Eh, with the Adele thing you gotta understand context. Black women still facing discrimination, particularly in the workplace, over their hair. And just battling for ownership over their bodies in general.
Hey Scribe, saw this and thought I'd share some thoughts with you. The Caveat, as usual, is that I hope you and anyone else reading understand my comments come from a place of respect and honest discourse.
So it can be tough when you see a famous white woman rocking her hair in a way that is both a fashion statement and a protective style for black people. It looks like a costume.
I believe Adele was sporting her hair and bikini top in tribute to Carnival or the celebration of Caribbean culture. That's only a small part of what the bigger point may be.
This is my bigger issue with cultural appropriation. It seems like, if the argument is that any minority group wants to be accepted into a larger society but not allow members outside of their group to adopt certain fashion or cultural aspects, then what's the ultimate goal here? We want equality but you can't wear that. We want equality but you can't use that hairstyle, it belongs to our culture. And Adele is not in a professional environment, she's an entertainer and she most likely would not get away with that hair in a board meeting either.
An example of this was a high school girl who went to her prom in a traditional Chinese Kimono. She didn't wear it as a costume, she wore it because she loved the culture and thought it was a beautiful dress to wear for prom. Immediately, someone on Twitter calls her out and says "my culture isn't you're gd prom dress." But what good does it do for minority women who
want to see those hairstyles or dresses normalized shut down anyone else for adopting them as well? Don't we
want more men/women embracing a culture not of their own?
If not, then all we're going to get is "I want you to understand my culture but only from a distance, you don't get to partake in any of it" sort of mentality. Theoretically, if Adele showed up to that festival and didn't wear anything Caribbean she could easily be accused of not supporting that culture, so it's a lose-lose.
I’ve got natural hair and have done protective styles like that in the past. And I’ve had to schedule that around work because I’d get dinged stepping into a meeting with my hair like that sadly. So Adele doing it like it’s simple fashion just makes me roll my eyes. This stuff is still very political for us.
I got dinged for wearing a polo my boss deemed "too faded" and was told to go buy new clothes or stop going to meetings. I also guarantee that if I joined that meeting with a mohawk, I'd have been dinged as well. Unfortunately, the majority of the professional workplace still clings onto what is perceived to be professional by standards set decades ago. And by that, I mean that it DOESN'T MATTER what the color of your skin is, some companies out there expect the most conservative, dull, and normalized style when you step into the workplace.
And no tattoos hippies! (a joke to lighten the mood).
Hey look, we made it this far! Hope none of this upsets you reader, just talking, sharin ideas. If you'd like, I can tell you what I thought of Tenet, that I just got out of. I'll use the word paradox a lot. No spoilers.
