Dreadlocks

[hatzel]

A friend of mine was telling me how he'd met a girl with dreads, who had subsequently read this article (http://zinelibrary.info/files/dread.pdf) and pretty much had a mini breakdown, thinking she was racist, and threatening to shave her head. Now...I won't pretend I wasn't a bit humoured, as I thought the whole idea was pretty laughable, but...am I wrong? Maybe if somebody with dreads or a mohawk could shoot this down for me...or anybody of the 'right' ethnic group to give the inside opinion...

[Axle]

That article is way too touchy. They might as well be saying white people listening to rap music is racist.

As far as the hair styles go...I've seen just about every kind of person you can think of with both. Black, white, Asian, male, female...it really doesn't matter. And the thought that they should only be worn by people of a certain ethnicity is somehow fighting racism is fucking ludicrous.

[Dimentio]

It is usually the racists who want to ban any "non-white" influences, leading to hilarity as when Varg Vikernes moves from BM to Ambient just because the guitar was invented by non-whites :laugh:

Anti-racists behaving like jerks is always depressing though :(

[Magón]

I'm going with a hispanic chick, and she's got dreads like a motherfucker. They're long as hell, but just down right awesome. I don't see how she's being racist with a hair style? Maybe if someone shaved a Swastika or something into their hair, then it could be a racist hair style, but dreads are just silly.

[Demogorgon]

"Appropriating other cultures means you neglect looking after your own ethnic roots and traditions."

I think that article can safely be ignored.

[Nuvem]

Aye, what a load of super-sensitive spectre-Nationalist bullshit.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Aye, what a load of super-sensitive spectre-Nationalist bullshit.

What does that mean exactly?

[Widerstand]

That article can be easily summed up in three words:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/EasternGermany/Buchenwald/JedemDasSeine04.jpg

That being said, fuck traditionalist, conservative, pseudo-leftist bullshit.

[GPDP]

What does that mean exactly?

Think he meant crypto-nationalist or something.

[BuddhaInBabylon]

It is usually the racists who want to ban any "non-white" influences, leading to hilarity as when Varg Vikernes moves from BM to Ambient just because the guitar was invented by non-whites :laugh:

Anti-racists behaving like jerks is always depressing though :(

HOLY SHIT! a Varg Vikernes reference....very nice. Long time Emperor fan here....not to mention the amazing works of Vegard Tveitan (sp?), if we are gonna use their non stage names ;)

[black magick hustla]

some bitter white dude wrote that shit

[synthesis]

The authors of the article:

http://wearetheones.info/images/colinhates.jpg

http://wearetheones.info/

Edit: Also hilarious. (http://dragonflyrising.wearetheones.info/25ways.pdf) They needed five people to write that?

[Hiero]

Due to the natural formation of dreadlocks I imagine various people over time have had this hair style.

[Revolutionair]

That article is a load of bullshit. Anyone even remotely agreeing with the author is stupid.

[hatzel]

Hah, good job it wasn't just me who thought this was hilarious bullhonk. Ell oh ell and so on.

Really I don't know how this could really be effective in making people with dreadlocks reconsider. Unless they're just idiots in the first place. Maybe.

[gorillafuck]

The only people I've ever met who gave a shit about white people having things about them that are associated with minorities have been (white) crypto-racists.

[Hiero]

The only people I've ever met who gave a shit about white people having things about them that are associated with minorities have been (white) crypto-racists.

Well these guys appear to come out of a specific acadamic trend that empahises identity. What ends up happening is these identities became very stagnant and created for the purpose of emphasising difference. For instance "queer" identity is very much an artificial creation (all identities are in some form artificial, there is not root essence) that seeks to emphasis the lines between people of different sexualities. It was a word used against homosexual people at a time when homosexuals wanted acceptance and non-interference in their lives (the over and under policing, harrasement, barred from public society). What followed into the 90s were people who identified as queer, and these were not necessarily the people who the term "queer" was directed against, they actually created this identity to empahesis difference against the heterosexual norms of society.

That is why they are against appropriation of culture. It can seek to break down the boundaries of culture. It can and has been used for the purpose of colonisation. In Australia colonisation would appropriate culture of indigenous people to stablise and legitimase (in the mind of colonisers) settled land. Examples include adopting indigenous names for places and re-using them in a generic sense. So adopting an indigenous name for a town, yet the meaning of the term is forgotn or not in public use and name is dislocated from the politics of indigenous ownership. On the other hand appropriation can occur on a mutual basis, and has in many communities. Contray to naive radicals, in some cases interaction between two different people of colour, race, ethnicity, religion does not occur in a power inbalance. One example is the everyday gift giving that occurs in all societies.

[gorillafuck]

It can and has been used for the purpose of colonisation. In Australia colonisation would appropriate culture of indigenous people to stablise and legitimase (in the mind of colonisers) settled land. Examples include taken indigenous names of places and reusing them in generic sense. So adopting an idigenous name for a town, yet the meaning of the term is forgoting or no in public use and name is dislocated from the politics of indigenous ownership.
That is actually a very good point. Though this case does not amount to anything like that.

But nonetheless, good point.

[Reznov]

Whatever you want to wear and makes you happy with your self-image, do it then.

[Hiero]

That is actually a very good point. Though this case does not amount to anything like that.

But nonetheless, good point.

Just to be clear I agree that this is not the case with dreadlocks or mohawks. I was giving the either this or that scenario.

[Amphictyonis]

I'm a 'race trader'.

[HJayBee]

As a Black person, with dreadlocks for the very reasons mentioned in the article,
I am a proponent of White people.. hell any people.. with locks.
It means they recognize the movement and they are outwardly expressing the need to sacrifice vanity for a greater cause.

yes I know that some Rastafari are very against white people with dreadlocks, for the same reason that some natives are against people with tribal tattoos.

I don't find it offensive - and the movement is small enough.
We can't discriminate based on race.


..in short - it can be ignored.
That's one group's view point.

[The Censored Woman]

"Dreadlocks" are not specifically Black or African. Both Nordic and Jewish cutures have a long history of wearing "dreaded" hair.

"Mohawks", however, are a completely different story. These haircuts only have historical roots with the indigenous cultures of the Americas. The fact that white people (especially in America) wear Mohican-style haircuts, while actively participating in the occupation of Native land is pretty disgusting.

Do these "rebellious" white people, even think of the Mohican people who were scalped throughout the 18th and 19th centuries because of their haircuts? Do they examine their white privilege by realizing that countless Mohican people have had to give up their "Mohawk" hairstyle in order to assimilate into a racist country, just to survive? Or how their inclination to "look different" or appear "shocking" to "normal people" is rooted in Eurocentrism?


All of you are right when you say nationalism is stupid, but people of color don't make nationalism a reality. Colonization and racism do that for us.

It may just be a haircut, but its a representation of the entire fucking narrative of white/Native history.

[MellowViper]

A friend of mine was telling me how he'd met a girl with dreads, who had subsequently read this article (http://zinelibrary.info/files/dread.pdf) and pretty much had a mini breakdown, thinking she was racist, and threatening to shave her head. Now...I won't pretend I wasn't a bit humoured, as I thought the whole idea was pretty laughable, but...am I wrong? Maybe if somebody with dreads or a mohawk could shoot this down for me...or anybody of the 'right' ethnic group to give the inside opinion...

People should be able to rock whatever hair style they want.