I think the opposed concepts of "appropriation" and "appreciation" are overused, often reactionary, and almost always undertheorized in contemporary discourse and belie problematic essentalist beliefs.
That said, taking something and using it without seriously engaging with its contextual situation -- or seeming like you're not, which shakes out to the same thing -- is at the root of most situations where someone takes offense and calls something appropriative. If you don't mean to cause offense but also want to keep doing the offensive action--using a particular pronoun because you think it's cute--its worth thinking about why you are doing this and trying to communicate those reasons. This is the kind of thing that people mean when they talk about equity versus equality.
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I think the opposed concepts of "appropriation" and "appreciation" are overused, often reactionary, and almost always undertheorized in contemporary discourse and belie problematic essentalist beliefs.
That said, taking something and using it without seriously engaging with its contextual situation -- or seeming like you're not, which shakes out to the same thing -- is at the root of most situations where someone takes offense and calls something appropriative. If you don't mean to cause offense but also want to keep doing the offensive action--using a particular pronoun because you think it's cute--its worth thinking about why you are doing this and trying to communicate those reasons. This is the kind of thing that people mean when they talk about equity versus equality.
Just a thought!