Cultural misappropriation and hair

[meandthem]

Am I being unreasonable to object to ethnicity being a factor in respect of what hairstyle choices women are "allowed"? I am pissed of that it now seems acceptable for some styles to be considered cultural misappropriation. What happened to the sisterhood and feminism and women's right to do what the hell we want with our hair!

OK, you have an idea to put a ping pong ball on your ariel to allow you to find your car in the car park.

Someone else thinks it's a good idea and does it too, someone else copies them, someone else copies them, someone else starts a business selling them on Ebay.

The same thing happens in France because someone else has the same idea with a ribbon, and in China with a flag.......

Is that cultural appropriation? Or is it just the fact that people have ideas & once those ideas get out into the big wide world other people pick up on them too.

I get your point, but...The only way this analogy works, is if you add to it that the original person with the ping pong ball is looked down upon for having the ping pong ball and continues to be looked down upon even while others are using this idea.

I get your point, but...The only way this analogy works, is if you add to it that the original person with the ping pong ball is looked down upon for having the ping pong ball and continues to be looked down upon even while others are using this idea.

But also the original person who came up with the idea is now long dead and it is there descendants who want to be the only ones who can do the ping pong thing...

What is the aim? For all non-black women to wait until black women can have cornrows, afros, locs before anyone else can do so without criticism in a majority non-black society? No revolution is better than a revolution accelerated and facilitated by non-blacks? These are really not meant to be goady questions but I really want - as someone who's never going to appropriate black hairstyles - to understand what the aim is here in calling out non-black women who do this to their hair. I appreciate how galling it is to have to rely on the whims of the oppressor class to facilitate liberation but black women are a significant minority in the UK. It's not like sex, where the class split is 50/50. Until these certain hairstyles do become mainstream, will negative views of these hairstyles ever change?

I was just thinking about this. But, are they ever going to become mainstream or accepted in countries like the UK where there is a white majority? Do we just expect black people to wait and keep quiet until such change happens?

To be honest, most people that I know that are black or mixed race like myself are happy for anyone to wear whatever hairstyle the like - the only frustration is that often white people dismiss the difficulty of conforming (or choosing not to) to white standards. So, I'm happy to listen to everyone's frustrations, it at least lets people know of the issues.

But also the original person who came up with the idea is now long dead and it is there descendants who want to be the only ones who can do the ping pong thing...

But if the descendants are also looked down upon for the ping pong ball thing? For decades? I don't think this analogy works at all.

*their

I wish I had the ability to edit!

But if the descendants are also looked down upon for the ping pong ball thing? For decades? I don't think this analogy works at all.

I agree. I just don’t think there is a good analogy...

Agreed Speedy

@mirialis I appreciate your points but this issue is even wider than black people being a minority group in the wider UK. In many parts of the world white beauty standards are hugely sought after. In for example India and Nigeria skin-lightening creams sell like proverbial hot cakes.

For example, my niece is mixed and has light skin and blue eyes. It seems she is something to behold because she has 'white' features when we visit our other nations. It is the ingrained prejudice that galls.

My natural hair is curly but I've often had to straighten it for job interviews as otherwise I would not 'look' the part. It is very very very different from a white woman with frizzy hair. The historical and cultural horror of it makes it thus. In fact my siblings and I were well aware of this as we all 'pass' - we all have practically white skin and blue/green eyes. Some of my darker cousins despised us for this.

Look at Dianne Abbott - someone I'd consider the most prominent black female politician in the UK. Look at the disportioncate abuse she has received. As a side note; her hair is a weave. Michelle Obama wears extensions. Meghan Markle has straightened her hair to within an inch of its life.

The issue isn't one or two white women wanting to plait their hair or wear cornrows. It is the ingrained prejudice.

Rather than looking for an analogy that works, an example of cultural appropriation which does bother me is the use of Native American headdresses as a fun prop to wear (eg at festivals) when they have an important meaning to Native Americans, who are a group who have obviously been oppressed for many years.

I keep seeing people with tattoos of Native Americans - often Native Americans women in headdresses even though it was only men who wore them. People get them because “they look cool” rather than having any deep meaning.

I find this a bit distasteful. Even if it’s people in the UK who have never met a Native American or previously done anything actively to oppress them, I feel like it’s treating their culture as a trivial fun thing or a costume to be played with.

The problem is of course that there’s no agreed list of what things it’s OK to copy and which are appropriation.

@MaceWindu

I'm sorry to hear that you have these experiences. I'm in the bizarre position of having a skin tone that people can't match easily, so ironically, although I'm English born and raised, the only thing some people won't accept me as is English.

I could do corn rows or wear a sari and I'm guessing I wouldn't be told I was "culturally appropriating".

I really wonder where all this came from. I'm 42 and track most of it back to the Blair years, when it seemed to suddenly become a matter of respect to ask endless questions about people's history. That's just my personal experience though.

I've even had people on MN say to me that it's disappointing when you ask someone "where are you really from" and get "London" as an answer. It's sad on so many levels. OOH they're talking to me like I'm the court jester. OTOH I'm deeply enveloped in London history and....in a further disappointment it's like I'm not allowed to be knowledgeable and passionate about it because my grandparents didn't live here.

Maybe I should write a book called "why I'm not talking to anybody about race". People with my skin colour get sad when they find out I'm English. I get assumptions about religion, diet, everything you can name.

What went wrong? It wasn't like this even 15 years ago.
I should add, I don't read much in the way of media coverage of celebs so I wouldn't have a clue about those references.

