I’ve been told that if I want to get ahead in life, it would be beneficial to cut my locs. But it is a part of my culture and who I am, and those are things that I will not compromise for anyone.
I’m told they are unprofessional, dirty. Yet, the white girl with the Bob Marley t-shirt and makeshift “dreads” is seen as a fashion icon.
This is what it’s like to be black in America.
Being black in America is very similar to a popular saying about fame: “Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to put the work in.” Now it seems like everybody wants to be black, but nobody wants to be discriminated against.
Growing up, black women were ridiculed for their natural physical features like their full lips, wider hips, bigger butts and dark skin. Now, these features have become the beauty standards that women of all races go under the knife to obtain.
Take for example Kylie Jenner. After she got lip, hip and butt work done, she became a standard of beauty and has the seventh-most Instagram followers in the world, according to statista.com.
Black people have been trendsetters in the fashion and music industry for nearly a century. In black culture, we express ourselves and our culture through rap and R&B music, cornrows, dreadlocks, afros and more.
Things seen as ghetto in the past are becoming the most popular trends in our society. Cornrows became popular amongst white people in 2015 after Jenner wore them in an Instagram post.
But they’ve been a part of black culture for 400 years. Before black people were enslaved and brought from Africa to America, cornrows signified a tribe one belonged to. It is also believed enslaved Africans used cornrow patterns as maps to escape plantations.
According to an article in Ebony Magazine written by Princess Gabbara entitled “Cornrows and Sisterlocks and their history,” cornrows re-emerged in the U.S during the 1960s-70s Black Power Movement, as black women wanted to embrace their heritage and reject white beauty standards. So Jenner, a white woman, wearing cornrows and making it trendy takes away from the cultural significance that cornrows have always had and demeans the entire movement of those women attempting to embrace the beauty that comes with our culture.
Not only are our looks being appropriated by other races, our music is also being copied. Rap music was created by black people in the 1970s and was stigmatized as negative, lewd and violent. According to research done by statista.com, rap music now has the highest rate of music album consumption. Music genres popularized by or created by black people make up three of the top four genres (hip hop/rap, rock, and R&B).
Throughout history, black people have been negatively looked upon and put down in every way possible. From slavery, Jim Crow laws, the crack epidemic in mostly black communities that led to high incarceration rates, to being killed by police and institutional racism, not much has improved for us.
Now other races are copying all the things that are culturally significant to us while we continue to be discriminated against. No one should be allowed to profit from or make a name for themselves by copying a look, while the originator is judged for to their culture.
The selective love of black culture and not black people is a toxicity that exists in our society. If you love black culture, you need to take action in dismantling the institutional racism we face everyday. Until then, you are merely appropriating our culture and looking ignorant in the process.
