{"id":65155,"date":"2015-01-08T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=65155"},"modified":"2015-01-05T18:17:30","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T23:17:30","slug":"should-white-people-wear-dreadlocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2015\/01\/08\/should-white-people-wear-dreadlocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Should White People Wear Dreadlocks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the question that The1Janitor<\/a>\u00a0answers in his\u00a0vlog below, offering some interesting perspective on cultural appropriation.<\/p>\n

When white people ask him whether they should wear dreadlocks\u00a0— a question he says he gets a lot — he explains that\u00a0he gets the impression that they think that dreadlocks are a part of black culture. Here’s his response to that:<\/p>\n

As far as I know, dreadlocks are mostly associated with the\u00a0Rastafarian movement from Jamaica. And, as far as I know, that’s not a racial movement. And beyond that locks are worn in other places like Africa and the Middle East and Asian for many different reasons, sometimes spiritual or religious reasons.<\/p>\n

Now I am not African or Jamaican or Rastafarian or even remotely spiritual or religious at all. Yet no one has ever accused me<\/em> of cultural appropriation for having dreadlocks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He makes a good point.<\/p>\n

Culture is, itself, a political and politicized thing\u00a0and it’s subject to social construction. Whether something counts as\u00a0cultural — as opposed to, say, rational\u00a0or biological or universal — is something that people figure out together in interaction, not always consciously. Dreadlocks aren’t<\/em> African American, they’re lots of things to lots of people. But they also are<\/em> African American, because Americans do tend to associate them with African Americans. This isn’t reality, though, it’s socially constructed reality.<\/p>\n

Moreover, cultures are always changing, often in response to interaction with other cultures. So, to say that a thing like dreadlocks, even if they were<\/em> African American in origin, could never be borrowed by another cultural group is both overly rigid\u00a0and inevitably false.<\/p>\n

His conclusion: “You’re allowed to like\u00a0stuff, but you do have to take history into account,” including stuff like power and inequality.<\/p>\n

I don’t necessary agree with all of his examples, but I like how he pushes us to think more carefully about cultural appropriation by putting the idea of culture<\/em> front and center.<\/p>\n

Here’s\u00a0The1Janitor<\/a>\u00a0(I apologize if you encounter an ad):<\/p>\n