@youvegottenminuteslynn
And I may get some backlash for this but can we get rid of the idea that appropriating elements from other cultures in itself is problematic? Surely it's positive?
I don't doubt you're well meaning but please do read up on cultural appropriation and why people who belong to a race that has historically been the oppressor adopting a hairstyle used in the large part by the minority oppressed, is problematic in comparison to when a minority traditionally oppressed adopting a hairstyle used mainly by the oppressor.
I think if you read up on it you'll understand why one is problematic cultural appropriation while the other isn't.
Again I'm not saying your intentions are racist, I'm saying your actions do amount to cultural appropriation and that's something worth reading up on to try to understand.
Good grief, I'm sure you have broken a couple of forum rules with that post alone so far. These derailing people keep doing is terrible.
I know you may be well-meaning, but that statement in itself is racist, you do not get to tell a person they can't do something or wear a certain style just because of the color of their skin. Maybe you should be the one to read up on some facts, Europe, Africa, India, China, Japan, Australia, Asia and Central Asia have all had braids in their cultures, yes the oldest examples of hair braiding are from South Africa, so? Swords, hunting, hierarchies and so on are things that have also been shared by cultures, even those who did not interact at the time. Think about it, you have to be incredibly ethnocentric to lay claim to an entire hairstyle and incredibly racist to tell another ethnicity that they cannot wear that hairstyle because it "appropriates" your culture, really? You lay monopoly in the name of people with a certain shade of skin on the art of braiding one's hair tightly? Your culture? Yours? Really? Do you know what the earliest depiction of dreads are? The God Shiva in India, some believe that African Egyptians "appropriated" it from them. We can even see some of the earliest depictions of dreadlocks date back as far as 1600–1500 BCE in the Minoan Civilization, one of Europe’s earliest civilizations, centered in Crete (now part of Greece). Never have I heard a Greek tell another ethnicity, nor an Indian not to wear dreadlocks because it "appropriates" their culture, then again, I don't know any Greek people, nor many Indians.
And please drop the "belong to a race that has historically been the oppressor", that is all sorts of offensive, say that to Asians about Ghengis Kahn or to Mexicans about drug cartels and that will certainly change your tone, if that sounds wrong to you, it's because it is, if what you are saying sounds right to you, then that is a problem, that is not how the real world works. So if you mean specifically in America, the only similarity she has to so called oppressors is the color of her skin, may not even share genes(could be Scottish, German or any other of the many different "white" humans)and you are dictating what she can or can't do based on the color of her skin, that is essentially what racism is. I must also point out, that there is a time an place, and this is certainly not it, she never asked for YOUR permission to wear dreads, nor was it relevant to her question, stop strongarming your ideology on innocent people.