One cannot talk about this nonsense of cultural appropriation without mentioning dreadlocks on white people. One of the ugliest and most ridiculous symbols of fashion badass I have ever seen. The fact of the matter is dreadlocks, like their predecessor afro hairdos, look good only on people of African heritage. They alone have the right to wear their hair that way, and in the case of dreadlocks, they are symbolic of the Rastafarian religion, so that white guys are treading here on some rather sacred territory.
African people finally putting behind them the baggage and legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, racism, and oppression in the sixties took to boldly and proudly proclaiming their racial heritage as black people through their liberated curly big hair as they let it grow bigger and bigger and bigger. And tonnes of dumb white people decided that they also wanted the same look so they copped it, never mind that they had neither the natural hair texture nor the horrific legacy of oppression and slavery to go with it. It was pretty ridiculous.
There was in the late sixties and early seventies an American Christian black r and b band called the Jeremiah People. Think of the Fifth Dimension on steroids and preaching the Gospel, and you will get an idea of what they were like. Yep, they were that good! They played a couple of gigs in the notorious charismatic church I was attending during my teenage years. During one of their concerts a woman in the band, (like her bandmates, she sported a huge bushy afro) was telling us mostly white people in the audience that white guys wearing afros, with their white skin and blue eyes, look like a chunk of blue cheese stuck in a brillo pad. A bit shocking, yes. But funny, and true, so very very true! Years later, in a random comment in a community newspaper, someone wrote that white guys with dreadlocks look like something that the cat horked up. I still laugh when I think of both those less than flattering references.
I think I can understand some people of African heritage taking offense at their hairstyles being co opted by privileged white fashion badasses (well, they like to think they are being badass anyway. I just think they look stupid. Legends in their own mind) It's kind of like going blackface. It is offensive. And it is a way for privileged white kids from cushy middle class homes to publicly declare "I hate myself". Dreads, as they are commonly called, are still rather common on white people. They used to be everywhere on Commercial Drive, as though springing out from white people's heads like mushrooms after a spring rain. There was even a guy in the coffee shop yesterday, very handsome, very blond, with his very blond hair cascading like overcooked linguini down his strong athletic back. I might have named him Goldilocks! Fortunately he was so plugged into his earbuds and whatever important matters he was seeing on his laptop that I'm sure he couldn't quite hear me making fun of his dreadlock ilk with a friend who also happens to be one of my clients.
Is this to say that white people, and also Asians (who look even more ridiculous with dreads when one thinks of the degrees here of cultural appropriation) should not be allowed to have dreadlocks? Personally, I don't care. I think people are going to and should be allowed to wear their hair however they want, even if they appear dumb, insensitive and downright ignorant. That is part of the beauty of our lives as Canadians. We are free to be as dumb, or as brilliant, or as absurd, or as wonderful as our little hearts would desire.
Naysayers like me are equally free to naysay and sound like pompous virtue-signalling morons, if we want. It's all good. Or, simply, it all just is. We also have the right to insult, and to be insulted, and to give each other supreme shit about it if we want to. Fortunately, for when things get really ugly, we also have hate speech laws. Eventually, one will hope that some of us will become adults, learn to laugh it all off and actually start treating one another with a little more kindness, tact, humility and patience. And respect. We're never going to get it right. That doesn't let us off the hook for not trying, and really by not trying we are simply all going to go down that rabbit hole all the quicker and, Gentle Reader, if we let ourselves get sucked down that particular vortex, it ain't gonna be pretty!
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