Not least because I automatically protested "America is the dominant culture" as a knee-jerk reaction, even though, on forcing myself to think rationally about it, I have to admit that it is.
Other people are talking about Euro-american or white culture, if it makes you feel better; I just focused on America because it's easier for me to talk about.
But I do think that it's not a simple equation: it's not 'American is completely dominant and no one else has any power'. It's really a continuum. American has more recognition power than England, but England has more Egypt, which has more than the Maori. And the order can change depending on the context; if I write about the Japanese, that's cultural appropriation by a dominant culture, but for a Japanese author in Japan, they are the dominant culture, though a story about the Ainu might be a similar sort of appropriation.
no subject
Other people are talking about Euro-american or white culture, if it makes you feel better; I just focused on America because it's easier for me to talk about.
But I do think that it's not a simple equation: it's not 'American is completely dominant and no one else has any power'. It's really a continuum. American has more recognition power than England, but England has more Egypt, which has more than the Maori. And the order can change depending on the context; if I write about the Japanese, that's cultural appropriation by a dominant culture, but for a Japanese author in Japan, they are the dominant culture, though a story about the Ainu might be a similar sort of appropriation.