RE: No it's not just hair!
August 6, 2015 at 9:10 pm
(This post was last modified: August 6, 2015 at 9:16 pm by Regina.)
I really do take issue with dreadlocks in particular being claimed by any one particular race, saying that as someone who at one point was seriously considering getting them myself (although didn't in the end).
All dreadlocks are, are clumps of hair that have knotted up and matted together through a lack of grooming, and it will happen naturally to any human with any hair texture if they don't comb their hair for so long. Sure, some peoples' dreads will form quicker than others and everyone's will look different based on their hair texture, but I don't think you can claim something that anyone can achieve naturally as something that is "x people's culture".
I can see an issue with the fact that lots of people don't wash their dreadlocks (which is unnecessary, dreads actually form quicker and nicer looking on clean hair, contrary to popular belief). However that's not just a white people problem, lots of white people don't wash their dreads, but I've seen some scratty dreadlocks also not-gracing the scalps of black people too. I think it's just more noticeable when white people don't wash theirs, you can really see it's dirty from a mile away.
All dreadlocks are, are clumps of hair that have knotted up and matted together through a lack of grooming, and it will happen naturally to any human with any hair texture if they don't comb their hair for so long. Sure, some peoples' dreads will form quicker than others and everyone's will look different based on their hair texture, but I don't think you can claim something that anyone can achieve naturally as something that is "x people's culture".
I can see an issue with the fact that lots of people don't wash their dreadlocks (which is unnecessary, dreads actually form quicker and nicer looking on clean hair, contrary to popular belief). However that's not just a white people problem, lots of white people don't wash their dreads, but I've seen some scratty dreadlocks also not-gracing the scalps of black people too. I think it's just more noticeable when white people don't wash theirs, you can really see it's dirty from a mile away.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
