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I think the issue is that a lot of times blacks start certain trends and it's deemed ghetto or tacky on blacks. Then some white designer comes in and makes it Trendy and now it's new and hip and now it's acceptable and soooo fashion forward. Just like the cornrows that black women been doing since god knows when. It became hip and trendy when white people started doing it and fashion magazines labeled it hip and new trend. I just laughed. Same thing with people wearing socks with those Adidas and Nike slides. A designer used that concept in there fashion show and then it became hip and trendy when black young boys especially those in sports been wearing basketball shorts or joggers with socks and those slides. Another example is the graffiti on the clothes blacks been doing that since the 80s you can go to any hood mall down south and get **** spray painted on your joggers or hoodies now Alexander Wang has it in his current collection and now it's hip and trendy.
The only issue I have with "SOME" young white millennials is that a lot of them like to involve themselves with black culture but then when it's time to be black they are no where to be found.
The only reason now black straighten there hair is because for decades they have been told that European beauty is the standard. Natural hair is now making a come back because a lot of black women are realizing that there beautiful tight curly kinky hair is beautiful.
My post is not an attack on white people. Just and observation that I have seen these 35 years I been living.
ITA with the bold in regards to why a lot of people get upset about so-called "cultural appropriation."
I recently saw a video of a hairdresser making a white woman with limp, straight hair, have a "natural" texture like black women are wearing now a days and it literally made me LOL! But I thought that how I laughed about it may have been similar to how white people saw blacks who wore those wigs in the 18th century or straightened their hairs in later years. I think a lot of whites when I was younger, were unaware that black people had nappy hair growing out of our heads due to over the years so many black people pressed their hair or used chemical relaxers.
I do have some white, female friends who love my own hair and who wish they could do it like mine and I do think that this is indicative of more acceptability of black people's hair in our natural state. But I "went natural" in the late 90s when I was a college student and I got a lot of flack for my hair and I actually did have to press my hair to get jobs back then. Today, I don't do that, but I also mostly wear it "curly" and not in an afro for job interviews.
But I do "get it" that many black people get mad that something we do with our hair or fashion is called "hood" or "ghetto" or ridiculed in some way and then a white designer/hairdresser decides to dress or style a white person in a similar way and then it is "trendy" and "hip." It does make a lot of black people roll their eyes lol. Too many today though IMO coin too many SJW words/phrases like "cultural appropriation." As stated, I personally think that black Americans actually do culturally appropriate various African cultures. No matter what IMO black Americans say, we culturally are not African unless we are the children or grandchildren of African immigrants within the past 30-40 years IMO.
There are many people who actually are black that "look straight up anglo-white."
My great grandmother looked like a "straight up" white person. Her father was basically mixed race and his family were since the 1600s forward, however he was more of a brown skin color. Her mother was the daughter of an English woman who married a half black/half white man who was born a slave. Both of them (I have pictures) looked like white people. Due to the English woman marrying a "mullatto" black man, all their children were designated as "mullatto" including my great great grandmother (I knew her BTW, she died when she was 105 years old when I was a teenager). She had brown hair and blue eyes.
Their daughter, my great grandmother also had brown hair and blue eyes, though she had more of an "olive" complexion similar to her father. Many people thought she was "Portugese" or Greek. She never said she was anything other than a "negro" or black later on and was very proud especially of her ancestry. I am into genealogy and she was the main family member of mine who was very open and interested in exploring our family tree (I'm sad that I have recently made a lot of progress on her tree in particular and she died about 8 years ago).
To this day, a large percentage of my family look like white people on this side. My dad included along with his youngest sister. I have cousins who are blonde with blue eyes and due to their appearance, they are frequently thought to be white and when they have been in crowds of co-workers or a majority white people have had to say things about prejudiced and racist comments said in their presence about black people.
ETA: My great grandmother's father (my 2nd great grandfather) was from a town called Longtown, Ohio which was a community of free people of color prior to the Civil War. Here is a picture of some of the town's descendants. Both of the men in the picture consider themselves to be black.
Anybody with 2 eyes can see that the men ARE white.
I do not care that he has African ancestry.
Do black people with 10% European blood get to call themselves white? No!
I do not think it is fair that "black people" who look like that are taking a spot from black people.
People like that have white privilege even though they consider themselves black.
