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Good day everyone. I hope everyone is doing great? So today I’m going to be touching on a very controversial yet sensitive issue that has been on the lips of so many people for years now. Everything that relates to this topic will be discussed ranging from raw truths to obvious biases revolving around this situation but before I go further, I have to elaborate on the meaning of cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.
Cultural appreciation refers to a situation where a foreigner takes interest in another person’s culture, literally falls in love with it and embrace the beauty of the culture and the people who own it. A very good example is when someone from a different background (either White/black American or Europeans) travels to an African country, learns the language, slangs, dance steps, enjoys the music, food and wears the native attires simply because they love the culture of the people. They also go as far as studying their spirituality, deities and historical background of how the culture evolved overtime. A lot of times you see them adorned in hairstyles peculiar to that ethnic group and if they eventually marry someone from there (actually dating interculturally or interracially inspired this a lot) they make sure the children are taught everything they need to know about their culture. This is the beauty of cultural appreciation.
Cultural appropriation is simply the opposite of cultural appreciation. Unlike cultural appreciation where a foreigner appreciates the sovereignty of another person’s culture, in this case, a foreigner not only downgrades the people and culture but even profits off it at the same time. It’s even worse when the said foreigner doesn’t even have any genuine love for the people who own the culture yet they still copy elements of that culture, talk down on it very often and still make money out of it.
As someone who grew up in the African continent, it took time for me to understand it being that it was mostly discussed by black Americans who live in a white dominated society compared to someone like me living in a black dominated society. Though Africans are often tribalistic, except we want to be in denial, living in a society with multiple ethnic groups within the black race is totally different from being a black minority in a white dominated society. This is why the average African can barely understand the struggles of the average black American except he/she is well grounded in history or has lived in the United States for a period of time. I know to a lot of you reading this, I may be ranting but it’s something that is very important for me to do so that you’ll understand me in depth.
Imagine going to work one day as a black woman adorned in your Afro, braids, cornrows or locs and you’re told to either straighten the hair, put in weaves or never attend school or work again. Oh yeah that’s right. A lot of black women faced this dilemma in the US and had to assimilate so that they get sent away from work or school because bills must be paid and those degrees/certificates must be earned right?
We’ve all seen video evidence about black girls sent out of school and basically humiliated by their white teachers because they were adorned in one African hairstyle or the other. Don’t forget this was also prominent in the world of entertainment too especially when black people still had to deal with colorism too. It’s the same thing as basically denying a group of individuals their basic rights of survival unless they conform to the standards set by the majority group of society who are basically the whites.
Now fast forward a few weeks or even days later, white girls suddenly start wearing locs or braids to school and all of a sudden, the same teacher is praising the white girl and telling her how beautiful it is. Before anyone gets confused, the problem is not even about the white girl doing it because anyone can admire another person’s cultural hairstyle and do it. The problem is when you criticize the owner of the cultural hairstyle for wearing a hairstyle that doesn’t only bear cultural significance to her people but also improves the health of her hair/scalp. Then the same person turns around to praise her own race of people wearing it and worse of all, nicknaming it as their own style without acknowledging it’s existence and creators for hundreds of years.
Anytime I go online and see conversations regarding this topic, I’ve been able to categorize the social media users into a group of people based on their opinions. There are the ignoramuses, gaslighters and the truthful. I’ll explain further.
Ignoramuses
These set of people are those type that always want to speak on topics they have no idea about. They have no idea about the past and present event or current situations around this topic neither do they even live in the country where this situation occurs but just want to say anything for clout and attention. I’ve noticed it’s mostly my continental African brothers and sisters who exhibit this behavior lots of time and as much as there’s nothing wrong with contributing to trending discussions, it’s obvious many of them have absolutely no clue on what they are talking about. To a large extent I don’t even blame them because even black Americans contribute to the confusion themselves therefore making it hard for the rest of the world to understand them in this fight. It is my love for research and history that made me understand things better especially how the problem originated. I just wish more people would do the same.
Gaslighters
As much as everyone has a right to their opinions, it’s important to always tell the truth no matter how difficult it is especially if we are dealing with a societal problem that requires immediate solution. The problem is that some people don’t seem to care about the feelings of others as long as they can justify and excuse bad behavior. I’ve noticed majority of whites being fond of this behavior being that a lot of them tend to mock black Americans for their hairstyles or dance steps only for them to turn around and claim what is not theirs. A lot of times when some of them speak on this issue, they act as if it’s cultural appreciation they are attempting to do and pretend as if they didn’t speak negatively about someone’s culture and even talk down on it.
Panderers
This goes to mainly my African brothers and sisters that want to lick the butts of the whites to prove they are better blacks than black Americans (forgetting we are all the same) so in the process of trying to sound “logical”, you find out they are basically ass licking. I don’t know why some of my African people don’t get this but being logical is not by speaking some big English grammar though. The ability to think outside the box, research for knowledge and speak the truth without agenda or sentiments makes you logical. I know some don’t want to sound like a broken record for playing the victim card because of our painful past but regardless of how it looks like, truth must be told. If something unfair is done to me or our people, I will admit it without caring much about what gaslighters may think.
The truthful
Without saying much, we all know they are people who say the truth regardless of popular opinions. Social media is a place where many people give opinions based on other people’s opinions and not because they understand or have knowledge of the topics being discussed about. Despite how unfortunate such a situation like this one is, some people are bold enough to say the truth from extensive research and analysis regardless of whether they are insulted for it or not. I wish many others were like this but…………
I know I’ve said a lot but it’s left for you my dear reader to be convinced or still be provoked to research more on this subject which is even my major aim. Before I finish up, I still want to highlight that though I understand the plight of black Americans and the forced assimilation into the schools and workspaces, if you want to fight something, fight it completely. For example, if I were living in the USA and I want to fight the cultural appropriation stuff, I’ll stop going to work with weaves or relaxed hairs. I’ll only be in Afro, braids or any other African hairstyle I admire so much. You see as difficult as it is for black American women to do, you can’t be taken too serious if you are on wigs and you’re shouting about cultural appropriation because as much as you want to bring up the assimilation stuff to the person or people you are fighting against, they’ll use the fact that you wear straight hair to shut you down even though they know it’s not your fault. Wearing your own hair regardless of how difficult it may be makes your reasons more valid. That way you won’t also look like you’re contradicting yourself and you don’t know what you are doing. It’s either I do this or I’ll just wear my wigs and forget about fighting for cultural appropriation. I’ve learnt you must fight a battle completely or don’t attempt to fight it at all.
Don’t forget y’all, black is beautiful ❤️❤️❤️
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