Cultural appropriation by proxy

Some time ago a school district in California banned the use of the word "chief" in job titles because, according to them, it's appopriating and disrespecting native Americans.

Never mind that the word "chief" is in no way, shape or form from native American origin, nor was it invented to describe native American leaders. The word "chief" comes from Latin and came into English via French, and has been in use for centuries before anybody using that word even knew that native Americans even exist.

Recently the University of Stanford published yet another list of banned words, to be removed from all their material, websites, documents, program code, and so on.

Unsurprisingly among those words was "chief", using that exact same argument.

Another word in the list is "brave", using the same argument: According to them that word was used to describe native Americans, and thus it's "cultural appropriation" to use it in any other context.

Hilariously the actual reality of things is pretty much the exact same as with "chief": The word "brave" comes via French from the Italian word "bravo", which most likely comes from vulgar Latin "bravus", and has been in use for centuries before anybody using the word even knew native Americans even exist.

There seems to be a curious trend that I like to call "cultural appropriation by proxy" (which is, of course, an allusion to "Munchausen syndrome by proxy", which has some similar characteristics). Could perhaps also be called "reverse cultural appropriation".

In other words, white westerners taking one of their own words (or other similar thing), a word originating from their own culture, attributing it to a different culture, and then retroactively claiming that the use by white westerners is "cultural appropriation" of that other culture. Even though the word is significantly older and originates from white westerner culture.

This is as idiotic as claiming that Dick Dale stole the song "Misirlou" from The Black Eyed Peas.