I do wonder where the line is drawn. One of the people who has come in for the biggest amount of criticism for this is Kim Kardashian for cornrows and boxer braids.

But her daughter is mixed race. What’s she supposed to say to North? Sorry darling, we can’t ever have the same hairstyle because it’s going to make some University students angry. We can’t ever plait each other’s hair and you can’t have hair like mommy’s and mommy can’t do her hair like yours because a bunch of strangers say so’.

Fuck that.

I do understand where you're coming from with that - I am from a mixed race family and the whiter of us were subtly clearly more favoured than our darker relatives by the eldest generation. But surely that is a fight you have to take to countries where majority black people are seeking "white beauty standards"? Until something becomes mainstream in the UK then it will always be seen as "other" and "ugly" and but the current situation is that it is not allowed to become mainstream in the UK.

straighten it for job interviews as otherwise I would not 'look' the part. It is very very very different from a white woman with frizzy hair

With genuine respect, how do you know this? It’s not a problem that men have re their hair, is it?

I think it’s more a women problem than a hair problem. Any “reason”to denigrate a woman.

What went wrong? It wasn't like this even 15 years ago.
I am 60 this year. I have had the 'where are you really from' question for over forty years. I too was born in London. However, my Grandmother was from the Med.

And white women with frizzy hair get judged believe me. Your viewed as slaterrnly or eccentric. Like Mary Beard.

I'd much rather be viewed as a slattern or eccentric than a 'half-breed'. It's a fallacious argument. It would only be equal if there were no such thing as racism or colonisation. But there we go.

I'm not saying that women as a class have don't have it hard, it is indeed a patriarchal society. Women have it bloody hard in all areas - from carrying the mental load at home to being underpaid at work to downright misogyny and abuse. I don't deny that. But the idea that black women or black people in general somehow have the same / equal struggles as white women / white people in this society is a joke. It really is.

No, straightening hair isn't cultural appropriation. It's a response to racism. It's trying to fit in to get less racist comments. And it's about society not accepting you as you are...Which affects how you see yourself.

So every black woman that straightens her hair, does so because she (we) feels under pressure. What if she just likes it straight?

What does it mean if a European wants to curl her hair, then? Is that political or not.

I'm a black woman who braids hair for anyone who wants it. I've braided white, black, pink with green spots.

I dunno, I'm just fed up of there always having to be some motive behind every action a black woman takes.

And please don't lecture me on racism, and the like, I've experienced it.

But here's the thing, if I want to straighten, colour, extend my hair, perhaps I'm just wanting a change of hair-style without there being any 'hidden' meaning behind it; y'know like most women do?

And I couldn't care less how anyone else chooses to wear hair on their own head..

Ooweeooooo, my daughter has hers in locs, too and people often question/double-take her wearing them because she's very pale

They look great on her and I'm sure they do on you

People just love shoving other people in their already-reserved, stereo-typed pigeon-holes and when they don't fit that, they want to know why.

Been reading through this thread again - I do have some rage around cultural appropriation and micro-racism, mostly due to seeing my culture appropriated and having experienced actual racism. For me this isn’t an ‘academic’ argument - so I will come off strong on it, it’s personal. I also accept I do not speak for all black people.

In a country where slavery existed for longer than it has been abolished, and quotas/targets are still needed to get ethnic minorities into businesses... where people somehow think it’s OK to just touch my hair or make comments on my appearance... where I am aware that there are still structures in the system that keep minorities down... it would be nice to say ‘cultural appropriation is a thing’ and have someone (ideally white!) say, yes I get it.

Every situation is different - Kim Kardashian has a mixed race daughter and son, yes. Her situation is nuanced. However I would argue that her posting a sexy photo online and calling them ‘Bo Derek’ braids indicates that she wasn’t exactly thinking of her daughter’s cultural experience (in that moment of posting).

There is so much to unpack in this sort of discussion. D&I is a big part of my job and I’m so aware I don’t have the answers. I just dread the first time my son experiences racism and what I will say to him. It’s not about hair - it’s about attitudes. If we lived in a world that was truly equal, everyone could have corn rows. Sadly, we don’t.

How does the "dreads on whites are always appropriation/racist" think work when lots of white people on this part of the globe have celtic heritage??

validmirs

I have five children.
One had the brightest blue eyes you have ever seen.
All but one have greeny/blue eyes.
They all have varying degrees of what might be termed 'black features'
They are all stunning (obviously).

When my DD was little and I took her out I got a lot of reaction. She was a very beautiful child. She had the blue eyes.
What happened often was that young black women would ignore me/cut me and talk about my DD. They would say that they wanted a baby with blue eyes/wished their children had blue eyes and 'good' hair.
It happened such a lot.
These black girls wishing for white features on their children whilst being (to put it bluntly) fecking rude to a white mother.

I am not the person to point out the issues with this. Like I am not the person to point out the obvious issues behind black people criticising me because my kids have natural hair.

I keep my counsel.

I have Celtic heritage. I didn't grow up with my gran or aunties wearing locs. It happened a very long time ago and our culture has changed since. Snoods are the only Celtic/cultural hair adornment I can think of that I was aware of growing up

*....and calling them ‘Bo Derek’ braids indicates...'

THIS is the issue isn't it?
Its incredibly insulting to call them after a white women who wore them for a crap film when black people had been wearing them for millennia!
I am going to say it...its worse because she has a black child.
She should know better.