@Ishmael: "What does this have to do with 白左?"

OP in this thread illustrated how 白左 could be used (for example) to describe people who appropriate pieces of other culture, in that case the Chinese qipao.

Whether that example was correct or not in reference to 白左, is rather irrelevant to the comments that followed.

When we are talking of language (any language), we cannot forget that purpose of language is to describe real world.

That purpose would be doomed to fail, unless we can to some degree agree about what that real world is.

In this case, what is cultural appropriation to begin with.

A little bit of a misunderstanding I think. 白左, which in some contexts might approximate to the contemptuous term snowflake, is more likely to refer to people who accuse others of cultural appropriation.

@cloudtrapezer:

Thanks, agreed.

It gets confusing :)

Peter: Allowed or banned by whom? The only candidate that could pull off either would be some kind of cop outfit, and it would be absurd control freakery to bring in anything like that.
Perhaps we might simply agree that, as with anything else, people should try to understand what they are saying before they say it, and be ready to deal with the consequnces.