This article discusses cultural appropriation. More precisely, it discusses discussions about cultural appropriation, which stress me out more than any other cultural consulting topic. The question of whether a given expression is or is not cultural appropriation, and the corollary question of whether cultural appropriation is even real or not, tends to polarize and ossify conversations between otherwise like-minded people. But what if we reframed the conversation? What if we talked about the same content, but we broke the topic of cultural appropriation down into its component parts: the distinct power dynamics, patterns, and consequences of each individual cultural exchange? What if we talked about cultural appropriation without deciding whether something is cultural appropriation or not? Does that still count as talking about cultural appropriation? Let’s find out.