I was 16/17, hard to remember which, and did it to be cool.
Why not, I could.
I heard nothing, or at least not much, of cultural appropriation at that time. Though I’d had a minor lesson in it from my best friend in second grade, of indigenous aboriginal descent she put in in my place once or twice even a 6. The lesson was monior ony because I was not quite old enough to grasp it fully at the time.
I venture to guess that not many white teens gave it much thought.To me it meant simply that I was uber cool and I didn’t really care for the un hip babushka, part of my Austrian/Polish/Hugarian heritage and my India, Persian side had never been fully explored due to the fact that my great greats on that side were both orphans in the truest sense.
The closest I came at that time to even getting a hint that there was something wrong with me in dreadlocks, something that had very little to do with how they looked (which was kind of ridiculous), was my father saying “cooper that’s an awful thing to do”, and when I asked why (assuming he had misplaced his uber liberal coolness) he said “quite frankly because you are not black”. He said “think about it, I shouldn’t have to explain it to you”.
My father tended to think his kids were smart and would figure things out for themselves and I did not go on to investigate that conversation any further at that point in time. My black friends didn’t say anything good or bad, that may have been a big hint I missed.
None of my white friends thought they were anything but cool.What the hair meant to me was nothing, what it meant to black people and what my wearing it meant never entered my mind at that time.
I wouldn’t wear dreadlocks now if you paid me, maybe because I understand why I shouldn’t. At least I think I understand.
It was the discourse that comes from academic course work that helped me understand finally for good the thing my father was saying back in the day. It was the same thing my friend told me in 2nd grade, at least in some way. She told me I “couldn’t be an aboriginal native for a costume event because I wasn’t an aboriginal native”. I cried, and my mother said the same thing to me then as my father said to me years later. She said it in simpler form, she said my friend was right. We moved on. I guess it is easier to leave small seeds when it comes to second graders.
In the mode of Doug’s Waking Ambrose
Wiki Cultural Appropriation:
Cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It denotes “Acculturation” but often connotes a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture. It can include the introduction of forms of dress or personal adornment, music and art, religion, or social behavior. indigenous cultural contexts, may take on meanings that are significantly divergent from, or merely less nuanced than, those they originally held. Or, they may be stripped of meaning altogether.
There is a natural human tendency to mimic, adopt and adapt tools and behaviors which are admired, valued, or considered useful. But when a dominant or favored group copies and begins to assimilate certain cultural aspects of another group while marginalizing, rejecting, oppressing, or otherwise devaluing the people whose culture they covet, resentment and sometimes open hostility can arise among members of the originating culture. Objections have been raised towards this resentment, as some claim that it holds all members of a dominant culture accountable for the actions of those in power, while devaluing the role of the individual.
Ambrose like Definition/via cooper:
Raping a women, then after she decides she wants the to keep the baby that your seed planted, taking that as well.
What if you (or I) don’t have anything culturally significant? What if there are no symbols that say “here is Mike?” There isn’t a tribe for someone who’s cultural background is split 16 ways.
The closest I can come is to dress anonymously; My clothes are plain, my hair is short, I don’t wear jewelry, my tattoos aren’t anywhere that they can be seen. The few cultural artifacts I have don’t have anything to do with me, they are just interesting.
So I can understand the desire for people to want to find someone to fit in with, perhaps in rejection of things they don’t have a choice in being. Think of the word counter-culture: it literally means a rejection of your personal culture. But for someone like me, there is nothing for me to rebel against.
First and foremost we own the culture that surrounds us whether we( you and me) came on the Mayflower or on a boat through Ellis Island.
it’s not about rebellion; it is about taking from a race of people, aka black Americans and Indians who historically our nation-( so I am not saying you personally or even your family as I don’t know their heritage but our nation the one we are citizens off)- debased, degraded, tortured, and put into slavery. A race of people that had no choice.
