People who consider dreadlocks rebelious or untidy confuse me.
I’m not a part of some counter-culture because I wear dreadlocks. I’m not messy because I wear dreadlocks. I’m not punk because I wear dreadlocks.
I like dreadlocks. They look nice. They’re easy to maintain. If they’re long enough I can put them in a sweet ponytail.
Dreadlocks are not unprofessional.Nor are they some sort of political statement, and if they are it’s a shitty one. It’s hair. Just hair. Fucking keratin. Focusing on petty, empty issues like that is what keeps you too busy to realize how badly you are getting fucked by the upper 1%….or at least too busy to do anything about it. Annnnd, scene.
Okay, look. I’m like…99% sure you’re not going to listen to me, even if you do actually click through and read this. Yes, I saw you unfollow me after the last time this came up. (I’m equally sure that the only reason you appended your little self-righteous statement to that post, and hell, maybe the only reason you reblogged it at all, is because of that tempest in a teapot.) But take a second and consider this:
I didn’t get bingo, but why don’t you go ahead and think about the fact that this bullshit is SO COMMON that people actually made a bingo card about it - and then notice that you, in a couple sentences, pinged several of the spots (and I saw shades of a few others but not quite enough to justify marking them off) on it. How “revolutionary” could you possibly be if your argument is common enough to have become a joke?
Let me ask you this - why do you think mainstream culture has the associations the OP lists - messy, dirty, unprofessional - with locs? Where do you think that comes from? Could it perhaps be related to the fact that it’s a style that, like so many other things, originated with people of color, and thus has racist connotations that have carried over even though some white people have co-opted the style now? (Spoiler alert: the answer is yes. Although the fact that white hippies, with that whole dirt-and-patchouli thing, were the first ones to appropriate it probably didn’t help the issue any.)
“It’s just keratin” is an easy thing to say for you, because for you, yeah, that’s all it is. But people of color are standing up and saying “No, it’s not; it’s more than that to us, and you stealing it like this is hurting us.” And your response to that is “Too fucking bad, it’s just keratin to me, so I’m going to do what I want and call you sensitive if you continue to disagree with me.” How does that not make you the enormous asshole here?
Newsflash: people can care about more than one issue at a time! And indeed, speaking up against cultural appropriation is PART of caring about what “the 1%” is doing to oppress them, because when it comes to race issues, you are firmly on the side of that 1%. You are more focused on elevating yourself to be equals with those who have power, than with actually leveling the playing field and dismantling oppressive hierarchies. A true revolution needs to concern itself first and foremost with the struggles of those who are at the absolute bottom of the ladder, not your single last remaining oppression (class/wealth). Trickle-down revolution works no better than trickle-down economics does.
It’s pretty ironic when you think about it - that you’re the one chastising people of color for speaking out against cultural appropriation with accusations of “petty issues that keep you too busy to do anything about the only issue I find significant real issue”. I know plenty of POC who write or blog or speak out about cultural appropriation, AND are active in all KINDS of anti-oppression movements, social and economic alike. Clearly they’re not the ones with the multitasking problem, here.
After all, it’s oppressive shit like stepping on people who are trying to rise up, that keeps you too busy to stand by their side and take part in unmaking this shitty society that fucks so many people over.
