I’ve seen twice in the past couple days anti-discrimination rhetoric pushed to the point of meaninglessness. They weren’t too extreme, they just missed the entire point.

The first went like this: anyone dressing in another culture’s traditional garment (in this case, a Japanese idol band dressed as indigenous Americans) is performing culture appropriation. The second went like this: any exercise-like activity (in this case, a VR rhythm game) is an instance of fatphobia.

In either case the relevant concept exists, but the blanket statement strips them of their meaning by only caring about symptoms and not the causes.

Cultural appropriation was conceived exclusively in the context of colonization. Given that white people colonized most of the world, they are extremely likely to perform culture appropriation, but it doesn’t apply evenly to non-white people, even if the costumes themselves are in bad taste.

In the same vein, exercise as a way to lose weight has often been suggested to people by doctors instead of performing actual medical diagnostic because of their bias against body weight, but exercise itself is good for everybody regardless of their weight.

I have absolutely no doubt that both these people are well-intentioned and believe they are fighting against cultural appropriation or fatphobia as hard as they can. But they end up missing the point, either unintentionally or because it is uncomfortable for them to grasp with colonization, medical malpractice or exercising.