A race of people who due to two hundred years of institutionalized slavery endured a debasement, degradation and an oppression so profound that we can’t possible expect fifty years of civil rights — much of it faux civil rights– to come anywhere close to getting close to the degree of reparations that need to be made.
A race of people from which we often decide to take what in the past has been only theirs and make it ours; if it suits our purpose, if we think it is cool, and if we want it.
To not understand that it is wrong is part of the problem; understanding that it is might go a long way in contributing the solution.
I’m not really sure how to respond to this. I think I just grabbed on an idea and went the wrong way with it. I do realize it is wrong when someone tries to act like they are something that they aren’t.
I never understood the whole cultural appropriation thing to be anything wrong.
I always thought of it more as an assimilation of cultures. a normal course taken as part of a changing social construct as society evolved.
I then moved to Texas.
I have come to think that certain things can be shared as the cultural constructs change but others as you stated for the reasons you stated and more, so many more, can not.
I think the sooner that is accepted the better.
I still so pissed at the stem cell veto I can’t think. I had to read this twice.
I can’t wrap my head around the concept of cultural appropriation as it applies to hair so much.
I am positive you are more inclined to think that way than I am being I am a psychology major with aspirations now toward linguistics and you are an anthropology major with leanings toward taking over the UN.
I thought I’d throw that in because I just figured it out.
So the only thing I can say is that you have again given me something to think about.
What is the responsibility toward the culture of the black men and women who do white people’s dreadlocks?
I know they have several places that do dreads where I go to school in Ohio and the people that do them are black. I have seen them doing dreads on white people.
I guess they should not be so willing to allow the appropriation to take place in the first place and should be able to feel free to say “fuck off man you aren’t getting no dreads here”.
I actually got an education in dreads recently. In what might at first seem an unusual place. The JazzSchool in Berkeley, California. Where I took a performance studies class in Bob Marley’s music. Old fat white guy does reggae (our band had a three-piece horn section, trumpet, trombone, and sax; I got the trumpet).
You may know this already, how dreads are specifically Jamaican and are, in origin, inseparable from Rastafari culture and faith — Ras Tafari being a name of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I. Selassie also held the title “Lion of Judah” — thus, as I understand it, to wear dreads is to identify with, and in a sense be, a lion.
One could argue that anyone not Rastafari who sports dreadlocks is committing an act of cultural appropriation. Especially when worn as a aggressive “mainstream political” statement — for instance, the more radical groups of New Zealand Maori who adopted dreads, but not Rastafari, during my stay there in the 80s. (Incidentally, there were many “whites” in New Zealand who identified themselves as Maori and wore dreads, if their hair could be so treated without it looking more stupid than leonine.) Bob Marley the Conciliator (or at least so his modern deifiers would claim) would have likely spoken against such a use of dreads.
His comment to a white person with dreads likely would not have reflected a sense of being offended, but, rather, the thought “That is not I”, meaning that it’s not an accurate reflection of the white person’s sacred individuality. (Rastas use “I” where more conventional English uses “you”.)
There’s a lot to be said for this. To wear, carry or act out something in ignorance of your own heritage, or in flattery or emulation of another’s, is to diminish your own self, your own history. Wouldn’t it be far better if we could each embrace our own histories, fix the problems they have, and move forward? Cue the Star Trek theme …
Hmmm… I think it is all in the intention of the individual and I would agree with the voice of dissent, that not all people from the majority can be held accountable but then yeah, live as an example that shall set you aside from the actual oppressive majority…
… as for the dreadlocks, I think it fine, actually and had tons of black friends who never woulld have thought my doing something like that odd. I once braided my entire head, dreadlocks are not for me, and a black chick did it and thought it cool and the like and it became a bridge for much conversation and a connection… me, in an all black area getting braids… but then again I also don’t see myself as white and neither did the African-American community when I lived in the US and that may have had something to do with it so…
I do see both sides of the issue but do not think it as black and white as if you are not black don’t get dreads.
