In 1994, Disney trademarked the use of the phrase "hakuna matata" on clothing, footwear, and headgear. The common Swahili phrase, meaning "no trouble," was the name of a song in Disney's movie The Lion King. Now, a petition for Disney to give up the copyright, has more than 50,000 signatures.

(Zimbabwean activist Shelton) Mpala told CNN he started the petition "to draw attention to the appropriation of African culture and the importance of protecting our heritage, identity and culture from being exploited for financial gain by third parties. This plundered artwork serves to enrich or benefit these museums and corporations and not the creators or people it's derived from."

(image: a selection of goods from Alibaba.com) Read the rest

I've been following BurritoGate, the story of two white women in Portland who went to Mexico (barely, they went to Puerto Nuevo,) and liked the burritos. The pair decided to learn to make flour tortillas, ran into some language barriers, and then came back to Portland to serve breakfast burritos one day a week from a taco cart. Social Justice could not stand the 'cultural appropriation.' Read the rest

Almost 40 years later and we're still treating indigenous peoples like this. (r/ObscureMedia, thanks UPSO!)

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A kerfuffle about a Canadian university where yoga classes were cancelled after concerns about cultural appropriation were raised by the Centre for Students with Disabilities sparked Michelle Goldberg, author of a biography of yoga pioneer Indra Devi to discuss the complicated issue of cultural exports, cultural appropriation, and the history of yoga. Read the rest

How one publisher turned a video game into a collaboration with an entire Alaska Native community.