There was a article on this Although I feel it should be encouraged that they learn about African culture. A lot of them want to be tied to Africa but won't visit won't learn one of the main 3 languages etc.
I personally have no negative regard of the African continent as a whole and would like to visit some particular African countries in my life before I am 50 yeas old. Also, I know a lot of African immigrants (primarily from Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon but I know some Zambians as well and met a lot of Somali immigrants via my work) and none of them considered me to be an African or us having a shared culture. Similar to Reine in that she feels that Caribbean culture is distinct from black American culture, which I agree with her about. The Caribbean and even each nation in the Caribbean is culturally different from America and black America in some way.
I am very comfortable with the fact that I am culturally American and sub-culturally a black American. We, black Americans, have a wonderful culture and I just don't need to wear some African print to "feel" black because I know my history. Those that say we "don't have a culture" IMO are just ignorant of history and our culture as a people in this country and overlook it or associate it with things that are a part of our culture (like hip hop), but not the culture as a whole (like the historic information that I shared above, our demographic has been in this country for over 400 years so of course we have a dominant American culture and a developed sub-culture in this country).
Anybody with 2 eyes can see that the men ARE white.
I do not care that he has African ancestry.
Do black people with 10% European blood get to call themselves white? No!
I do not think it is fair that "black people" who look like that are taking a spot from black people.
People like that have white privilege even though they consider themselves black.
LOL, so to you both of the men are white....
As stated, I am similar in hue to the older gentleman on the right. Would you consider me to be white??
People can call themselves whatever they want to call themselves. As stated above, black people have a distinct sub-culture here in America. Both men were raised as a part of that culture. FWIW, many of the people who came to that town here in Ohio were also descendants of distant native Americans, including, I recently found out, my great grandmother. However, we have no contact with any particular Native tribe's culture, as such I would not consider myself to be a Native American since I don't look like one and I have no cultural connection and am not even 100% certain of the tribal connection.
However, I do have a very solid, documented, 300+ year history of being ancestrally black in America. I am black. My great grandmother looked similar to the man in the picture on the left except she had darker hair. Her skin color was the same. She was black as well. What you care about and how you want to describe someone does not negate how they self-identify.
ETA: And lol on the bold. Where exactly is the "spot" that is being taken. Instead of taking something from black America, these people are contributing to black American culture and identity in America. What do you think that he or my great grandmother stole with saying they are black when they have black ancestry? I'll also note that many black people were upset when the "bi-racial" option became available on census forms as that made the black demographic as a whole decrease in population. Many older black people feel that those of our demographic who have white skin, yet do not say they are 'black" are being deceptive or are ashamed of being black. I spoke above of WEB DuBois and the NAACP and a snippet of 20th century black history in regards to black nationalism. It must be pointed out that quite a few people in the NAACP and especially those who infiltrated white supremacist groups in the early 20th century were actually black people who looked white and who gathered information for publication in "The Crisis," the publication of the NAACP at that time. So black people with very light skin have always been a part of the demographic and the culture of our demographic.
ITA with the bold in regards to why a lot of people get upset about so-called "cultural appropriation."
I recently saw a video of a hairdresser making a white woman with limp, straight hair, have a "natural" texture like black women are wearing now a days and it literally made me LOL! But I thought that how I laughed about it may have been similar to how white people saw blacks who wore those wigs in the 18th century or straightened their hairs in later years. I think a lot of whites when I was younger, were unaware that black people had nappy hair growing out of our heads due to over the years so many black people pressed their hair or used chemical relaxers.
I do have some white, female friends who love my own hair and who wish they could do it like mine and I do think that this is indicative of more acceptability of black people's hair in our natural state. But I "went natural" in the late 90s when I was a college student and I got a lot of flack for my hair and I actually did have to press my hair to get jobs back then. Today, I don't do that, but I also mostly wear it "curly" and not in an afro for job interviews.
But I do "get it" that many black people get mad that something we do with our hair or fashion is called "hood" or "ghetto" or ridiculed in some way and then a white designer/hairdresser decides to dress or style a white person in a similar way and then it is "trendy" and "hip." It does make a lot of black people roll their eyes lol. Too many today though IMO coin too many SJW words/phrases like "cultural appropriation." As stated, I personally think that black Americans actually do culturally appropriate various African cultures. No matter what IMO black Americans say, we culturally are not African unless we are the children or grandchildren of African immigrants within the past 30-40 years IMO.
