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Pop wrote

My intuition is similar

I will assume that any white person with dreads is racist until it's very clear that they are not
Like, maybe if they have a long and substantial history of antiracist organising and are in meaningful solidarity with PoC groups

A pretty cool book that deals a lot with whiteness's inherent relation to appropriation is Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race
It'll really complicate this question and help people to think more substantially about it

there are 'white' groups that have historically had dreads, for example, the ancient spartans
I put 'white' in inverted commas here mostly because whiteness did not exist then
And so if someone somehow had knowledge of those roots, then they'd possibly be exempt from this, assuming the dreads were dreads in relation to that heritage

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surreal wrote

No, many of my anarchist friends had/have dreads. Humans have always been mixing the cultures and borrowing behavior and styles from others.

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jaidedctrl wrote

Is it kind of shitty? Yea.

Is it immoral or harmful? No, not really.

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SpiderGrinder wrote (edited )

That's right! Culture is ever flowing, always changing and mixing. When it comes to the difference between nature and culture, one of the factors is that culture is constantly changing (just look at music culture and all it's subgenre for example) - while nature changes also, but in much slower pace (like evolution of species for example).

Downvote, shame and correct me if I'm wrong (because I am ignorant on the subject, sorry about that), but isn't cultural appropriation in a way just another way to create an "us vs. them" mentality?

Also, who has the legitimacy to represent a opinion of a whole culture? Does everybody think it's culturally inappropriate from that particular culture, most of them or are there only few that really mind, but speak loudly about it?

Thanks in advance :)

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J7383 wrote

Christianity erased their own (pagan) culture so now they take everyone else's culture to fill the void. I feel sorry for them, really.

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snowflake wrote (edited )

i consider "white people" to be absolutely harmful unless they are wearing make-up or albino.

people should wear the hair however they please

−7

marx wrote (edited )

Didn't traditional Celtic and Germanic cultures have dreads too?

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snowflake wrote

i don't know there was a right one? whiteness is void of colour. where's the respect in that?
capitalist motivations is harmful but some folks just prefer let their hair grow long that it feels appropriate ,and it sticks and twists together; dreads. and i think culture is a natural process, not a Thing to be appropriated or limited by category, .

−4

glitter_v0id wrote

you're joking right? you think acknowledging racial oppression is capitalist motivation and the people in power (white people) appropriating cultural signifiers of oppressed people (in context, black people) WITHOUT having to deal with the consequences is somehow revolutionary.

...are you serious right now?

shit, like

I don't consider myself particularly well educated on issues of race - and while I'm actively trying to learn it does take time - but this is kinda 101 shit to even acknowledge the cultural construct of race and why it's impactful.

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snowflake wrote

what are the consequences of dreadlocks on a POED? i really don't understand how it's a threat to blackness, seems rather like an appreciation or acceptance to let the hair grow long and natty, … and what is a revolutionary haircut , though? should we have a mullet? should it be combed everyday to keep it looking properly white? what if my great-grandma was black but the rest of my family is POED?

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glitter_v0id wrote

I'm done... there may be hope but I, personally, do not have the education to have a chance of succesfully smacking this person's head out of their ass

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snowflake wrote

um . you evidently do apply the label to other people. i was asking whether you have any experience with self-identifying as white (or some other colour, perchance) so that i might understand the question about dreadlocks and harmfulness.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

White fragility on that level can't be chipped away at with mere words. They'd have to lose some of their privilege to learn to see past it. So yeah, lost cause.

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dele_ted wrote

That's not at all true.

In the case of Scandinavia, the christians were never the pagans. They didn't "erase their own culture", the pagans were eradicated by the christians.

The chrstian church and movement have caused an absurd amount of suffering, misunderstanding and abuse of humans, animals and land in Scandinavia, and I'm confident that the same goes for many other "christian countries" - but the early christians wasn't in any way pagans who had "seen the light".

3