Not too long ago a youngster, Zendaya Coleman, took a few entertainment
news commentators to task about their comments on her desire to wear her hair
in faux locs to an awards ceremony. The young actress was most recently quoted
as saying:
"You can go about
it as cultural appreciation or cultural appropriation," Coleman
explained. "You have to be very careful. Some things are really sacred and
important to other cultures, so you have to be aware, politically, about those
things before you just adopt them."
The performer added
that the key to appreciating a culture is to understand the history behind
it.
"I’m someone who
feels uncomfortable with things unless I know [about them]," she told
Nylon. "I’m not going to try something unless I’ve taken the time and
effort to learn about it. I just think with the Internet and the resources we
have, you should do a little research."
I commend her desire to “represent” so to speak but I’m
going to have to throw a penalty flag on the whole situation…..sprinkle a
little salt if you will. It’s all cultural appropriation! Just because you like
something does not mean you should try it….attach whatever “shaming” label you
want to what I’m saying but it is what it is……
Think a few years back when the rap game and the hip-hop
culture made its way to the suburbs. Mainstream society then coined the phrase “wigger”.
For those of you not in the know the term means white nigger……..meaning that
there is no place, rhyme or reason for a nice white kid in the burbs to adopt
such a style. First we had Eminem, a
white boy with street cred….but once people discovered the 8 Mile section was a
poor section of Detroit and that he really associated with Blacks he quickly
became the “white trash” factor and was relegated to an “overseers” position on the profit
plantation. Then we have Tatum Channing and Justin Bieber musical and
theatrical colonizers manipulated by a hierarchy that makes the once deemed “white
nigger” culture acceptable as well as once again profitable.
I’m not going to just single out the mainstream…I’m also
going to address people of color. We have been brainwashed. We have neglected
our cultures, our people and our history far too long. We have deluded ourselves
into embracing a standard of culture and beauty that has NEVER made provision
for us as anything other than labor or entertainment. We spend billions of hard
earned money on fake hair and hair straightening products. We’re walking around
with blond hair and blue contact lenses. We’re spending grand theft money on
slimming agents and vilifying our thick hipped, full lipped , darker sisters.
We have adopted a Eurocentric “mammy” mindset about our own thereby creating a
cultural divide within our own culture….We have embrace a new millennium mulatto,
quadroon and octoroon standard of measure
Young Ms. Coleman was correct in saying to learn about the
culture that you’re “borrowing” from because if more people took the time to
learn about the thing that they’re appropriating they would learn that their portrayals
are often no more that a modern day minstrel show. They have “borrowed” parts
of a culture and reduced it to a caricature presented on a platform of stereotypes…excluding
the burnt cork, white gloves and banjos.
I am of African, Irish and Native ancestry, all of which are
an oppressed people. All of which have been set against one another, here, on
this soil, that we like to delude ourselves into believing, is this great melting pot. I have a rich supply of melanin, the world
sees Black and I identify as such but I also do not neglect any of my other
ancestry. I will no longer be forced to choose and accept that one thing is
above or better than the other. I have no excuse for allow someone (something)
to manipulate my history and culture. My history, in factual information, is
now available to me….
In times like these I often quote a line from a George
Clinton, Parliament (oh the irony in the name Parliament) song “free your mind
and your a** will follow”
How ya livin’?
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