Cultural Appropriation: Why All The Hostility

Cultural appropriation around Black women’s hair is one of those topics that I don’t quite understand at this juncture. Black culture realizes how deceptive the world’s media has been on standards of beauty for women; particularly in how Black women have been portrayed by the media for decades. Traditionally straight hair, or fine hair, has been marketed with implicit beauty while kinky course hair has traditionally been less desired in lucrative marketing environments. However, what’s baffling between Black women and their cultural counterparts is that Black women often criticize outside cultures for wearing braids and the likes, yet Black women are straightening their natural hair, or incorporating extensions so that their hair will appear like the same women they are censuring for wearing braids. I simply don’t get it. It seems women from all cultures are interchanging hairstyles.

Beautiful braids on a child with fine textured hair.

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