Comment: Cultural appropriation isn't about originality. It's about exploitation. It's dishonest in that it seeks to control, sanitize, and marginalize the appropriated culture.

The "Write what you know" dictum is akin to the Oracle at Delphi's statement on Socrates. Was he the smartest Greek? He thought he didn't know anything and set about to find out how little he did know.

Picasso said Art is a lie that tells the truth. Writers need to know they're lying and to be wary about whether their finished story tells the truth or just perpetuates a lie.

No one is worried about the appropriation of English culture or French culture. It's the appropriation of oppressed cultures that matters. Indigenous cultures, cultures of people of colour, marginalized peoples, and those discriminated against have all been victimized a second time by having their stories colonized by their oppressors. 

It does not do a disservice to note the culture of the author. What it does do is note authority.