural and unstoppable force in our reality, and when done right, it’s also transformative.
Take K-pop—or Korean Pop—for example. While the genre originated in South Korea, it takes influence from a range of international styles like hip-hop, reggae, and salsa. Now popular globally, K-pop generates billions of dollars and streams.
The same is true for food. Cultural fusion drives culinary creativity and innovation. Think Korean tacos, sushi burritos, Tex-Mex.
One of my favourite examples of cultural fusion is chifa—a Peruvian cuisine blending Cantonese techniques with local ingredients, born from Chinese immigration in the late 19th century. Now found in thousands of restaurants across Peru, it’s a staple of national identity and a key driver of tourism.
Cultural exchange fuels the economy in other ways, too. McDonald’s, for instance, adapts menus to local tastes with items like butter chicken burgers in India or teriyaki burgers in Japan.
The commodification of culture
Food, music, and art can be bridges. They can tell stories of migration, resilience, and community. But they can also become masks worn by people who want the flavour without the roots.
It’s important to understand that while cultural exchange is inevitable, it isn’t always fun or trendy. There are perspectives to consider, history to be learned, and—for people like me—white guilt to be understood.
Here’s my take:
Historically, colonized and racialized groups have been forced to assimilate, punished or mocked for holding onto their native traditions. The very things that made their cultures vibrant and distinct were used to shame them, pushing them further to the margins.
Take Black hairstyles, like cornrows, locs, and afros, for example. These hairstyles are deeply spiritual, cultural, and connected, often representing things like status and background. Braided hairstyles even served as communication during the slave trade, with patterns used to share information and map escape routes.
During the slave trade, Europeans shaved the heads of Africans to strip them of identity and dignity. Later, legislation like the Tignon Laws forced Black women to wear headscarves—further suppressing their culture and visibility.
Today, attitudes toward Black hair are often shaped by harmful stereotypes—lingering remnants of slavery-era beliefs that deemed Black people, and their physical features, as inherently inferior. In a modern context, Black hair is wrongly perceived as “unprofessional” or “unkept” in the workplace.
Yet we see white women donning cornrows on the runway during fashion week. Deputy Director Kathleen Newman-Bremang breaks it down in an article for Refinery29.
“White models wearing their hair in cornrows at Toronto Fashion Week is even more frustrating because we know the industry (Canada included) has a diversity problem,” she writes. “Our hairstyles are not here to help you feel edgy or cool. Our culture doesn’t exist for your street cred.”
What was once ridiculed becomes repackaged, minus the history, the struggle, the context.
Another consideration is Indigenous fashion and spirituality. Traditional regalia, beadwork, and even sacred practices like smudging or wearing feathers have long been banned or shamed by colonial governments.
In Canada, the potlatch—a ceremonial practice central to many Indigenous cultures—was outlawed for nearly 70 years. And yet today, major fashion houses like Urban Outfitters have been accused of selling “Indigenous-inspired” clothing without consulting or compensating Indigenous communities.
Symbols once suppressed are now commodified, stripped of meaning and sold for profit.
Even food isn’t immune. There was a time when bringing curry or kimchi to school made you a target for jokes. Kids were bullied for having ‘smelly’ or ‘weird’ lunches that didn’t look like ham sandwiches or Lunchables. Now, those same dishes are on trendy brunch menus with $18 price tags and “artisanal” twists.Dominant cultures now embrace what they once rejected, but only on their terms. And now they are the ones profiting from it.
So yes, cultural exchange is inevitable, and in its best form, it’s beautiful. But we can’t skip the history lesson. We can’t wear the outfit without understanding the ceremony. And we can’t keep calling it “fusion” if it’s just one side doing the taking.
Where white guilt grows
As a person with white privilege, I’ve had the luxury of seeing culture as something to ‘explore’ or ‘enjoy.’
Realizing my actions aren’t innocent, and my ignorance isn’t an excuse, was an injury like no other. It hurts to know I’m mindlessly contributing to the pain of others.
British culture itself is full of these scars serving as reminders of invasions, immigrations, exchanges, and evolution. I realized that even if my intentions are pure, my participation in another culture is never innocent. It happens within a history of colonialism, erasure, and unequal power.
Cultural fusion feels like theft when those wounds are still open and being ignored. And now we want their bandages too.
For me, that’s where white guilt comes in.
For a long time, I was afraid of that feeling. Afraid of getting it wrong, of saying the wrong thing, of being called out or labelled as ignorant, or worse, racist. That fear made me quiet. Hesitant. Defensive.
But white guilt, when I really sat with it, goes deeper than feeling ashamed of being white and the historical context associated with that. It’s about recognizing the comfort I live in. A comfort built, at least in part, on other people’s discomfort.
It was realizing that I never had to defend my name, my hair, my religion, or my food growing up. That my culture was never exoticized or criminalized.
It was actually normalized. Celebrated. Protected.
If I truly believe in the beauty of cultural exchange, then I also have to believe in justice, equity, and repair. Because fusion without respect is just theft dressed up as a trend.
And so when I catch myself admiring something from another culture, I ask: Who created this? Who was excluded from the table where it’s now being served? Am I celebrating this culture, or am I consuming it without care?
These aren’t easy questions. They’re not meant to be.
But discomfort is the sign that I’m finally paying attention.
White guilt reminds me of my place—not in a hierarchy, but in a history.
It’s a signal to check my privilege, to hold myself accountable, and to stay humble. It pushes me to learn before I speak and to listen more than I explain.
Because the goal isn’t to sulk in guilt. The goal is to feel responsible and then do something with that feeling.
To shift the conversation. To give credit. To open the door wider.
To remember that I may carry a scar from falling off a bike, but others carry scars from being pushed off theirs over and over again.
