Hair And Culture Analysis

The lights flicked off, almost calming in a sense. The young girl emerged from the room, a new look of bliss spreading across her face. After a detailed explanation, she understood what she had done. The way she had been acting was unreasonable and she desired to change. With a flip of her mindset, she began to appreciate rather than appropriate, a change many people often need to make. “I am African American. The reason I wear my hair in an Afro is because I think it expresses exactly who I am, where I come from, and the people who have paved the way for me” (Welteroth) said a young woman recently in an article by Teen Vogue. For her, and many other women, hair is a way to express individuality and express her culture. “Our hair is not an accessory. It’s literally who we are” (Welteroth) she continued, direly trying to convey the ideology that hair and culture is more to them about expressing who they are and where they come from, than merely just a fashion trend. Alternatively, a young Jamaican and Haitian woman says, “If I see someone on the
street with dreads and they aren’t Rasta, I’m completely cool with that. They just want to be a part of the culture” (Welteroth), she says which is awesome. Typically cultural appropriation comes from personal offense and what people within cultures deem offensive, which is demonstrated by the two quotes from the two women above and how people's opinion can differ. But how we can help prevent the difference in opinions and just learn to appreciate?
“Appreciation occurs when an individual from an outside culture can recognize and celebrate the differences between their culture and another's” (University Wire), this being one of the main differences between appropriation and appreciation. Some people believe the difference is between borrowing and taking. They say that it is acceptable to borrow culture, as long as they are being respectful but, they draw the line when culture is specifically being taken. “It is not okay for someone to take a feature that has been part of a culture for generations, and then claim it has just been discovered” (University Wire) the author says specifically about taking and claiming culture. The article also says that it is up to the one who feels they are being appropriated to claim they are being appropriated, and that the appropriator cannot
argue. Some people’s issue with cultural appropriation is that instead of it being that they take all of the culture, they pick and choose what parts of the culture they want to take place in which, potentially could be very insulting (Dazed). Furthermore, to just salt the wound, they often turn the culture into some sort of fad or trend. The author continues by comparing it to wearing a band t-shirt for a band you do not even listen to, some people freak out and say it is dumb or offensive and others simply do not care. While this may be true, items from culture often have negative connotations assimilated with them due to negative stereotypes, such as islamophobia and the wearing of hijabs. If an islamic woman was to wear one, as they generally would, some may fear her or associate terrorism with her, but if a white woman was to wear one some may rave about how great she looks or Vogue may call it the next ‘it look’ and write articles about it all with white models and it how it is breaking societal norms. Items of appropriation that are in plain truth, always disrespectful need to stop. Alternatively, in some cases it is respectful to adopt culture specific items such as visiting a foreign country and adhering to the norms of the culture. Such as, if you were to visit a country where it is customary to wear a hijab or anything similar. Similarly, the author goes into details of whether specific actions are cultural appropriation or not. Henna, for example, is appropriation if it is done by a white company at a festival such as Coachella or any festival of that sort but, it is not appropriation if it is done at your South Asian best friends wedding (Dazed). One of the most important points the author made is that privilege definitely matters. Society’s opinions will always change depending on how privileged or under privileged the appropriator is and whether society deems it acceptable or not regardless of the actual reasoning the person had behind their actions (Dazed). One quote from this article that really stuck out to me was the comparison of cultural appropriation to social media in that it discuss the issue in terms that are relevant and easy to understand. “Picture this: you tweet a hilarious, well-thought-out joke and get zero likes or retweets. People might even call it lame or mock you for posting it. Someone with a lot of followers, who’s viewed favourably, copies your exact tweet and it goes viral. It ends up on large news platforms, screenshots of the joke repeatedly shoved in your face as you log on to Instagram, reminding you that someone who has a bigger presence on the internet has received recognition, credit and profit for something you created” (Dazed), this quote is in essence, a metaphorical representation of cultural privilege in correlation to appropriation. After this, guidelines are drawn to help understand when it is appropriation rather than appreciation by asking a series of questions, “Am I reducing this to a fashion statement? Are people of this culture the ones who are profiting off of this? Am I in an environment where this is appropriate?” (Dazed). Similarly, an article by All Together Now poses a similar set of questions in a flow chart making it even easier to understand. The questions are as follows “Are you about to use a symbol/object not from your culture?”, “Do you know what it means?”, and “Am I using the symbol/object appropriately?”, finishing with explanations of why the answers you gave mean what they mean. If you answered yes for example, “Cultural Harmony is achieved through knowledge. This creates awareness & understanding, which leads to to an appreciation rather appropriation of each other’s culture” or, if you answered no “Using symbols/objects of another culture without knowledge and understanding can lead to it being used in an inappropriate way. The most common misuse of a culture’s symbol/object often leads to negative cultural stereotyping” (All Together Now). The most effective way in preventing cultural appropriation is honestly just to be aware of what you are doing and try to stop yourself before it even occurs.
I personally believe that cultural appropriation is mostly to do with personal offense and the meaning behind a person’s actions more than a malicious attack on culture. Some people may not have the right intentions behind their decisions but, I believe most people are just unaware of what they are doing.