Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 25 seconds.
C- Bringing an argument about
(ancient) Greeks, Mongols, Celts etc. to a discussion about racism and
appropriation in the context of the last 200 yrs is a derailment of the
discussion and is an attempt to undermine legitimate grievances of modern day
black people.
As mentioned by OP, dreds do have "deep meaning" for African Americans and they explain a couple of reasons why this appropriation might be hurtful or offensive to the AA community.
As mentioned by OP, dreds do have "deep meaning" for African Americans and they explain a couple of reasons why this appropriation might be hurtful or offensive to the AA community.
KG- actually, it's not. Just
because all those cultures don't have wide stream use of those hairstyles, it
dosent take away history. I can tattoo my face blue, and it would be my
cultural heritage, even tho few have chosen to continue that tradition. Op has
proven her self deeply misinformed, from her picture is white, and didn't
actually give any cultural reason, just that essentially, American black people
don't like it because it blurs the line between cultures. Which is looping
logic. Can't blur two cultures if you can't show two cultures. So i asked
someone else. Just saying "deep cultural meaning" isn't an answer, i
said deep cultural meaning in regards to native symbols because i already know
the reasons and there are tons. Im asking to be informed, because no literature
on here is informative and i get accused of trying to derail the discussion. Do
you see why i find it difficult to take this complaint seriously? In my
experience when someone talks around the question, they don't have an answer.
C- Okay, so here goes:
When we enter a discussion about
cultural import and offensive appropriation vs. culture sharing and
assimilation, we have left behind objectivity and quantifiable data. We are now
talking about “feelings”, and often these discussions really boil down to “Who
is a cry-baby and who has a legitimate claim to anger/upset”.
In saying that you understand
cultural appropriation regarding Native/ Indigenous people, you’re in a
different spot than many people. Often fashion or pop culture will “borrow”
Native garb (specifically head dresses) because they are visually captivating,
and like you said- they have little to no regard for the history or context
surrounding those cultural signifiers.
For current context and to try to
answer your initial question: African Americans have long been ostracized for
their natural hair. In terms of beauty standards, 4C hair (what some refer to
as “kinky” hair http://bit.ly/2jm9Bzf ) was
and still is often seen by people outside of the AA community (and sometimes
inside) as messy, unprofessional, and ugly. This can be seen in the recent Supreme
Court case where the plaintiff’s job offer was rescinded because the office
hiring her had a policy against dreadlocks (http://nbcnews.to/2j0tr6O),
citing that locks get “messy”.
Some might then ask why black
people don’t just stop wearing dreads or dreadlocks altogether. We are limited
in the ways in which we can wear our natural hair and have it be seen as “professional”.
We face active discrimination for the hair that grows naturally from our
bodies, and this discrimination is often legalized through “dress code policies”
like the one cited above. There is a far-reaching history in the African diasporic
community of wearing our hair in dreads or locks. Some of the people in this
community are in fact, indigenous (indigenous Taino people lived in Haiti, for
example, before the slave trade arrived there).
In my community, we have those who
have paid to have locks styled in their hair, whereas dreads are how some
people’s hair natural dries and binds together. The root of the hair on dreads
is not separated into “neat” individual ropes as it is with locks. Dreads are
how many people’s hair forms naturally if not interfered with or styled
differently. For those people, it is intrinsically part of their body and their
blackness.
The issue with white communities “adopting”
this hairstyle is that they belong to a dominant cultural group who has set the
beauty and social acceptability standards in the US. Those who are white have
the luxury of wearing their hair how it naturally occurs and having that be
acceptable. They do not *need* to chemically straighten it, pay hundreds of
dollars/spend long hours having it braided neatly in order to secure a job.
They might need to get it cut, but that is a far less onerous task than being
asked to transform your hair to a state which is not how it occurs naturally.
If it is possible to respect
Native/Indigenous people who are offended by appropriation of their cultural
markers, then it should also be possible to respect those in the AA community (some
of whom are also indigenous) who have an issue with the appropriation of the
cultural/racial marker of dreadlocks/locks. If we don’t, it is a signal of
whose culture we respect and value more. Since AA culture is often diluted with
phrases like “gang culture” or over-simplified to mean only contemporary “rap”,
there is not a high societal value on it and it is not seen as “sacred”, “ancient”,
or having deep meaning. When in fact, the culture is much more broad, diverse,
and longstanding than what is understood by the dominant white culture- which, not
only sets the beauty standards as mentioned before, but also standards of
cultural importance; deciding things like which art, music, or even history is
valued and amplified through teaching and media. You’ll notice, the importance
of culture is often tied to its longevity: Greek culture, Roman culture, Egyptian
culture (which is often made to look white in its retelling: bit.ly/2iVSUf4 )
for some examples.
However, part of the reason some
AA traditions are not “longstanding” is due to the condition of slavery, and not
to any shortcoming of AA society. We were not permitted our art, our history,
or even to develop *new* history during the course of slavery (since we were made
and then kept illiterate). This effect cannot be discounted and its relevance
to our discussion on the importance of AA hairstyles is tied to the fact that
we are still, to this day, trying to recoup our significant cultural losses and
regain a sense of personal and collective history.
To say that dreadlocks and locks
cannot belong to the AA community is to be ignorant of the contextual history
of our cultural development and an attempt to syphon a sense of belonging from
us under the guise of “cultural oneness”. Contrary to popular belief, this is
not a peaceful approach and is in fact a violent daily occurrence which affects
people of color on a visceral level.
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