Can I Borrow That?

Wow, can I touch your hair? Every white person has asked a black person some point in their life. In America black people are portrayed as dangerous thugs who are all the same. The one thing America knows how to do on a consistent basis is take from people of color. Although blacks may be poor, sell drugs and harass white people they do have some cool hobbies. The hair and the music make it seem pretty cool to be black in America, obviously besides the constant racism. In gendered violence we often speak of how black people are portrayed in media and cultural appropriation is a big player in deciding which part of black Americans are seen and how they are seen. Cultural appropriation is the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture. There are countless examples of celebrities such as Justin Bieber or the Kardashians appropriating black culture by wearing dreadlocks and cornrows. People who are not black are often heard saying the N word and listening to rap music when they have no understanding of what it is like to grow up in that culture. Throwing up gang signs and wearing interesting new hair trends is cool for people who aren't black because they do not have to live with the negative feed back. It is very fun to experience the parts of someone's culture that are painless and fun but one cannot just ignore the other parts of that culture. Do people not want to appropriate the police brutality and high incarceration rates that black Americans feel everyday as well? When black people wear dreadlocks it is often looked at as dirty and rapping is looked at as no real talent. America and Europe have had a long history of taking from black people. It started in 1619 when the first slaves where abducted from Africa. From there it has gone from taking resources and more people to profit off of to wearing tribal prints from Old Navy, grills, and cornrows. Black culture is looked down upon when blacks are partaking in it but when people can make money and sell it to whites then its cool. Constantly taking bits and pieces of black cultural and profiting off of it and never giving credit to the oppressed people who created it is the problem. My high School was 58% white and we had many occasions when a white person would have gone to the Bahamas for spring break and come back with cornrows. Students of color got upset but nothing was ever publicly said by the administration and everyone just moved on. Although I am not sure of the percentage of Jewish kids who attended my high school I know that if a non Jewish student walked in with a Yamaka or Payot Jewish students and parents would be outraged. Because cultural appropriation is happening to people of color no one seems to care.
People may just be trying to connect with a different culture right? Wrong. It is not respectful and is simply rude to pretend to know what it is like to grow up black in America. Obviously listening to rap isn't appropriation but it starts soon after that. It is not okay for people to pick apart black culture and use the parts that satisfies them in fashion and profit.