I see your point. It is a terrible thing to both covet a creation and hate the creator. I tend to emulate only people I admire, which requires a certain sense of accepting that person for who they are and not quibbling about what might make them unworthy of admiration.
Frankly, though, I’ve always thought it more important to get to a stage of fulfillment and bliss that people would be clamoring to emulate me.
What may be even sadder is that white teenagers feel so little connection to their own cultures, as CoyoteMike’s comment suggests, that they go elsewhere to fill the void. If I were black, I believe I’d be flattered. I’d also laugh at white dread people. It rhymes with white bread.
In other words, this seems symptomatic not only of dominant appropriation, but of the fact that the minority cultures have done a better job of passing down a heritage, despite oppression.
So I lied, I’m back on to read a few blogs during vacation.
I enjoyed your post — I havent seen many girls / guys wearing dreadlocks in Europe, but I think I saw it more often in the Netherlands than in Germany. Maybe it was a mini-trend about the time that you did it.
I never sensed anything wrong with it, maybe because in Europe, the black-white race issues arent as prominent. Black culture is more respected over here.
Your definition of cultural appropriation was chilling. I hope that has never happened. Though I have heard of women raped in Bosnia who were later forced to bear the child in Catholic Croatia.
Personally this is a difficult one for me. When we were in the Bahamas a few years ago my goddaughter – had she ever been baptized had her hair done in dreads. Her mom’s of Puerto Rican descent – mostly Spanish with some Black blood; he father is from Colombia – mostly Spanish with some Indian blood
So was she adopting another culture or taking from one that minimally is part hers?
When I was in kindergarten, I mean grad school, we were supposed to sign a contract saying that the only oppressed people in America at this moment – 12 years ago were Black or Native American.
I refused because it was so simplisitic. Did they mean institutionilized? Did they mean have less rights legally? Etc.
I had done all the reading – and this was never defined or truly discussed on more than a paternalitistic level – and I did chose that word carefully
So I asked many questions. I was told that no white male could ever been considered to be opressed. On the surface I understood what they meant. But what about a white male born borderline retarded with emotional problems who comes from a poor family in an area where he can’t get help and will be bullied? And unable to hold a job?
What about the “white” Native American who claims tribal idenity so that he can run a casino, though his family has been “passing” for white for generations and has graduated from Harvard? Does he deserve that special treatment because over a hundred years ago his family was discriminated against?
I see so much discrimination in this country against so many groups that when I refused to sign the contract, I did begin a “war” in school. This was at the height of PCness – wish I had picked a time to go back to school where things were less simplistic, and more variables were added to the equation
That said in my heart I agree with your father because I do believe in acculatration rather than assilmiation – and understand what he wanted to teach you
Excellent Post, Cooper. What is Cultural Appropriation??? What WE as humans make it to be. We are the ones who stereotype one culture to the other. One day… One day… I dream, I hope, I wish… we will all be seen in each others eyes as ONE… not black, yellow, white, brown, etc… but ONE.
I have responses to all your comments but as I was covering a blues festival or at least the beginning of one, which included a pre– party from six to nine at a local bar and grill I have little confidence that this will make sense.
So here is the short version.
Coyote:
nochoice: it’s been awhile hey? It’s certainly not a preferential assimilation.
Yea for Texas.
G: the stem cell things blows; I am more inclined as you well know. Think hard friend. As for what is the responsibility of the black men and women who do dreads on white people — well that is not for me to say.
OC:
jazz school? Nice. I know a little of the dread history but nothing of the Ethiopian Emperor.
Certainly it would be better if we could, I’m fairly certain we can. ;0
Mizzy B: “but then again I also don’t see myself as white and neither did the African-American community when I lived in the US and that may have had something to do with it so” well there in may lie the difference.
mojo: I certainly emulate you can’t you tell?
Weirsdo: I’m not feeling all that sad about white teenagers. I guess because I am not that far from being one and I think it is all a bunch of crap. There is plenty of culture there for them to grasp if they choose, if they get off their butts and look at it and stop relying on television for it. Sadly I see white teenagers as a bunch of whiny babies most of the time.
