Son's hair is "cultural appropriation"

[Jourdain11]

So as not to drop feed: my father's family are from North Africa and he had the sort of tightly-curled hair which some North African people have. I have wavy-curly hair and look European. My husband is English and all three of my children have his fair colouring. However, some trick of genetics has meant that my son (5) has inherited the tightly-curled hair gene. He is very blond and usually his hair is cut quite close to his head, but when it grows out a bit, he has these amazing blonde curls standing around his head.

Anyway, I was a bit taken aback when a friend said the other day that we'd better get his hair cut before he starts Y1 because it might offend people! She said it's cultural appropriation for him, a white boy, to be wearing his hair "in an Afro". I said that seemed pretty harsh given that his hair just grows like that and it's part of his genetic make-up. She responded that people seeing him will just see "a white boy with an Afro" and it would be offensive.

Am I being unreasonable to find this ridiculous? My poor DS is going to offend people wherever he goes just because of the way his hair grows? Or am I being completely out of touch and insensitive?!

Thanks for the good suggestions and positive and supportive comments. I am happy that the general reaction hasn't been that my son's hair would be offensive if you randomly saw him on the street!

Cultural appropriation is hard to call and I do get that there are instances where it may be offensive or inappropriate. As a person of mixed heritage (one European parent, one North African Berber heritage) with an Arabic name but a European appearance, speaking very poor Arabic... it is an interesting tightrope to walk sometimes!

@RedRumTheHorse

The only reason to cut his hair is because he wants it done. Though this may be because he's fed up of people asking him his ethnic background due to having a blond afro. I worked with a red-haired guy who cut his hair off for this reason.

Because it was red? But surely long or short it’s still red? And I must be very dim as I didn’t know red hair represented an ethnic background

She is batshit. DH is North African and my DC appear white British in the winter but much darker in the summer and have hair that gets curly as it gets longer. They both identify with both their British and African heritage.