There’s an ongoing fascination with black women’s hair, especially in its natural state. Because of this we’ve become quite territorial towards it, to the point that others may never actually get to see it!
Megan Barton Hanson from Love Island is currently receiving backlash due to her new hairstyle. Yep, you guested it – it’s cornrows (braided plaits). Followers of the Love Island star wasted no time in accusing Megan of cultural appropriation. Now many people are arguing back, saying that people are just hating and being too hard on Megan. But what if the trolls are right this time? Maybe having a British reality star experience such backlash may contribute towards alerting the UK that cultural appropriation is actually a thing.
Think of it this way: imagine constantly having to suppress your ‘blackness’ in order to be socially accepted. Then suddenly you spot a white girl wearing the same style that you were obliged to tone down – and she gets praised for it.
Taking offence at this may seem childish to some, but as black women our attachment to Afro-Caribbean hairstyles stems from our childhood. For most black girls there was no discussion about getting cornrows, we most likely weren’t given a choice! Your hair was nappy and needed to be in braids to make Mum’s life a little less stressful in the mornings.
For me, getting my hair done during the school run was hit and miss. Normally Mum would put my hair in medium twists with neutral-coloured hair bobbles bouncing on the ends. FYI the bobbles play a key part in taming the unruly ways of natural Afro kinky hair! They add much needed weight on the ends of the hair to prevent the twists from sticking outwards.
There was one day (I remember it only too well) when she couldn’t find the bag with the hairbands. Instead, she put little fluorescent elastic bands on the ends of each twist. When I saw my reflection in the mirror my hair resembled a joker’s hat – I hated it!
“Mum I can’t go with my hair like this everyone is going to laugh at me…..If you don’t take it out, I’m not going to school.”
There was no way I would go to school like this and lose all my friends because I looked different. I genuinely believed this would have happened if I dared to show up in class with this hairstyle.
My point is that these are the type of incidents us black girls identify with, regardless of how we style our hair nowadays. What we mean to say is if you want to feature a girl with cornrows on TV ads, runways, look-books or campaigns, then why not scout for someone who regularly styled their hair that way? Rather than make someone else wear it as a fashion statement.
On the other hand, the Afro-Caribbean community needs to bare in mind that accusing someone of cultural appropriation may create an unnecessary divide. Sometimes we end up getting lost in the hype around the backlash and continue to miss the mark.
Instead us black women need to share more about our own attachment to the culture we feel is being misconstrued.
