The Real Damage of Cultural Appropriation

I take pleasure in being, what I like to call, a Cultural Consultant for the African American race. I believe that my values are deeply rooted in notions that are mainly objective so I can understand when my melanin-less friends ask me about certain topics dealing with race – I live in a judgment-free zone and I’m fair, sometimes to a fault. The topic of my latest conversation was cultural appropriation.

My friend Wendy is a cosmetology student, so she’s learning about all hair types and the differences in hair routines. We bond over our knowledge of natural hair.  She was confused about whether fashion head-scarfs were an accessory that only Black people should wear. My answer was a skeptical no. But I needed more info on the situation. One of her fellow colleagues of Hispanic descent wore a fashion head-wrap over her hair one day and was met with contempt from a Caucasian woman. “Why are you wearing that?” she was asked. And after she tried to explain the concept of a protective hairstyle, she was dismissed.

Why would a White lady be insulted by someone wearing a head-scarf? Not only have they been worn for ages, they have been a popular accessory for the past few years. I could only think of three reasons: 1) Maybe she was confused about the type of head accessory it was; perhaps she thought that only someone of Middle Eastern descent could wear them – but that’s kinda racist, 2) The lady confused the scarf for a satin bonnet and internalized the negative connotations of satin bonnets and associated it with the rowdy Black women who wear them in public, or 3) She considered it to be another trend of colored people that she deemed unworthy… until it becomes popular. That’s how we got on the topic of cultural appropriation.

I explained how they were so many aspects and characteristics of Black history that were deemed unacceptable or beneath the lives of White people. The easiest examples, unfortunately, were perpetrated by the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Big lips are a common characteristic that Black people share. They were emphasized in the early 19^th century during the times of minstrel shows when big red lips were drawn onto the painted blackface of actors who shucked and jived their ways into the hearts of White people for laughs. 

Big lips went on to be labeled as “soup-coolers” as I was growing up; it has always held a negative connotation until Kylie Jenner had lip augmentation surgery. After her noticeable change, the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge was created – teenagers all over inserted their lips into a shot glass, small glass jar or bottle, then sucked out the air with the hopes that they would end up with full pouty lips. The challenge was dangerous, and the results were horrifying, but it was all in attempt to take OUR features and paste them onto their faces.

The debate about whether Kim Kardashian’s butt is fake or not could continue till the end of time, but Sarah Baartman – the woman who was exhibited as freak show attraction – had a large butt of her own. Known in 19^th century Europe as Hottentot Venus, Baartman was taken to London and used as an oddity for display in Piccadilly – home to “the greatest deformity in the world.” Englishmen and women paid money to see Sara’s half-naked body displayed in a cage. And now, Kim Kardashian gets paid because we do the same. Can we have any characteristics that belong solely to us? Being replicated by those who once insulted those same flaws is cultural appropriation.

Another aspect of cultural appropriation resides in cultural ownership. Earlier this year, when Kim Kardashian debuted a new braided hairstyle and called them ‘Bo Derek’ braids. ‘Bo Derek’ because she was famously styled with cornrows in the movie 10. I’ve never known of them as anything other than cornrows, and I wore them for about 87% of my life. Kardashian got mixed up in culture vulturing two years ago with the ‘boxer braid’ fiasco. She labeled her hairstyle as “boxer braids.” Boxer braids, because it resembles the center-parted, reverse French-braid style that female boxers wear during their fights. Still, a hairstyle that I wore in my childhood, and that’s in the more distant past than Kim’s stint with them. Cornrows have emerged into fashion because White women have caught on to the trend that was a cultural tradition brought over from Africa. By giving credit to a white woman for a Black style is cultural appropriation. 

We know that cultural appropriation is real, but beyond pissing us off how is it affecting us? From what I can see, it makes our race more suspicious and prejudice of others. It is that same suspicion and prejudice that we suspect that others have against us. It works like paranoia to an extent. Sometimes, it makes us the “race that cries ‘racism’.” The distrust that Black people have against White people act as a rotting disease against our race’s potential success. True enough, history does dictate that the odds are stacked against people of color within the US, but sometimes by being so wrapped up in catching all instances of racism, we can hinder our growth.

Take H&M for example. With all the mistakes made in the ‘sweatshirt fiasco,’ the purpose behind the public “boycotts” was to hit the company financially and make sure that they understood their wrongdoings. All it really did was make the corporation consider if using people of color is worth the risk of being 'accidentally insensitive." And the minute that we recognize that people of color have been strategically removed from advertisements, we will complain about how that is racist too.