I'm merely speculating here, that the people calling a black persons hair hood or ghetto, are saying the same thing about white women who fix their hair the same way.
As someone else mentioned previously, it isn't the same group of white people being critical, and then taking on the look for themselves. Highly doubtful.
It's possible some white people wanted to fix their hair that way all along, and seeing it in magazines gave them the permission to do it. Prior to that, they're likely to be viewed as posers or something.
Having said that, there are people I know who went on various island vacations, and came back sporting either cornrows or dreadlocks - something they had never tried before. It's hawked to the tourists, so people think its okay and not at all inappropriate.
I wish we lived in a world where people could take 'the best of' from every culture without being judged or criticized for it, but that world doesn't exist.
I just have to laugh... I currently live in a NC coastal town in the Outer Banks. All the young surfers (mostly White) who make a living however they can (movers, bussing tables at restaurants, etc.) wear dreads. And many of them are blonde. It's a lifestyle choice, not related to racial identity.
There is no "complexity" to the situation. We live in a free country. Period. Lifestyle choice, racial identity - who cares? We live in a free country. Period.
I think the issue is that a lot of times blacks start certain trends and it's deemed ghetto or tacky on blacks. Then some white designer comes in and makes it Trendy and now it's new and hip and now it's acceptable and soooo fashion forward. Just like the cornrows that black women been doing since god knows when. It became hip and trendy when white people started doing it and fashion magazines labeled it hip and new trend. I just laughed. Same thing with people wearing socks with those Adidas and Nike slides. A designer used that concept in there fashion show and then it became hip and trendy when black young boys especially those in sports been wearing basketball shorts or joggers with socks and those slides. Another example is the graffiti on the clothes blacks been doing that since the 80s you can go to any hood mall down south and get **** spray painted on your joggers or hoodies now Alexander Wang has it in his current collection and now it's hip and trendy.
The only issue I have with "SOME" young white millennials is that a lot of them like to involve themselves with black culture but then when it's time to be black they are no where to be found.
The only reason now black straighten there hair is because for decades they have been told that European beauty is the standard. Natural hair is now making a come back because a lot of black women are realizing that there beautiful tight curly kinky hair is beautiful.
My post is not an attack on white people. Just and observation that I have seen these 35 years I been living.
That happens with many things. Ripped jeans, printed tees, trucker hats, etc, etc. Things that were associated with the poor/working class all of a sudden are thrusted into the high fashion scene.
I guess next time I see a black person wearing a trucker hat, I should get all upset and claim they are culturally appropriating since the style originated by rural whites.
Anybody with 2 eyes can see that the men ARE white.
I do not care that he has African ancestry.
Do black people with 10% European blood get to call themselves white? No!
I do not think it is fair that "black people" who look like that are taking a spot from black people.
People like that have white privilege even though they consider themselves black.
So, you understand their lives better than they do, huh? I knew you were smart. I didn't think you were that smart. You're smart enough to know who's the most black, even if you've never met them? I've met a few people who look almost white who I've considered black. They spoke with the type of accent many black people speak with. They hung around with black people more than white people. If those people want to be called black, I'd have a great deal of disdain for anyone who says they're not black. Hell, I'd have a great deal of disdain for anyone who says they aren't black if they had no black friends, had strait hair, had zero accent, and followed every Caucasion stereotype that exists, if they say they're black.
Why create new problems? If they look mildly like a member of X race-centered culture in any way, let them call themselves a member of that racial culture. Anything else is just pointlessly creating problems.
We should be burning all culture that isn't clearly beneficial anyway. If it's not fun, or helpful, burn it. An example of more positive aspect of a culture would be whatever cultural aspects led to African Americans basically saving the soul of the United States by teaching it to be more unified, by teaching society to look past race. That's neat. That movement led to all other progressive social movements, pretty much. That could be a positive aspect of that culture. Nobody reasonable gives a poop about who wears cornrows though, or trivial garbage like who gets to embody race X the most.
The one drop rule, I always thought that was a joke but you're saying its the case? Helps the numbers I guess.
Do dark skinned black people actually think light skinned are black? My year living in Biloxi was interesting in that I learned how prejudiced darker blacks are towards lighter skinned blacks. Not all, but some...so I'm wondering if that's still the case or if light and dark are united against a common enemy?
Reference the criticism towards RGIII or Russell Wilson for not "being black enough".
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