Cultural Appropriation is real, but it usually refers to entire nations or massive artists or corporations adopting a caricature of smaller cultures, to the extent that people start associating it with that nation or artist rather than the culture. An example here is Picasso using African imagery, or pop stars copying underground music genres and effectively killing them off.

The problem is that people use it to talk about regular people starting a Sushi restaurant or whatever. They do not have the power to do this sort of thing.

That's not to say that cultures don't get appropriated, but is that a bad thing? White people rocking dreadlocks, cool. Black people sporting a kimono, nice. Asian people with Klan robes, what.

♬ One of these things is not like the other ~ One of these things is actually bad ♬

While there are people who are too trigger happy with the term, and a sizable gray area between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation, I do think there are cases where people cross over into objectionable cultural appropriation.

A really good example was when white American college students wore fake native American headwear with significant cultural and spiritual importance as decoration for drunken parties. I can definitely sympathize with native Americans not wanting their culture treated with disrespect.

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From what I've heard, plenty of black folks are mad about white people with dreadlocks because black people have been penalised for having locs for so long and along comes the dominant culture saying "actually that's cool and we're gonna make it cool, but you still look like shit".

Same with the fox eye trend that non Asians did for a bit, when Asian kids were forever bullied for having eyes like that.

Cultural sharing? Excellent. Cultural appropriation where one culture is plundered for anything of value and that culture is also denied acceptance for having those same characteristics? Not so good.