Son's girlfriend thinks suntans are racist

[DollyDaydream70]

I could be opening a real can of worms here, but I'm genuinely gobsmacked by a few things my Son's 18yr old girlfriend said to me last night..

First of all she asked me did I think it's racist for white girls to copy black girl's style. I had no clue what she was referring to as 'black girl's style' so asked her to elaborate. She then referred to a singer called Ariane Grande (who I know literally 0 about) and said that she tans herself until she's almost black and 'dresses like a black girl'.

I've Googled said singer and all I can find is a pic of her with Nikki Minaj where, yes, she looks dark, but so what? We've been tanning since Coco Chanel made it stylish in the 1920's, and probably long before that! What are we supposed to do? Stay indoors when the sun shines ffs?!!

Son's GF also stated that it's racist for a white person to wear corn rows in their hair. I told her that my friends and I used to corn row our hair a lot in the mid to late 80's, we used to stick wooden or plastic beads on the ends of our plaits, it was quite the fashion at the time!

What do you all think about this? Please tell me this is all going too far. I'm genuinely quite perplexed that tanning and corn rows could be deemed to be racist!

A white teacher in my old school was sent home to get rid of her braided hair as it was unprofessional. I don't recall seeing a single professional white woman with braids when they were fashionable. Maybe celebrities had them, but I don't think they have ever been deemed as "professional" for white women yet "unprofessional" for black women.

Ms grande is Italian, However its not racist, as other have pointed its cultural

yes, piercing that don’t have a cultural or religious background often need to be removed. I have a nose stud that I can’t wear at work, my Indian colleagues can wear theirs. Mine is a fashion items, theirs have cultural significance.

Fashion, culture, religion.

Not as clear cut as you’d like to think.

OP you're not being unreasonable but you will get flamed on MN for your 'ignorance'. Your son's GF sound like she needs to educate herself on this issue and a lot more besides. Sound as like she's well-meaning but has limited insight into the real issues. To be fair, in the current climate cultural appropriation can only ever be a one way street where, in a nutshell, braiding hair in any style can/will always be condemned as culturally inappropriate, but straightening hair is a fashion statement and encapsulates someone's right to express themselves (no issue with how anyone chooses to wear their hair myself, FFS there are more important things going on in the world right now). I'd do as other posters suggest upthread & read around the subject yourself so you can have an informed discussion with GF and anyone else. Starting here might be helpful www.amazon.co.uk/How-Have-Impossible-Conversations?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

*yes, piercing that don’t have a cultural or religious background often need to be removed. I have a nose stud that I can’t wear at work, my Indian colleagues can wear theirs. Mine is a fashion items, theirs have cultural significance.

Fashion, culture, religion.

Not as clear cut as you’d like to think*

Exactly. I am white british but had my kids in a very nigerian area. They were appalled I didn’t get my babies ears pierced. It is is cultural, but they don’t think it should be restricted to their culture, iyswim. In their culture all baby girls should have their ears pierced, regardless of ethnicity.

She sounds like very hard work.

@SomethingOnce

yes, piercing that don’t have a cultural or religious background often need to be removed. I have a nose stud that I can’t wear at work, my Indian colleagues can wear theirs. Mine is a fashion items, theirs have cultural significance.

Fashion, culture, religion.

Not as clear cut as you’d like to think.

Exactly, I’m Pakistani, my nose piercing and ear piercing have zero cultural significance, I just like them.

So first of all yes in my workplace facials are not allowed so if I were the boss and a white woman came in wearing a Bjndi and a nose stud id be having a discrete word. I have had Indian / Pakistani heritage colleagues who have worn a piercing though, apparently without issue (that I am aware)

I appreciate you might be Pakistani and yet your nose stud is just fashion but any boss with half a brain would know better than to ask you to remove it unless they wanted ACAS knocking at their door with a discrimination claim.

(sorry not saying you personally would play the race card just that a well advised boss would know better than to risk situations that could expose them / company to HR risks)

My DC grew up in South London in the nineties, they had some amazing experiences living in a multi cultural society from celebrating Diwali, being invited to Sikh temples and having corn rows and weaves in the local African hairdressers as an example. How sad it is that now it would be frowned upon, my children are the least racist people I know and I'm convinced that is due to where they grew up and the amazing kids of all races and religions they grew up with.

@FamBae

Exactly. My children are growing up in an American city and their friends' heritage and cultural traditions are so diverse. I think that once you start designating things "out of bounds" for certain groups, it causes societal divisions. We don't want to model this behaviour to children.

