Perspective: What Actually Is & Isn't Cultural Hair Appropriation?

The first question people may have when reading this is since this is largely viewed as a question around women hairstyles, what does a dude have to say about it?  Especially a bald headed dude?  The answer is this question of cultural appropriation is obviously based in the larger question e.g. what is culture?  If we permit ourselves to operate with only an arbitrary understanding of what culture is then its no wonder that confusion is so dominant around this issue.  So, we start by attempting to address that question.

As always, we start any discussion about defining culture by looking at the materially grounded analysis on this question provided to us by Sekou Ture.  In his historic presentation "Revolution, Culture, and Pan-Africanism" Ture defines culture as "the sum total of a people's experiences."  We expand upon that to add that culture is the creative methods people use to manipulate the resources at their disposal in order to etch out their existence.  In other words, by determining how to create a human experience, people develop and define their legacy.  Since Ture's analysis is rooted in the belief that people take whatever they can develop to create that legacy, much of that experience is going to be tied to people's abilities to shape the existing material conditions they find themselves in.  For example, if people live in severe cold or heat, the methods in which they go about providing for their needs in those conditions are probably going to be the same types of things any people living within those same material conditions would come up with.  In fact, people's existence within these types of material conditions have much to do with how they create what we consider expressions of their culture.  

So, with this operational definition of culture, it becomes clear that culture, although defined, expressed, and presented to us by the people who experience it, doesn't belong to those people like a material piece of property.  Although its common practice in capitalism for many to try, its truly not something that can be bought and sold.  And, if all things were equal, culture wouldn't be viewed as belonging to this group and off limits to that group, etc.

So what makes this issue about cultural appropriation a contentious one?  We argue that the contradiction here is the presence of colonialism as the sharpening tool to uphold capitalism's stranglehold on the majority of people on earth.  Colonialism has impacted culture in the sense that the resistance of colonized people to their oppression has come to define how those oppressed people express their culture.  Another way of saying that is colonized African people living in European Judeo-Christian capitalist societies are not culturally free.  We are not because the values, objectives, and acceptable forms of expression and existence are all defined by European norms and anything not identified as a European norm is considered barbaric and insane.  This is the dominant thinking in colonized societies and its a thinking that's dominant in the colonized as well as the colonizer communities.  So, in this colonized existence, any expression of African identify is going to be viewed with suspicion and contempt.

Those last two sentences are definitive because they negate the false equivalencies that function in bourgeoisie societies as sensible logic.  For example, the basis of tension in this hair appropriation discussion is European (White) women lock/braid their hair and these are viewed, culturally, as African hairstyles.  Meanwhile, African women "straighten" their hair and present in ways identified as European hairstyles. 

There are Africans who object to all genders of Europeans locking their hair, wearing braids, etc., and these views are expressed often.  As a result, Europeans have begun to question African people straightening their hair.  Again, this is probably true with all genders, but we are focusing on women because that is where most of the tension appears to exist.  The false dichotomy is due to colonialism, all people have been besieged by centuries of indoctrination that nappy hair is primitive and the only true way for a woman to reach her physical beauty potential is to mimic the hairstyles displayed by the poster pictures of beauty in colonized society - European women e.g. Marilyn Monroe, Farrah Fawcett, Charlize Theron, etc.  Those women, and all who resemble their style and appearance, are labeled as "the most beautiful women on earth!"  Under these uneven circumstances, all women, especially African women who are the farthest physically away of all women from the European beauty model, after the relentless assault on what is and isn't beauty, are going to feel pressure to be viewed by that dominant beauty standard.  Especially since its important to understand that there are consequences to not meeting that standard.  So, whether they pursue this consciously or unconsciously, this is all true.  As a man, I recall with much pain and trauma the constant bullying and belittlement I received for having extremely nappy hair growing up.  It was so painful to comb that I didn't, which made it much, much worse.  It was the social equivalent of having warts all over my face and body.  Those feelings were reignited when my daughter was a preteen.  She was besieged by this same social pressure to "straighten" her hair and she was convinced that having to wear natural hair styles was the same as being sentenced to prison. I  was so overwhelmed by her pain at her experience that honestly, I would have relented were it not for her mother who was steadfast that it was never going to happen.  Eventually, my daughter outgrew that period and by the time she was 16, she was very proud of her natural locks and she continues to function that way today.  Still, most people aren't going to have the support network, political, cultural, and social foundation, and information that we were fortunate enough to benefit from so without any study, just reflecting on my personal experiences in this area, even as a dude, I am immediately able to see the overwhelming level of social pressure on African women (especially) to be like Charlize Theron.  By the time my daughter was a student at Tuskegee University in Alabama, she was in a positive place in her personal identity as an African woman.  I do remember anyway, how often she and I talked during that period about just how many people, primarily African women, who pressured her that if she didn't "do something with her hair" she would "never find a man."  To be honest, to a large extent, I believe my daughter grew to accept that narrative about not attracting men.  I just think she decided she wasn't going to compromise herself around that question, but that experience demonstrates what African women go through on a psychological level to look as European as they can make themselves look.  There are also other aspects to this phenomenon than physical confidence.  The ability to find employment, living conditions, and to basically function without interruption in these societies are all related to how colonized people are able to navigate the colonial experience.  If you present as an African you are considered trouble.  If you present as a European, you may still be considered trouble, but that risk is greatly mitigated