The minorities may just have held on to something to keep an identity which had been taken from them by the nation in which they were enslaved or wiped out.
Indie: the definition was a metaphor of sorts. I’m jealous of your vacation. I’m flattered you stopped by here.
Pia: Let us assume she has a right to dreads. If it is part of your culture there is no minimally about it.
Oppression as I see it is as I described above in my explanation to coyote.
One single white male born with mental disabilities to a poor white family who happens to live in an area where there is no help is disadvantaged, maybe to a significant degree, he is not oppressed in the manner of which I speak.
Taking all things into account, depending on the state he lives in , the laws of that state in regard to people with disabilities, and the types of program available he could be oppressed.
Oppression is not a word I would usually apply to all disadvantaged individuals. Now if a law in his state prevented him, (due to his disability), from doing things he wanted to and could do.… that would be a form of oppression.
One is not always oppressed due to a disadvantage but one that is significantly oppressed is always disadvantaged.
The degree of the oppression can make the disadvantage hard to overcome and if a mathematical formula was applied to the oppression of say.…. African
Americans … due to institutionalized slavery both the degree of the disadvantage and — mathematically — the time it would take to make up for the disadvantage that has occurred due to said oppression — would be significantly more than the two hundred years of slavery.
As for the Indian question I say my answer is yes but please don’t make me explain it now. My comment guard is watching.
Shayna: Hey girl. We will not all be one , that is not meant to be but we certainly should be to a point where we celebrate who we are and let everyone else celebrate who they are — appreciating the differences and letting it all roll.
You do not emulate me, Miss Cooper. You’ve always had your own style and your own sense of what’s important. That’s why I keep reading you, because you say something that I’ve never heard before.
Well done.
I needed a headache, but yet well done.
Off to ponder it all I go.
Blushing off the flattery and moving forward, I have a different perspective on cultural appropriation. There was an article I read in college called “A world in Pidgin.” The more cultures meet, the more they exchange ideas and values which include style and fashion. Well, except for me. We live in a creole world where cultural power has different channels from military and economic power. I have to think that’s a good thing.
[…] do spend too much time thinking about. She frames it around a great story. I’m proud. | Permalink No Comments» […]
I cannot help but throw just a tiny bit more gasoline on the fire. If you will indulge me, the following quote is from the Wikipedia online page devoted to the dreadlock:
“Dreadlocks are a universal phenomenon and through the ages, people of various cultures have worn dreadlocks. It can be said that what are known today as “dreadlocks” are one of the oldest and most universal hairstyles known”
It goes on to say how dreads have appeared in ancient Egypt, in Celtic drawings, in India, and basically everywhere else. It is actually the most human of hairstyles, as all hair that is left alone, without brushing, combing, cutting, trying to control will eventually form themselves into dreadlocks.
The words “or” and “it” should be on either side of the phrase “trying to control”. Stupid brain fell asleep.
I should learn never to post anything I can’t articulate well on the internet.
MoJo: BOO
Joe: Ponder on sorry for the headache.
Dawg: think there are quite a few different perspectives on this issue. In regard to oppressed populations my views are pretty much firm.
Language — being a form of knowledge only in that it changes the brain — does have the power to change people over time as it can change knowledge but only in so much as the thoughts — which are always conceptual– can be changed by their framing.
Pigdin although different from the languages it was derived from has words that mean the same as the words from the languages it was derived from, so it is the thought that needs to be changed or reframed. I believe.
Or maybe I don’t wtf do I know anyway I only took the mandatory linguistics as it annoyed the shit out of me.
Yes unequal cultural power… which we do not make anymore equal, and may make less so, by taking what was never ours from a people that our nation oppressed and making it ours because we want to, taking it out of context and robbing the power and meaning of it from the people it belongs to.
To enjoy the differences while letting them be different and realizing they are and everything being all equal and fair and having no oppressed populations anywhere would be the ideal.