DD (15) experienced a temporary rejection by an African-American friend who said they couldn't be friends anymore, because DD was white and thereby associated with racism/slavery. They've reconciled, but it was an eye-opening moment for DD (then 13).

The Bindi isn't a great example - a white person could be a Hindu, and an Indian person could not be a Hindu.

It's really not as simple as people are making out.

DonutDolittle My friend, a white girl got made to take her braids out at secondary school after coming back from Tahiti with braids when other girls were allowed to keep them. I remember her being annoyed because her grandma was Tahitian and her DM had grown up there. I'm not sure if she told the teacher that, she might have been too shy.
I agree that you can't just assume because someone is/looks white they have no links to a particular culture or ethnicity.

FamBae That sounds lovely, I remember as a kid I used to play out with all the other neighbourhood kids and we used to all know how to shout "car!" in at least 4 languages.

We've been tanning since Coco Chanel made it stylish in the 1920's, and probably long before that! What are we supposed to do? Stay indoors when the sun shines ffs?!!

Who's 'we', OP?

Your faux naivete is hiding a goady post, OP.

DD (15) experienced a temporary rejection by an African-American friend who said they couldn't be friends anymore, because DD was white and thereby associated with racism/slavery. They've reconciled, but it was an eye-opening moment for DD (then 13).

Why do people think that Arabs and Africans had nothing to do with the slave trade. It was established before a white face ever showed up.

@Ihaventgottimeforthis

I think a lot of the time people wilfully misinterpret discussions like this to be all like 'it's PC gone mad/you can't say anything any more/now sun tans are racist? Good grief' without actually listening to or caring about or even engaging with the nuance and complexities of the debate, just automatically becoming defensive and hyperbolic. And that's one of the reasons why structural racism is alive and well in this country.

It's nuance that is often missed (as it so often is in discussions about race and racism). There is something kind of strange about AG and the style she has adopted. It does seem a bit disrespectful. I can see both sides buy she has obviously taken the whole change of skin colour about as far as it could go and I could see why people would feel that's a bit "off".

My children are growing up in an American city and their friends' heritage and cultural traditions are so diverse. I think that once you start designating things "out of bounds" for certain groups, it causes societal divisions. We don't want to model this behaviour to children.

Mine have had the incredible luck to have had this sort of experience too. Life is so much more nuanced than the 'suntans are bad' pov of the OP's DS's girlfriend.

The less we rub shoulders with each other the more we are inclined to see other people as different and less than fully human.

@PlanDeRaccordement

<strong>LaurieMarlow</strong>

<span class="italic">Non native DNA can very obviously manifest itself in the population hundreds of years after the fact.</span>

<span class="italic">In the south of Ireland, for example, we still see people born with very dark eyes, hair, skin (by irish standards) due to various groups of Spanish sailors landing hundreds of years ago.</span>

PdeR
Big difference between 1600 and 900 AD. We twice as close in time to those Spanish sailors shipwrecked from the Spanish Armada 400yrs ago than any Berber in Sicily 1,100 years ago

@PlanDeRaccordement, you need to go back and read a bit more history. Your notions about demographic history are simply wrong.

The north Africans (and Arabs, a very mixed group) who went to Sicily stayed there. They did not leave. They intermarried and their genes were carried on, along with the rest of the genetic soup that formed in Sicily.

The 'black Irish' are not the result of a single historical event around the year 1600.

Ireland had strong trading and fishing links with SW France (Gascony) and Spain (Basque country) and northern Portugal for hundreds of years. Ireland also traded extensively with France in the early modern period. Fishing voyages in those days lasted several months, usually from midsummer to mid winter, with fish salted on board ship or smoked onshore in Ireland before being transported home. Other Spanish ships plied the waters off Newfoundland ('Terra Nova') and this fishery eventually replaced the waters off Ireland, partly due to the hostility of the British Navy.

Trade involved an exchange of fish, dried meats, hides and leather for wines, spices, finished metal goods.

White women tan yes but tanning to be extra dark (is it even possible to do that safely or without adding extra makeup?)

@DeeCeeCherry
It wouldn't be safe for me.

But my mother can come in sporting a deep tan from taking out the bin any time from May to September, and so could both my sisters.

Not all white skin is pale and burnable.

Lol.
I guess it went over her head that Vitamin D, essential to health and happiness is a sun-giving gift...?
Or maybe she lives her life in a dreary, drizzly, cloudy country....

OP, some people are just full of themselves. Don't rise to the bait! Laugh it off and leave the room.

God I long for the day we no longer judge people on the colour of their skin....

DS biracial,
me mottled with eczema....