Article Critique: "White People and Dreadlocks: A Problematic Union"

updated by @samalamajam: 02/14/15 03:49:26AM

the articles idiotic

1st off rastafarians have only existed since the 60sand 70s

dreads hundreds of thousands of years before that

arabbs caucasians africans indians (and native americans) all were known to dread cultural appopriation when they are a part of every culture thrre is?

this is racisnm cklaiming only 1 race has a right to anything wether its jobs freedoms or a hairstyle

white rastas are not a contradiction at all in fact one of the basic principles of the rastafarian movement is that the coloir of a mands skin should hold no meaning no more importance then the color of the eyes thats 1 thing the author of the article doesnt get..at all is that by making it all about race your keeping the racism alive why is it about race and not personality ..spirituality social status this is as bad as saying gay men shouldnt be alowed to wear pants cayuse straight men wear pants

its ihgnorant it exposes a hatred within the writter and it does nothing to forseter a understandinmg and relatability between peoples of diferent cultures

do you think sadhus go aroujd saying rastas dont desserve to dread? they have dresded centuries longer then rastas existed

this guys grossly missinformed

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

I have red this one before. First what is "white" culture? And what is "black" culture? America is not the onlycountryin the world with "white" and "black" people. Skinpigmentationdoes not determine if your ancestors where oppressed or not. So muchignorancein this article. I would like to ask this person ( I asked this question before on this forum) I am from Scottish English Native American French and Norse decent...what is my culture? According to this person am I force to look like all the other "normal" "white" Americans because of myskinpigmentation?

I have gotten some flak from people saying that I "shouldn't" be growing dreads and that it's cultural appropriation. My response was that they have been around for centuries not just blacks and (what I'm assuming their criticisms are based on) rastas. But I wasn't given much of a chance to argue. I felt bulldozed and told that I was appropriating another culture. I felt lost and incurred some white shame when I did some more research. Especially this part: "The bottom line is that white people can cut off their dreads and recover all the privileges that might have been deferred because of their hairstyle." I'm still passionate about my journey. There was some conflicting views before, I felt like this was right for me, what I wanted to do, but people were telling me that it was wrong. Thanks for the responses.

Especially this part: "The bottom line is that white people can cut off their dreads and recover all the privileges that might have been deferred because of their hairstyle."

A verybiasopinion.

what he calls priveledges others nmight call burdons and not want anyway

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

SE, some may call your last comment borderline saintly and others may think about it some more and call it arrogance. It's deep, either way. Worthy of consideration and meditation at least.

I will say this though; every culture's history has it's own evil moral baggage and nasty assed skeletons they want to forget or even pay people to censor out of history books. No matter what your color, tribe, ethnicity, or other EXclusive and not INclusive way you want to segregate humanity into groups this is true. We all have crap in the past that haunts us, embarasses us, and others try to hold over on us. I think it's up to individuals and the parents of today to teach their children how to avoid the attitudes of the past.

Now I want to see some hispanic dreads for a little flavor. come on! Where are you??? Let's really piss that ethnocentric bastard of an author off.

First of all the use of the word "privileges" is very subjective. We each view privilege in our own way depending on our past experiences. Just like SE stated, it depends on who you ask.

Secondly, setting aside the semantics, locking of the hair is a natural occurrence. No one can "own" a natural occurrence. It belongs to the nature of things. If you do not brush or comb your hair, your hair will lock and you will have dreadlocks. A brush or comb is not a natural occurrence. We were not born with a brush or comb in our hand so as to not offend another human being. Thinking about it in this practical sense makes this article soundembarrassinglynaive.

I highly recommend reading the comments on that guy's blog post. Some of it is HILARIOUS!! This obviously pushed a lot of people's buttons... and brought up some very good points about what hair styles mean in the USA compared to other countries.

A few people commented in the positive regarding non-Africans wearing dreads eventhough they don't like the hairstyle itself. Intriguing. An 'anarchist' trying to segregate people and tell them how they should look: Fail.

Kathleen: "A brush or comb is not a natural occurrence. We were not born with a brush or comb in our hand."

Uh... yeah. We kinda were. It's called eight fingers. Or at least that's what I called mine when I tossed my hair brush out a while back. Then I bought a wide toothed pick and noticed damage to my hair. Coincidence? No. Our fingers are much more gentle with our hair than man-made objects like plastic or carved wood or shell. But we can still comb our hair with our fingers. It's a choice to keep our hair tangled and not smooth it out.