Cultural appropriation is morally questionable on the grounds that it pretends to make a statement and furthermore claims ownership of something that is not rightfully ours and it happens often to oppressed people and in the context of dread that is what happens.
Some would say that cultural relativism precludes a certain degree of assimilation and at this time it is false assimilations based in cultural appropriation.
Coyote: I ban the use of wiki quotes from my blog for ever…………damn you coyote………
I am not posting anything more that requires me to post answers or look like a fool for the rest of the
yearmonthweekWe have to look at which populations have feel that dreadlocks are historically and CULTURALLY significant in this case.
If you tell me that they are culturally significant to you then I would say liar, liar pants on fire but as you don’t often wear pants I guess that would not work.
When pieces of a culture (dreads) are taken out of context, robbing them of power and meaning, (to the people to which they are historically and culturally significant) I call cultural appropriation. At least as I see it now after reading a ton of shit on it over the last few weeks and then thinking about it.
I will not deny that there is quite a possibility that my thought process is faulty but that is where it stands at this moment.
And I am not going to proof this.
My brain is also asleep.
I’m gonna have fun here tomorrow but for now a long day of The Blues and I am going to sleep.
Wow, I’m the cause of a new rule, and I got damned. That’s alot to take from just talking out of my ass.
Something to think about as I go out to play a round of golf.
I read this yesterday but it was beyond me to comment.
My degrees are in business.
I never spend much time as an undergrad or in grad school giving any thought to things that did not apply to my majors and my ultimate goal.
I applaud that you think about many things and give us all stuff to think about.
I can wrap my mind around it but I can’t articulate exactly what my feelings are about it without thinking about it a little more. A lot more to be more exact.
Just wanted to let you know I read it.
I agree about white teenagers. What I meant was, it’s sad that so many are just whiny babies flailing around grabbing stuff because they never grew up. It’s sad even if a lot of the situation is their own fault.
Hey all this is one big response because I am a couple days late and a dollar or two short.
Group Hug.
Yeah it sucks in light of the post but I get a little weak when the commentary gets long.
I appreciate all the dialogue, it shows you are not assholes.
Love ya
cooper
[…] And to wrap all of this up, Cooper, a White woman, writes a great post on her experience having had dreadlocks and how she came to realize that it was problematic. […]
I guess you completely left the old dj site?
This is a pretty awesome post coop and being Hispanic and Filipino I appreciate all efforts.
I remember people saying that I used the Filipno Card to get into college and I remember you saying
” it’d be pretty stupid not to use whatever card you have, we all use our cards and if your card happens to be the “filipino card” you better play it”.
Or something like that.
If I join this world of blogs I’ll let you know. I hope to retain my name. ( filipinocard)
signed
the filipinocard
[…] This is a white woman who felt it necessary to cut her locs. […]
Came across this by accident. Excellent. I live in Granada Spain where half the under 30 white population have locs but speaking with people I find no consciousness or understanding of what they are doing. It began to irritate me soon after i arrived here. Its such an insult and i feel like i am personally being stolen or as you say appropriated. I feel like publishing Colin Kennedy Donovan and Qwo-Li Driskill post in Spanish and sticking up posters everywhere.
IMHO, the cultural appropriation issue can get way, way out of hand.
I’ve been at the frontline of this issue at times simply as a white woman whose naturally curly hair most easily is maintained in “black” hairstyles.
One needs to distinguish between the wearing of a style which is common in many cultures and does not necessarily have a meaning (for example, a hat — such as a fedora) and wearing a style that has religious/ritual/cultural meaning when ignorant of that meaning (such as a yarmulke).
I think one can wear dreadlocks without being Rastafarian because dreadlocks are common in many cultures. Look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadlocks
Wearing dreadlocks “to look like a Rastafarian, because it’s cool” is a totally different matter.
The whole question is one of intent, and it’s hard to gauge intent just by looking at someone.