Hair And Culture Analysis

The lights flicked off, almost calming in a sense. The young girl emerged from the room, a new look of bliss spreading across her face. After a detailed explanation, she understood what she had done. The way she had been acting was unreasonable and she desired to change. With a flip of her mindset, she began to appreciate rather than appropriate, a change many people often need to make. “I am African American. The reason I wear my hair in an Afro is because I think it expresses exactly who I am, where I come from, and the people who have paved the way for me” (Welteroth) said a young woman recently in an article by Teen Vogue. For her, and many other women, hair is a way to express individuality and express her culture. “Our hair is not an accessory. It’s literally who we are” (Welteroth) she continued, direly trying to convey the ideology that hair and culture is more to them about expressing who they are and where they come from, than merely just a fashion trend. Alternatively, a young Jamaican and Haitian woman says, “If I see someone on the
“Appreciation occurs when an individual from an outside culture can recognize and celebrate the differences between their culture and another's” (University Wire), this being one of the main differences between appropriation and appreciation. Some people believe the difference is between borrowing and taking. They say that it is acceptable to borrow culture, as long as they are being respectful but, they draw the line when culture is specifically being taken. “It is not okay for someone to take a feature that has been part of a culture for generations, and then claim it has just been discovered” (University Wire) the author says specifically about taking and claiming culture. The article also says that it is up to the one who feels they are being appropriated to claim they are being appropriated, and that the appropriator cannot