I should say that a lot of my posts here were attempting to be academic or removed in tone, I wasn’t trying to enrage anyone; I respect a great many of the voices here on BB.
I think that cultural appropriation is a broad term and not everyone agrees about what it means, leading to some confusion. I think there are things which are clearly offensive (basically anything to do with Native Americans), but there are grey areas within our American “melting pot” culture (all of American pop music owes a debt to the blues for example.)
I also wonder what our grandchildren will make of this. I hope they will respectfully sort out our national problem with Native American mascots, but will they think white dreads are such a big deal decades from now?
Dreadlocks (or whatever we choose to call them) are a tangled issue (sorry… so much for the academic tone). They occur naturally in anyone with long hair who doesn’t comb/brush regularly (albeit they will be sloppy looking), they are documented in multiple cultures across history, and the cultural association with the African diaspora was popularized by reggae only within the last 40 years. It’s annoying to admit it, but when some asshole fascist wants to wear a kilt and blue face paint and dreads in homage to his Celtic ancestors I can’t honestly argue against it.
My feeling on white dreads has gone back and forth over the years. Now I generally think they’re pretentious and most of the time just don’t look very good, but then every once in a great while I see some pale person who actually looks nice with dreads and have to reassess.
American culture is an unconscious democracy, it just becomes itself naturally. We could gather a hundred African Americans and I doubt they’ll reach a consensus on white dreads.
I agree, but my opinion is the hairstyle is tangential to the problem-- I doubt conditions for black America will change one iota if white people stop wearing dreads; white dreads are the distraction. Let the fops have their hairstyle, be thankful white people aren’t suddenly fascinated with Jheri curls.