On the other side, there is no social pressure for European women to lock their hair or look African.  Actually, I believe European woman with locks probably increase the social criticism and scrutiny against them by adopting that look from their families, and certainly from potential employers, etc.  It definitely doesn't do anything to improve their standing.  With the absence of the colonial element as it relates to European women, their decision to lock is what it should be for everyone, a personal decision.  Of course, how we decide to present ourselves physically is based largely in our insecurities, etc..  The difference is everyone has those challenges, but colonized people, especially Africans, have that along with the colonial pressure to be something we can never be.  

Since many of these European women who lock/braid their hair, etc., are now expressing such dismay at the reactions to their "personal" decisions for how they look, what should be taken from the last couple of paragraphs is that colonialism tips the field considerably against African people in general, and African women in particular.  Its the frustration about this reality that fuels much of that reaction because the double standard reinforces the same old narrative that European women benefit in ways they never seem to acknowledge.  And, this is woven into a lot of related contradictions such as the degree in which European women, primarily, have benefited politically, economically, and socially from the sacrifices of African people/women in the civil rights, black power movements, etc.  

In the interests of honesty, its necessary to point out that in today's world, far too many African people adopt our African cultural values without taking time to even understand the culturally resistant history of those styles.  African women have paid a major price to wear natural hair styles to work, etc., in this society and for most Africans today, these are primarily just hair styles.  For the most part, we fail to recognize that due to our history of being enslaved labor in this hemisphere, and therefore a constant threat to the security of this hemisphere, anything we did and do to express ourselves - from how and what we sang to how we presented ourselves physically - is and was viewed as an issue.  This is why an African with an Afro pick in their natural hair style is still viewed as a political statement even if the person doing it has absolutely no conscious understanding or intent in that regard.  This is still true for locks and braided styles, even if the intent isn't there.  This is the part too many African people dismiss and don't understand today.  If we are going to criticize Europeans for appropriating our culture, then we have an obligation to uphold the integrity and respect for our culture.  In other words, you cannot rock locks, braids, etc., and then denounce or react indifferently to the political movements of Pan-Africanism, Black Nationalism, etc., that paved the way for you to have access to those cultural practices.  That being said, the conclusion we present here is that this discussion isn't really a discussion about cultural appropriation.  As was stated earlier, culture belongs to everyone no matter who creates it.  This discussion is really about the oppressive manifestations of colonialism on the psychology and practices of people, particularly colonized people, who operate within these societies.  The real question that we should take from these objections presented by African women is why our culture is so oppressed and disrespected?  This is the real issue because in this society which is based on related contradictions, anyone who understands this issue should be able to see clearly why African women would object to European women wearing any style coming out of our African experience.  Like so much in these societies, the European women are, intentionally or not, throwing it in the face of African woman that they can be themselves, augment, expand, etc., whatever they want.  For African women, the choice is really assimilate or be a rebel and risk the consequences of making that decision.  There is no comparison and all the centering European women want to do around this issue to make themselves victims in a system that has oppressed and exploited African women for centuries doesn't change anything.