DELUSION IN ITS PHYSICAL FORM

Above this text is a collage of women that have been talked about on social media in the passed year. From left to right: Rachel Dolezal, Zendaya, Kylie Jenner, and Amandla Sternberg. Now, out of these four women, two of them are committing the heinous crime of cultural appropriation. What is cultural appropriation you may ask? Cultural appropriation is the the act of stealing elements of another's culture in order to look "exotic" or "different". Can you guess which two women are committing such an act? If you answered both Kylie Jenner and Rachel Dolezal then I applaud you. What both of these women and most of America don't seem to understand is that one cannot apply physical elements of another's culture to themselves just for "the look". At the end of the day, women, specifically the black women, who wear these hairstyles cannot shed the stereotypes that come along with wearing their hair a certain way. Such is the case with Zendaya, when wearing her dreads to an award show she was heavily criticized for them; to quote Guliana Rancic of E!'s show "Fashion Police" she said that the 18 year-old looked like she smelled of "patchouli oil" or "weed". Women like Zendaya and Amandla are criticized for expressing their love of their culture while women like Kylie and Rachel are blindly praised and supported for "starting a trend". Hair is significant as it truly does show where an individual comes from, and for someone of another race/culture to steal that is both disrespectful and in poor taste. Hair is not "just hair" it is a form of self expression and the styles themselves carry a heavy history.